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Kingdom Hearts: Dark Dawn	By : RotSeele Category: Kingdom Hearts > AU - Alternate Universe Views: 3168 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
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Chapter List
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Fifty-Nine - Esthar

“Come on.” Rinally said to Rinoa, reaching to tug the older woman’s hand. “We have to make sure everyone gets away safely.”
“They really are Keyblade wielders.” Rinoa said with wonder. Then she shook herself and took a deep breath. “Will they be okay?”
“They’ll be fine.” Rinally assured her. “They’ve fought worse than a Heartless, and even if they aren’t, the faster we can finish our job, the sooner I can get to them and back them up.”
Rinoa nodded and a thoughtful look appeared on her face. The two of them moved quickly to come to the aid of the people who had been on the street when the Heartless had first attacked, making sure they were in one piece and not terribly wounded. Rinoa instructed them to get to the Presidential Palace as fast as they could, and to spread the word to anyone else they met. As they moved from group to group, Rinally did her best to cast small Cure spells on the worst of the wounds without being seen. If anyone questioned their miraculous healing, they’d assume Rinoa had done so, or so Rinally hoped. As soon as they reached a set of stairs leading down to the next level, Rinally left Rinoa and the Estharian guards to direct the traffic of panicking citizens, and took the stairs down two at a time until she reached a place that she could safely jump from.
“Rinally!”
Rin paused to look up at Rinoa, who was leaning over the railing, waving her hand. “What?” Rinally called back.
“I’ll keep the Estharian soldiers away! Don’t worry about mitigating damage, okay?”
Won’t Kai enjoy that news. Rin gave Rinoa a thumbs up, then ran to join Kaoru and Kai. As she ran through chunks of fallen buildings and shattered glass, she could hear the sonorous bellows of something huge and mean and really, really, really angry. She ducked through a side alley, then jerked back into it to avoid a massive leg as it swung by her. She was thrown into dark shadow as the Heartless passed her, and she emerged out into the street behind it.
“Holy crap,” Rinally breathed. She had seen this Heartless before, but she couldn’t quite remember where.
It was a huge Behemoth-like Heartless, with six legs and four thin whipping tails. A massive trunk rolled down its face and two massive tusks protruded from its mouth. As the tails whipped around in the air, they left rents in buildings and the streets, chasms created by the triangular shapes at the end of each tail.
It swung its head toward a swiftly moving shape, trying to beat it back with its trunk. The shape resolved itself into Kai, who nimbly leaped the attack and slammed Sanctuary into the trunk in retaliation. He made five successive hits, then dropped to the ground and dodged a tusk as it came rushing toward him. On the other side, Kaoru was rebounding off a building at the Heartless’s face, Guardian cutting into its angular face to bring its attention back to him.
The two Keyblade wielders traded offensive attacks, doing their best to keep the Heartless from moving any deeper into the city. As one went in for the attack, the other would distract the Heartless, gaining its attention so the attacker wouldn’t have to worry about an unexpected surprise. Where have I seen this before? Where have I seen this Heartless before? I know I’ve seen it before. I know I have. Pushing it to the back of her mind, Rinally readied herself for battle and started running forward to help her friends.
Seeing Rinally coming in from behind the Heartless, Kaoru launched into a flurry of attacks, slamming Guardian into the Heartless’s trunk as hard as he could. Nearby, Kai went into a combo that cut at the Heartless’s first leg near its knee, trying to stop its forward momentum. Kai quickly disengaged to avoid being slapped away by a tusk as the Heartless swung its head, but Kaoru wasn’t so lucky. He tried to disengage, but he was a second too slow. The Heartless’s trunk surged up as it tossed its head to the side, and the trunk hit Kaoru hard. It flung him over the Heartless’s head, where he hit its back and rolled off the other side. He landed hard on the ground, gasping as pain radiated up his side. He didn’t have time to focus on that pain, though, as one of the Heartless’s legs swung forward to try and crush him. He shoved himself to the side and rolled out of the way, but he still felt the wind of its passing. Staring up at the Heartless from the ground, Kaoru at last recognized where he had seen this Heartless before.
It was the Heartless that had attacked him and Rinally when they first entered the Paths of Darkness and the world between worlds.
Then Rin was beside him and cool healing magic coursed through him, soothing his pain until it was gone. Kaoru pushed himself upright and summoned Guardian again, watching Kai harry the Heartless with quick strikes, blinking in and out of sight as he sought to keep the Heartless from moving deeper into Esthar. Kai spun around in the air to avoid one of the whipping tails, then dug Sanctuary into the Heartless’s side as he started to fall, arresting his momentum as his Keyblade stuck in its hide. He kicked himself free and hit the ground, then launched into another series of attacks that were focused on the monster’s hind leg, trying to sever tendons.
“It’s that Heartless that attacked us, do you remember?” Kaoru asked Rinally as they started toward the Heartless.
“I remember.” Rin responded in a tone that indicated she wished she didn’t. “We weren’t able to fight it then.”
“We weren’t as strong as we are now back then.”
She barked out a laugh. “I guess so. Rinoa and I evacuated everyone, but we can’t let it get any deeper into Esthar. We have to make it turn around.”
“How?”
Rinally threw a Curaga spell toward Kai as he landed by them. The Heartless continued to rampage forward, now ignoring the three teenagers as it smashed its way through buildings.
“Nothing we do is bothering it.” Kai growled. “If we keep attacking it, it’s going to kill us through sheer stubbornness.”
“You don’t need to attack it.” Rinally said. “I think I have a spell that will get its attention. If we can get it to chase us out of the city, then we can really go all out. Do you guys have enough energy to enter your Knight modes?”
Kaoru and Kai nodded. They hadn’t wanted to use their forms unless they had no other choice, considering their enhanced power could very well destroy the city far worse than the Heartless was already doing. But outside the city, where there was nothing that could be destroyed inadvertently, then the two of them could really stand a chance of winning.
“Okay then.” Rinally shook out her hands and set her feet. “Get ready to run.”
Holding onto their Keyblades, Kaoru and Kai stood just slightly behind Rinally, balanced and ready to move the moment she gave the order.
Thanks to her connection with Lorne for the moment it took for her to cast her Thundaja spell that defeated Morgana, Rinally had learned from Lorne exactly how much energy certain spells needed. He had also gifted to her everything that he had known about magic, along with spells Rinally hadn’t even learned yet from her own teacher. While she knew of the existence of these other spells, her knowledge - and confidence - had been limited to the three levels of healing spells - Cure, Cura, and Curaga - the four levels of elemental spells - Fire, Thunder, Blizzard, and Aero, and her sole shielding spell, Barrier. But she had the confidence now to try a spell she had never cast before, a spell that she had read about in her textbook in class but had never been allowed to actually learn its nuances.
She raised her hands above her head and concentrated hard on summoning to her the deep blue flames of the Flare spell.
The air around her hands began to ripple with intense heat. Blue sparks appeared in the rippling air, coming faster and faster as Rinally fed power into her spell. She could almost hear Lorne whispering in her ear exactly how to manipulate the energy, to give to the spell just the right amount of power and not let it get away from her. A second later, the sparks ignited into flame, and the white and blue flames coalesced around her upraised hands and arms, flickering and snapping.
“Get ready.” Rin said to her friends. She brought her arms down gently, almost in mockery of the spell’s intensity, and then focused on her target. She held onto the Flare for a second longer, then unleashed it with a fierce, defiant cry.
The Flare sped toward its target, a streak of blue fire that seemed more a meteor than a ball of intense fire. The blue flames hit the Heartless on its backside and burst into a giant conflagration. The flames adhered to the Heartless’s skin and began to burn away its hide, sinking deeper into its flesh. It howled with pain and thrashed around, trying to put out the Flare spell that was causing it such agony. Its beady eyes focused then on the three teenagers and there was a flash of recognition there as the Heartless looked down upon Kaoru and Rinally. Then it let out a deafening bellow, shook itself hard to free itself of the Flare like a dog freeing its coat of water, and took one thundering step forward after another until it was bulling its way toward the three.
Kaoru turned and ran as fast as he could down the street. Kai and Rinally were right beside him, keeping pace. They didn’t have to look over their shoulders to see if the Heartless was following; the thunder of its steps told them everything they needed to know. The street they were on was a straight shot out of the city, being that it was a main thoroughfare, and as soon as they were past the last of the buildings, the three of them split up. Kaoru and Kai continued to run forward as Rinally dove to the side and threw a Barrier around herself in the event the Heartless came after her and tried to crush her. She rolled back to her feet just as the monster crashed through the buildings and bulled toward Kaoru and Kai. Dust billowed over Rin, shielding her from the Heartless’s eyes, which protected her from being beat by those whipping tails.
Then the beast was distracted from her by twin bullets of black and white, as Kaoru and Kai in their White Knight and Black Knight forms launched into the first salvo of their empowered attacks.
As the two of them continuously struck at the Heartless’s head and sides and back, Rinally focused on its tails and legs. Without her witch’s staff, she couldn’t rely on spells like the Flare she had used earlier; she had to use spells that were quick and easy and familiar, like her Firaga, Thundaga, and Blizzaga, along with Aero and Barrier. She attacked from a distance, while Kaoru and Kai pounded away at the Heartless’s face, trunk, and body. Rinally threw Curaga spells toward Kaoru and Kai when they took a particularly hard hit or when she thought that they needed it.
Kai launched into his Nightmare Raid and struck at the Heartless’s legs. The hide there was thicker than anywhere else, but with his speed and power enhanced by his Black Knight mode, he was able to slice through the skin and meat beneath with two hits rather than four. He had to concentrate on a single leg at a time, but once he was able to expose the tendons and cut through them, the Heartless could no longer stand. It screamed as it toppled over to its side, and Kai jumped high into the air in order to finish off his move. He didn’t get the chance. One of the four tails whipped in and caught him broadside, knocking the air out of him and slamming him into the ground. Pain radiated up his side, hot and searing, and Kai spat out blood. He tried to leverage himself up with Sanctuary, but his arm wouldn’t work. He glanced down to see it bent at an awkward angle, his fingers still weakly wrapped around Sanctuary’s hilt.
A shadow fell over him and he looked up to see the tail that had hit him coming in for him again.
Then Kaoru was there, his Holy Shield glimmering around them both to stop the whipping tail from smashing Kai into the ground again. Kaoru sucked in a breath at the shock of the blow against his shield, but didn’t waver. The tails continued to beat on his shield of Light, but they weren’t able to break through. The Heartless tried to get its legs under it several times, but continuously failed because of the wounds Kai had inflicted upon it. Then, surprisingly, it managed to succeed, pushing itself up to its knees. It locked its eyes upon Kaoru and Kai and let out a bellow.
“Kaoru!” Rinally yelled. She threw up a Barrier around him and Kai, surrounding his Holy Shield, which allowed him to drop it. She slid to her knees beside Kai and immediately placed her hands over his arm, a green glow appearing beneath her palms. “Why isn’t it dead yet?”
“I don’t know.” Kaoru responded. “It’s strong.”
Kai laughed softly and winced as his bones began shifting back into place. “We need to find its weak point.”
“It doesn’t seem to have a weak point.”
“Everything has a weak point.”
Kaoru stared at the Heartless, trying to find something, anything, that could give them a clue as to how to stop it. It looked just like the Behemoth he had seen when he was little, but he hadn’t seen a black rod like that Behemoth had. He and Kai had wounded the Heartless to the point it couldn’t move, but it was still dangerous. Its tails were still flashing around in the air, occasionally slamming down onto Rinally’s Barrier. It made her flinch each time, but she didn’t stop healing Kai, dividing her attention in a way Kaoru had never seen her do before. As soon as she was finished with Kai, she stood up and moved beside Kaoru, with Kai soon appearing on his other side.
“It doesn’t have a rod in it,” Kaoru said.
“Which means the Brotherhood isn’t controlling it.” Kai replied.
“But that doesn’t mean they didn’t unleash it. Kaoru and I saw this thing when we first went into the Paths of Darkness. We ran from it, and that’s how we ended up in Belle’s world. But we haven’t seen it since, and we’ve traveled through there so many times after that.”
“Which means it must’ve ended up somewhere, too.” Kaoru’s eyes flicked over the Heartless’s entire form. Could the Heartless have ended up with the Brotherhood? If it had, why didn’t it have a black rod inside it? “This Heartless is a distraction. The Brotherhood is here, and this Heartless is serving as a distraction.”
“But why?” Kai asked. “Why let it loose without being able to control it?”
“Because they want to buy time.” Rinally said. “If it’s rampaging in the city, all of Esthar’s guards will be called to fight it. If they’re fighting the Heartless, then they’re too focused on protecting the citizens and not on what the Brotherhood is after. So this Heartless has no black rod. It doesn’t have a controlling factor because it doesn’t need to be controlled.”
The Heartless let out a terrible bellow and slammed one of its wounded legs into the ground, trying to rise. Its tails lashed out, striking the Barrier and the ground nearby and gouging deep furrows into the earth.
Kaoru tightened his grip on Guardian. “The longer we deal with this Heartless, the closer the Brotherhood gets to what it wants. We have to find a way to defeat it.”
“How much longer can you guys keep your modes?” Rinally asked.
“Not too much longer.” Kaoru answered. He was already feeling exhausted, and this was only the third time he had entered into his White Knight mode. Kai made a noise that Kaoru took to be agreeing, although the redhead had far more practice with his Black Knight mode than Kaoru had.
“Then let’s find a way to kill this thing.” Rinally said. “It might take both Guardian and Sanctuary finding its “heart” to kill it.”
“Do you see anything, Kai?” Kaoru asked.
“Not a damn thing. This one’s true to its name. It doesn’t have a heart.” Kai’s Heartless eyes swept up and down the length of the Heartless. “I can’t make out any weak points either.”
Rin inhaled sharply as the whipping tails beat on her Barrier. It began to crack from the outside in. “I can’t hold this for much longer.” she warned, her voice strained.
“Then we wing it.” Kaoru said. He readied Guardian and wrapped an arm around Rinally’s waist. She wrapped both her arms around his shoulders and Kai took a step forward, twirling Sanctuary in his hand.
As soon as Rinally dropped her Barrier, the two Keyblade wielders burst apart. Kai sped toward the Heartless, Sanctuary flashing to stop the tails from impaling him while Kaoru leaped away, setting Rin down at a safe distance before he returned to the fight to help Kai. The whole while, Kaoru searched for a weak point, searched for a place on the Heartless’s form that could be exploited to kill the thing, but he couldn’t find one on the exterior. With a sinking feeling, he realized there could only be one other place a weak point could be, and that was on the inside.
The Heartless’s hide was too thick to penetrate, and they didn’t have the time it would take to do so. He could only sustain his White Knight mode for another five minutes, maybe ten. Kai probably had a little longer. Rin was growing exhausted too. Even as she consumed mana potions to keep her strength up, each successive high-level spell was taking its toll on her. Without her staff to mitigate some of the fallout of her spells, her body was taking the brunt of the energy. It would only be a matter of time before it gave out on her. So Kaoru formulated a quick plan, prayed he was right, and when Kai managed to sever one of the whiplike tails of the Heartless, Kaoru ran for its yawning mouth.
He heard Kai call his name, then felt Kai chasing him. That was good, Kaoru decided. Hopefully, Kai would catch on and protect Kaoru from the Heartless’s retaliation, or Kaoru would find himself quickly on the defensive. The Heartless whipped its un-severed tails in toward the two boys, but Kai proved faster, catching two with Sanctuary’s hook blade and cutting them apart. The Heartless roared in pain, its maw opening wide to reveal nothing but pitch black darkness. Kaoru beelined for it, and leaped into the cavern before the Heartless could close its mouth. He faintly heard Kai cursing, but he didn’t try to come after Kaoru. Instead, he began to rain heavy-handed blows on the Heartless’s head and trunk, keeping it distracted from the boy inside it.
It was pitch black, dank, and smelly. He covered his mouth and nose with his hand, but it really didn’t help. Still, it was all Kaoru could do to keep from gagging. Frantically, he searched for what he prayed he was going to find. Looking up, he saw it. A faintly glowing orb that pulsed a sickly green darkness. Readying Guardian, Kaoru leaped from the floor of the Heartless’s mouth to the roof of it, slamming his Keyblade into the orb repeatedly in several swift combos. When he landed, it was only for a minute so he could catch his breath. The Heartless opened its mouth to let out a rotten-meat-smelling roar that blasted Kaoru out of the cavern. Kai was there in an instant, catching his partner and holding them both suspended in the air for a minute with his powers of Darkness.
“Do you see it?” Kaoru cried, pointing at the orb at the roof of the Heartless’s mouth, which was now spewing darkness like a water hose full of holes.
“I see it.” Kai growled. “How do we destroy it?”
They hit the ground, balancing for a moment as they supported each other. Then they parted, and stood shoulder to shoulder.
“Can you bring me with you when you do Nightmare Raid?” Kaoru asked.
Kai considered for a moment, then shrugged. “It’s worth a shot. After all, we’re winging it, right?” Kaoru gave him an unsure-but-game smile. Kai wrapped his arm around Kaoru’s chest, holding him close but not restricting him. Then he called upon his powers of Darkness, and the motes that acted like a cloak and wings encircled him and Kaoru, lifting them off the ground by a few inches. “Whatever you do, Kaoru, don’t let go of me.”
Kaoru didn’t answer. Instead, he tightened his arm around Kai’s waist. The instant after that, Kai burst forward with unimaginable speed. To Kaoru, the world was a blur; to anyone watching, it must have seemed like they just flickered out of existence. Then they were in the Heartless’s mouth, and their two Keyblades struck the orb on the first pass. Kai abruptly stopped and switched direction, moving like lightning back toward their target. They hit it four more times in succession before Kai finished the combo by stabbing Sanctuary deep into the orb. Kaoru, still holding onto Kai, lifted Guardian and thrust the Keyblade into the orb alongside Sanctuary.
The two Keyblades suddenly burst into bright light and deep darkness, the two colors twining into a shimmering ribbon that swirled around the orb before piercing through the orb straight up, through the Heartless’s head. Kai and Kaoru held tightly to each other as that ribbon of Light and Darkness swirled around them again as it came back through the Heartless and shot out another side. Over and over, their combined attack rushed one way then another, until it wrapped around Kaoru and Kai and enveloped them in a cocoon of white and black. Their Keyblades materialized in their hands, and on instinct, the two of them thrust their Keyblades at each other, nearly piercing each other’s hearts as they did. Then, with a quick spin so they ended up back to back, they cut the cocoon in half, and the moment they did, the combined power exploded outward, taking with it the Heartless’s shell that surrounded them.
They hung suspended for a minute, held aloft by the last vestiges of their White and Black Knight power, and then they dropped the last five feet to the ground, landing lightly and still back to back. Around them, the last bits of their attack dissipated into gold and violet motes, spiraling off into the sky.
Kaoru let out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “Wow.”
Kai made an equally impressed sound. “I didn’t know we could do that.”
“That was freaking amazing!” Rinally shouted as she ran up to them. She checked her speed and came to stand beside them, a shocked smile on her face. “How did you do that?”
Kaoru lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “Nightmare Raid.”
“No way was that Nightmare Raid, not if the two of you did it together.” Rinally tapped her chin thoughtfully. “I think I’m gonna call that combo ‘Radiant Night’.”
Kai stared at her for a minute, and Kaoru thought that he was going to argue with her. Then he shook his head and ran his fingers through his red hair. “Fine. Then I’ll call the combo the three of us do with our Keyblades and your Thunder spells ‘Tempest’.”
Rin grinned widely. “You know, I actually like that one.”
The ground shook fiercely beneath their feet suddenly, and Kaoru caught Rin before the tremors threw her to the ground. Kai whirled around to face the west, his shoulders tensing and his fists clenching. A second after, he took off running. Kaoru didn’t question him and Rin didn’t call after him. Instead, the two gave chase, for they could now feel what Kai must have felt the moment the earth shook: an immense darkness and evil that threatened to shatter the very fabric of the world.
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Kingdom Hearts: Dark Dawn