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Kingdom Hearts: Dark Dawn	By : RotSeele Category: Kingdom Hearts > AU - Alternate Universe Views: 3168 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Kingdom Hearts. I do not make any money from this story.

Chapter List
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Twenty-Six - Lumina Cross

They entered into a long outdoor hall guarded on either side by trees that looked black in the darkness. Their branches formed a living dome across the walkway, and low-hanging vines gave the path an eerie feel. Kaoru looked around and shivered, unsure why he was getting such an unpleasant feeling from this place. Rinally called her witch’s staff to hand and clutched it tight, as if holding onto the weapon gave her some comfort. Kaoru wanted to call Guardian, but he wasn’t sure if the Keyblade would act as a clarion call to any Heartless nearby, or worse, any of Secundus’s goons. Kai said nothing, leading them through the shadows as quietly as if he was one himself. They kept up with him, just a step behind, pausing when he paused and hardly daring to breathe when Kai stopped short and stood as still as a statue, his head cocked to one side, just listening.
Then Kaoru heard it, the soft hiss of a fuse. It was barely more than a whisper, so he knew it was somewhere close by, but not so close that it would affect them. Then, the darkness exploded with bright, searing light. He threw up his arms to shield his eyes from the light, and he heard Rinally cry out in shock. Kai, too, twisted to shield his eyes from the bright explosion, snarling the entire time. When the light finally faded, Kaoru looked up to see smoke drifting from somewhere ahead of them, a huge dark plume that had red and gold highlights even in the darkness.
“That bastard,” Kai growled. “I’m not letting him take this from me!”
“Kai, wait!” Kaoru called, reaching for the red-head. He caught Kai’s shoulder and stopped him from bolting. “Wait. You can’t go. You can’t. Remember, you told Ioshua you’d stay with us.”
Kai’s green eyes flickered with gold and black. His teeth bared in a wicked smile that was just on the cusp of feral. “I know what I told him. I also remember telling you that nothing was going to stop me. I’ll go through you if I have to, Kaoru. I won’t let anyone stop me.”
Kaoru held tighter and narrowed his eyes. “Ioshua doesn’t want you getting involved. Can’t you see that he’s trying to protect you?”
“I don’t need protecting!”
“Kai, Secundus tried to kill you! He didn’t do it because you were part of the rebellion or because you defied him in some way, but because he was scared of you! Do you know why?”
Kai’s eyes solidified into pure gold and black began to fill in the whites of his eyes. “I know.” he replied with deadly calm. “And if you don’t let go of me, I’ll show you exactly why.”
Rinally’s hand settled gently on Kaoru’s arm. He looked at her, seeing worry in her eyes. She subtlety shook her head, then gripped Kaoru’s arm tighter. Reluctantly, he allowed her to pull his hand off Kai, freeing the redhead to do as he pleased. Kai’s gaze flicked to Rinally, though there didn’t seem to be any sign of thanks in his eyes, only satisfaction. Then he looked at Kaoru, his changed eyes filled with so much anger and hate that Kaoru knew, if looks could kill, he would be dead right then.
“Kai,” Kaoru started.
“Don’t.” Kai snapped. “Don’t get involved. I don’t care what you’re really here for, don’t get between me and my enemy. I meant it when I said I’d go through you.”
Then he turned on his heel and ran off into the darkness, following the flickering light of flames. Kaoru stared after him, feeling upset and scared and nervous. But he also knew he couldn’t let Kai fight Secundus. He couldn’t let Kai get himself killed. He looked at Rinally.
“Why did I stop you?” Rinally shrugged and sighed. “Because now isn’t the time to butt heads with him. You’re going to need all your strength to stop him, and getting into a fight now would do nothing to help Ioshua. Besides, Kai really did want to kill you.”
“I know.” Kaoru replied softly. “He’s consumed with darkness. You saw his eyes.”
“I did.”
“Those were Heartless eyes.”
“They were.”
“But he still has his heart.”
“Yep.”
“Which means he hasn’t completely fallen into depravity yet.”
“Nope.”
“Which means I still have time to stop him.”
“It means we still have time to stop him.” Rinally corrected. “Remember, I’m your pocket healer. And I have some pretty badass -ga spells that I can toss his way if I need to.”
Kaoru gave her a grateful smile. He held up his hand, focusing a bit of his will. Guardian materialized in his hand in a flash of light. His arm and shoulder became incased in his white and gold armor, and the pauldron began to sparkle with the prismatic light that seemed to be caught within the metal. The light seemed brighter for all the darkness surrounding them. He lifted Guardian, studying the white-gold Keyblade before sweeping it down to his side.
“Ready?” he asked.
Rinally lifted her staff and twirled it once before she swept it down and behind her. She grinned. “Let’s go.”
They took off running down the path, ignoring the trees flashing by. They followed the tunnel of trees to the end, where they found the source of the smoke. It looked as if Ioshua’s men had set charges into the wall of the Residence, opening an almost perfect square in the stone. Debris had crumbled into a barricade, which would have forced anyone trying to get in to crawl over it. Kaoru leaped over it effortlessly, aided by the power of his Keyblade. Rinally simply used an Aero spell to launch herself over the debris, landing beside him with a flurry of air. They were in a huge reception room, decorated tastefully in marble both white and black. Electric lights flickered, a side-effect of the violence wrought upon the outside wall. There was no one in the room, but there were reddish smears on the floor, which proved someone had been there, and recently.
“It’s still wet, right?” Kaoru asked.
“I guess? I’m not touching it.” Rinally replied. She looked around the room. “Doesn’t look like this space gets used a lot. There’s dust covers on the furniture over there, and look at the floor. You can see where people stepped.”
Kaoru inspected the floor ahead of them. True enough, there were a flurry of footprints leading away from the wall, along with more blood smears on the floor. “Someone was wounded.” He started to follow the footprints and smears, quickly picking out which marks belonged to Kai. “Kai came this way, too.”
“He’s gotta be seconds behind Ioshua and the others.”
“Enough of a head-start from us to cause significant damage.”
“Yeah. And he’ll sense you coming.”
“Maybe it’ll make him hesitate.”
“Not bloody likely. But I like your confidence.”
“Rin.”
“Yeah?”
“Shut up.”
She gave him an impish grin before following after him and leaving the room. They entered a long hall with several sets of staircases leading to the second floor. This part of the Residence looked far more used than the reception room they had just left. There was more wear on the floor, and the carpets along the main hall and stairs looked as if they had seen years of feet going up and down them. Before they had gone a dozen paces, the first of their many future fights began.
The masked man burst out of a room on their left, charging at them with all the speed and fury of an avalanche. Kaoru recognized him as one of Secundus’s four guards. The man still wore his full armor suit, and his claymore, but there was a fury in his eyes that hadn’t been there when Kaoru had first seen him, nor was the fury that of a normal human. Kaoru jumped out of the way, falling into a roll and coming back to his feet. Immediately, the man in the armor changed direction with far more fluid grace than he should’ve possessed. He completely ignored Rinally, who stood close enough to him that his wake actually knocked her back a few steps. The guard swung his claymore at Kaoru with terrifying speed, forcing Kaoru to jump back or be cut in half. There was no way that he could block that weapon without taking significant damage, and he didn’t have the time to deal with even shallow wounds.
Not if he wanted to have a fighting chance against Kai.
He reversed his grip on Guardian and threw it from his side, putting as much power behind the move as he could. The Keyblade rotated twice before it impacted the guard’s head, snapping it back and flipping the man heels over head. He slammed into the floor, cracking the marble with his weight. Kaoru caught Guardian as it came back to his hand, then charged at the fallen guard. As the man was shoving himself upright, Kaoru leaped, tucked his feet up as high beneath himself as he could, and swung Guardian. It spun him in a quick circle, allowing him two successive hits to the guard’s helmet before he landed on his heels upon the guard’s chest, driving him back down to the floor as well as driving all the breath out of him.
“Kaoru!” Rin cried. “Get out of there!”
He barely flicked her a glance as he obeyed, leaping away just as the claymore came up with startling speed. It would have shorn him in half if he hadn’t gotten out of there as soon as Rin shouted, and instead, it crashed into the floor, breaking even more of the marble. Shards flew toward Kaoru’s face, but his Holy Shield materialized around him with a flick of thought, shimmering gold where the shards struck.
Then lightning, bright and golden, struck down from nowhere. Rinally cast two more Thundara spells, followed quickly by a Firaga. The spells struck the guard square in his torso, driving him back down into the floor each time he tried to get up. As soon as the last flames extinguished, Kaoru moved. Even as the guard, battered and burned and obviously wounded to the point he shouldn’t even be moving let alone standing, got to his feet, Kaoru fell into a blur of motion. Guardian struck, a thunderclap echoing each time the Keyblade hit the metal of the guard’s armor. Cracks appeared as Kaoru added the power of light to his strikes, driving the guard backwards without giving him a chance to recover or counterattack. Guardian crashed into the guard’s chest, thighs, shoulders, and even his head once or twice, a flurry of moves that Kaoru didn’t remember ever learning. Yet his body moved on its own, and he could almost see what his enemy’s next move would be, which allowed him to be one step ahead and avoid being injured himself.
Rin helped where she could, creating ice slicks on the floor that upset the guard’s balance, and allowed Kaoru to get even more strikes in. Once, her lightning infused itself upon Guardian, giving the Keyblade a crackling wreath that seared the guard’s breaking armor. Another time, her fire limned Guardian in orange and yellow light, and Kaoru used that extra power to add strength to his attacks, shattering even more armor.
Then the claymore came howling in, forcing Kaoru to disengage and leap back out of its range. The guard stood panting, the claymore used more like a crutch now than a weapon. He leaned against it, glaring hate at Kaoru. Kaoru readied Guardian, using the spare time to try and catch his breath. He hadn’t been significantly wounded, but he was winded and tired, and he knew that if this fight was prolonged any more, he wouldn’t have enough strength left to face Kai and survive it. The guard took a step forward, yanking his claymore out of the floor. Then he took another step.
Kaoru gripped Guardian tight and lifted his arm. He brought it down as hard as he could, releasing Guardian as he did so. Instead of standing there and waiting for the Keyblade to come back to him, he chased it. He ducked under the claymore’s swing and got within inches of the guard’s chest. His armored hand glittered with prismatic light as he drove it into the man’s face. With his other hand, he caught Guardian just after it impacted, and as the guard crumpled, he gripped Guardian with both hands and raised the Keyblade so that the blade itself was pointing downwards. The darkness in the guard’s eyes swirled with angry purple light as he glared up at Kaoru, but the young Keyblade wielder was too fast. He drove Guardian down into the man’s exposed chest and twisted.
He heard Rin’s gasp, but focused on the task before him. He yanked Guardian to the left, then to the right, and twisted the weapon again before ripping it out of the guard’s chest. Black ichor sprayed into the air, tiny motes that quickly disappeared almost as fast as they sprayed out. The guard’s body crumpled in on itself, and then the armor clattered noisily to the floor, empty.
“Holy crap, Kaoru.” Rin breathed as she joined him beside the empty armor. “What the hell did you do?”
“When I saw the guard’s eyes, I realized that he was made of nothing but darkness.” Kaoru explained. He lifted Guardian, watching as the purple/black substance of the guard’s innards slowly smoked as the Keyblade’s power forced it to dissipate. “That was how he was so strong. And how he shook off so much damage.”
“And why he focused on you.” Rin surmised.
“Yeah.”
They stared at the empty armor for a minute, then looked at each other. “You know,” Rinally started, “for someone so terrified by darkness, Secundus has three more of these guys acting as his bodyguards.”
Kaoru pressed his lips together until they were in a flat line. He inhaled deeply, then let the breath out slowly. “It doesn’t make any sense.”
“No,” Rinally agreed, “it doesn’t.” She crouched, using her staff to poke at the armor and shift it around. “It doesn’t look like this was even a human body once. It was animated darkness.”
“Is that even possible?”
“It’s what the Heartless are. But they have hearts to power them, and your Keyblade releases those hearts. I didn’t see a heart appear when you killed this guy. My guess? Magic. And some pretty dark magic at that.”
“You think Secundus has access to that kind of stuff?”
“Probably. I mean, think about it. He was able to stage a coup ten years ago, and has since remained in power because he’s pretty untouchable. Ioshua’s people haven’t been able to get at him, except by doing their whole vigilante hero, steal from the rich and give to the poor thing. And, what’s more,” Rin raised a finger as if to accentuate her point, “he’s pissing his pants scared of Kai, and he tried to have you killed when he first laid eyes on you. Kai recognized what you were because he’s just as sensitive to darkness as you are to light. I don’t doubt Secundus has that same sixth sense too, or some variety of it, especially if he’s been dicking around making things like this.” She rose, kicking the helmet as she did so.
Kaoru frowned. “So he disagrees with the last Princeps, but doesn’t have the power to go against him. He has to get power somehow. Darkness is a pretty tempting power, and once it has roots in your heart, it doesn’t let go all that easily. So he figured out a way to harness the darkness and created these things, but in doing so, was almost consumed himself. That’s why he’s sensitive. Why he’s terrified of Kai, and of me.”
“That’d be my guess.”
“But he only created four.”
“Which means that was all he could make, or he got scared. Either way, he’s pretty much got Ioshua outnumbered, ‘specially if he’s a competent magic user. I figure magic isn’t a rare occurrence here on Lumina Cross - those kids didn’t bat an eye when I healed that old dude - but very few people can use it. Ioshua can, from what I understand, and so can a few other people in his group. But that’s it.”
“Which means Ioshua and Secundus could be on the same level.”
“Could be.”
“But then there’s Kai.”
Rin sighed loudly. “Yeah, there’s Kai.”
Kaoru looked up toward the next floor’s halls, studying what he could see. “If Ioshua and Secundus are on the same level, they’re not gonna be able to beat each other. Secundus definitely knows that. Which means those last three goons are going to be gunning for Ioshua and his people.”
“Which means Kai’s gonna beat him, and us, to the punch.” Rin reasoned.
“Yeah.”
“You think you can find him in this place?”
Kaoru closed his eyes. He focused all of his energy into concentrating on finding Kai in the giant building. He didn’t think it would be hard; as sensitive as he was to darkness, Kai would stand out like a great dane in a room of kittens. He quieted his feelings and anxieties as best he could and focused on the resonance of darkness in response to his questing light. He felt it a moment later as a light flicker of annoyance against his mind. Slowly, Kaoru repositioned himself until the feeling was at its strongest, then opened his eyes and found himself pointed toward the northwest. Then the whole building rumbled, as if affected by thunder. Kaoru shuddered as he felt the whisper of darkness against his mind, and his hand tightened around Guardian’s hilt.
“Found him?” Rinally asked.
Kaoru nodded. “You ready?”
“I guess so. It’s not like we can get out of this place without doing what we’re supposed to.”
Kaoru smiled wanly at her, then started for the nearby staircase. He broke into a light jog with Rin right behind him. They headed up the stairs, then turned northwest, and took a nearby hallway. As they ran, they could hear more explosions taking place throughout the Residence, one or two happening so close that the entire building shook and nearly threw them to their knees. Kaoru slammed Guardian’s point into the floor and held onto it to keep his balance, ducking his head in the crux of his arms and squeezing his eyes shut against the sudden flash of nausea that made his stomach want to rebel against him. When it passed, Kaoru raised his head and focused down the hall, still able to feel Kai, though it was muted.
“We have to hurry.” he said to Rinally.
They took off running down the hall, as fast as their feet could carry them. They flashed past closed doors, huge bay windows that looked out over inner courtyards and the night-covered dome across the city. The building shook with the reports of explosions, and once, they were forced to drop to the ground and cover their heads as the entire opposite side of the Residence blew apart, sending debris raining down against the windows, which then shattered and showered Rin and Kaoru with shards of glass. When Kaoru raised his head to look upon the damage wrought, he was shocked to see that the opposite hallway to theirs was simply gone. The whole hall was bared to the open, a tumbled mess of rocks, metal, and glass.
“The hell was that?” Rin asked, picking herself up. Her head turned and her face paled when she saw the destruction opposite them. “What did that?”
Kaoru pushed himself upright and then to his feet. “I don’t know. Maybe it was Ioshua’s people. It doesn’t feel like Kai.”
“Or maybe it’s Secundus, trying to cut off routes of escape or entry.”
“Maybe.”
Rin studied Kaoru’s face, trying to read his expression and figure out what he was thinking. He looked almost pensive, worried about something she couldn’t figure out. There was something he could sense that she couldn’t, and she was positive it wasn’t Kai, or any sort of darkness. She wanted to ask, but refrained from doing so. She was afraid if she spoke something aloud, then it would definitely come true. Kaoru turned slightly to look at her, offering her a little smile and his hand. She smiled back and took it, feeling as though everything would turn out just fine if she stayed by his side.
They hurried through the hall, turning left and taking a set of stairs upward. The staircase wound three times before depositing them in a short hall that had two doors on the left and two doors on the right, and a great set of doors at the end of the hall. Those two doors were decorated with intricate carvings and gold leaf, and hung open as if they had been ripped off their hinges by a great force. Kaoru gripped Guardian tighter and started down the hall to the broken doors. Rinally was right behind him.
They stopped in the threshold and stared at the scene before them.
Kai crouched in the center of the room, black tendrils curling around his body as if they were living weapons. Kaoru couldn’t see his face, but he was certain that the redhead’s eyes were black and gold, just like a Heartless’s were. At the head of the room stood Secundus with two of his constructs. They looked worse for the wear, with dented armor and scorch marks. The third construct lay in a heap of metal closer to Kaoru and Rinally, crushed into a pile of scrap by power Kaoru couldn’t even begin to imagine. He shivered as he realized that the darkness that animated the armor was still in there, but unable to act because of the way it had been pulverized. There was another door on the left wall, and this one had been blasted open as well. But the doors seemed to have been torn open by a blast rather than any power, and the cause of that blast seemed to be Ioshua, who stood back in the hall with a hand over his face. Beside him crouched two other people, their faces also covered to keep from being struck by debris. When they lowered their hands, they rose from their crouches, took their weapons to hand and started into the room.
Secundus saw them at the same time Kai did. Before Kai could do anything to stop them from entering the room, Secundus lifted a hand and the construct on the right suddenly lunged forward. It was fast, far too fast for Kai to intercept, and the two people - one being the woman that had been with Ioshua before - suddenly found themselves in retreat. It was too late, though. The construct slammed into the both of them in a clothesline action, sending them careening back into the hall, where they struck the opposite wall. They slid to the ground and were still. Ioshua let out a bellow of tremendous rage, raised his hand, and Kaoru saw Rin shiver as spears of ice about as long as Kaoru’s arm and three times as thick formed in the air around Ioshua’s outstretched arm. Those spears launched toward the construct, striking the monster in the abdomen, chest, and shoulder.
Kaoru was pretty sure Ioshua had been aiming for the construct’s head.
He looked at Rin. “Go help them.”
She looked at him as if he was crazy. “Fine, but don’t go doing anything stupid.”
Kaoru grinned at her, earning a glare in response. They rushed into the room together, though about two steps in, Rinally changed direction to rush toward Ioshua, who seemed shocked to see the both of them there. He said something to Rin that Kaoru couldn’t hear, then turned with her to tend to his fallen comrades. Kaoru slid to a stop beside Kai, Guardian held in a two-handed grip.
“I told you to stay away.” Kai growled. He struggled to his feet, the darkness swirling around him in tiny tendrils that shied away from Kaoru if they got close.
“Did you really think I’d listen to you?” Kaoru responded. Kai only growled, but apparently decided Kaoru wasn’t worth dealing with at the moment. He focused on Secundus, the tendrils of darkness around him stilling as their master put all of his attention on his target.
Kaoru settled his stance, gripping Guardian tighter. He wouldn’t allow Kai to kill Secundus, but neither could he allow Secundus to kill Kai or anyone else. Behind him, he heard Rinally talking in soft tones to someone, though whether that someone was Ioshua or one of her patients, he didn’t know. He didn’t dare look, for fear that Secundus might choose that moment to attack, or that Kai might surprise him and knock him out of the fight before he even had a chance to start.
Secundus focused on Kaoru’s Keyblade first, then the boy himself. His lips twisted cruelly and displayed straight, too-white teeth. “I thought so. I knew when I first laid eyes upon you, boy. The only person who could break through the barrier around this world would be a Keyblade Master.”
“I’m not a master.” Kaoru responded. “I was sent here because this world needed me.”
Secundus’s eyes narrowed. “Needed you? HA! What this world needs is structure! Order! I’ve provided that! I made those who couldn’t obey the laws obey them! They work so that they cannot cause trouble! Their strength provides those who do obey the laws a life of luxury!”
“That’s not a world anyone needs!” Kaoru shot back. “You’re killing people!”
“That’s life. People die all the time. What do you think you can do, brat? Save their lives if you take me down?”
“That’s exactly what I think will happen. At least they can live and die on their own terms rather than yours.”
Secundus barked out a laugh, cold and cruel. “You really believe that? There’s always someone who is working their fingers to the bone for the benefit of someone else. At least this way, there’s a clear line dividing the two.”
“They follow you because you terrify them, Secundus.” boomed Ioshua’s voice. He stood over the corpse of the construct, a faint blue glow around his left arm, which now danced with tiny runes. “You don’t belong on the throne of Lumina Cross. You aren’t a leader.”
Secundus’s lips twisted even more. “I am a leader! I’m more of a leader than your father ever was! I saved this world from him! He wanted to open it to everyone, to let in hundreds of people who would bring down everything I strived to create!”
“My father wanted to make a prosperous world, which welcomed all! He wanted to open Lumina Cross to allow the expansion of our resources, to allow people to learn that there were other worlds out there than ours, to learn that there was no need to fear the darkness! That they could move beyond the dome that protects our city from the sun out there, that they could find other places where they might belong! You destroyed all that the night you killed him, my mother, and everyone else!”
Kaoru shivered and lowered Guardian just a fraction. He glanced at Kai; even he looked shocked by Ioshua’s words, his gold eyes wide as he regarded the older man. They turned back to Secundus as the man began to laugh, a bitter, high-pitched cackle that meant he was too far gone to see reason. Perhaps he had never been able to see reason in the first place, Kaoru surmised, considering his past actions. Secundus never said another word after his laughter died; he only looked at Ioshua and grinned.
The last construct launched past Kaoru and Kai so fast that neither really realized it had moved until it was past. At the same time, Secundus lifted a hand, and a tendril of pure inky black, about as thick around as a lamp-post, slithered out of his coat sleeve to wrap around his wrist, then his hand, and take the shape of a whip. He snapped it, sending the tip shooting for Kai.
Kaoru was there instantly, swinging Guardian hard enough to knock the whip out of the air and pin it to the ground. He didn’t hesitate, pushing off before Secundus could recover and charging the man. Secundus let out a shriek and swung his right hand toward Kaoru’s face, forcing him to use Guardian to keep the slender, silver blade Secundus wielded from cutting his throat. They struggled against each other for a minute, and Kaoru was finally pushed back. He landed in a crouch, Guardian sparking on the floor as he skidded backwards. Kai launched forward then, the tendrils surrounding him acting like a shield against that flailing whip. He had no other weapon in hand except for those tendrils, but it didn’t seem to matter. Secundus was forced into retreating as Kai’s tendrils whipped at him. Then that silver sword came across between them, and Kai jumped back as that blade cut through several of the tendrils of darkness that then fell to the ground, writhing, before they broke into tiny motes before disappearing.
“You can’t hurt me, boy!” Secundus screamed at Kai. “I know what you are! You’re a monster! A demon born of nothing but darkness! You are everything I’m trying to save this world from!”
Kai let out an inhuman snarl. “You killed my parents! You forced them to work in the mines so that you could have power! I never saw them again once they went down there! You made me this way!”
He attacked Secundus then, faster than before. He nearly seemed to blink in and out of existence, attacking from every angle he could. Despite Kai’s attempts, Secundus seemed to be able to defend himself each and every time. Kaoru couldn’t see an opportunity to help Kai without getting in the way. He knew that Kai wouldn’t hesitate to kill him if he did, and he couldn’t allow Kai’s attention to be divided. Secundus would kill them both if he did that. Kaoru looked toward Ioshua, where he struggled against the construct. Then a Firaga spell launched into the construct, knocking it away from Ioshua and allowing him to recover.
Rinally sprinted across the hall, spinning away from an attack by the construct with a dancer’s grace, and joining Ioshua, where she quickly healed the bleeding wound in his side. She looked at Kaoru, nodded, and readied her staff as the construct righted itself, turned, and attacked again.
Trust her. She knows what she’s doing. You have to help Kai. Kaoru nodded back at her, then turned and found Kai struggling against Secundus’s sword, which threatened to break through the tendrils of darkness that had solidified into a shield to protect his neck and torso.
Guardian whistled through the air, rotating twice before hitting Secundus and sending him flying away from Kai. Kaoru caught the Keyblade as it returned to his hand, already charging forward. He leaped over the whip as it cracked at his feet, and struck for Secundus’s side. The man snarled and got his sword in between them to block Guardian, but the attack took his attention away from Kai for a minute. That allowed the redhead to recover, and then he immediately launched into an attack.
Kaoru winced against the strength of the darkness beside him, feeling it as an intense heat against his skin. The prismatic light in his armor seemed to dim each time Kai got close to him, and the silver and gold it was made of seemed to tarnish the longer it was exposed to Kai’s darkness. Despite that, Kaoru continued to fight along side him, firmly believing that he needed to be there, needed to be right beside Kai no matter what, to both help and protect him from both himself and from Secundus.
Secundus was fast - thought not as fast as Kai - and he was strong. Kaoru was forced to fight on the defensive while Kai took offense, but even though it was two on one, Secundus still somehow managed to defend himself from both Kai’s powers of darkness and Kaoru’s Keyblade. Between his own ability with darkness and that silver sword, he seemed a perfect counterbalance to Kai and Kaoru. For every step Kaoru and Kai seemingly gained, Secundus never seemed to notice, his teeth bared in a feral smile. They weren’t able to break his defense, weren’t able to wound him, and Kaoru couldn’t get around Kai to try and separate him and Secundus. He knew he needed to - Kai was using too much of his strength and would be useless later on in the fight if allowed to continue on like this - but he couldn’t find an opportunity. He was getting tired too; his arms ached from deflecting blows and trying to create openings in Secundus’s defense.
A glance at Ioshua and Rinally told him that they were doing as well as they could be doing against the construct. Rinally’s spells of healing kept Ioshua from suffering any serious wounds, and Ioshua’s magic seemed to actually be doing more damage to the construct than it was doing to him. He had ripped the armor off of one of the construct’s arms, leaving a gaping wound in the darkness that made up the monster’s body. The construct lurched at him, raising its massive claymore for an attack that would cut the man in two. Ioshua lifted his arm, the air scintillating with prismatic colors as he summoned forth a blade of pure crystal. He flashed the blade - snicker-snack - and the construct’s arm holding the blade detached from the trunk of the body and crashed to floor in a cacophony of sound and black motes. Ioshua quickly pivoted, turning his crystal sword backwards as he did so, performing a back-thrust that pierced the construct’s armor in the stomach. He yanked upward on the blade, then thrust his arms out to the side to tear the crystalline sword out of the construct’s body.
Then Kaoru looked back at Secundus and Kai, and saw that Kai had gained some ground. Secundus had retreated toward the far back wall of the chamber and Kai had pursued him. For the first time, Kaoru noticed that their forms of darkness were different colors. Kai’s darkness glowed from within with bright hues of purple, violet, and midnight blue. It was, for the moment, pure. But Kai could also see some other colors forming within Kai’s darkness, colors of an evil nature. They were steadily growing, pulsing with Kai’s hate and his desire to kill. Secundus’s darkness, in contrast, glowed with sickly colors of green and depthless black. It was a corrupted sort of darkness, already too far gone to be saved. As the two different incarnations of darkness clashed, Kaoru could acutely feel how much more corrupt Kai’s became and how much stronger Secundus’s became. If he didn’t interfere soon, then Kai would either be consumed by his hate and killed by Secundus, or Kai would kill Secundus, and be beyond saving.
Gathering his strength, Kaoru gripped Guardian in both hands and started moving toward Kai and Secundus, trying to figure out exactly what he was going to do when he reached them. When Secundus grabbed Kai’s throat in a tight grip and lifted him off his feet, Kaoru stopped thinking so hard. It was obvious what he needed to do.
He attacked with speed given to him by his affinity with the light. Guardian howled in so fast that Secundus couldn’t avoid it, even though he tried to by releasing Kai. The Keyblade struck Secundus’s arm, shattering bone with a sickening crunch. Secundus screamed shrilly and yanked his broken arm to his chest, retreating even as Kaoru came on, forcing the mad dictator away from Kai. Guardian scored damaging hits on the darkness Secundus tried to use to shield himself, cutting off pieces here and there and turning them into motes that dissipated soon after. Kaoru performed a roundhouse kick that caught Secundus in the chest, driving him off his feet and to the floor. The man rolled once, twice, and fetched up hard against another wall.
He didn’t move.
Kaoru quickly returned to Kai’s side, kneeling down. His hand, so gently laid upon Kai’s shoulder, was slapped callously away. Heartless eyes glared up at him. Kaoru just stared coolly back.
“I thought I told you to stay out of this.” Kai growled.
“I thought I told you I wasn’t going to listen to you.” Kaoru replied, his tone even.
“I almost had him. I would have, if you hadn’t come.”
“If I hadn’t come, you’d be dead.”
“Tch.” Kai surged to his feet, wobbled, and shoved Kaoru away when he tried to help him. “I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not.” Kaoru stepped in front of Kai, acting as a living wall between him and his prey. Those golden eyes sparked with violence, but Kaoru refused to move. “Kai, if you keep going on like this, you will either die, or you’ll become just as corrupted as he is. I understand that you want revenge. He took everything away from you. It’s normal to want him to pay. But you have to be a bigger person than he is. You have to stop wanting revenge.”
“I don’t care about any of that! I’m going to make sure he pays the debt he owes me, Kaoru.”
“Killing him isn’t the answer to that.” Kaoru reached out, gripping the taller boy’s shoulder with his armored hand. “Your darkness isn’t the weapon for that. Do you know how beautiful and clean and pure your darkness is? I can see it surrounding you. There are so many rich colors there, but they’re being eaten away by the hatred festering inside of you. You can’t let go of that purity, Kai. You can’t.”
Kai looked at Kaoru’s armored hand. For a minute, Kaoru thought he was going to grab it and twist in an attempt to break bone. Then those golden eyes flicked to Kaoru’s face, and a look of pure consternation came across Kai’s features. Knowing that if he stopped now, Kai might slip backwards, Kaoru quickly continued to speak. “Darkness isn’t something to be feared, you know? It’s just the other side of the light, the other side of the same coin. Everyone touts the light to be this great presence that can do no wrong, but that’s not true. It can be abused just like darkness can. People fear the dark only because they don’t know what lies within it. They don’t know that the darkness is there to protect them just as much as the light is. Why do you think the sun sets every day? So that darkness can come over the world and cool it, to allow the creatures who are only active at night to come out and thrive. If darkness is so terrible, why does the world allow it to have so much time to itself? Wouldn’t the sun just stay out and shine all the time if the darkness was that bad? Wherever there’s a light, there’s always a shadow, you know? The darkness is light’s sanctuary, Kai.”
The black bled away from the whites of Kai’s eyes, and the golden irises began to slowly become green. He blinked at Kaoru and started to say something. Then his eyes flicked beyond Kaoru’s shoulder and went wide.
Kaoru felt it as a searing heat before it hit, and barely managed to get a Holy Shield around both him and Kai. It still slammed them violently into the wall, and then through it.
The last thing Kaoru remembered seeing was the ground rushing up to meet them.
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Kingdom Hearts: Dark Dawn