A/N Hey everyone! Thanks for reading this far! Another 30,000 word part coming at you to finish off this chapter of Nexus: Heroes Will Rise. Hope you enjoy!
Nexus HWR 10.9 Supernova:
Grand Hall of Fire Lord Sozin's Palace
POW! BANG! CRASSHH! What's all that noise? BrrrmmMM DOOF ba-CRASH! It's so loud…
"Sozin!" BAM! Rrrr-DOOM! Wait a minute… Natsu Dragneel's eyes fluttered open, but everything around him was black. He tried to move but it was impossible, and he was in excruciating pain. What the Hell is-
"Straw Hat!"
"SOZIN!"
Natsu heard muffled screams coming from right above him, right through the darkness he was staring at. That was Luffy's voice. What the Hell happened? Why is everything so dark?! "Rrrgg," he growled and tried moving harder than before. He felt his body shifting, and above him shapes in the blackness shifted. He realized what was going on quickly and pushed his arms up as hard as he could, punching straight through the wall that had collapsed on top and around him. Natsu opened up his fists and grabbed each side of the hole he just smashed through to pull himself up.
The pink haired Dragon Slayer dragged himself into the light and tilted his head back to take in a deep breath of air. As he breathed in, he froze and his eyes opened wide at the sight above him. Luffy was fat, and round, and bouncing in the air with steam coming out of the bottoms of his thighs. He bounced back and forth dodging whips of fire while the walls on every side of them were engulfed in flames. Natsu spotted another person up there above him, flying around covered in an aura of bright orange flames that were so hot that anything he flew near started melting.
Luffy clashed with Sozin in midair over and over, then Sozin got thrown out of the upper section of the room and slammed down near his throne, smashing apart the stairs up to it. Luffy shot down towards him to finish him off, but a fireball twenty meters in diameter shot out of the hole and slammed into the pirate who screamed from inside it. A burning man flew out of the hole behind his fireball and he grabbed both sides of Luffy's head as he reached him. Sozin's eyes were pure white and he roared, "INCINERATE!"
Luffy brought a fist forward as fast as he could as his entire body got covered in raging flames. He spun out after hitting Sozin away as he was in too much pain to think straight. Luffy slammed down into the ground at the front of the grand hall, and Natsu turned his head to follow Luffy's arc through the air the whole time. Natsu staggered off of the pile of rubble and took a step towards the pirate, then froze and his eyes shifted down to the floor a few feet in front of him. Natsu's eyes grew the size of saucers at the sight of the boy lying there, unmoving, his eyes open and staring straight ahead at nothing. "Kil-lua," Natsu whispered in shock.
He took a step towards Killua's motionless form, then heard a scream far ahead of him, "Natsu look out!"
Natsu's head snapped up, but Luffy's warning came too late. Sozin was flying straight towards him with a fist pulled all the way back, and he let it fly straight into Natsu's face so hard that Natsu felt his mind get jumbled like Sozin was punching him in the thoughts. Natsu's body followed after his head as he got thrown towards the destroyed steps that he made even more destroyed by smashing into them. He hit the bottom of Sozin's steps so hard that the floor beneath Sozin's throne cracked, and the glorious seat for the Fire Lord fell to pieces.
He had no idea how long he was out for that time, but everything was dark for a while. The deafening sounds and violent tremors brought him back to semi-consciousness though. The Dragon Slayer's vision was blurry when his eyes opened back up. Sozin was incredibly powerful, more-so than he had imagined. He stared ahead through hazy vision and watched as a blur of red clashed with Luffy's round form over and over again. Gear Fourth's doubly bulked-up state was strong, more powerful than Sozin could handle, at least at first. The more Luffy punched him, the more their fists collided with each other's, the less Luffy's punches were breaking through and knocking the man away.
Finally, Luffy punched a Kong Gun at his enemy, but Sozin's speed had increased as well and instead of dodging away, he just shifted a small amount to the right and let Luffy's fist go by him. Luffy could turn his punches at sharp angles, but he could not make his fist start flying the opposite direction fast enough to catch Sozin. Luffy's eyes widened, then Sozin's elbow hit him in the face, wrapped in a solid orange aura that grew even brighter as it pressed into and scorched Luffy's face.
Luffy got sent flying off the elbow and Sozin flew after him. In the air between that battle and Natsu, the pink haired mage staggering back up to his feet in a tremendous amount of pain could see a haze of orange that he only just noticed. He had blood covering the left half of his face, and his arms and legs were pretty badly bruised and cut up. He watched the orange haze as it all moved in Sozin's direction, and he followed those trails of heat away from the High Lord who started knocking Luffy back and forth through the air with powerful punches and kicks.
Luffy got slammed by a double-fisted punch in his back, but the next time he went flying, he spun himself in midair and shot his legs out of their curled up positions in his thighs. "KONG SPEAR!" His legs moved so fast that Sozin had no time to dodge. Luffy knew where the man was about to appear to hit him again because of his Observational Haki, and his feet hit Sozin so hard in the gut that his toes became visible on Sozin's back. Sozin flew off the kicks so hard that he smashed through the wall across the massive hall in the same instant, shattering the already broken wall and making the rest of it collapse down at the top of the stairs near his destroyed throne.
The rubber pirate was panting as he brought his legs back into his thighs and pumped steam out of them again. He was breathing heavily and he had burns all over his body. His Armament Haki did well to protect his arms, legs, and upper torso, but his stomach and face were already badly burnt. The pirate with spiky black hair felt something approaching the Palace fast, and pulled his black fists into his arms like a spring in preparation. He knew it would be too hopeful of him to think the Fire Lord was down after that last hit, but this was still disheartening. He ground his teeth and roared, "LEO BAZ-"
Sozin shot through the still-collapsing wall behind his throne at hundreds of miles an hour. He saw Luffy's fists about to punch forward and he changed his attack from a punch that started miles away, instead pointing his legs down a little and shooting his flames off harder to push himself over Luffy's fists that jetisoned out of his thick forearms. He rose above Luffy's stretching, Armament-coated, buffed-out arms, and then threw his own arms down. He was covered in so much condensed fire energy that just swinging his arms down sent a huge amount slamming into Luffy's body, going as far as ripping through the Haki on his stretched arms.
The brunt of his attack hit Luffy on the top of the head though and the pirate slammed down into the floor of the grand hall so hard that the floor cracked in five different directions around him. Sozin started flying in the air above Luffy, and the Fire Lord's lips curled up into a smirk. He wiped the left corner of his lip to get some blood off it and ignored the pain through his body as he called taunts down at Luffy. Luffy's body was shrinking down below him. The pirate slammed a fist down into the ground at his side and urged his body to hold on, but every time he let out a breath of air, his muscles deflated more.
Despite all the pain it put him in, Luffy stood up. He got to his feet, no longer a Boundman, steam no longer seeping from his mouth. "I am Fire Lord Sozin!" The man above shouted down at the wobbly pirate who looked on the verge of falling back down. "I am a High Lord of the King's Cooperative! Ruler of the Fire Nation! Who do you think you are to stand against me?!"
Luffy's head snapped up, and he opened his mouth to shout something simple yet satisfactory and somehow deep. He froze though with his mouth wide open, and Sozin became confused at why the pirate looked that way. Sozin's body suddenly tensed up as well though as sweat covered his face and his aura shrank. He turned his head as did Luffy to the side of the room open to the outside world, an entire wall that had collapsed, and a figure standing atop all the rubble. Natsu stood there looking pretty messed up, he stood there on shaky legs, his hands held out in front of him, on either side of a flaring orange sun that he looked like he was squishing between his palms.
Natsu? What are you… "Natsu!" Luffy shouted as he saw Natsu get a good grip on it.
"What are you doing?! You fool!" Sozin screamed towards him. He started flying that way while Luffy ran over on the ground, but they both froze halfway. They stared in shock and horror as Natsu clenched his hands tightly around the Supernova, smushing it into an even more condensed form, then cramming the miniature sun straight into his mouth. His cheeks puffed out, then he gulped, and a fat lump slid down his throat. Sozin's entire aura disappeared, not because he lost all his power, but because of the sheer astonishment he felt in that moment.
"Natsu!" Luffy shouted.
Natsu slowly turned Luffy and Sozin's way, and the two of them stared at him in even more shock at the look on his face. The right half of Natsu's face was covered in black markings. His eyes were wide and his pupils small in the middles of them. A flaming aura surrounded him, flames with black tints on them, flames that melted the rubble around him. Natsu was smirking like a madman, but his mouth lost that smirk and dropped into a deep, agonized frown as his body flashed white. The black markings left his body and his flames vanished, and Natsu screamed, "AhhAAHHHH!" His body glowed bright again, even brighter than last time, bright like they were staring straight at a sun.
"Natsu, what are you doing?!" Luffy yelled at the Dragon Slayer.
"I- don't- KNOW!" Natsu screamed, and he fell down to his knees as his entire body glowed white. From head to toe, Natsu's entire form became pure white that exuded light so bright all of Pyraxas spun towards the Fire Lord's Palace. They stared at the light that shone out the walls and shattered windows, that made the entire city start shaking.
Sozin floated back through the air away from Natsu. "You fool," he snarled. "The Supernova has become unstable. Your body won't be able to handle it. You have just gone nuclear, and you're about to take this entire city and a good chunk of the region with you." Sozin flew higher and right through the open ceiling to escape from there. "You lose," he said, though he looked pissed off enough that it was hard to tell who was losing.
"Where…" a voice growled, making Sozin freeze right before he reached the hole in his Palace roof. He slowly turned with his entire body covering in a new coating of sweat. "Do you think…" he stared towards the white light that pulsed over and over every second or so. It was as bright as ever, but inside that light he could see a black silhouette of a person's body, a person with eyes glowing red, a person who opened his mouth and screamed, "YOU'RE GOING?!"
The silhouette inside the light vanished, and Sozin and Luffy both snapped their heads up as a trail of light showed them where Natsu went. The two dropped their jaws at how fast the Dragon Slayer was, appearing above Sozin's head already mid-flip. "SUPERNOVA FIRE DRAGON'S TALON!" Natsu finished the flip and slammed his foot down on Sozin's head, causing the Fire Lord's mind to blank before he was shot out of the air at three hundred miles per hour and into the floor of his throne room. "AAHHHH!" Natsu screamed, grabbing the sides of his head as he dropped after Sozin, falling flat on his back on a lifting section of the floor.
Luffy looked towards Natsu who pulsed white light again and melted the entire chunk of floor beneath him. This was the most reckless he had ever seen a person fight, but even as Natsu screamed bloody murder, the Dragon Slayer flipped himself over onto his stomach, gripped the melting floor beneath him with his fingers, and dragged himself back up to his knees. He pulsed again with the light of the Supernova, and again, and again, faster every time. "I, can't," he began, and turned his head so that he looked straight towards Luffy, with eyes that flashed bright white when he did. "RUN!" He roared at the pirate, before flashing brighter than ever and partially blinding Luffy.
"What about you?!" Luffy yelled over.
Before Natsu could reply, the ground beneath the two of them shook, and Natsu did not flash again. They snapped their heads down, right before the entire floor shattered and flames shot up through every crack. The entire room of the Palace filled with fire and all the walls still standing started to collapse. Natsu roared in agony as Sozin flew through the ground, his face covered in blood from the head wound he just received, his eyes bloodshot as he stared into Natsu's flashing white ones.
Luffy staggered up to his feet and stumbled backwards away from some of the hottest flames he had ever felt. He saw a body sliding down a chunk of floor on his left and glanced towards it, then back at the flames in front of him. Through the flames he could see Sozin screaming down at Natsu, but Natsu was not responding as the Dragon Slayer was in far too much pain. He kept flashing over and over, and Sozin's furious expression vanished as Natsu flashed like a sun again. When the look of fear spread across Sozin's face, Luffy knew he could not stay there any longer and he turned around. The pirate threw an arm to his side and wrapped it around Killua's body, then started sprinting as fast as he could for the exit of the room.
Luffy ran out the doorway that no longer had any doors and into a huge hallway with an unconscious Marine inside it. He ran right past Komei though, then screamed as he turned around the next corner, "Kirito! Run!" The black haired teen who Luffy was speaking to for the second time in weeks took one look at Luffy's face and the boy wrapped in his arm, before turning and sprinting the other direction just as fast. They hit another intersection at the same time and Kirito turned left, making Luffy turn too and then yell loudly, "RUN NAMI!" The navigator looked his way, about to shout something about all the shaking in the Palace, when a bright white light shone down the hall behind Kirito and Luffy and she could feel the heat on her skin. She needed no more incentive to run away with them.
Back in the throne room, Sozin stumbled back away from the man who was getting too hot for even him to stand next to anymore. "You fool! You've killed everyone in this city." Sozin pointed his hands down at the ground and flames discharged in jets from his palms. He rose off the destroyed and collapsing floor, flying above the flames and out of the room while staring down at the flashing boy. "But you won't take me, and I'll return to rebuild this city, before heading south personally to get my revenge." Sozin looked out one last time over his city and all the flames rising from it.
Natsu rose his hands in front of his face, shaking violently and pulsing with light underneath his skin. His skin was starting to peel, and he was in so much pain he could not think straight. Then, his eyes tripled in size and he stopped flashing for a moment as a voice shouted something at him. "NATSU!" It was a voice he recognized, but one he had not heard in a very, very long time. "Expel it all! You're going to explode!"
Igneel? Natsu thought. He only thought it for a second though, before what his father shouted at him repeated in his mind, and he rose his gaze up to the sky above him. "Hey Sozin!" He shouted. The Fire Lord started lowering his gaze back down, while Natsu continued as loud as he could, while getting off one knee back up to a foot, "SUPERNOVA ROAR…" Sozin finished looking down and his eyes were as wide as plates at the sight of his enemy getting back on one foot. Natsu got to the other foot and stomped it hard on the floor below him, "…OF THE FIRE DRAGON!" Natsu's body chose that second to pulse white again, but as the light coursed through his legs and arms and torso, it got dimmer faster than the other times. All of the light in his body changed directions and shot straight to his head, and Natsu's eyes glowed brighter than suns that blinded Sozin for looking straight down into them.
The Fire Lord pulled his face back at the light that blinded him, so he was the only person in the city unable to see what happened next. In fact, Sozin was the only person for five hundred miles who did not witness the half mile in diameter pillar of pure white light that shot straight into the sky over Pyraxas. Red flames flickered around the outside of the beam, but no one could see those thanks to how bright the white light was. Natsu screamed the entire time the light exuded from his mouth, as it was more energy than he had ever had in his body, and if he did not get it all out he did not think his body would be able to withstand it any longer. IGNEEL! WHERE ARE YOU?! Natsu's beam hit the atmosphere and purple ripples reverberated around the planet's barrier.
Around Pyraxas, every single person in the city, and most people in the nation, were staring at the beam shooting into the sky. Yonji and Azula and the babies in her arms from where they sat atop a private train car speeding out of the city. Dunn, Ramirez, and Foley from the North Gate of the Royal Palace where they were surrounded by dead Fire Nation soldiers and an open gate. Ben and Dash from where they were standing in the Palace's destroyed courtyard, staring straight up with jaws on the floor. Gray, Juvia, Kuro, and Rin from the western side of the Upper Residential Area where they and the soldiers they were fighting froze to stare at the beam in complete awe. Sanji, Robin, and Franky from the zeppelins they were combatting enemy reinforcements. Even Mephisto Pheles from where he watched near the clouds, having found it difficult to leave without at least waiting to see the outcome of the events in the city. Everyone who could see the beam of light stared silently as there were no words that could be used to describe such an attack.
Luffy, Kirito, and Nami stopped running away from the direction of the throne room and snapped their gazes to the ceiling above them. The ceiling was ripping to pieces, shredding away and getting pulled into the beam that widened above the top of the Palace. Nami screamed and fell to her butt, crossing her arms in front of her face to protect herself from the light. Kirito kept taking steps backwards as he stared at the bright white light, but when he sensed ahead with his Haki, the teen froze in place and no longer felt fear. Luffy had not backed up at all after turning and looking straight up at the white beam. That would have destroyed everything, it would have killed us all, if Natsu didn't… Luffy clenched his teeth hard as he thought about what could have been, but he shook his head around to get the thoughts out of his head, since those things did not happen and there was no point straying on them.
The beam was the most powerful that most people in Pyraxas had ever seen. Sending ripples of purple across the atmosphere for anyone within the nearest few ten thousand miles to see before they faded. All the reinforcements on their ways to Pyraxas, all the cities and towns in the Fire Nation, if it was clear outside, everyone stared up at the rings of purple rippling across their sky. Once again, these people accustomed to life on Nexus were reminded that it was not their decision to be there. The walls to their prison illuminated and reminded them that they were trapped.
Then it was gone. The attack did not slowly fade, or get thinner and then sputter out, the wide beam just ended. The bottom of it that got cut off moved so fast up to where the end already was that in an instant the beam vanished. Inside the Royal Palace of Pyraxas, those closest to the beam's starting point were hesitant to move. Luffy and Kirito sensed out with their Hakis, and the two grew wide-eyed for different reasons.
He did it, Luffy thought.
No way, Kirito thought at the same time. The teenager's eyes shifted from down the ceiling-less hall he was staring down, to Luffy's right arm.
Luffy took a step back in the direction he came from, a grimace spreading across his face as Natsu's presence suddenly felt very faint. He turned his head sideways before he kept going though, and he saw Kirito staring at his right arm already. "Take Killua for me," Luffy said, and he stretched his arm a few feet to Kirito who held his arms out in front of him. "I'm going to get Natsu," Luffy finished, and he placed Killua down in Kirito's bloody arms. Kirito did not feel Killua's weight wearing on him though, despite how hard it was to lift his arms even without anything in them a minute ago.
"Luffy," Nami said, getting up to her feet with a distressed look of her own. The expression her captain just had made her feel uneasy, and she asked, "What happened? Did you guys beat the Fire Lord?" She turned her gaze to Kirito and the boy in his arms. "What about Killua?" Luffy stopped for a second, then continued walking away back the direction they came from. Nami was behind Kirito, so she could only see Killua's legs and the side of his head and spiky white hair from where she was standing. "Hey Kirito," she began, stepping forward, the sense of dread growing larger inside her gut. She stepped closer to his back, more of Killua's face becoming visible each second. She opened her mouth to ask another question, when she saw Killua's eyes, staring straight up, faded, lifeless. "No," she whispered.
Kirito's eyes were focused on the blackened skin all over Killua's chest, and on the hole in the center of it covered in so much blood that it dripped off either side of his body. Creeaakk The ground beneath Nami and Kirito shook, and they looked down to see cracks splitting the wooden floorboards. "Let's move," Kirito said, turning his head and walking the opposite direction that Luffy went a few seconds ago. "We need to find somewhere stable for a minute."
Nami, tears in her eyes, looked back in Luffy's direction one more time, then turned and walked quickly to get up on Kirito's side. "Killua, was so strong," Nami whispered, her heart clenching as she said it. "I, never thought," she bit her bottom lip and the weight on her back felt so much heavier now. The gold and jewels she had shoved in her bag, while Killua was dying in the same building, they felt like hundred pound weights dragging her down. "I'm so sorry," Nami whispered.
Four Miles Northeast of Pyraxas
Inside a zeppelin flying on a direct course with Pyraxas, there was a control room full of flames. The metal underbelly to the huge blimp was full of soldiers, but all of those soldiers were currently either unconscious or on the floor moaning in pain. In the control room, officers and grunts alike were splayed out on the floor, bent over their computers, or even draped over the rafters like clothes left out to dry. A single figure stood amidst all this carnage, a blond-haired man with a swirly eyebrow and a cigarette hanging out of his mouth.
Sanji stood behind a strange wheel with two handles on either side and red buttons on top of it. He had never seen one like it, but he figured it out easily enough, and was steering the zeppelin towards its original destination. The reinforcements weren't so tough, Sanji thought, then snapped his left leg back and slammed it into a figure who jumped off the ground with a sword risen, trying to catch him off guard. The foot hit the man in the face and knocked out some teeth while knocking the man out altogether. Good thing there weren't any women on the ship, Sanji thought, a bead of sweat dripping down his face as he had realized on his way there that he should have brought Robin or Franky with him in case that situation arose.
"…Reports are spreading like wildfire out here!"
"Are the rumors true?!"
Sanji looked towards the console behind the wheel he was moving, and he grinned to himself that he was listening in to the Fire Nation's communications' channel. He could hear communications from all over the Fire Nation, and already knew about several different reinforcement groups heading towards Pyraxas. What he just heard was confusing to him though, and his eyes shifted from the glass windshield at the front of the control room to the console's speaker. Rumors?
"That beam of light!" a man shouted, and Sanji listened closer as he was interested in what caused that as well. "We're hearing the Fire Lord was inside it!"
"Holy shit, you're kidding me!"
"Keep your composure over the radio," an older voice scolded.
"I have family in Pyraxas!"
"We need to get back as fast as possible!"
"Stop talking about it over the radio!" a voice shouted in a panicked voice. Sanji got confused by this one, and he started hearing panting coming from over the line. The man who just shouted that started whispering, "We don't even know if it's true. If we spread these rumors-"
"They are true," a different voice interjected. "I just got confirmation from a source in Pyraxas. The Fire Lord is dead, and we are no longer coming to reinforce."
"What are you talking about?!"
"You know exactly what I mean," the voice said, sounding a lot more menacing than Sanji first heard it. People started yelling at that man, but there were no further communication from his side of the line.
"I need to get out of here," the panicked voice from before that was shouting at everyone to stop discussing it started. "If General Niji hears this, he'll…"
Sanji's jaw dropped and his eyes grew huge at the sound of what that man was saying. Niji? And then, Sanji's bottom lip lowered even more as a different voice interrupted that one, "What will I do?"
"General Niji! I was just-"
"Informing our enemies of our current situation?" the dark voice continued.
"E-Enemies? No, sir, I'm on the line with fellow Fire Nation-"
"There is no more Fire Nation, without the Fire Lord," Niji's voice said. A voice screamed over the line, and then the line turned to static a few seconds later.
The channel was silent for a few seconds, and then a composed voice said, "If anyone on this line is in Pyraxas at the moment, this is Major Forester. Get my family out of there."
"Prioritize the families of Generals first!" a different voice yelled.
"Evacuate the city!" another voice screamed. "Our representative in the Capital has just informed me that his radar spotted a fast-moving object heading south from the Northern Continent. It flew past the Capital at a thousand miles per hour!"
"The Germa army is advancing from the east!"
"Three more Lords' armies are on their way from the north, northeast, and northwest!"
"Kong has just declared independence from the Fire Nation! He's withdrawing his troops from every army!"
Sanji's wide eyes shifted from the console up towards the windshield again. He was getting closer to Pyraxas every second, and he stared out at the city larger than Metropolis with huge eyes. The city was in flames. He did not know how it happened, but fire covered every side of the city. He could see crowds of people filling the streets, and the Palace at the top of the city was in as much flames as the rest of it. What the Hell have we done? Sanji thought. They're coming from every side. Lords, armies, way too much for us to handle at our current strength! Who knows how badly Luffy's been injured in his fight against the Fire Lord? And if that beam killed him, that means Natsu's there too. Rin already fought Astaroth, so did Ben at least. We can't handle all this right now!
Sanji leapt over the console and sprinted towards the windshield, kicking straight through it and flying towards Pyraxas by kicking the air behind him much faster than he did to get to the zeppelin. We need to get out of this city! Behind the pirate chef, the zeppelin he took over started falling out of the air. He ignored it though, his thoughts not on the men he defeated but his own comrades inside the city that was about to become several times more dangerous. He flew towards the city, his eyes examining the burning mess of buildings and terrified people swarming the streets to escape from the flames. Shit shit shit! What are we doing here?! What is that bastard Niji doing coming here? The Germa are in the Fire Nation? Sanji bit down hard and shot out of the sky as he neared the northeast side of the city.
He thought about heading straight to the Palace, but the chef wanted to check if any of his friends were in the lower sections of the city before heading up. We all need to move now, he thought, sweat forming on both sides of his face. A thousand miles per hour that guy said? All the way from the Northern Continent? If enemies are coming from other continents, from all sides of us, we have to get out of here right the fuck now! Sanji's eyes scanned the city below him rapidly, and he clenched his eyes shut and extended his Observational Haki as far as it would allow. Anyone down here? No? Sanji's eyes snapped open and he was feeling a little more relieved. He kicked the air behind him and shot over a street of the Lower Residential Area, looking down at scared people mostly running towards the outsides of the city.
Sanji's head started to lift so he could face the walls to the next area of the city which he would have to lift up a little to get over. Right as his head rose though, his entire body tensed up and the sweat on his face doubled. Sanji's head snapped down and he glared down and straight ahead of him at a figure running the opposite direction as most everyone else. The people running towards the center of the city did catch his eye, but most of them he glanced right over. This young man though, a spiky-haired thin man, had a couple of swords strapped to the right side of his waist. Sanji did not know why it caught his eye, he could not even comprehend how he saw it from so far away, but one of the hilts at this man's side made Sanji's breathing speed up and his heart rate fasten.
That sword, Sanji thought. He missed a kick behind him and started falling out of the air, but then decided not to kick again, and he just fell all the way down to the street level. He did not know what he was doing, but without thinking he shouted, "Hey you!" The figure running up the street in front of him turned his head sideways, looking thirty meters back at the pirate who was staring straight at his waist. Sanji started jogging towards him, an angered expression slowly spreading across his face. "Where did you get that sword?!" Sanji yelled, his voice full of anger.
The man who looked around the same age as Sanji, maybe a little younger, looked surprised and his eyes shifted down to his own waist as he turned fully to face Sanji. Sanji's eyes were on the swords: the one he did not recognize inside of a brown sheath, and one he did recognize that was in a black hilt covered in red circles. The darkest hilt was not the one that caught his eye from so far away though, it was the white sheath, the white hilt, that made Sanji's heart speed up. When he fought Hawk-Eyes, he swore he would never lose again on that blade. I met him and he had it. I have never seen him fight without it. "That's not your sword," Sanji growled towards the young man.
Yamamoto Takeshi stared at this strange figure in front of him in confusion, and then his eyes widened and filled with a light that confused Sanji. "Why do you have the marimo's swords?" Sanji asked, and Takeshi's eyes opened even wider as his suspicions were confirmed.
"Are you one of Zoro's crewmates?" Takeshi asked, a smile forming on his face.
Sanji continued to frown despite that confusing smile. Don't be fooled by his friendly expression. "That stupid marimo would never let someone use his swords," Sanji growled, demanding an explanation with his voice.
Takeshi held up his hands defensively as Sanji's tone was seriously dark. "I'm only holding the Wado Ichimonji, he would never let me use that one," Takeshi explained. "It's just, when Zoro died, he asked me to carry his swords for him-" As Takeshi spoke, Sanji's jaw dropped and the chef's face turned pale.
Oh shit, Sanji thought, his hostile expression fading away. "Zoro, died?" Sanji questioned in a soft whisper. Damn it, Luffy. This is gonna kill you.
"Wait wait!" Takeshi exclaimed, waving his hands in front of him with a panicked expression on his face. Sanji looked up at him with a depressed but confused look, and Takeshi chuckled a few times before saying, "Sorry. I guess you couldn't have known, but even though Zoro's dead, he's not, gone."
Sanji's head cocked to the side. "Huh?"
Upper Residential Area, Pyraxas
Riku floated fifty meters above the southern side of the area for the rich upper class of the Fire Nation. When the giant beam of white light blew apart the roof to the Royal Palace, both he and the black-cloaked figure currently twenty feet to his left side were floating above it. They were a little to the south of the center of the beam, having been battling each other over the Palace's courtyard, which was the main reason they survived the attack. As soon as the beam destroyed the roof and shot for the sky, it had started widening at a speed almost too fast for Riku and Xigbar to be able to dodge. They managed to drop out of the air quickly though, and at the same time fly away from the center of the beam, but the two of them were still panting at how close that was.
Riku glanced back towards the outer walls of the Royal Palace. The ones in the south closest to him were completely destroyed, and through the gap in the wall where the gateway used to be, he saw a couple of small children gawking at the sky above them. The taller of the two nudged the smaller blond one, and then the two of them jogged up some steps and into the Royal Palace. Good, the two of you are alright at least. I'll be there to protect you in a minute. First, Kairi. He turned his head left, and the Nobody still staring up at the sky saw Riku's head turn and lowered his own gaze a second later.
Xigbar let out an impressed whistle before turning towards Riku. "Didn't see that one coming," Xigbar admitted, though he laughed after he said it, showing he did not really care either way. Xigbar cracked his neck by cocking his head to either side, then he let out a deep breath of relief. "You know, I was just getting tired of this place." Xigbar lifted up the two pieces of his Sharpshooter arrowguns, but he pointed them straight out at his sides instead of forward at Riku.
Something's happening, Riku thought, keeping his yellow-eyed gaze on Xigbar, but making sure he looked around through his peripheral vision at the same time.
"Let me ask you a question, kid," Xigbar began, while Riku's eyes started darting around now for real. His yellow eyes shifted quickly to his right a hundred yards, where in the sky at the same level he and Xigbar were floating at, ten Nobodies appeared. The silver blanks, the thin Dusk Nobodies, with the Organization's symbol on the tops of their heads and mouths full of sharp teeth, were motionless. The figures hovered in the air where they appeared, and then Riku's eyes darted the opposite direction, where he saw another cluster appear floating in the sky. Xigbar continued with a low chuckle, "You ever wonder, why no matter you go in this world, the Heartless are wandering all over the place?"
"No," Riku responded immediately, his voice deep and dark, not sounding like his own at all. "I understand, that there is darkness in almost every heart. That darkness draws the Heartless, so…"
"You gotta let me finish what I'm saying!" Xigbar shouted, throwing his arms up in mock exasperation. Riku clenched his teeth, giving Xigbar a second to continue. "I'm asking, why you see the Heartless walking all over, but you never see a single Dusk anymore?" Riku's eyes narrowed in, and he kept them focused on Xigbar even as more Dusks appeared directly behind the man, and more and more appeared behind them, exponentially increasing in number. Samurai Nobodies appeared in the ranks, and then hundreds of Sniper Nobodies, the ones that Xigbar was personally in command of, emerged amongst the growing army in the sky. Every gap between Nobodies filled with another one that appeared out of thin air, little balls of white light popping in the sky and dropping a Nobody into Pyraxas airspace. "It's because!" Xigbar shouted, as he slammed his arms out to the side again, and Riku's bottom lip dropped as the army doubled in size. For every Nobody that was already floating there, another one appeared next to it. "The Organization controls ALL of the Nobodies!"
As Xigbar shouted it, the Nobodies started to drop down to the city below him. "And now we'll have more," he said in a menacing tone.
Riku shot forward like a missile, "What are you doing?!"
Xigbar fired his arrowguns while flying backwards away from Riku. The red and blue lights he fired from his weapons flew into distorted airspaces, but as they reappeared all around Riku, Xigbar's eye widened a little as Riku picked up the speed a lot from how fast he was moving before. Hah, clever kid. I see what you were doing, Xigbar connected his Sharpshooter and fired one giant attack right as Riku was about to reach him. "What am I doing?!" Xigbar questioned, while Riku slashed both of his Keyblades down so hard that he smashed straight through Xigbar's powerful attack. "I'm just getting an army ready to take part in the upcoming war!"
Riku hesitated for a second, and Xigbar smirked in front of him. Riku realized it too late and spun around, but the Sniper Nobodies that appeared behind him had already fired their weapons. He crossed his arms in front of his chest and winced several times as he was slammed into by a barrage of attacks. "RAA!" He yelled, and an aura of darkness exuded from his body that shattered the remaining attacks that had yet to hit him. He spun around and glared towards Xigbar, with eyes full of fury as he saw the black portal behind the one-eyed man in the sky. His gaze snapped down as he heard the screams and saw Nobodies filling the streets of the Upper Residential Area they were over. Why is he doing this?! His eyes snapped back up towards Xigbar who floated back into his portal with such a smug look on his face, and Riku in all his frustration shouted, "What war?!"
Royal Palace, Pyraxas
"Come on Dash, we're almost there!" Ben yelled to the kid behind him.
Dash would normally be taking up the lead, but the small boy with blond hair kept looking over his shoulder. The stairs they were charging up kept shaking and cracks were constantly forming through them. The ceiling of the stairwell above them was splitting as well, and little chunks of plaster fell off of it in small intervals. "Ben," Dash called up to his best friend in a half-whisper half-shout. "What if that beam wasn't Natsu?" Dash asked, his voice wavering a little as he asked it. Ben shook his head like it was nonsense, but a look of hesitation spread across his face that Dash could not see, so the younger boy continued, "What if, that was the Fire Lord's attack? I mean, that was more powerful than anything I've ever seen Natsu make. You too, right?"
Ben slowed down as they were nearing the third floor. The exit to the stairwell was just ahead, but Ben did not know if he wanted to go through it now. If that, was the Fire Lord… Ben gulped and his fists clenched at his sides. "Even if it was," Ben said, his voice hardened and with no hesitation in it. Dash's eyes opened wide, but Ben started marching up those last steps with determination, and stated firmly, "there's no going back now. If Natsu's fallen," Ben's eyebrows narrowed inwards and he clenched his fists tighter at his sides, "then it's up to us to finish this."
Ben, Dash thought, his eyes growing huge.
Ben stepped out of the stairwell and darted his eyes in every direction. He was standing in a hallway that had cracked walls on both sides, but to his left he could see a larger, more open room than the hallway. "Come on," he said in a hushed voice, and the kid who just reached the top of the stairs behind him nodded once before following after Ben. They walked cautiously towards the more open room where every step closer they got a better look at the soft chairs and couches, fancy lamps on round tables next to recliners, and of course the Fire Nation banners and symbols scattered around the large living room. They reached the entryway to the room that did not have any doorways in it, and the two gazed around, surprised at how intact the room looked. The televisions that were supposed to be attached to the walls were on the floors next to them with shattered glass around them, and a few lamps had fallen and shattered as well, but overall the room looked better than most they had seen so far. Then again, the ceiling of the room was completely blown off, and the walls on the northern side were covered in so many cracks that it looked like they would collapse with the slightest gust of wind.
The hallway breaking off of the room towards the north looked even worse. The walls on either side of it were crumbling as the boys stepped into the living room, there were flames on the floor and blazing through the banners that were hanging from those breaking walls, and the farther north they looked, the less Palace they could see. On top of all the broken walls, collapsed rooms, and missing ceiling, there was so much smoke coming from the north of them that they could barely see ten meters down that northern hallway.
Dash gulped as he looked into that black smoke. "Should we," he began, turning his head to Ben to see if his friend was thinking what Dash thought he was thinking. Ben's serious look confirmed what Dash thought, but when Ben made to take a step forward, the brown-haired boy froze. He stopped and Dash spun back to see what it was that made Ben do so. The kids heard them before they saw them. First came the footsteps, barreling down the hallways. Then the silhouettes became visible in the smoke, and they were moving fast enough that seconds after their shadows appeared, they became recognizable to the kids hesitantly raising their fists.
"Nami!" Dash exclaimed, a smile spreading across the boy's face at the sight of the orange-haired woman running out of the smoke. She had an arm in front of her mouth and was coughing into it, as well as tears in her eyes. The kids thought the tears were from the smoke though, at least until they turned to look left at Nami's right side, where a different figure who would normally be faster came running. He was already exhausted and out of energy to be running like this, but being that tired and having to carry someone else too, it made Kirito lag behind.
"Kir-" Ben began at the sight of the teen's face, but he stopped shouting in an excited voice as his eyes shifted to the figure in Kirito's arms. "No," Ben whispered.
"H-Hey," Dash called out, and he ran across the room to the northern exit where Nami finally dropped to her knees inside. Dash looked at the woman on her knees for a second, as she sat there panting, hands on her legs, then when she rose her gaze, Dash did the same. They looked up at Kirito who came to a stop next to them. Kirito stared straight ahead at Ben who was walking towards him, a horrified expression on his face.
"Not again," Ben whispered, his heart pounding. "Kil-"
Kirito dropped down to his knees and placed the boy in his arms flat on the ground. It couldn't have been more than an hour ago, he thought, while reaching behind his back and underneath his sword sheaths. He reached for the one thing he would not leave behind in their hotel room that morning, something he made sure he would have on him at all costs. Kirito pulled the water bottle out and held it in front of him. He paused, staring at the bottle, the water inside sloshing about. Then he looked down at the kid on the floor in front of him. Does Killua, really… "No matter what." Kirito stopped hesitating and unscrewed the cap of his water bottle.
"What are you doing?" Dash whispered. The kid's voice came out choked-up, and Nami lifted her head to see Dash staring down into Killua's wide-open eyes. The glossy, faded irises in the centers of Killua's eyes had Dash struggling not to start sobbing, though he could not keep the tears from streaming out of his eyes silently. Nami would have grabbed the boy and held him to make him feel better, but what Dash asked made her turn to Kirito in confusion as well.
BOOOOM! The entire city shook from an explosion and Kirito's hands shook as well. A few drops spilled out from the water bottle he just opened and the teenager cursed loudly. Kirito took a deep breath, then he turned the water bottle sideways over Killua's chest. The young boy's shirt was completely gone, and the small hole on the front of his chest was covered in blood and burn marks. Kirito dumped some water on the wound though and he used his other hand to rub it around the burns surrounding the hole.
"Kirito," Nami whispered. "What are, you-" Kirito reached up and opened Killua's mouth, then poured more of the water in his bottle down Killua's throat. He splashed some on Killua's face, and he grimaced as the bottle was nearing empty. So soon. Is it enough? He brought the bottle back down and carefully poured the last of it directly on the hole on his chest. Kirito turned the bottle upside-down and smacked the bottom of it a few times, making sure he got out every last drop.
Nami, Ben, and Dash all looked from Kirito to Killua in confusion. They could see how intensely Kirito was staring at Killua's wound, and the more they saw Kirito's expression, the more their own expressions were starting to match it. They all looked at the blackened skin around Killua's chest wound, and their hopeful, fearful looks became ones full of utter shock as the skin started to regain a lighter shade. The nickel-sized hole shrank to the size of a dime, then the skin puled inwards even more until the hole was gone, though there was a wrinkled bit of skin over it in a circular shape to show where the injury had been. Killua still did not move though. The shocked looks became full of dismay as the group looked from Killua's body to his eyes, eyes that were still hazy, unmoving.
Kirito closed his eyes, and he slowly bowed his head down to rest on Killua's chest. He pressed the left side of his head against it, and stayed absolutely still. He drowned out the sounds of explosions, and the near silent sobbing of those around him, and the crackling of the flames in the hall behind him getting louder with each passing second. He focused solely on the chest beneath them that was not heaving, and then he heard it. Bu-dum. It was a single beat, and Kirito did not hear another for a few seconds. He almost thought he had imagined it out of pure hope alone, until, Bu-dum. He heard it again. Kirito lifted his head from Killua's chest with eyes as wide as saucers, and he whispered, "He's alive."
"What?!" Ben exclaimed.
"He is?" Dash's voice full of relief whispered.
Nami stared at the young kid in shock for a few seconds, while Kirito reached up and closed Killua's eyes with a brush of his hand down over them. "What, was that, water?" Nami finally asked, lifting her gaze to Kirito.
He turned and looked her in the eyes, then turned down to Killua with a regretful expression on his face. "It's, how we brought Juvia back to life," he explained. Dash and Ben spun to him in shock, then to the empty water bottle on the floor next to Killua's motionless body.
Ben could see a deep look of regret on Kirito's face, and he thought about how Kirito had been gazing at Juvia ever since she came back. He opened his mouth to ask something that made his skin crawl, but before he could make a sound, someone shouted, "Guys!" All four of those gathered around Killua's still body turned around, looking to the side of the room opposite where Ben and Dash came in from.
Dash's mouth curled into a big smile, and he wiped the tears from his face while calling out happily, "Usopp!" The small blond boy who had not seen his long-nosed pirate friend in over a week jumped up to his feet. He was just told that Killua was alive, his friends were showing up all around him, things were not looking so bad. Dash saw a distraught look on Usopp's face though as the sniper ran over, and Dash's excited mood flushed down the drain. "What's wrong?" Dash asked nervously.
Usopp was panting heavily, but he spoke between gasped breaths, "Ansem, he took over Riku!" Ben snapped up looking shocked and then deadly serious as he glared up at the open ceiling. Usopp continued before Ben could fly off though, "And Kairi got, kidnapped!" Usopp's shout made all four of the conscious people in front of him drop their jaws.
Another person who heard this shout sprinted through the smoke behind the four Usopp was talking to, and the rubber pirate with another man draped over his back yelled, "What?! Where is she?!" Luffy dropped the pink-haired mage on his back to the floor next to his friends, and the others all looked at the muscular figure in torn-up clothing whose skin was peeled off in several areas and looked like he had been through a meat grinder.
A dark look spread across Kirito's face as he glanced down at Natsu's body. He's bleeding a lot, and if Kairi and Riku are both gone, and Sora's still missing. This is not good.
"Where are they?!" Ben yelled, stomping towards Usopp with an angry look on his face. "Where did Ansem go? Who took Kairi?!"
"I don't know," Usopp replied, a guilty look spreading across his face as he said it. "It happened so fast. Gohan's Nobody showed up, and then Ansem took over Riku's body, and Noxagh took Kairi and flew off with her!"
Ben's determined, ready-to-go expression, faltered. The kid's eyes were huge, and he whispered in fear, "Gohan's, Nobody?" Noxagh? If, if he's even close to as strong as Gohan is…
Ben was not the only one thinking it. Nami's face turned pale as she thought about the kid who fought thousands of Heartless outside of Castle Oblivion and cleared them a path straight to the castle's doors. Kirito thought about the promise Gohan made to Lex Luthor about killing him one day, how it sent chills to his bones. Luffy's teeth clenched and he remembered seeing the look of unbridled fury plastered on Gohan's face after Tetsuo killed Future Trunks, when his friend flew towards the island above Metropolis, screaming in rage. Ben thought back to the first Underworld base he attacked, when the Balrogs killed Michelangelo and Gohan went berserk, killing all of them without hesitation, when he could not manage to defeat even one.
As fast as Dash was, he did not pretend to think himself a match for the Saiyans. "At best, I could run away from him," Dash mumbled under his breath, sweat forming all over his face. The kid's fists clenched and he whispered in a sad tone, "I'm sorry Kairi, and I'm sorry I couldn't protect her, Riku." Ben's teeth clenched in anger as he thought about how he and Dash promised Riku they would protect Kairi with their lives.
As furious as Luffy was about what he just heard, and how frustrated he was thinking about his chances against Gohan, especially in his current condition, he still had his Haki searching out around him, and his head suddenly snapped to the left. "People are coming," Luffy said, his expression dark as his black bangs partially covered his eyes. He stomped forward past his friends to get between them and the open hallway ahead.
Ben's downcast gaze lifted, and he looked down at his left wrist. The glowing green watch on his wrist made his eyes go wide. The kid snapped his eyes back up to the doorway that Luffy was looking towards. His fists clenched at his sides, and he marched forward like Luffy to stand at his side. Kirito's body ached, but looking at Ben's back, he once again saw the kid standing up in front of him in Metropolis, when he stayed down. Kirito pressed his hands down on the floor next to him and pushed himself up on shaky legs, but he did get up.
"This way!"
"Heartbeat sensor's picking up several targets in the next room."
"Hold on, three of them are tagged as friendlies." The men running towards the end of the hall that opened into a much larger room, though one that did not have a roof, slowed down and lowered their weapons a little.
"What about the other two?" Corporal Dunn asked, slowing down from his position at point. The light-skinned soldier was jogging with his fellow two soldiers on either side of his back, and he did not know if he wanted to lower his guard if the people in the next room were not all friendlies.
"Could be other allies they made in the city, like Lu Ten," Sergeant Foley suggested, while lowering his assault rifle and snapping the heartbeat sensor back into the side of it. He continued, "Slow down though, they might sense us coming and be prepared to attack when they don't recognize us."
Dunn slowed even more, while Foley jogged up on his side and closer to the wall. Ramirez stopped and he kept his weapon up more than the rest of his team. He watched as Foley stacked up against the wall right before the corner, then held a hand out slowly past the wall to show he had no weapon in it. "Gray Fullbuster?" He called out.
Ben's hardened expression as he glared towards the dark-skinned hand sticking out of the corner faded, and the kid took a step towards the opening. "Who are you? What do you want with Gray?"
Foley moved at a slow pace, but he stuck his head out past the wall, then seeing that they had no guns aimed at him, he stepped out fully. He lowered his hands but did not reach for the weapon he had snapped to his side for a quick draw if the situation required. "We're Resistance who were undercover in the First Royal Battalion in Pyraxas," Foley began, and Ben's fists unclenched as he realized these were not enemies. Two other figures stepped out around the corner, and all three men looked like heavily armed soldiers of the Fire Nation. They even had Fire Nation emblems on their uniforms, though one man's was ripped along with a lot of his uniform.
As soon as Ramirez walked into the room, he darted his gaze around and examined each of the figures in there. After a quick glance showed him that none of them were enemies, he started jogging for the opposite side of the room where he stacked up on a wall next to an opening, then peeked his head around it to check for enemies. He started setting up a trap in the hall, while Dunn pointed his rifle around at the ceiling, looking out for enemies coming from above while their Sergeant talked to their allies.
"Where is Gray Fullbuster?" Foley questioned.
Luffy frowned at the guy in front of him, but he turned and walked back to Nami and Usopp to ask them about the others who he last saw with them. As Luffy asked the two about Sanji and Robin, and asked Kirito what happened to Franky, Ben frowned at the man in front of him and replied, "I thought he was right behind us. He should have made it through the Upper Residential Area by now though." Ben's expression darkened.
"You don't think something happened to them, do you?" Dash asked, stepping up on Ben's left side. "Rin's out there too, so if Gray got in trouble-"
Ben interrupted his friend, "We're all tired from fighting Astaroth and his pet, I don't know if they could handle it if a real enemy attacked them right now."
"Excuse me," Foley interrupted the kids. The young boys both looked his way while Foley stared down at them with a bead of sweat dripping down the left side of his face. It's ridiculous that these aren't even the youngest kids I've had to work with. "If Gray isn't here, then what about Nagisa Shiota? My orders are to brief one of them-"
"Well neither of them are here," Ben interrupted the soldier. "Nagisa never left Sin City with us. He stayed behind to sabotage the army preparing to attack Pon-Gatso, but he wasn't just behind us like he said he would be."
"So neither Gray nor Nagisa are here?" Foley muttered. His expression deepened, and he brought his right hand around to his rifle. "Well, is the Fire Lord taken care of?"
Dunn and Ramirez both looked over, and Ben and Dash both turned their heads around. Foley looked over the kids' heads, and they all saw Luffy stop talking to his crewmates for a second. The pirate turned his head and looked down at Natsu and Killua lying side by side, then he turned more to look over his shoulder, "Yeah, they beat him."
Usopp and Nami opened their eyes wider as Luffy did not take any credit for defeating the Fire Lord. Luffy's gaze dropped back to the unconscious boys on the ground though, and his expression stayed dark and depressing, for a few seconds. Wait a second, Luffy's eyes grew huge and he ran over and dropped down next to Killua. His Observational Haki did not even pick it up for a few minutes, but as he stared at the kid, he swore he felt a presence there. Luffy's eyes watered up as he stared at the spiky-white-haired kid in shock. "He's alive," Luffy whispered.
Kirito looked down to his right, then back up as he heard a beeping noise ahead of him. The man who looked to be in charge of the small group of Resistance fighters sighed in relief. "That's good," Foley said after his sigh. He lifted his gaze to the ceiling and continued, "Because our exfil is already here." The beeping sound seemed to coincide with something coming, and the group gathered on the nearly-destroyed third floor of the Royal Palace stared up through the open ceiling.
There was something coming straight down towards them from the sky. It was a small black dot when they first looked up, but every second it got bigger, until its features became visible. The people in the destroyed living room saw white furry legs, and a black underbelly to the beast descending on them. It dropped through the hole in the ceiling and more of it became visible, as did the saddle on the creature's back. Ben and Dash opened their eyes wide and they backed away from the middle of the room, while Foley moved the other way to stand between Dunn and Ramirez who were guarding doorways on opposite sides of the room. Foley kept his rifle trained on the flying bison, but his weapon was actually aimed above it in case there were any enemies following the creature into the Palace.
The group gathered closer to the northern side of the room stared up at the saddle on the flying bison's back, and a few of them opened their eyes huge at the sight of the person who stood up after the creature landed. The blonde woman wearing all black leather stood up and looked down at the group of tired and wounded fighters in front of her flying bison's face. "Looks like you guys could use a ride," Black Canary said.
Ben's dropped jaw closed and curled into a smile at the sight of the woman in front of him. Dash called out, "Dinah!" excitedly, and even Kirito had to sigh in relief and then smile at the sight of the woman.
"You came back," Ben said, his smile softer now, as even though this was great, the situation was only slightly better than before. The boy walked forward and he reached out his hand, petting the nose of the flying bison in front of him, "Hey there Appa."
"Actually," Dinah Drake said, while climbing down the flying bison's left side. She walked up to the side of the creature's head that Ben was petting, and she continued, "This isn't Appa." Ben pulled his hand back for a second, and he looked closer at the cute flying bison's face. He turned to Black Canary with a look that said, 'Are you sure?' She chuckled at him and pet the top of the bison's head herself, "Sokka is with Appa to help lead mass evacuations, they could barely spare this bison alone."
"Mass evacuations?" Dash whispered. "I thought we were going to try and stay and fight?" He asked innocently.
Dinah shook her head, now regretting her decision not to tell the younger boys this earlier. "We're getting the civilian population away from Pon-Gatso. That army at Sin City got held up for some reason and hasn't attacked yet, but it's an invasion force that we can't stop without bringing up a lot more troops, troops we can't spare from conflicts over the rest of the continent."
Dash and Ben both looked down, saddened and frustrated by what was happening around them. "Even though we're winning," Dash whispered.
Kirito balled his fists from behind the kids. He stepped forward and began, "Dinah, we just learned that Kairi was taken by the Organization." Ben and Dash turned and looked at Kirito confusedly, but Dinah's expression became very dark.
"Wait a second, Kirito," Nami began, stepping towards the ninja swordsman's back. Kirito frowned and did not turn, but Nami continued to his back in a soft, but curious tone, "How do you know about the Organization? Did you guys face the Nobodies when you went south?"
Ben and Dash only thought Gohan's Nobody would be so terrifying because of how strong Sora's Nobody seemed to be when they met him the day their group split apart. They did not even know what this Organization Kirito mentioned was, but the rest of their friends seemed to have a good idea. Kirito frowned deeply at the idea that they were here, but he answered Nami as much to explain it to her as to explain it to Ben, Dash, and Dinah. "Sora told me all about them back on the Thousand Sunny." Kirito thought about that night he woke up from a nightmare, and how Sora came up and the two of them talked a lot about their lives. Sora, where are you? These are your enemies aren't they? Kairi's been taken by them… I'm sorry I didn't stop them.
"Alright, we need to get going," Black Canary said, and everyone in the room looked towards her. "I've heard a lot of chatter on open radio channels about Lords bringing armies to Pyraxas. Everybody wants the gem of the Fire Nation, and we can't be here when they show up." She walked forward and looked down at the unconscious Natsu, then the boy next to him who looked even worse. "Let's get the injured loaded up and then depart for the south."
"South?" Dash whispered.
Canary turned and looked at the kid confusedly, then heard a voice in front of her and spun to see a skinny young man looking into her eyes. "We're heading north," Luffy said.
"Luffy!" Ben yelled, turning and glaring at the pirate behind him. Luffy looked at Ben confusedly, and the kid continued angrily, "Are we in any position to keep going north right now?!"
"You guys were going south anyway," Luffy began.
"But we headed north because Gray's friends were all captured and brought to the Capital!" Ben snapped. "Even I know though, we are in no condition to keep going any farther than this!"
Luffy looked back down at Killua who was somehow alive, and next to him at Natsu who was bleeding pretty bad still. "Luffy," Nami began behind her captain in a quiet voice. Luffy turned and saw Nami looking down, and she lifted her gaze with a sad look in her eyes, "Juvia, she's in the city, but," Nami shook her head with a pained look on her face.
Ben and Dash looked her way nervously, and Kirito continued for her, "Luffy, Juvia died." Luffy spun to Kirito with huge eyes, and Kirito continued, "But we brought her back to life." Usopp's jaw was dropped, and Luffy's eyes were huge, before they shifted down to the kid lying on the floor next to Natsu.
"We don't have time to play catch up," Black Canary shouted, right before the ground beneath their feet shook, and parts of cracked walls around them crumbled. She turned to Kirito and looked him in the eyes, "My mission isn't actually to retrieve you and your friends. It's to pick them up," she motioned behind her where the undercover soldiers were standing. Kirito frowned at what she was saying and started to think about it himself as she continued, "But I requested to be the one sent on this mission, because I wanted to convince you guys to come back south with us. You'll be able to help us much more down there than by heading to your deaths in the Capital."
"Tango approaching fast!" Dunn shouted.
Ramirez pointed his rifle in the air, and he started firing rounds rapidly at the form that flew over the hole in the ceiling.
"Hold on," the dark figure up in the air called down, holding a hand up to get the soldier to stop firing at him. Ramirez did so, but not because he was told to. He stopped firing because his rounds were having no effect on impact with the figure floating towards them.
Only some of the people in the room recognized this figure, but everyone felt chilled by his appearance. The dark, menacing appearance to the tan-skinned figure with long straight silver hair was making each of them sweat. "Ansem!" Ben shouted up at the figure descending into the room. "Give Riku back his-"
"Ben," the figure interrupted. "It's alright. I'm in control." His voice was layered with Ansem's, but the words he was saying let his friends know who this was.
Usopp stepped forward with eyes as wide as saucers, "R-Riku? Is that you?"
"Yeah," Riku said, his tone dark and scary. "I pushed Ansem back down," he added. The nineteen year old glanced over at the floor, and a small bit of relief filled him as he felt Killua's life force. It was small, but there, and he let out a deep sigh of relief, before returning to a menacing grimace. "I couldn't save Kairi, and now there's an entire army of Nobodies filling Pyraxas. We need to get out of here, now," Riku finished.
The sight of the Lord of Darkness's body was seriously giving his friends the creeps. Luffy felt intense anger towards the person in front of him, and he had to keep reminding himself that this was Riku he was staring at. Ben looked up at Ansem's face, and the boy felt deeply troubled. Not because Riku had the face of one of his greatest enemies, but because that face had a look of worry and, fear, spread across it. "We can take an army of Nobodies, can't we?" Ben asked his older friend.
Riku frowned deeper and he said in a deep, chilling voice, "That's only one of the armies. Xigbar released them to take part in the battle, but, when I rose high above the city to get a look around, I could see them approaching. Thousands, from the north, the east, and the west. They're closing in on the city as we speak."
"Why?" Luffy asked in confusion.
"There's no time to explain," Black Canary snapped at the pirate near her who she could see had no idea what they were talking about. "We need to go, now!" She spun towards Ben, asking quickly, "Where are Gray, Nagisa, and Juvia?" She already heard that Kairi was missing, but heard nothing about the others in the group she left behind to warn everyone in Pon Gatso of the coming invasion. Ben opened his mouth to respond, but an explosion shook the floor and he stumbled to his right before steading himself. Black Canary shook her head around and shouted, "Nevermind! We have to go now!" This time as she shouted 'now,' she really seemed to mean it and started jogging back for the flying bison she brought with her.
"Cero."
The three soldiers in the room had just turned towards the bison. Luffy had opened his mouth to tell Black Canary off, saying that he was not going until his crew was together. Ben had turned away from the woman to look back at Dash and Kirito, and both of them also seemed hesitant about leaving the city without their other comrades. Riku had nodded along with her, though he had a distant look on his evil-looking face. Nami had thought about saying something too, but a look at her feet and the two nearly-dead, unconscious friends of hers made her pause. In the moment Nami paused, before Luffy could say a word in defiance, a voice spoke so clearly and bone-chillingly that every person in the room who heard it covered in a coating of sweat.
Then the beam of black dropped in the center of the room, right on top of Black Canary.
The flying bison reared up on its back two legs, kicking the other four in front of it frantically as it stumbled backwards. The beam of pure black energy was so wide that even ten meters away from the woman, Ben, the closest to her, screamed in agony as the edge of the beam expanded out and slammed into him. Riku ran forward and got between the rest of his friends and the beam, lifting his arms and crossing a pair of Keyblades in front of his body to hold off the energy.
Nami's eyes grew wider and wider as the beam became visible in front of her eyes. As everyone else screamed and the woman near the center of the room was slammed through a giant ten-meter-radius hole in the floor, Nami slowly started to see the black energy that everyone else was so afraid of. Kirito took a step back from his place in front of her, his eyes as wide as saucers as the beam appeared for him as well. Where the Hell did that come from?! The two of them thought in panic, as they were the only two who did not hear the voice that spoke prior to the beam.
Ben fell backwards in pain, then snapped his head up and looked past his older best friend standing between him and the beam. His shock was quickly overcome by a different emotion, and Ben screamed at the top of his lungs, "DINAH!"
Dash and Kirito's shocked looks faded and the younger of the two looked horrified, while Kirito reached his hands up and grabbed the hilts of his swords sticking out over his shoulders.
The black beam of energy finally faded, leaving a twenty meter in diameter hole right in the center of the living room. The hole went straight through the floor, and the second floor's floor, and the floor of the first floor, and a lot of the ground below that too. More of the third floor around the hole was breaking off and falling into the hole, and Riku had to step backwards as the ground he was standing on right at the edge cracked and fell in.
The flying bison backed itself against a wall between two soldiers, one of whom was in charge of his squad and gulped while pointing his rifle up in the air. Dunn looked past the bison and to his Sergeant who aimed up, and despite all the fear he felt in that moment, he aimed up as well. Luffy's eyes darted up, then narrowed as he thought about the woman who was just consumed by that beam of energy, and the sounds of his friend's scream of her name like she was someone Ben was friends with. Luffy's angry expression got replaced by a much, much more afraid one as he stared through the hole in the ceiling. He looked so afraid, because when he glared at the figure standing on air outside of the living room, he also used his Haki to sense the man. The instant Luffy tried feeling his presence, the pirate's blood ran cold and he was at a loss for words.
"It was difficult to make a Cero so small," the thin figure began as he stood in midair. He did not look at a single one of the people gawking at him from below, but instead stared at the furry beast standing between two men pointing rifles up at him. He had a long, thin blade in his right hand, down at his side at the moment while he looked at the flying bison. His skin was ghostly white, but on his frowning face he had two black lines going from the bottoms of his eyes down to the sides of his mouth. On the left side of his head was a shell of what looked like bone, almost like a part of his skull was on the outside of his body, wrapping around the top of his head and stopping in the middle of his long black hair. The outer bone curved in down his forehead over part of the bridge of his nose, and cut in from the side so part of it wrapped under his left eye, though it did not connect with the bone over his nose. The strange figure looking at the bison continued, "However, I did not wish to harm such a gentle creature. The beast is not human, and therefore can live, unlike the rest of you."
He said it without turning away from the bison, but then his eyes shifted and he faced the dark figure next to the edge of the hole he made in the floor below. "Who are you?" The dark figure questioned, while floating off the ground with two black Keyblades in hand, one of which had red on the curved blade to make the weapons at least a little colorful, even if it was a dark, blood red.
"I would ask you the same thing," the pale figure replied. He was wearing a long white cloak that covered his entire body from his neck down to below his feet. The figure received no response from Riku, who stopped floating up when he was in a direct line between the monster and his friends on the ground behind him. Riku did not fly too close, but he got in the way of any future beam attacks. The man with bones on the outside of his head spoke after a five second pause, "Very well then. I am Ulquiorra, the Fourth Espada." Riku clenched his teeth and some more sweat appeared on his face, but he did not lower his weapons at all. "A Lord of the Cooperative, under the High Lord, and ruler of the Northern Continent, Aizen-sama."
That's the guy who Goku said he fought, Ben thought with intense fear spread across his face. He had a scar on his chest and back, like he was stabbed through by the guy he was talking about. Maybe, his subordinates are a lot weaker than him! Ben tried to stay optimistic, but the dread he felt from watching Black Canary get obliterated was filling him with despair. We should have left when she told us to! Why did we take so long? After, she came all this way to save us! Tears formed in Ben's eyes and built up on his lower eyelids. Natsu and Killua are down, Kairi's been kidnapped, and everybody's still scattered through the city! Why weren't Gray and Rin right behind us? What's going on?!
Ben was not the only one panicking, and though holding it together better than Dash or Nami, Riku could not say that he was calm in this situation. If I use too much darkness, is he going to come back out? I have it under control right now, I can't even feel him after what we saw Killua do, but he'll be back. He always comes back! At my current strength, can I handle him, and this Ulquiorra, at the same time?! Riku clenched his hands tightly around the hilts of his Keyblades, and he slashed them through the air once while keeping a glare pointed at Ulquiorra. "Don't move," Riku growled, trying to look as menacing as possible which he figured was even scarier than usual while he looked like Ansem.
Ulquiorra did not flinch though. The figure just examined the weapons in Riku's hands, then turned his head.
Foley realized it and opened his mouth, "FIR-"
The figure they were all looking at was no longer in the air. Ulquiorra was just, gone. Everyone spun to the voice that got cut off unnaturally, not like Foley had stopped screaming as a count of his own volition. They all turned, and their jaws dropped at the sight of the Espada they were just looking at, holding Foley with his left hand wrapped around the soldier's face. The back of Foley's head was slammed into the wall behind him, the wall that broke into pieces from the collision of the soldier's skull with it.
"No!" Riku yelled. He had flown between the monster and his friends, but there were others in the room who needed his help. As the teenager in the body of the Lord of Darkness started flying across the room, he had to raise his altitude as the flying bison leapt forward and flew over the hole in the center of the room to get away from the Espada that killed its rider and was scaring it even though the Espada claimed not to want to kill it. As Riku rose over the bison, he saw Corporal Dunn pointing his rifle at the being that killed his Sergeant, and unloading while screaming curses in a high-pitched terrified voice at the monster. Bullets flew at the Espada from only thirty feet away, but the being did not even dodge them, though it was not a matter of being too slow.
Ulquiorra did not need to dodge, and he simply moved forward through the hail of gunfire. He moved in an instant, from the time one bullet slammed into his front, to the time the very next shot came out of the barrel of Dunn's rifle. Ulquiorra was just suddenly in front of Dunn, while Riku was still mid-opening his mouth to shout at the Espada to stop. Riku's mouth froze open, and he stared forward in horror at the sight of the long sword sticking through Dunn's chest and out the man's back.
Riku saw the third soldier closer to a different hallway lifting up his rifle. He flew that way as fast as he could and got between the man and Ulquiorra. "I won't let you kill-" Riku stopped shouting, his face filling with fear as Ulquiorra turned his head to the right. The Espada had not even pulled his sword out of Dunn's body yet, yet he shifted his attention not to the hallway Riku flew in front of, but to the side of the room Riku was originally guarding. No, Riku thought, and he turned his head to yell at his friends who were nowhere near fast enough to handle this.
Luffy realized it as the monster slaughtering everyone in the room looked his way. "GUYS!" Luffy screamed. Nami! Usopp! On his sides, he saw Dash spin around in an instant and start running away, while Ben scooted backwards on his butt, pushing his hands forward on the floor to try and get away while letting out screams of fear. "RUN!" Luffy yelled, and then the Espada appeared in the air in front of him.
Nami opened her mouth to scream Luffy's name. She was about to run away, she was ready before Luffy even shouted at her to, but when she saw the monster's head turn, she saw his gaze stop straight on her captain. She opened her mouth to scream as soon as her mind processed it, but Luffy had already screamed at that point, and then before she could make a sound, Ulquiorra was there. Usopp's leg was in mid-step-back, but he changed its direction while opening his own mouth to scream Luffy's name.
LUFFY! Dash thought, his head turning to look over his shoulder. Guilt filled his body but he had too much momentum in the wrong direction and could only stop himself from getting any further. He had no time to get back.
Too fast! Luffy thought.
Ulquiorra's sword was slashing down as soon as he appeared, which is why no one had any time to shout his name. The sword slashed down- CLANG! In almost the same instant everyone thought it was over, something else appeared between the pirate about to be slashed in half, and the Espada hovering in the air in front of him. That figure had his right arm raised, a katana held in it sideways, blocking the longer and slightly thicker sword that Ulquiorra slashed down at the rubberman behind him.
Luffy became confused as his vision was blocked. The Espada slashing at him was blocked by a figure even closer, who wore a black cloak covering his entire body similar to how their enemy wore a white one. Luffy's gaze lifted from the figure's back, up to his head, a head covered in green hair that made Luffy's heart race even faster than it was a second ago when he thought he was about to get cut in half. Nami and Usopp dropped their jaws from behind their Captain where they stood. Kirito darted his eyes back and forth at the pirates on his sides who looked a lot more shocked than the rest of them at this man's appearance before them, and then his own jaw dropped as he remembered he had seen the man once before.
Ulquiorra's eyes also opened wide at the sight of the man who appeared in front of him. He pushed his sword harder into the man, but the green-haired figure grabbed his shaking blade with his second hand, then slashed forward so hard that it was Ulquiorra's turn to feel the pressure. The Espada's sword shook and when an extra burst of power pressed into him, he had to fly backwards to avoid being slashed. The swordsman in a black cloak cut through the air where Ulquiorra just was, and a giant white slash flew off of his pitch black katana. Ulquiorra sliced his silver blade down and cut through the flying attack coming at him after his retreat back. He then slashed his sword to the right and held it at his side while staring through his dark green eyes at the shinigami in front of him. "What brings you here, shinigami?" Ulquiorra questioned, his voice cold, monotonous, just like it was when he spoke of killing everyone in the room earlier.
"Z-" Luffy began, but a lump in his throat stopped him from finishing his shout. He swallowed hard, then stepped to his left and looked up at the side of the man in front of him's face. The first glance at his face confused Luffy, because he could see the man's left eye wide open, and the scar he thought should be there was missing. "Zoro?" Luffy asked, his voice hoarse even though he wanted to scream it. His Haki was not telling him that this was a person he was staring at, and the feeling of his comrade was unsettling him to his core. "Is that-"
The shinigami turned his head a little to the left, and looked through his eyes at the man behind him. Nami and Usopp's suspicions were confirmed and their jaws dropped even further at the sight of the man's scar-less face. He floated there in front of them, wearing a black cloak, holding a black sword none of them recognized, and had eyes so dark that his friends who had not seen him in years were finding it hard to speak. This was why they were on Aebrith, but now that he was here in front of them, none of them could say a word.
Nami was the only one of the three who had seen Zoro after coming to Nexus, so unlike Luffy and Usopp, she was a hundred percent sure that whatever happened to him happened since his fight with Kuma. In Luffy's mind, he imagined Zoro swimming down towards him as he sank, after the Thousand Sunny had mysteriously vanished from beneath his feet. That man and the one in front of him seemed so different, and that was just from a single glance at his old crewmate.
Zoro's eyes darted back in front of him and he straightened his face out, glaring towards Ulquiorra again. "What's an Espada doing so far south?" Zoro growled. He held his black hilt out in front of his body with both hands, the tip of it pointed up and out towards his opponent's face.
"Zoro!" Luffy shouted this time, yelling at the back of the man in front of him.
"Get out of here Luffy!" Zoro roared. The man behind him took a step back in shock at the sound of that shout.
Ulquiorra looked past Zoro. "Are you the one who defeated the Fire Lord?" He questioned. Luffy's eyes darted from Zoro's back, to the man on the other side of the room who he could just see around Zoro's left side. Ulquiorra kept frowning at the angry look the pirate started giving him. Luffy was furious that Zoro's attention was stuck on that enemy and not on him, as he wanted to have a reunion with his crewmate so much right now. "He was weak," Ulquiorra said, and Luffy's hardened expression faltered for an instant. "Did you think yourself strong for facing him? Southern High Lords could not stand against a Lord in the North of Aebrith. Ichimaru, 14, Iblis, myself, so many could have annihilated the Fire Lord if we so chose."
Ichimaru? Riku thought, watching from the side of the room. He glanced back towards the rest of his friends behind the figure who Luffy called Zoro, and thanked his luck for the first time in a handful of minutes, as he saw the flying bison cowering in a corner not far from them, trying to make itself look as small as possible, which was still way too large to be missed. Riku glanced behind him to say something to the soldier he tried to protect, but when he looked back, Corporal James Ramirez of the Resistance was nowhere to be seen. The teenager in the body of an evil Heartless darted his gaze down the hallway, but Ramirez must have left while he was focused on the standoff between the shinigami and Espada hovering before him, because he was already long gone.
"Zoro! We came here looking for you!" Luffy yelled at his nakama's back. He pushed what Ulquiorra just told him into the back of his mind, trying not to let the figure trick him, if it really was a trick. They're all stronger than Sozin?! Luffy thought, then cursed mentally that he did not push it far enough back in his mind yet. He shook his head, then stepped towards Zoro's back and yelled, "I've been looking for you! Come with-"
"Luffy go!" Zoro yelled, this time sounding less like an angry order, and more a distressed shout. Ulquiorra was lifting up his left hand while Luffy was shouting, and the menacing figure rose an open hand pointed out at their side of the room. A small green light formed in front of his palm, a green light that instantly dropped the room into darkness. The energy sucking in front of his hand from all sides was pitch black with a green veil surrounding it, and it grew darker and darker as it formed into a sphere larger than his hand.
Nami, Kirito, Dash, Ben, and Usopp stared in horror at the attack forming on Ulquiorra's hand. The pressure of the energy alone was so heavy that Usopp's legs were shaking beneath him. They were shaking not because he was scared, but because there was so much weight pressing down on him that he could barely stand. Nami's legs gave out and she started to collapse, when two strong arms grabbed her by her shoulders and steadied her on her feet. Nami spun her head around, and her face filled with fear for a second, before remembering who it was that had such a terrifying appearance, one that haunted her nightmares from what the man did to her and her friends. "Riku," she whispered in a hoarse, scared voice.
Riku looked deep into her eyes with his yellow ones, and for a second Nami thought she could see some green in them. She quickly realized though, that the green she saw in Riku's eyes was nothing more than a reflection from the energy Ulquiorra amassed in front of his palm. Riku's eyes darted around to look at everyone in that instant. Ben was on the floor still, staring past Luffy at the Espada with terror in his eyes. Back at the opening to the hallway that led towards the side of the Palace mostly destroyed by Natsu's final attack against the Fire Lord, Dash stood with a look of so much fear that he could not bring himself to step back one foot into the living room. Nami could not stand on her own if he let her go, and Usopp looked like he was about to fall down as well. Only Kirito looked somewhat capable in this situation, holding his shaking swords with a look of anger on his face, having never faded since the shock wore off, as he was still thinking about the woman clad in black leather who took the first blow.
We can't stay here, Riku realized. A few minutes ago, the decision to leave was theirs, and it was a choice. Right now though, they needed to leave. That monster is claiming strength greater than that of a High Lord, Riku thought. We can't deal with that right now, but maybe… Riku's eyes darted to the side of the green-haired shinigami's face. He might be able to do this, but even if he can, we still can't be here. Ulquiorra's "small" Cero destroyed so much of the room, and he's much faster than any of us except maybe Zoro. If we don't go now, he'll take us out one by one like he did those soldiers! Riku thought all of this in seconds, and then Ulquiorra spoke, "Cero." It was the same tone of voice he heard when the first beam flooded through the ceiling. It still sounded, bored.
The black sphere in front of Ulquiorra's palm expanded a hundred times in a second. The Espada no longer seemed like he cared about the flying bison as it was in the side of the room that he was aiming towards, and the attack was much larger than the last one he created. The outer green tints were the only thing that kept the beam from looking like just a wall of darkness flying towards them, that, and the fact that everything around the beam shredded as soon as it was touched. For a second, a half dozen people thought they were dead. Then, a voice spoke, a furious, hate-filled voice, "Haunt: Mouretsuna-Akumu." Zoro's blade glowed and extended, and he slashed downwards in a way that made his lengthening Zanpakuto look like it lagged through the air, leaving after-images behind it.
Zoro's blade connected with the end of the Cero, and the two pressed against each other in a fight for superiority. Zoro got pushed back through the air, but he sensed the man right behind him get closer, so close that in a second he would be surrounded by the beam, and his ferocity towards the Espada increased even more. And as Zoro's bloodlust grew, so did the power of his Shikai, and the air around the Cero darkened even more, though this time thanks to Zoro's powers and not Ulquiorra's.
Luffy stared at Zoro's back a few feet in front of him, shock spread across the rubberman's face. He wanted to reach out and touch him, just to see if this was really happening. The beam that was so strong that Luffy doubted he could have survived a blow from it, was being held back by his first crewmate, his nakama. That nakama no longer felt human though. He stood there in midair, pressing against a giant beam of light with all his strength, a rage-filled expression on his face nothing like the calm, focused demeanor Luffy usually saw the man fight with. "RaaaaAAAAA!" Zoro's sword shook as the green veil of the Cero started to push around him to either side, filling up even more of the room while the swordsman and former pirate screamed.
Luffy, Nami, Usopp, Zoro thought, his eyes clenched as his sword was shaking too much. His sword stopped shaking, as in his mind he watched those three getting killed by his opponent. His teeth bared and his sword did more than stop shaking, it started slicing. His Zanpakuto sliced through the Cero and the beam split apart, each half of it flying to the corners of the room behind Zoro and breaking through them and the rest of the Palace they crashed into afterwards.
When the dark beam finally faded in its entirety, Ulquiorra stood in the same place in the air, though he did look a little more interested than a few seconds ago. His black eyebrows lifted up slightly as he frowned at the panting shinigami ahead of him. He has not even released Bankai. Is it because he does not know how? Even if he does not, to have stopped my Cero with just a shikai then is an impressive feat, one no shinigami has done before. "Shinigami, I am the Fourth Espada, Ulquiorra Cifer."
Zoro watched as the Espada in front of him decided to get a little serious, and he growled at the man behind him in a deep voice, keeping his ferocity up to make sure he did not lose any strength. "Get out of here Luffy," Zoro snarled, confusing the pirate captain behind him who had no idea why Zoro was so angry. The corners of Zoro's lips then curled up, confusing Luffy even more as his nakama smirked like a wild animal and glared straight into Ulquiorra's eyes with ones of a predator. "I've been hoping to fight another Espada," Zoro growled, though his voice sounded more competitive, more intense, more, bloodthirsty, as he spoke this time. Ulquiorra's eyes widened a little more, and Zoro continued, "Haven't had a chance to kill one since number seven. I was hoping the next one would be a higher number than four though," he said, in a tone of mock disappointment.
"You killed Zommari Rureaux?" Ulquiorra questioned, his full attention now on the shinigami and nothing else.
Luffy opened his mouth to yell at Zoro's back, when he heard a voice behind him, "Luffy, let's go!" The pirate spun around, and his eyes opened wide at what was happening behind him. Standing on six big hairy legs twenty feet behind his back was the flying bison Black Canary entered the room on. On top of that tamed beast, already in the saddle, were Usopp, Nami, Dash, and Kirito. Kirito was resting Natsu down on the floor of the saddle, and Ben came floating up over the side farther from Luffy a second later with Killua in his arms. The brown-haired boy was not looking at the kid in his arms though, but towards Luffy and right over his head at the terrifying battle going on in the room with him.
The one who spoke to Luffy was floating between him and the bison, but was lowering towards him and extending a hand. "Come on," Riku urged, a desperate look on his dark face. Ansem's face could not even look menacing with the expression Riku was showing right then. His eyes kept darting over Luffy's head to the monsters whose darknesses were so great even he was amazed. Their raw power was nothing to be trifled with either, and he reached his hand down farther, lowering a little more while keeping his gaze up to make sure he was not attacked by the Espada almost too fast for him to follow with his eyes.
"Your name, Zoro…" Ulquiorra began, having heard the man behind his opponent shout it enough times.
"Roronoa Zoro," Zoro snarled, while lifting up his extended Zanpakuto and slashing it across the front of his body.
Zoro, Luffy thought, turning and looking up at his swordsman, his very first crewmate, one of his best friends, his nakama. "Zoro, come with-" Luffy began. Zoro vanished and Luffy's voice caught in his throat as the shinigami reappeared in front of Ulquiorra, who was now holding his blade in a different position he was a single moment ago, having moved so fast that Luffy did not see the motion. Their blades clashed, and the wind that shot off of their collision sent Luffy stumbling backwards. Zoro slashed again, and again, then Ulquiorra swung across the front of his body and Zoro brought up his sword fast on his right side, blocking it with much difficulty. He was getting pushed across the front of Ulquiorra's body, but he roared and slammed his head forward, surprising and catching the Espada off guard with the headbutt. As Ulquiorra leaned back from getting slammed in the forehead, Zoro pushed twice as hard into the sword he was parrying and slashed his own across the front of his body.
Ulquiorra saw the sword coming though, and unlike the headbutt, he was prepared for this follow-up attack. The incredibly fast Espada flew straight up in the air, and when Zoro missed his slash, he flew straight up after him. Zoro paused for a split second as he reached the level the roof of the third floor of the Royal palace used to be. He hesitated, and spoke in a deep voice, "Go. Right now." With that, he vanished, and reappeared even higher up in the sky where Ulquiorra had his sword pulled back and was about to slash down towards the Royal Palace with an attack so powerful it would destroy the entire building. Zoro's teeth bared harder and he slashed from a distance just like Ulquiorra was doing, and the two of their slashes collided in midair. Zoro's was white with a black veil around the outside of it, whereas Ulquiorra's was black with a green veil around the outside. The slashes covered the entire sky above the Palace when they collided, bright lights erupting from them filling the air with spiritual energy.
Luffy's eyes were huge while he stared into the sky. "Zoro!" He yelled out. The floor beneath Luffy's feet cracked as he stepped forward, and he looked down just in time to watch the entire floor crumble beneath him. He fell, but not very far. Luffy snapped up his gaze as a hand grabbed him by the forearm, and he saw Riku staring down at him with a serious, but understanding look. "It's, time to go," Riku said. He was not begging Luffy this time. Luffy understood that tone in Riku's voice well, a tone that told him things were out of his hands, out of his control. It was a voice he hated more than anything, because more often than not when he heard it, especially since coming to this world, there really was nothing he could do.
I found him! Luffy thought, snapping his gaze back to the sky above. I found Zoro, so why? The pirate looked so frustrated, and though Riku could understand that frustration, the silver-haired teen started towards the flying bison that was all loaded up with their friends.
Riku dropped down on the center of the saddle and let go of Luffy's arm. The rubberman landed on his feet, though the animal below them moved around in that moment and his legs came out from under him. Everyone wondered why the flying bison started to move, only to yell out in panic as the rest of the floor of the living room collapsed. "Yip yip!" Ben yelled from where he was holding onto a seat of the saddle for dear life. He did not know if this flying bison knew the same commands as the one that carried him, Natsu, and Dash into battle earlier that week, but the bison did understand that it needed to get airborne.
The furry creature slapped its tail down as it fell, kicking its legs at the same time like it was swimming through the air. Their fall slowed, and though they fell at least a story down, luckily the floor below collapsed at the same time thanks to having close to no supports after Ulquiorra's attacks. The bison pointed its tan face up, shaking its head to get some of the white fur out from in front of its eyes. The creature's stomach and face were the only parts of it not covered in white fur, though on its back under the saddle there was some brown fur as well in the shape of an arrow that pointed down right on top of the bison's skull.
"Ughh," a voice moaned on the back of the saddle.
Dash spun his head and looked behind him. The kid was grabbing onto the bench on the back of the saddle for dear life, his legs lifting up in the air as the bison did almost a ninety-degree lift-off from its drop. Dash snapped his head back and watched as the pink-haired man on the floor behind him was starting to slide off the back of the saddle. Dash's eyes opened wide as the bison slapped its tail on the air again, and the jolt knocked Natsu loose. "Ah!" Dash yelped, and he clenched the bench even harder, hard enough to pull his legs down and put his bare feet against the saddle. As soon as his feet touched, he let go of the saddle and started running backwards.
The young kid with blond hair ran up and over the back of the saddle, then down the furry tail along the brown line that was thin this far down on the animal's back. He sprinted almost to the end of it and reached a hand up to grab Natsu by his left ankle. The kid turned as soon as he had a grip around Natsu, and he ran back up the bison's body. His eyes opened wide as he ran up the nearly vertical slope, as there was another body sliding over the ledge of the saddle. The bison's legs were in mid-kick, the same kick from when Dash ran off the saddle, but as they finished that kick, the bison lifted just that last amount to make it pointed straight up. Dash kept running though as Killua's body fell, and his friend only dropped a few inches before getting a hand around one of his wrists, so that Dash could run him back onto the saddle just like Natsu.
Dash got back on the saddle and he groaned from the weight of the two he was holding onto, until he pressed their backs against the back of the saddle and sat between them, throwing an arm in front of either of their bodies to hold them still while he faced straight up in the sky. Dash saw Ben hanging onto the front of the saddle similarly to how he was holding the back bench a few seconds ago, with his legs dangling below him and his arms fully extended. Riku stood calmly at a vertical angle right behind the front bench, while Luffy had one hand pressed down on the center bench to hold himself up, while he looked sideways and into the air above them to try and keep seeing his crewmate. "ZORO!" Luffy yelled.
Kirito grimaced as he tried to keep chakra focused on the bottoms of his feet. I'm too drained, he realized, and dropped fast to grab onto something right before his feet came off of the floor. He held onto a bench, then looked behind him as he heard shouting. Behind him with their backs pressed against the front of the back of the three benches on the saddle were both of the pirates other than Luffy who could not stop screaming as a giant black and green explosion went off high in the sky.
The bison saw the explosion too, and it stopped its ascent to instead veer right. Some of its passengers who relaxed a bit as their straight rise got more gradual, yelled out again as they slid across the floor of the saddle. Dash shouted in panic as Natsu fell over him, and he and Killua tumbled across the back of the saddle before hitting the right wall. They were tilted to that side so Natsu almost bounced over him, but as Dash reached up to grab him, an older man with black hair appeared next to him, grabbing Natsu around the torso and pulling back so both of them fell on the floor. "Thanks Kirito," Dash told the teen who ran back to help him.
Kirito was panting too hard to respond, so he just nodded at the kid in front of him.
The bison flattened out and started flying across the sky towards the direction the suns were setting. None of the three suns had gone down yet, but it was getting pretty late in the afternoon from what they could tell of how close to the horizon the lower yellow sun was. Riku stepped up on top of the furthest bench forward, and he glared off the bison's left side for a moment and up in the air higher above them. He turned away from the fast-paced battle up there, and faced the west with as much disdain in his eyes.
"What are we doing?" Kirito called out to Riku.
Luffy turned his head and saw the younger man facing his direction, but looking over his head at the only other person standing on the bison. Luffy looked forward as well, and he frowned at Riku standing above him. He then turned and looked out to the left again where a battle was going on not far from them. "We have to wait for Zoro-" Luffy began.
"He told us to go," Riku said, his voice deep and unsettling. "And we need to go, Luffy." Luffy frowned and turned towards the younger man telling him what to do, but the dark figure standing on the front bench was not looking his way. Riku was looking straight off the front of the bison, out towards the west.
"Why would we go that way?" Luffy said in a stern voice, trying to take charge of the situation. "We're heading north," he continued, but Riku turned his head and glared straight into his eyes with cold yellow ones.
"North?" Riku questioned, his eyes narrowing at the man behind him. "Why don't you take a look that way?"
The others on the floor of the saddle who were still catching their breaths after that quick ascent, lifted their gazes to Riku, then one by one they got up to see what he was talking about. Nami and Usopp pushed up on the back bench to get to their feet, and Dash and Kirito from behind it stood up as well. Ben climbed up on the front bench where Riku was standing, and he looked to the north, before dropping his jaw and covering in sweat. Is this what, Shinichi was talking about? Ben thought, while staring at a line of zeppelins covering the entire northeastern sky. There were two rows of them, one higher that the other one, with blimps flying between each of the ones on the row below.
Beams of yellow light were shooting down from the metal platforms beneath each zeppelin, and they could see why as tanks rolled around on the distant plains that were inside those far outer walls of Pyraxas that surrounded all the nearby towns and villages. All of those towns in the north were smoking, and the northeast was not the only battlefield. The northwest was in flames, but through those flames rolled giant vehicles with dozens of wheels on each side, and giant turrets on top that were firing around them. Some of the cannons on top of those faster, larger tanks, were aimed up at fighter jets coming from the east. The vehicles were firing on each other, even though all of them had Fire Nation emblems on them somewhere.
"We can't go west either," Riku muttered, his voice getting darker. Everyone looking out to the north in stunned silence spun the direction they were heading, and they watched in shock as four giants dropped from the sky. These hundred foot tall giants had silver bodies, sharp limbs, and on the front of their smooth silver faces, were darker gray cross symbols with sharp points on the tops and sides, but an upside-down heart on the bottom of the cross. "More Nobodies," Riku said. "Seems Xigbar wasn't satisfied just filling the city with them."
Nami had giant eyes as she stared at the huge monsters to the west, but as what Riku said echoed in her mind, she chose that second to look down off the side of the creature she was riding. Nami looked off of it and down into the city below, only to gasp and cover her mouth with her hands in horror. Usopp followed the woman next to him's gaze, and he looked down only to drop his jaw even further at the sight of silver flooding through the streets, hundreds of Nobodies weaving between buildings and attacking anyone they saw. The Nobodies were focused on the southern side of the Royal Palace, but they were spreading out through the entire Upper Residential Area, all the way to the western walls of it that they were about to go over.
"Ben, get the bison to turn south," Riku told the boy standing at his side.
"Hold on," Luffy growled, and Riku turned back to look the pirate straight in the eyes. Luffy glared into Riku's eyes, and he said in a dark voice of his own, "We aren't going anywhere until the rest of my crew is here."
"We don't, have that luxury," Riku replied, then he leapt backwards as Luffy rose a fist in front of him. Luffy did not punch yet, and instead he gained a confused expression as Riku leapt right off the front of the bison, then shot over the top of their heads horizontally. Everyone spun to follow Riku as he flew behind them, and Nami screamed and ducked with her hands covering the top of her head. There was no need for her to scream though, as the missiles firing from two fighter jets flying straight towards them were sliced apart by the tan-skinned figure flying through the air behind them. The bison below them started to turn, while Riku pointed a Keyblade out at either of the jets and yelled, "FIRE!"
Fireballs flew out of Riku's weapons and shot towards the fighter jets. The jets swerved and flew off, but Riku's magic was locked on, and the fireballs flew after them before slamming into the planes. The glass tops of both planes popped open and the pilots flew out, parachutes coming off the top of their seats, while their planes spun out covered in flames and crashed down into the flaming city below. Explosions followed each of the planes crashing into the ground, and Riku glared down into the city with a furious, depressed look on his face as he heard screams echoing out from all around it. His hands clenched tighter around his Keyblades, then his eyes darted to the west, to the north, and then to the east in the direction those fighter jets just came from. Those jets did not have Fire Nation emblems on them. I didn't recognize their emblems at all. Who else is coming? There's a huge expanse of continent still to the east of us, and I don't know anything about what lies in that direction. As much as I want to stay and help… Riku's eyes darted back to the flying bison heading south, and he thought, I already have too much I'm trying to protect. If I get too greedy, I'll lose everything.
"Hold on Ben, stop-" Luffy reached out a hand for Ben's back, but the boy spun and smacked Luffy's hand away before the pirate could touch him.
"Will you stop already?!" Ben shouted straight at Luffy's face. Luffy's eyes opened wide, and then kid standing past the front of the saddle on top of the bison's head so that he could pull its fur the direction he wanted to go, which actually worked, climbed back on the front of the saddle since they were pointed south now. He glared straight into Luffy's eyes from a little higher up as the saddle's edge he was on was elevated, and he said in an angry voice, "Why do you still need to go north? It's not because Zoro's there, because we know where he is!" Ben yelled into Luffy's face. "You just want to do it because you decided to, right? Because that was a decision you made, and you can't handle it that we're not doing it your way?!"
Luffy stayed silent as he stared at Ben with wide eyes. Ben's fists clenched at his sides, and he yelled louder, "What were you guys doing here?! We had a plan, and disguises, and allies, and even an evac for when we were finished! You, you just ran in here and got Killua killed! And now you want us to do what?!" Ben screamed. Dash stared across the saddle at his friend's face with shocked eyes of his own, while Kirito stared at the side of Ben's face with a grudging respect. Ben dropped off the saddle and stepped towards Luffy, who to the shock of his two crewmates farther back on the saddle, took a step back himself. "You want us to fly straight towards all those armies? On top of this defenseless animal?" Ben was shaking, and he yelled at the top of his lungs, "THEY HAVE JETS! AND TANKS! WE- ack, are exhausted," Ben continued, his voice cracking in the middle of his next shout. "Killua, just died Luffy," Ben whispered. "And Natsu's also out of commission. We can't do this right now."
Luffy stared down into Ben's green eyes for a few seconds in silence. Then, the pirate said with eyes shadowed over by his hair, "Killua, isn't dead."
"He was," a voice said on Luffy's right. He turned and looked back across the saddle, to a teenager standing behind the farthest back bench, swords drawn in his hands in case they were attacked while trying to run. Kirito stepped over the back bench so he was in front of Usopp and Nami watching from the edge, and he continued in a dark voice, "I brought him back, I heard a heartbeat, but he was definitely dead there. I don't know for how long, but whatever happened while you guys were fighting Sozin, it killed him."
"How, did you bring him back to life?" Usopp asked in utter confusion.
"It doesn't matter," Kirito grumbled, thinking about the empty water bottle he left behind in the crumbling third floor room of the Royal Palace. "Because I can never do it again," he added, making sure no one there had hope that if they died, he would be able to save them. Killua didn't even wake up, not like Juvia, Kirito thought, turning and gazing over at the boy's body Dash was standing next to.
Luffy turned away from Kirito and back to Ben, then he lifted his head as Riku dropped down behind the younger boy. Ben, Kirito, and Riku were all staring at him, waiting for him to say something. None of them were listening though, none of them were listening to what he had to say. I should just get off the bison then, Luffy thought, a reactionary thought, but one that made a pit form deep in his chest. That's, what I thought when I heard Zoro was north. So I left, and, and I found him! But, but wouldn't I have been here anyway? The others, came here- No, I wanted to go so I left! Just like I should now. Luffy steadied his expression and turned away from Ben and Riku. He stepped to the edge of the flying bison and leaned his head over the left side of it, then turned his gaze towards the back of the bison.
He looked back towards the center of the city from the southwestern side they were nearing now. Sanji, Robin, and Franky are somewhere in here still. And Zoro, he looked all the way towards the Palace and above it where he could still saw a battle going on. Once he's done kicking that guy's ass, I'll be able to talk to him for real! Luffy grinned, and he turned his head more so he was not looking straight back off the bison now, but instead across the middle of its back at Usopp and Nami on the other side. He opened his mouth, and then froze as he stared at the two of their faces. They'd follow me, Luffy thought, staring at the scared faces of his nakama. They'd follow me, down there. His heart rate sped up, What am I hesitating for?
"Luffy." The pirate spun his head. Luffy looked so upset: angry, sad, confused, frustrated, and he was panting heavily with a pale face. "Cure," Riku continued, while pointing the Keyblade in his right hand at the pirate.
Luffy tensed up, and then felt the burns covered much of his body stop hurting so much. His skin lost some of its pale color, and everyone on the bison's back stared at the tall, dark Keybearer in shock. "Why?" Ben whispered up to his friend standing behind him.
"Because," Riku said, his voice overlapping with Ansem's. He turned back around and looked over the head of the bison out to the south again, "I don't want Luffy to die, if he does leave." Riku did not know what the pirate's decision would be, but with that statement he made his position clear. Whether or not Luffy leapt off the bison, this ride was going to continue south. They all understood it, and the ultimatum made Luffy's heart rate speed up even more. This escape route, the lucky break they got when Black Canary brought this creature for them to escape on, he was about to give it up. "I'm sorry Luffy," Riku said, his voice quieter now, though everyone on the flying bison's back could still hear him. "I've lost too much already, to turn back when I'm given an out."
Staring at Riku's body, stuck in a dark state, his eyes yellow, his voice overlapping with the man who took him over, his friends knew what he meant by how much he had lost. Not only Kairi, but a piece of himself was lost back there in Pyraxas. "If, Goku or Timmy were here," Riku began, and his eyes darted over to Usopp for a second. Usopp's eyes widened at the mention of Timmy's name, but that quick glance by Riku told him to stay quiet about what Ansem said. Riku continued while his face that was turned partially sideways faced straight to the south, "The situation would be different. If Sora," Riku faded and his fists clenched furiously around the hilts of the Keyblades at his sides. I'll have to tell him, that I let her get taken.
Luffy kept staring at Riku's back for a few seconds, then he looked down at his hands that he held out in front of him. They balled into fists and shook like mad, and then they unclenched. Luffy turned and ran away from Riku. He leapt from bench to bench until he was at the back of the saddle, and he climbed right over it. Usopp gulped and he held his slingshot tightly in his grasp as he started for the back of the saddle. Luffy ran fast right past his crew, but they turned after him and started to follow. Riku clenched his teeth in anger and stared straight at one person, the orange-haired woman making her way to the tail of the bison. He could see Dash staring at the pirates with scared eyes, and Kirito shaking his head at their backs after they walked past him, but he just saw them through his peripheral vision. He only watched the woman who turned and looked back over her right shoulder. Riku locked eyes with Nami who walked away from him with such fear in her gaze, yet even as he thought about it, he could not come up with anything he could say that would convince her not to follow her idiot of a captain.
"ZORO!" Luffy screamed. Usopp and Nami stopped before reaching the back edge of the saddle, hesitating instead of climbing over the three foot tall wall to head to the creature's tail. Luffy was already on the tail, using his exposed and burned toes to clench tufts of the beast's fur, while cupping both of his hands to his mouth to scream. "ZORO! COME FIND US DOWN SOUTH! ZORO! ANSWER ME!"
Much closer than Luffy thought he was yelling to, a figure flying across the sky too fast for his old friends to see slashed his blade at his opponent, but Ulquiorra turned his own blade sideways and sparks flew off the collision. Zoro dragged his black blade down the Espada's, scraping the steel all the way to the hilt of his enemy's weapon. As his Zanpakuto was about to reach the hilt, Ulquiorra pushed up and then swiped diagonally down across Zoro's body. His parry opened up Zoro's body for an attack, but right when his blade was about to cut through the top of Zoro's shoulder, the green-haired shinigami smirked in a threatening way. Ulquiorra cut through Zoro, then turned from the fading illusion and rose up his blade, blocking the swipe coming from his back.
Zoro's smirk wiped from his face and he grabbed his sword with both hands, pressing harder into it to try and break through Ulquiorra's guard. "It seems that man is calling for you," Ulquiorra said while their faces were only a foot apart. Zoro snapped his head forward, but Ulquiorra pulled his face back, while snapping his right hand up and slamming Zoro under the chin with the hilt of his blade. Zoro's head that was moving forward got snapped back, the muscular shinigami gasping in pain. His head straightened back out and his eyes had a glint in them of even more animalistic rage as he glared at Ulquiorra, and the aura around Zoro slammed out even harder than before. "Hmm," Ulquiorra hummed, and he flew backwards fifty yards through the air.
Zoro shot after his opponent, slashing his blade across the air while yelling, "HAUNT: MOURETSUNA-" Ulquiorra shot forward before Zoro could finish his shout, and he slashed down into Zoro's blade before the shinigami could release his Zanpakuto again. Zoro grunted, then grinned and pressed harder into Ulquiorra's sword, so hard that he slammed the Espada away. Ulquiorra's arms were thrown out to either of his sides, and the force from Zoro's slash alone threw him twice as far back as he originally flew a second earlier. Ulquiorra stopped, and unlike Zoro he was not panting as he floated there in the sky.
"Your weapon responds to your bloodlust," Ulquiorra began, and Zoro stopped flying across the hundred yard gap when he was halfway to his opponent. The shinigami's eyes opened wide, and Ulquiorra continued, "However, it seems that is not all it reacts to." By the look on Zoro's face, Ulquiorra knew he was correct, though by the sound of confidence in his voice, Zoro knew the Espada had already figured it out. "That Release is a double-edged blade, and it will not work well on me. I can see you are getting frustrated by the level of power your blade has, even after all this fighting, even after you have gotten so angry. You would not be so frustrated, if by this time you did not already have more power in your usual fights."
This bastard, Zoro thought, and the corners of his lips curled even more up. His hands tightened around the hilt of his Zanpakuto, and a white aura came off of his body that flared wildly around him. Makes me want to go all out! Zoro thought, his hands clenching in anger as well as competitive anxiety now. He needed to rush his opponent, needed to slash his sword right at that moment, but Ulquiorra was not finished yet. "Your Zanpakuto responds to your own bloodlust, but also to your opponent's. I suppose at this point in a fight, your usual opponents are cursing your name, and foaming at the mouth. Your power would be amplified, would it not?" The Espada received no response, except for his opponent flying across the air faster than he had the entire fight.
Zoro slashed, and Ulquiorra used a Sonido to vanish and reappear another hundred yards away, though this time it was straight up in the air. Zoro snapped his head up, his gaze following Ulquiorra the entire time. "Even while I stay calm, you are still able to get stronger," Ulquiorra said, almost sounding impressed, but only almost. "Then it is time. It has been a long time," Ulquiorra pointed his sword down, and the entire sky around him filled with a pressure so intense that Zoro found it difficult to keep his smirking expression up. Ulquiorra held his right arm out straight in front of him, and he finished while looking into Zoro's eyes, "Since I released my Resurreccion."
"Enclose: Murcielago."
A black flame erupted around Ulquiorra's body. The flame had a green shade to the outer edge of it, and it was over fifty feet wide and twice that tall at the highest flare of its flames. The flames ripped around him violently, and the entire sky darkened while dark green wisps of energy shot off his flaming body. The green energy ripping off of him fell out of the sky like rain, pelting Zoro and then dropping on the city below. Zoro narrowed his eyes as he glared up at the fading black fireball, and then his eyes opened wide at the sight through the vanishing flames.
Those fighters flying over the southern wall of the city on the back of a flying bison looked back into it in shock. High above the city, a figure floated surrounded by a dark sky, a sky that should have been more illuminated considering all three suns were visible in the west. This figure's presence was darkening everything around him though, and his presence made everyone who could see him feel intense fear. Two huge wings at least twenty feet long each stuck off of the figure's back. The wings looked like those of a bat, though the figure's face still looked at least partially humanoid. The bone covering on half of his face extended to cover the entire top of his head, now with two large horns pointing up above either side of his head. His arms had lengthened, as did his fingers and the black fingernails on the ends of them. His long black hair grew as well, falling on either side of his head down over his chest, as well as dropping far down his back almost to his waist, and his bangs that grew longer crossed over the bridge of his nose so that the hair sticking down the left side of his forehead covered the top of his right eye, and vice versa.
"Well, Roronoa Zoro," Ulquiorra began, his voice using the same monotonous tone he had had throughout their entire fight, showing Zoro that his mental state was fine and not going to make Zoro's Zanpakuto any stronger. "What will you do now?" A green blade of energy formed in Ulquiorra's right hand, and the Espada appeared in front of Zoro in the same instant, the green blade already slashing down. Zoro's wide eyes grew even more, and then blood splashed out of his chest as he did not pull back fast enough in time. Zoro flew out of the air and down into a section of the Upper Residential Area, getting pushed down by the green slash that already cut through him all the way into the floor. Then, when the shinigami hit the ground, the green energy pressing against him exploded. The explosion that followed destroyed two city blocks and every building in a fifty meter radius. The green blast domed out and the wind sent Nobodies and Fire Nation soldiers flying as easily as it ripped apart buildings and tore through civilians.
Southern Lower Residential Area
"What was that?!" Juvia shouted, spinning her head and looking back towards the center of the city. She just heard an explosion, but only after she turned around did her jaw drop at the sight of how large it really was. "Oh my, God," she whispered, as the top of the green domed explosion was so high it was easily visible over the wall they just went through.
"Don't stop Juvia, we have to keep moving," Gray called behind him to the girl at his back. He looked up in the sky and gulped at the dark color it was tinted, then spun and looked back to the south where they were already running. They were fighting Fire Nation soldiers in the southwest of the Upper Residential Area a few minutes ago, but the sight of a flying bison leaving the Royal Palace told Gray he had missed their ride. The bison was still in sight though, having changed directions a few times in the air, but now heading straight south like it was going to leave the city.
"It's getting farther away Gray," Rin shouted, before slashing his sword to his right and cutting through a cluster of Dusks that just smashed through the wall of a building near him. "Where do these Nobodies keep coming from?!" Rin yelled, as right after his slash's blue flames subsided, a dozen more Nobodies came rushing over the roofs of three buildings in front of him, as well as running out from between them. The Nobodies were about to reach the road, when all twelve of them stopped moving.
Gray's entire body tensed up. What could make Nobodies stop attacking? Only one of the Organization members. We can take one, even two probably, but our ride… Gray glanced over his shoulder and then shouted, "Let's keep-"
"Look out!" Rin yelled. The two mages on his right started to look left, but Rin was already sprinting forward and stopped in front of them. He slammed his sword down into the stone in front of him, and a wall of blue fire rose up between them and the buildings the Nobodies stopped on. BOOOM! A second after the blue flames rose, five huge explosions blew up the buildings and Nobodies together. Rin grabbed the hilt of his Kouma Ken tightly as he felt the ground shaking beneath it, the concrete cracking more and knocking his sword loose. The force from the explosions pushed against his wall of blue flames, but Rin's eyes opened wide as a wall of ice rose up on his right side behind his flames, and on his left rose a wall of water, water that was then turned to ice a second later.
Gray wheezed out a few breaths after freezing Juvia's wall so that there was a thick layer of ice behind Rin's flames. He can choose what he burns, Gray thought, while lifting his bowed head a little and gazing at his ice. The corners of his lips were pulled up the smallest bit, even though his mouth was wide open so that he could take the deepest breaths possible. Rin's blue flames burned brightly on the other side of the ice wall, but the wall was not melting as fast as it should. As Rin's flames simmered down though, large cracks formed across the entire ice wall on either side of the three behind it.
Gray's grin vanished. The small victory of surviving those explosions meant nothing, while whatever caused those blasts was still out there. His ice walls shattered.
"Hehehe!"
"AAhhahahaha!"
"EeekeekekeeEE!"
Screeches and cackles filled the air, echoing around the darkened city and scaring citizens still. Gray's body tensed up, and Juvia gulped, before lifting her steaming fists with a furious look on her face. Rin's face looked the most distraught though, and the teenager took a step back while staring up at the top of a flaming building straight ahead of him. Through those flames, he saw three figures step right up to the edge of the building. Their bodies were shadowed by the fire, but their mouths were open and laughing, and their laughter sounded like the screeches bouncing down the street.
"Gray-sama," Juvia whispered, her voice soft and shaking. "I do not like this."
Rin may have noticed something off with how Juvia was speaking, if he was not so full of dread. Demons! Did he… It's too fast!
"Okumura Rin!" a voice shouted, and all three standing on the street looked straight up at the center of the building in front of Rin. The flames pushed away from that roof and the monster standing there with glowing red eyes, horns coming out of its head, blackish purple skin, and sharp teeth filling its mouth, cackled at their expressions when they saw him. The other demons started laughing, the two larger ones on either side of the one in the center of that roof, the ones coming out of the flaming alleyways below, or crawling out from cracks in the ground.
"Where are they all coming from?" Gray whispered, stepping back in fear at the sight of all of them.
Rin was thinking the same thing, and he growled angrily under his breath for a few seconds before stomping forward and shouting, "What is this?! How did you all get here so fast?!"
Juvia and Gray glanced in at Rin's back in confusion, wondering if he knew why these monsters were showing up all of a sudden. Rin's expression stayed full of fury, but he was keeping control of himself while he held up his flaming blue sword. There are mid to high level demons here. A lot of weaker ones too, but, but that one in the center doesn't even seem afraid of me. The others I can see it, they're hesitant to move forward because of my blue flames. That one though, he's just having fun watching my friends' afraid expressions! Rin's face took on an even deeper snarl, and the blue flames on his sword flared, the horns sticking out the top of his head burning brighter.
"'Get here?'" The dark purple demon repeated down in a mocking tone. He took a step forward on a muscular leg covered in black fur, and the demon dropped off the roof onto the floor below, shattering the flaming porch of the building he was on. Wooden shards flew in every direction, then even more blasted away as the two ten foot tall ones still on the roof dropped down to either side of him. The eight foot tall purple demon in charge stepped forward, his teeth looking like they were extending as he continued to speak, "We didn't come here at all, we were always here! We, are the Umbrella Corporation!"
Gray's eyes grew wide, while Rin just bit down his sharp teeth harder as he thought about what that meant. The demon leader in front of them continued while his prey stepped back or started to look more hopeless, "We had to hide ourselves here in Pyraxas thanks to our High Lord Sozin's stringent policies. But the Fire Lord is dead," he added, his tone no longer taunting, no longer sarcastic like when he mentioned his "High Lord." The demon sounded, demonic. The monster cackled in a deeper tone than it did when it was on top of the building, and it looked straight forward with its dark red glowing eyes, straight into Rin's that had a fiery blue glow to them. "We will be the ones to capture Okumura Rin and present him before Lord Satan."
Other demons behind the leader moved forward, and the three who were facing them on the street only now realized that there was nothing left between them and the monsters. The demonic red flames the monsters rose with had faded, leaving them alone on the cracked street, with no ice or blue flames separating them from their target. Rin glanced out the corner of his eyes, and in the far distance to the south he spotted a figure shooting across the sky, using kicks to send himself after the bison that had long passed the southern walls. Sanji. Even farther, he could swear he saw two other figures with giant wings extending off their backs, using those wings to head the same way that Sanji was going.
Rin turned back to face the demons in front of him, the main one of which was staring at him with a little confusion at why he just turned away. "Gray, Juvia," Rin began, his voice dark, but at the same time- friendly. The teenager smiled, and he continued while the demons in front of them stopped cackling, stopped their taunting as a feeling of dread washed over all of them. "Our ride is gone," Rin continued, and the two mages spun to the south but like Rin could barely see the bison that was just a dot on the horizon. "Let's head after it," Rin kept going, "and don't worry, I'll protect you from any demons that attack us." Rin lifted up his Kurikara, and blue flames shot out the tip of it straight up into the sky a hundred feet.
The demons all snapped their heads up to stare at the line of fire in fear. The monster directly in front of Rin realized what was happening and it roared. The purplish black demon charged forward on furry legs, and rose up its sharp claws that extended as it started slashing them down. "Satan," Rin whispered, while all of the flames shooting out of his sword pulled down into a single blue ball right over the tip of his weapon. The boy spun around his sword so the tip was pointed straight at the ground beneath him, and he smirked at the face of the demon slashing down at him, before yelling, "BOMB!" Rin slammed his sword down into the ground and the condensed blue sphere of satanic fire exploded, flooding the street with blue flames that engulfed all of the demons he was facing in an instant.
"NOO!" The demon slashing at Rin pulled its arms back to try and cover its face, to no avail. The monster screamed and fell down to its knees, surviving a little longer than its comrades that were all screaming and shredding apart inside the flames. "This is impossible! You were supposed to be weakened already! AHHH!" It started to tear apart, slower than its fellow demons, looking like it was in a lot more pain than the rest of them were when they died.
Rin stared at the spot the demon vanished long after his flames had vanished. Then, the teen turned and he started jogging down the street towards the south. "Let's go," Rin called out. Juvia and Gray looked at each other, and they nodded before running after their powerful friend who could help them get out of the city. The two of them ran behind their friend, and they could partially see the side of his face as he ran. Despite his confidence, something was very wrong as they could clearly see from Rin's depressed expression. "Don't worry about being left behind, I'm sure we'll find everyone," Rin said, and he really believed they were going to find the rest of their friends if they just followed after where the bison flew away to.
Those demons knew where I was! They knew I was weakened! DAMN IT! Rin's right hand clenched so hard on the hilt of his Kouma Ken, while the injured cat sticking its head out of Rin's bag whimpered softly behind him. You were right Kuro! He knew it, and his familiar knew it as well, which was why Kuro sounded so sad at the moment. Shima told the demons where to find us! He could have, he could have gotten my friends killed! He's sending demons to capture me! I, I want to know why he's doing all this, but- but I can't just forgive him for this! Whatever his real reasons are, he's my enemy now! God, damn it, Shima. Rin rose up his left arm and wiped it across the bottoms of his eyes, but he missed a lone tear that rolled down his face and dripped off his chin.
Northern Lower Residential Area
"Well? Is it up yet?" Zabuza growled.
"Give me a second," the girl on her knees on Zabuza's right side snapped back. Tohsaka Lin finished setting up the talisman on the roof of the building the two were on, and she stood up next to the ninja from the Hidden Mist Village. Lin looked down at the talisman that glowed purple light, while below the wooden talisman, the entire roof was covered in black. The building was on fire when the two got to it, but Zabuza's water style jutsu were easily enough to put out the flames. "Go for it," Lin told the man wearing a white mask over the bottom half of his face.
"Hmph," Zabuza grunted, making Lin's forehead scrunch in annoyance at the lack of appreciation for what she just did. She was going to say something about it, but the look in Zabuza's eyes told her that he was already in the middle of a different conversation, so she held off for now. "Zoro, we're set up around the exits. Just got new info on the armies coming from the east." Zabuza was straight to the point, but he waited a second before continuing. The man he was trying to contact telepathically did not respond though, and Zabuza turned to Lin and questioned, "This working?"
Lin spun to him in surprise, then nodded her head while speaking back mentally, "My magic always works. What are you asking-"
Zabuza turned away and though Lin shouted at him in her mind, it seemed like he had cut off their connection as he did not react to her scream. "If you can hear me then, General Niji got stalled by Lord Katarou, but Niji's army showed off some new tech the Germa invented, blew Katarou's ninja army from what we're hearing. His army's only twenty minutes out now." Zabuza paused again, and he grumbled under his breath at the lack of reply from the shinigami. "Are you hearing me? You've got-"
"Think you can take care of them?" A voice responded in Zabuza's head. Even though it was through a mental link, Zabuza could hear pauses between words like Zoro was panting. "I'm fighting an Espada," Zoro continued, and Zabuza's fists clenched intensely at his sides. Haku, Zabuza thought, his fury at the Espada who killed his closest friend not sated solely by the death of the one who did it. All Espada, and that bastard Aizen too. I'll kill them all!
Almost like Zoro could hear what Zabuza was thinking, the ninja's thoughts were interrupted, "This fight is mine. Take the Germa."
Zabuza snarled to himself, then turned and glared out to the east of the city again. His eyes had a different look in them now, one that made Lin take a step back from the man she no longer had any thoughts about scolding. She just stared at the side of his face as he snarled towards the east, and she heard him mutter as he took a step that way, "Have it your way. But if you fail, he's mine," Zabuza leapt off the roof and reached up behind his back at the same time. He grabbed Kubikiribouchou off his back with his left hand, then slammed it out to his side while drawing another sword from a sheath at his waist with his right.
Lin gulped as she watched the man soar off towards the eastern walls of the Lower Residential Area. His swords sticking out to the sides in the dim orange glow of the sunsets were seeping killing intent, killing intent that almost surpassed that of the man carrying them. The cursed Sandai Kitetsu shimmered in the right side of Zabuza's gaze, and the ninja could see red on the blade already. Lin watched him descend, then she turned her head and looked towards the center of the city and above it where the air was darkened.
Carnage Kabuto was like no monster I have ever seen. He was so powerful, so frightening. Zoro handled it though, he always handles it. So then why? Why do I have such a bad feeling about the darkness in the air? Lin bowed her head and closed her eyes. She whispered something quick and concise under her breath, then snapped her eyes back open with newfound determination. No one else is going to do it but us. Lin walked to the closest side of the roof she stood on, and she looked eight stories down into the streets below. The sight of five Nobodies, four Dusks and a Samurai, chasing a young couple down the road, made Lin's mouth twist into a deeper frown. Lin rose her right hand and it started to glow, then she hopped right off the roof. As she fell, firing red bursts of magic at the Nobodies below, Lin thought, How many people can I save?
One Mile South of Pyraxas
"SANJI! ROBIN! FRANKY! RIN! ZORO! SANJI…"
Luffy's lungs may have been made out of rubber, but he could feel his voice giving out. Still, every time the pirate captain shouted the name of one of his friends, his voice only seemed to get louder. Luffy's throat hurt, but he kept screaming those names at the top of his lungs, and he did not pause for a second when his chef came kicking through the air all the way to the bison. Luffy just removed Sanji's name from the list, then kept shouting the rest of his friends' names as loud as he could.
Ben sat with his back up against a side of the saddle behind the farthest back bench. He sat there looking in front of him at two figures lying on their backs, motionless. He thought he heard a groan from Natsu a minute ago, but his eyes were more focused on Killua anyway. Ever since Kirito brought him back, he's just been lying there. He might have a heartbeat, but is he really, here? Ben closed his eyes, but he could not think too hard as his head was full of loud shouting. He snapped his eyes open and stood up, turning to Luffy to yell at him to shut up already. When Ben turned though, his eyes opened wide at the sight of Sanji dropping down on the front of the saddle, a leg raised in the air like he was ready to attack. Dash got between him and the dark figure Sanji was glaring at though, explaining to the pirate that this was not Ansem but Riku standing on the flying bison's back with them.
If, Sanji heard Luffy's shouts, Ben's eyes opened wide, and he ran to the back of the saddle, climbing up on it and cupping his hands to his mouth. Luffy stood on the bench in the middle, so the pirate could see the kid farther back in the saddle than him getting up on the railing and shouting, shouting the names that Luffy had been neglecting. "JUVIA! GRAY!" Ben gulped, then yelled even louder, "KAIRIIII!" He yelled their names once, then started taking deep breaths as he stared out at the city getting so far away from them. Out the corners of his eyes he saw two figures flying towards them, giant beige wings sticking out of their backs. Robin, Franky, Ben thought, though he could not feel a great amount of relief considering all those not with them.
Luffy stopped shouting when he saw Robin and Franky coming their way, but just like Ben he could not find it in him to smile. He stared out to the north and clenched his fists at his sides so hard it felt like he was going to rip right through his rubber palms. I did it again, Luffy thought, dread filling his expression as he looked towards the city they were leaving behind. His eyes shifted down to the floor of the back of the saddle, and a boy lying still on it.
Luffy thought, eyes full of anger and regret, I decided I wouldn't lose any nakama in this city. That's what Killua was. He was, my nakama, and I just stood there and watched him die! Just like with Ace, and Brook, and when everyone got hit by Kuma, and taken by Ansem! I'm there every time, and I can't ever stop it! He looked back to the north, his heart aching as he thought about his friends still in the burning city. I want to believe that if I go back I can save them all, but, I'd probably just get us all killed.
As Dash ran over to Robin and Franky and started explaining to them the same thing he just told Sanji, Riku ignored the pirates' hostile glances and stared off the flying bison to the west. What have I done? Kairi, I let you get taken. I let Ansem, take over. Because of what? I got angry, and upset, and I let him twist my emotions for his own gain! Ansem, I know what Killua did pushed you far down, but I also know you'll try rearing your ugly head again. And when you do, I am going to be ready. I am going to show you that you will never take control of my body again! YOU HEAR ME?! YOU ARE MY PRISONER! AND YOU WILL NEVER GET OUT!
"Juvia, died?" Franky whispered, and Usopp nodded back at the cyborg in front of him.
Robin and Sanji were looking over at the sharpshooter as well, and Usopp continued with a bowed head, "They brought her back to life, but, she still died."
"Kairi got kidnapped too," Dash whispered, and the pirates who just arrived looked down at the boy who had quickly explained to them why Ansem was seemingly catching a ride with them. Dash's face was full of guilt, and the kid continued softly, "The Nobodies took her-"
"Right in front of me," Usopp finished, and the little kid looked up at the long-nosed pirate to see Usopp's face had a lot more guilt on it than his own. "I let her get taken, and I couldn't do a thing to stop it."
"The Fire Lord?" Franky questioned, hoping for at least one bit of good news.
Usopp and Dash looked towards the back of the saddle, and the pirates who just arrived looked over there as well. "They beat him," Dash whispered, though the kid did not sound too excited about it.
Natsu and Killua looked really beaten up. Ben walked over to them and he created his Keyblade out of thin air, then dropped some healing magic on the two. Killua did not move a muscle, but as some of Natsu's peeled skin reformed, Ben heard another pained groan from his pink haired friend. Ben let out a small breath of relief, and he fell to his butt back where he was sitting a few minutes ago. He looked up at the sky that was a dark shade of blue with the suns so far down in the west. He was not able to tell before now, as the burning city of Pyraxas illuminated the sky too much, but night was already falling on Aebrith.
"So," Sanji began, lighting up a cigarette and taking a long drag of it after they flew in near silence for close to ten minutes. "Where are we going?" Some of them had kept whispering the whole time to get caught up on what had happened around Pyraxas while they were doing other things, but it was still unclear as to what their current objective was. "Captain?" He questioned, and looked over to see Luffy still standing on the center bench, staring off to the north as if waiting for someone to come flying towards them.
Luffy did not reply, and Sanji sighed out a puff of smoke at the general bad mood on top of the bison. "Black Canary," Ben began softly, and everyone on the bison turned his way. "She, brought this bison up here to come get us. We should bring it back, to help the evacuations in the south," Ben continued whispering. The boy leaned his head back and stared straight up in the sky with a dejected look on his face. "I guess, we should tell Sokka about our victory too. We did beat the Fire Lord after all, like we said we would."
Ben rubbed his eyes with his arm, then turned left to see if everyone behind him agreed. Luffy looked down into the kid's eyes, and then lifted his gaze back straight over him and into the north. "We found Zoro," Luffy muttered, as he reached behind his back and grabbed his hat with his right hand. He rose it up and placed it on top of his head, and his friends were surprised to see the edges of the hat were singed and blackened in some areas. "But I never got to talk to him," Luffy continued with a deep frown on his face. That frown started to lift though, the only person on the bison's whose did. The others looked at him in even more surprise as Luffy's mouth curled into a grin, "So that means we'll have to find him again. I'm just glad he's okay though," Luffy laughed a few times under his breath, then said louder, "He was really strong too! Shishishi, Gray did say he kept getting stronger, but whew did that surprise me!"
Sanji sighed, but a small grin came to his face as he took another puff of his cigarette. "I heard Zoro died too." The others looked at him in surprise, but Sanji kept smirking. "Seems like death these days isn't what it used to be," Sanji joked. Hearing about Juvia, and then Killua, what that Takeshi kid told him about Zoro dying did not seem so crazy anymore.
"It does appear, that death is not the end," Robin added, a small smile on her own face as well.
"You should definitely try to avoid it though," Dash said, his voice sounding very nervous as he said it. The pirates almost laughed for a second as they would obviously try to avoid it, and Dash sounded too worried, but the kid was worried for a different reason and they could tell from the tone of his voice. Ben shivered, and he held his arms as he crossed them in front of his chest. Luffy saw Ben's reaction, and he turned his head around to look at Dash like the rest of them were as the blond boy continued. "Astaroth told us, when we were fighting him," Dash's voice cracked and he brought his hands to the sides of his head with a look of intense fear on his face. "He said, 'I will rot the flesh from your bones and feast on your eyeballs! And once you are dead, I will find you in Hell, and the torture will never stop!'"
Dash shook his head around while grabbing it even tighter. He remembered word-for-word what Astaroth told him, as it was the most terrifying moment of his life. It was replaying in his mind as he retold it to the pirates and his other friends who were all staring in shock at his blue face. "'You think losing here means death? Means it's the end? No. You don't get to die just once, you get to die forever! I'll enjoy killing you in every way you have ever imagined, and thousands of even more terrible ways your mortal minds can not comprehend!'" Dash started panting hard after he finished speaking, then the kid who was staring at the floor beneath his feet whispered, "So let's try really hard not to die. Just because sometimes, people can come back… I don't ever want to see if Astaroth's threats were real."
"You won't ever have to," a deep voice said, and Dash turned to see a tall tan-skinned figure standing right next to him. Even though Riku looked scary, Dash knew who this was who put a hand down and squeezed tightly on his shoulder. "I promise, I won't let him hurt you."
Dash's eyes so full of fear filled with something else, and the kid shut them tight before pressing his head into Riku's side. Usually, Riku would try teasing his younger friends if they looked afraid, but this was more terrified than he had ever seen Dash before. It felt a little awkward, but he put the hand on Dash's shoulder behind his back and held the kid there while he felt his side start to get wet. Riku then looked up and spoke in a low voice, "We're all tired. We don't need to figure out what we're going to do tonight. Let's all just, get some rest."
"Yeah," Ben agreed, standing up near the back of the saddle and walking forward to get to the front. "I'll take us to Pon-Gatso-"
"Already on it," Kirito said, and Ben stopped as he reached the back bench. Everyone looked towards the front and saw Kirito had a set of reins in his hands, and was already guiding the flying bison the direction they wanted to go. "You get some rest," Kirito added, "it sounds like you had a rough day. I'll get us to Pon-Gatso."
Ben opened his mouth to argue but closed it and nodded. "Alright," he accepted, and he fell back down to his butt, finding it hard to stand without any reason to. The floor of the saddle was tough, but Ben sighed and closed his eyes, It's just for a little while. Once we get to Pon-Gatso, I can sleep in a real bed again.
Two Hours Later
The black sky over Aebrith was illuminated not far to the east of the flying bison heading south over the landscape. The passengers on its back stared in silence towards the tree that stood miles high, the tallest tree in the world. The great tree Pon was engulfed in flames. The pirates and Riku did not know what to say as their comrades stared off their ride at the giant tree. The flying bison they were on was moaning, loud, sad moans that echoed through the not-so-dark night. There were gray clouds overhead, but those clouds were flickering red and yellow from the flames all over the tree.
A deafening crack filled the silent night, and one of the thick branches extending over a mile out from the trunk started to fall. The massive flaming branch fell out of the sky, slamming into other branches on its way down and making more of them break off. Flaming shards of wood and falling leaves covered in fire dropped from the tree's canopy, falling through the cloud layer below the treetop like rain. What looked like meteor showers descended from the mighty tree Pon, raining over the Scorched landscape to the north, and scorching even more of it to the south.
Natsu lay on his back, his eyes pointed straight up at the clouds high above. He could hear the crackling of flames tearing through leaves, and he knew what it was he was hearing without sitting up. In his mind he saw Sozin, after the Fire Lord had gathered up all the excess flares from the Supernova and condensed them into a giant fireball that he threw into the south. At the time he knew where the attack was headed, and despite his rage, a part of him had hoped that someone would have been able to stop it. The red sky overhead told him that no one was able to, and his heart ached at the sight of it, and at the sight of the boy lying still on his right side.
Kirito kept his hands on the reins, keeping the flying bison headed south instead of having it turn towards that flaming tree. Maybe they got out in time. Sokka, you were leading evacuations south. Just because, you had faith that we would win, I hope you still made sure everyone was hurrying. How many people, were still inside when the tree went up?
Ben leaned over the side of the saddle. Robin and Sanji looked at the kid's back with dejected ones of their own as they saw how despondent he looked. The flaming bed Ben had wanted to lay on was the farthest thing from his mind as he watched Pon burn. Did they fix up enough vehicles to escape in time? Grif, you lazy idiot, you fixed up those Scarabs right? You got out of there before… Ben clenched his eyes shut, gripping his hands tightly on the railing of the saddle so angrily.
Dash sat on his knees on the center bench, leaning back in horror while Pon-Gatso blazed. Jin, Sun, Ji Yeon, the thought of the nice family who treated him and Ben to a meal right when they arrived made Dash even more depressed. Their home, even if they made it out of there, their home is burning. Please, you have to have made it out of there.
"Rrrggh," a groan broke the silence on the bison's back. Everyone turned and the grim mood of the night seemed to lift a little at the sight of Natsu on his hands and knees, groaning in pain as he struggled up to a foot, then a second so he was standing up. The Dragon Slayer stood on wobbly legs and looked out towards Pon-Gatso with a dark, but serious expression for a few moments. Superboy, Natsu thought, and his bloody hands that had no skin on their knuckles clenched into fists, reopening a few wounds in the process. "Pon-Gatso was the farthest Resistance base in the north," Natsu muttered. "On the east and west are enemies, but straight to the south, we'll be able to find friends."
Natsu looked around the bison he was on, and his fists clenched even tighter at the sight of a few people missing. What happened since I was knocked out? Damn it! I thought, we won.
Two Thousand Miles West of Pyraxas
Night descended over Aebrith quickly, quicker for some than others. For those who fled Pyraxas and went straight to the west, the day took a little longer to end. Two figures on top of a hill near the western coast of Aebrith could still see a small piece of the last sun to set, the smaller of the two yellow suns, just over the horizon. Behind and above them though, the sky was already dark, and getting darker every minute. The girl behind the shorter boy was staring out into the east, the direction they came from, out over plains and hills and mountains to where she hoped she could see a faint glow of a city. Kairi could not see a thing however, nothing but darkness falling over the land.
"Everyone," Kairi whispered, putting her hands together in front of her chest. "Be safe," she said, hoping her words would travel through the sky all the way to her comrades thousands of miles away. Kairi's eyes opened back up, and she turned around with a strong expression on her face. "Noxagh," she began, and the boy facing the opposite way as she just was moved his head which indicated to Kairi that he heard her. He did not turn around, but Kairi said firmly as she walked towards his back, "Look at me."
Noxagh frowned at how austere her attitude sounded. He turned to glare at the girl and try to scare her, but as he turned, he was the one to lean backwards nervously as the girl was right behind him, hands on her hips, glaring down at his face. Kairi was not a tall girl, but she was taller than the boy in front of her who she looked down on like he was being a brat. "What's with that look?" Noxagh snapped, gaining a hold of himself and glaring back at the girl, leaning forward in a pissed-off way so that she would back off.
Kairi straightened up as his face pushed towards hers, but she did not step away. She continued to frown down at his face, and her eyes widened slowly as she noticed something. "You don't, recognize me?" Kairi questioned.
The black haired boy in front of her did not make a move. He stared back at her face in confusion, before thinking about what Xigbar told him back on the roof of the Royal Palace. "Why?" Noxagh asked. "Do you, know me?"
Just like Roxas, Kairi thought, her expression becoming more serious again as she got over her surprise. He doesn't, remember- That's right! Riku said that he fought Roxas once, and when he did… An almost mischievous look spread across Kairi's face, as the corners of her lips curled up and she took a step towards the shorter boy again so the distance between them was only a foot. "It's okay to be shy Gohan," she said, while he leaned back because the teenage girl's chest was getting uncomfortably close to his face. Kairi leaned her head down while Noxagh's eyes opened wide, and she continued in a soft voice, "I always thought it was really cute that you were."
"What are you-" Noxagh began, leaning his head back more and looking up into Kairi's eyes in confusion. As he looked into her eyes, his own opened wider… "Oh no! Gohan what happened? Wow! Another base, but all on your own? I know you can do it, but ask Riku or Sora to come with you next time, then you won't get so beat up-"
"Hey kid, what're you doing?"
Noxagh's eyes snapped open. His breathing was fast and ragged, and he had a few beads of sweat on his face. He grabbed the side of his head with his right hand, and he rubbed it around while muttering under his breath, "Nothing." Noxagh lowered his hand and with both eyes looked up seriously at the one-eyed man in front of him. Xigbar had a hand down on Kairi's left shoulder, squeezing it there tightly as the girl struggled against his touch.
Xigbar looked at the kid's confused face, then back at the girl closer to him, and a smirk spread across the older Nobody's face. "So you figured it out huh? I was hoping this might jog something."
"How did you know?" Noxagh growled.
"Whoa there kid," Xigbar said, holding up a palm to get the shorter boy to calm down as his eyes looked furious for a second. "You were part of the same haul that a lot of others in your generation came from, and a lot of those guys had Somebodies in Pyraxas. Thought they'd probably recognize you." Xigbar chuckled a few times darkly while Noxagh's gaze shifted to the floor. "So did it jog anything? I was really hoping that you'd-"
"Gohan," Noxagh said. Xigbar stopped talking, for once, and he looked down at the boy in surprise as Noxagh started to lift his head. He heard Kairi tell him it a minute ago, but it was only when he heard it in his mind, in what he thought to be a memory, did he believe it to be true. "My name, was Gohan," he said. The boy with short and spiky black hair lifted his gaze and pointed it directly at Kairi who stopped struggling in Xigbar's grip when she saw it. He looked into her eyes and with a straight face said, "But I am not the boy you know. I am not, Gohan. I, am a Nobody. I am Noxagh!" A white aura flared around him, and he narrowed his eyebrows inwards while growling at Kairi, "I am the strongest of the Organization."
"Whoa whoa, let's not get ahead of ourselves," Xigbar interjected, and the wind stopped blowing around the top of the hill as intensely. Noxagh's aura faded a little, while the boy inside it shot Xigbar a glare. "Not warning about myself here, but don't get too big for your britches. You're still Rank LVII, whether or not you can blow up mountains." Noxagh's expression darkened, but his aura faded more as his eyes shadowed over. "Don't get all down on me kid," Xigbar laughed, throwing his hands up at his sides and letting go of Kairi for a moment. "This is your day! I'm sure Xemnas will be very happy that Naminé is getting her Somebody to merge with. Two in one week!" Xigbar finished loudly and laughed some more.
Xigbar walked away from Kairi, as there really was nowhere for her to go while they were alone up there, and he walked past Noxagh to the edge of the hill on the west. He lowered his hands so they were down at his sides, and he chuckled again before continuing, "Axel and Lea merging, and capturing Kairi. Heh, makes up for Vexen, and Zexion's failures."
Noxagh turned his head and stared at Xigbar's back with a narrowed gaze. Did he forget to mention Saix, or was that intentional?
"Xigbar," Kairi started, sounding mad from where she stood behind both of the Nobodies. Kairi stepped forward and lifted her hands, creating a Keyblade to point at her enemies. Noxagh looked over his shoulder and back at the pink weapon the girl was holding, his eyes narrowing as he felt a strange power coming from it. "Why did you kidnap me?" Kairi questioned, frowning deeply while she held her Keyblade in a protective stance in front of her body.
Xigbar kept facing west off the hill, but he turned towards Noxagh and nodded his head in Kairi's direction. Kairi looked confused for a second, before Noxagh vanished and her eyes opened wide. She started to turn, but a hand grabbed her by the right wrist first and twisted her whole arm behind her back. Kairi yelped in pain and dropped her Keyblade, while Noxagh reached around and grabbed her other wrist, pulling it behind her as well so he could hold both of her wrists with only one hand.
"Nice," Xigbar said, looking over his shoulder in amusement as Noxagh subdued Kairi. She struggled in his grasp but walked forward when the boy behind her did as he gave her small pushes that felt so rough to her. "Welcome," Xigbar said, while Kairi was pushed up on his right side. A look of pain spread across Kairi's face, but it slowly vanished as the girl saw over the hill at what Xigbar was already staring at. The one-eyed Nobody threw his arms out to the sides and laughed, "To Twilight Town!"
The coast town illuminated by the sun just peeking over the flat horizon line far over the ocean looked, familiar to the auburn-haired girl who found herself staring at the place so closely. Kairi gasped as she looked around though, and her eyes grew huge and started lifting up over the top of the bell tower in the middle of the town. Xigbar chuckled darkly on her left side as Kairi's gaze rose higher and higher. "That's right," Xigbar said in a smug voice. "That's, the Organization's true Headquarters."
Capital
Inside a dimly illuminated room at the top of the Command Quarter of the Capital, a figure standing in the center of the room had just received news from a few figures behind him. "Leave me," Meruem said. The Royal Guards at the door to his room bowed their heads and left without a word. The Ant King rose an arm in front of him and a screen appeared in thin air. He stared at the screen, and images popped up on it that made the corners of the Chimera Ant's lips curl up a small amount.
Them, he thought. The news about Pyraxas interested him, though he was not all that surprised. Even though Magneto's death spelled the end of a rebellion for some in the Fire Nation, Meruem believed that the seeds of revolution had been planted and Sozin would lose his kingdom before long. What surprised him though, was that it was not any of Sozin's Lords, nor his family who caused his downfall. He remembered the people from the pictures on the screen. Meruem recalled meeting them on Ha'gar's Peak, every one of the people he was seeing images of now.
Two images split the screen in front of the Ant King. On the left side he had a freeze-frame of surveillance footage from the Central Station of Pyraxas. On the right of the screen showed similar footage only of the southern entrance to Pyraxas where a different group as the one on the train platform stood. Every one of them was on Ha'gar's Peak, but here they seem to have been separated. Did they plan to enter the city at the same time? They must have, except, the two groups were not together for the week prior to this.
Meruem moved around a few more images on his screen. Straw Hat Luffy took down Saix at the Dread Fort, but this boy Ben Tennyson defeated Yunju and many other Chimera Ants a thousand miles away. The Ant King hummed to himself, And this boy, Killua, a child from my own world. How mysterious that I would face his comrade so soon after we met again.
Meruem moved around another image on the screen and zoomed in on that one. Gray, he thought. He bowed and called me King when his friends did not. They did not know though, I could sense that only he knew who I was. Not that I needed to. Meruem frowned as he continued to stare at that young man, one he had met long before Ha'gar's Peak. He knows Zoro, and Quon, all of these people, and in all likeliness, he knows Son Goku as well.
As Meruem continued to examine the screen in front of him, he lost his grin and started to frown. Where has Son Goku gone? I had hoped to meet him again, yet instead I meet others who were traveling with him, I meet Krillin. It makes me think that soon I will face him again. His gaze shifted back to Ben, and he looked at the boy who fixed time with an interested expression, but not too interested as his thoughts stayed mainly focused on Goku. His gaze finally stopped moving as a picture of a pink haired man, and a very large bounty beneath his name, appeared on the screen. The one being credited with killing Sozin. Natsu Dragneel… Meruem's eyes opened wider, and he let out a single chuckle under his breath. This group. How did they begin traveling together? What is their story?
Meruem turned from the glowing screen and it vanished into thin air as he walked away. They are new players. Not necessarily Resistance, but not entirely pirates. They did not seem strong enough to take down the Fire Nation, but just sixteen of them were able to do it. He hummed to himself, Where did the seventeenth go? Meruem paused, and he frowned deeper while thinking, This group will play a large role in the end of this world. His frown almost lifted up, but those thoughts that usually excited him only kept him frowning this time. How long will it take for that day to arrive? Things have been slow in the Capital. Slow, and predictable. In the south, the gears of fate of already started to turn quickly. There is still so much to prepare, but I wonder…
Is it time?
A/N Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed the final part of Chapter 10 of Pyraxas! I have six parts in the next chapter already written, but not the very first part, so it will be a little while then rapid fire updates for a week or so. Anyway, this chapter a whole lot happened: Sozin faced his demise as Natsu swallows the Supernova... and hears Igneel shout at him to expel it all. Zoro shows up in Pyraxas just in time to save his old captain from Ulquiorra, the Fourth Espada, who kills Black Canary, Foley, and Dunn just seconds after his introduction. Kirito uses the water he saved from the Lazarus Pit to bring Killua back, and most of the groups' members escape Pyraxas's increasingly chaotic situation on the back of a flying bison. Zabuza heads off the Germa army, Kairi is taken to the Organization's HQ, and Meruem gets interested about the group's actions. What is it time for? What is Meruem planning? Who will take over Pyraxas? Will our heroes make it to the Resistance in the south? Find out the answers to these questions next chapter on Nexus: Heroes Will Rise!
joebob323 chapter 66 . Oct 17
Sooooo much internal strife! Soooo much character death! NOOOOOOOOO! Plz tell me this is just a bad day, and that Timmy and Killua (and maybe Kairi) aren't dead.
Well, Killua's alive at least, (and Kairi's not dead, though things aren't looking very good for her). Definitely more of a bad day than a good one for our heroes, but they made it through, as they always do! Thanks for the review!
Darugus chapter 66 . Oct 17
Well killua is dead kinda of sad and timmy may be dead or unable to come to the heroes aid and kairi is kidnapped doesn't really look that good for the heroes hopefully luffy can atleast take done sozzin
Bam! Killua's alive! You said in your PM that you weren't surprised he died, but were you that he came back? Luffy's Gear Fourth runs out against Sozin, but Natsu eating the Supernova powers him up enough to take the Fire Lord out for good. Thanks for the review!
Guest chapter 65 . Oct 17
WOW THE BEST LONGEST AND BEST CHAPTER EVER! the lazarus pit took effect on juvia, and I just like asking a lot of reviews, I just discovered that I can post reviews without signing in fanfiction 3 months ago, there was a lot of questions I wanted to ask.
me again and wow noxagh is gohan's nobody, I should of know that gohan has a nobody when he turned to a heartless, and now he has kairi, ansem has control of riku's body, and ansem saying that timmy is dead(which is really kidnapped by some figure) and the fire lord has come to full power, I cant wait to see what happens next.
Thanks! Glad you liked the chapter so much! Juvia's getting darker and angrier, but at least Riku got his body back. Noxagh takes Kairi back, and I'm glad you remembered Timmy is only kidnapped, (though there's no way for his friends to know that). Hope you enjoyed the ending to the chapter, and thanks for the reviews!
Espada-001 chapter 66 . Oct 22
Well I'm a bit late to the reply again. I'm definitely sad to see Killua fall, and by his own attack to. Although to be honest I knew somebody was about to take the rebound the moment Killua used a lightning blast against Sozin. That's dgoing leave one pissed off Luffy, especially since Sozin just broke Luffy's vow. I do have to say though that I can seen Sozin as being able to use conqueror's haki. Also I don't understand why Natsu didn't just start devouring the miniature Nova. If anything he should be able to devour it faster than Sozin can draw energy from it. And as for the massive ball of fire he threw I'm pretty sure that he threw it at that giant tree where the rebels were since their in the south, but I could also be wrong. (hopefully) And Riku definitely messed up with allowing Ansem to take control like he did. And something's come up in your story that's setting off red lights in my head. Why was Astaroth so confident that the "good guy's" souls were going to end up in hell when they died? Is he implying that hell has control over the gates of judgment on Nexus!? Also you seem to be leaving hints that Ben has already tampered with time without realizing it or at least he doesn't remember using it. I also found it sad that Lu wasn't really following in his fathers foot steps to make the fire nation a good place. I know this topic is a little to the side but I was looking into information on Kingdom Hearts and I came across an entry that said that Sora discovered that Nobodies are able to grow their own hearts. And since Roxas was fused with him at the time shouldn't he also have been aware of this and told the other Nobodies? On a side note Nami isn't actually bad about distributing money its just that she's on a crew where usually only Robin could be trusted with actually using their money responsibly. The only exceptions are when Sanji is getting food supplies and Franky getting building supplies with Usopp. Well I'm sure I'm forgetting something again but as of right now this is all I can think of at the moment. So until next time have a good day and I look forward to the next chapter!
Thank you for the long review! Luffy's vow not to lose a comrade in the city really got to him at the end of this chapter as he thought about all the times he let down the people close to him when he was right there. At least Killua comes back with some magic-revivey-water! Nice call with Natsu eating the Supernova, though even he couldn't handle devouring a sun and had to expel it in a giant roar. Another nice call with the fireball heading towards Pon-Gatso. Astaroth's threat is still messing with Ben and Dash's minds as you could see at the end of this chapter, even if they still don't know whether or not the threat is real. Originally I had Lu Ten being a good guy, but as I thought about it more, I realized that he was killed during a Fire Nation campaign to conquer the world, and unlike Iroh he did not have a huge change of heart after it (since he was dead), so I decided to make him another power-hungry member of the Fire Nation's royal family. As for the Kingdom Hearts thing, Sora already showed that he thought Roxas had his own heart when he chased him down after Roxas's first appearance, but then we heard that their hearts were not complete without their Somebodies'. So, even if the Nobodies that don't have hearts, or don't think they had hearts, realized that they did, they still would not be whole without their Somebodies... it's as complicated in this as it is in KH2, but even if Roxas did want to tell other Nobodies, he probably wouldn't be allowed or Naminé would get it. I don't think Nami's very good with giving money out to anyone, but even if she is just used to being on a crew where the other members can't handle money responsibly, she's gotta learn that some people aren't okay with letting things go on the way they used to, or they might let out all their pent up aggression in a burst of anger (cough Kirito cough). XD Thanks again for the review, and thanks to everyone who read this story and keeps supporting it! Well, 'till next time!