Forums » Fantasy Roleplay » Kingdom Hearts: Scattered Fragments (Private RP)

Kaze considered Raixon's words, wondering if he should indeed abandon his heart. At this, the whispers started up again, only they were stronger this time. Indeed, what were before only unintelligible murmurings were now a silent cacophony of oddly comforting clear sentences. They were telling him that he was just fine; telling him that Raixon was lying; telling him that he would feel better if he only gave in to his inner darkness more; telling him that he wouldn't be able to love his mother's and girlfriend's memories if he gave up his heart, that there would be no one left to grieve for them if he lost his heart. That last one made him pause and reconsider listening to the Nobody. Those two had been his world - his girlfriend especially - and they and everyone else who had known them were gone, save for him.

He stood there for several seconds in silent thought, barely moving a single muscle. Kaze's hand moved down by his side and sat there idly, his Keyblade held loosely in its grip. Suddenly, he seemed to collect himself and hold on to his keyblade with a renewed resolve. Kaze shut his eyes and took a deep breath, trying to block out the whispers. Despite the whispers being many in number and downright tantalizing, he was able to succeed, at least for the moment. Emotionally compromised or not, Kaze knew sweet nothings when he heard them. He had been able to read between the lines, so to speak, and know that listening to the voices would only bring about his own destruction, no matter how much they begged, pleaded, or tantalized him.

He had nothing left to lose. Both his family and home were gone, and his darkness was just going to keep trying to take advantage of his deep despondency and try to get him to succumb. If this was going to keep him safe, he felt that he should do it. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, steeling himself. Kaze dismissed his Keyblade before opening his eyes and looking back at Raixon. "Do it," he said, his voice low, yet seemingly resolute.

Hanox looked at where the voice had come from and had to do a double-take. The trio of gargoyles were regarding them with a look of semi-outraged annoyance for disturbing Quasimodo. Now, Hanox couldn't feel surprise, but God damn if this wasn't weird. Surprised or not, he reflexively raised his right eyebrow and had to fight to prevent himself from taking a step back. The Nobody cut a glance at Ritsuka to see if he was okay after nearly falling hundreds of feet out of surprise and shock. He then looked back at the gargoyles. "Sorry," Hanox said. "We're friends of his, and we want to help him."

"Friends you say?" The short, pig like gargoyle said dubiously, eying Hanox up and down and sparing Ritsuka a glance as he regained his footing.

"Ahh! Yes! You are the young chaps that aided in the daring escape of the fair Esmeralda!" The tallest, and apparently most eloquent gargoyle recalled, instantly reducing the hostility of the other two.

"Thank you so much for that, Quasi doesn't have very many friends, and these two morons and I aren't as helpful as we'd like to be." The third, smallest, and only female member of the trio graciously thanked them.

"Uh, right, don't mention it, that's just what friends do." Ritsuka insisted with a kind smile.

"You know it, and you pulled it off not a moment too soon." The pig like gargoyle said, much to Ritsuka's curiosity.

"Why the very instant Quasimodo returned to the tower, it had been infiltrated by a member of the royal guard." The tall gargoyle explained.

"A guard!?" Ritsuka exclaimed.

"Don't worry, Quasimodo took care of him, had him running scared." The female gargoyle assured them, though while it was a relief that Quasimodo was safe, there was something else on Ritsuka's mind.

"Did leave in a dark portal?" Ritsuka inquired expectantly.

"Sorry kid, he used the stairs." The pig like gargoyle lamented, much to Ritsuka's disappointment.

The slate-grey of Raixon's Keyblade, Twilight Continuum, seemed to lighten somewhat with the growing darkness that the Nobody could sense billowing around Kaze. he knew that he would have to brave such darkness once again, of that which he too had left behind time and time ago. The Nobody took in a slow breath as he began to walk towards his fellow Knight. "You will be set free, and all will be explained. Soon." He walked up to Kaze, remaining just barely within striking range of the blade. The lips of the blindfolded man curved up lightly into a faint ghost of a smile. "I will see you on the other side, my friend."

And with that parting line, he suddenly lunged and thrust the tip of his Keyblade into Kaze's chest, and the latter would feel a shudder coursing through him as the dark within was intruded upon by the balance of the blade. With a heavy-handed twist, Raixon turned the blade, and upon the unlocking, dark tendrils seemed to billow from Kaze's chest, draining him, clouding around him thickly as more and more of it escaped from the crevice of his chest. Raixon placed a hand on Kaze's shoulder briefly. "Wait for me. I will follow soon." It was a mere instruction, simple and clear.

The Nobody released him, retracting his blade and taking several steps back, stance bared in preparation for the dark heart that he knew would come.

A sharp gasp involuntarily escaped Kaze's lips as he felt the powerful shudder through his body as Raixon's Keyblade penetrated his chest, and another as Raixon turned it. The wielder wasn't gasping because he was in pain. Indeed, he hadn't felt any pain at all; it had just felt...odd...to him. After Raixon had twisted the Keyblade and then pulled it out of his chest, Kaze saw tendrils of darkness billowing out of his chest, swirling around him in an violent, angry, thick cloud. He heard the whispers furiously berate him for leaving the Darkness, but only momentarily as they grew fainter and fainter with every passing second. In fact, as Kaze saw the massive swell of Darkness exiting his torso, he actually felt a sense of relief. Such a large amount of Darkness had been residing and roiling within him and he was relieved to see it all leaving him.

He felt Raixon's hand on his shoulder and heard his instruction, to which Kaze gave a slight jerk of a nod. Through half-closed eyes, Kaze saw a something a dark shade of magenta pass by his gaze. He wondered for an instant what it could possibly be before he fell forward, almost in slow motion, and landed flat on his front. He hit the ground softly, and his eyes closed. Only a second or two later, his body slowly faded out of existence before vanishing completely.

The flash of dark magenta that Kaze had seen was his heart vacating his chest. It was a much darker shade of pink than a heart normally was. The torrent of darkness that had vacated Kaze's chest swirled around it in midair as it hung there, almost as if it were waiting for something. Suddenly, it seemed to draw in more darkness from the air around it, becoming practically opaque. A couple of more seconds elapsed before the swirling darkness seemed to coagulate into a human-looking silhouette. An additional few seconds went by before the silhouette...well, there really wasn't any other word for it....colorized.

In the silhouette's place stood a tall figure, roughly the same height as Kaze had been. The figure was male in appearance, with deep, inky-black hair with silver highlights and a pair of amber-yellow eyes that almost seemed to be glowing in the light of the street lamps. He had pointed ears and the tips of two fangs were poking out from underneath his upper lip. He wore a skintight, organic looking top complete with a dark hood. It had the Heartless emblem emblazoned on the front outlined in silver, with countless deep purple and silver "threads" radiating out from it, creating an intricate web of criss-crossing silver and purple lines all over his torso. He had black gloves on his hands emblazoned with a stylized silver fire design that was accented with purple. He also wore black pants and black boots.

The figure looked down at himself, lifting his arms and hands in front of his face and inspecting them, as well as the rest of his body. After his few moments of examination, he decides to lower his arms and extend his right arm out in front of him. After another few moments of hard concentration, the figure felt something materialize in his right hand. He opened his eyes to see a sword. It was black in color and oozing with malevolent Darkness. After examining it, the figure let out a low chuckle, before looking up and noticing Raixon in his battle-ready stance. The figure indicated the perverted blade and asked in a deep voice, "Not bad, eh?"

Hanox noticed Ritsuka's disappointment and remembered the words that the latter had said to him when he had made his first entry onto this World at about this very spot concerning the person who had come out of a Corridor of Darkness and taken his friend hostage. "Don't worry, Ritsuka," he said, softly. "I'm sure we'll find him." If he still had had emotions, he would have most likely been surprised at his use of the word "we", but since he didn't, he merely found it somewhat strange.

Anyway, the Nobody looked back to the Gargoyles, eyes moving between the three of them. "Good to hear that Quasi took care of him," he said, putting a soft half-smile on his face. "Is Quasi okay after fighting the guy off?"

sierra woke up with a gasp. She really needed to tell someone about these dreams. She felt her hands vibrate as they always did after she had that dream. She summoned her keyblade.

"Of course he is, the guy is as tough as stone, and we should know!" The pig like gargoyle insisted with a cocky smile. "The name's Victor by the way."

"I am Hugo, my sincerest apologies for the late introduction." The tall gargoyle added with a gracious bow.

"And I'm Laverne, it's a pleasure to meet you both." The last gargoyle said, offering Ritsuka her hand to shake.

"Likewise, I'm Ritsuka, and this here is Hanox." Ritsuka introduced themselves, shaking Laverne's hand and then passing it over to his companion. "By the way, you didn't happen to see our other friend, have you? He's kind of small and furry, big red nose, floats around on little bat wings?" He described his friend in the most unflattering manner possible.

"Hmm... no, sorry, after that soldier came and left, you two were the only ones that have come around." Laverne replied.

"So he's not back yet, huh?" Ritsuka mused, a thoughtful look on his face. It was understandable, Moguri was certainly showering the entire city for Cynthiera, and probably doing it half asleep to boot.

"You are welcome to stay and wait for him if you do so choose." Hugo offered.

"Just try and keep out down, if anyone needs his beauty sleep, it's Quasimodo." Victor added, earning him a smack in the head from Laverne. Ritsuka couldn't help but laugh.

"Thanks, I think we might just take you up on that." Ritsuka said, just now realizing how tired he was.

Hanox shook Laverne's stone hand, a half-smile reflexively appearing on his face. He also heard Hugo's offer to wait for Ritsuka's unusual sounding friend. A voice spoke at the back of his mind, like it had earlier when he had been talking with that Heartless. "Moogle..." it said softly. A new memory surfaced of a small, white-furred creature with small bat wings, a very large red nose, and a red pom-pom coming out of the top of its head. Must be what his other friend looks like, Hanox thought.

Anyway, He nodded in agreement with Ritsuka at Hugo's proposition. "Yeah, I think that would be a good idea," Hanox said. He himself was feeling a little exhausted from his large expenditure of energy in such a short time. He wouldn't mind sitting down for a bit...

Ritsuka and Hanox stayed the night in Quasimodo's tower, getting themselves a much earned rest. The next morning, Ritsuka was shaken awake by two furry hands and small squeaky voice.

"Ritsuka. Hey, Ritsuka, wake up!" The voice said. Ritsuka slowly opened his eyes to see the familiar big red nose of Moguri just inches away from his face.

"Ugh... Moguri?" He said groggily, still half asleep.

"Ritsuka, we've got a big problem!" Moguri said as Ritsuka sat up from his place on the floor. It was then that Ritsuka caught a glimpse of shiny golden armor right behind the Moogle.

"Moguri, behind you!" Ritsuka cried, jumping to his feet and summoning his Keyblade. He leaped up and brought his weapon down on the soldier, the intruder bringing up his sword just in time to block the strike. "Hanox, Quasi, another soldier got in!" Ritsuka exclaimed, his voice echoing throughout the bell tower.

"Wait, please, you don't understand..." The soldier pleaded, but before he could even finish the thought, Quasimodo came leaping down from the rafters with an almost animal like growl. The soldier broke away from Ritsuka to step back and narrowly escape Quasimodo's strike, the hunchback glaring at him furiously.

"No soldiers! Sanctuary! GET OUT!" Quasimodo demanded.

"But not before you tell me where my friend is!" Ritsuka added, standing with Quasimodo with his Keyblade at the ready.

--Traverse Town, courtyard--

Raixon quietly held his ground, setting his stance more firmly in silent defiance of the darkness swirling around the courtyard before collecting around the new Heartless. As the new figure took shape and form, there was perhaps some hesitation from the Nobody. Seeing a humanoid heartless was rare, if not almost unheard of, and he did not yet know the cause for them. He was to banish the dark heart to where it belonged, and destroy it so that it would not plague the worlds. He knew all too well the sort of destruction that a dark heart of this caliber could cause, as such was like that which once had been his own.

"...what does it matter...?" he stated in simple response to the Heartless. "Let the Keyblade become your undoing."

There was a wave of translucent energy that seemed to ripple from where he stood, and as the Nobody raised his blade, light and darkness alike seemed to swirl and converge upon the weapon, encasing it in what almost seemed like a tainted light. Taking the Keyblade, he turned the weapon downward and plunged it into the ground, driving it between the stones of the courtyard. At intervals, columns of that same tainted light burst from the ground, all at many angles, each aimed, one at a time, to burn the heartless with its light.

Hanox, whose characteristic of being a light sleeper had carried over from his Somebody, had opened his eyes when he heard Ritsuka's shout about another soldier getting in. That got him alert quickly. He was about to summon his pistols, but he paused when he heard the earnestness in the Soldier's pleas and expression. Clearly he wasn't here to fight, if his tone of voice and body language were to be believed. Also, the armor he was wearing clearly indicated that he wasn't an average soldier. It varied too greatly from the armor of the guards who had been patrolling the outside of Notre Dame the previous evening. If someone were to put him on the spot, he'd say the intruder was an officer.

The Nobody came up behind Ritsuka and Quasi, studying the soldier as he did so. "Hey guys, I don't think he's here for a fight," he said. "At least, he doesn't appear to be." He came up behind Ritsuka and whispered in his ear, "Also, Ritsuka, you gotta stop swinging your Keyblade at anything that moves. You could end up accidentally hurting someone that way." Hanox then addressed the soldier, his expression hard, but otherwise non-confrontational. "Who are you?" he asked, the hardness of his voice matching his expression. "And what do you want?"

The soldier let out a relieved sigh as Ritsuka reluctantly lowered his Keyblade at Hanox's request.

"Finally, someone with a good head on their shoulders." The soldier said as he sheathed his sword. "I'm Phoebus, captain of the royal guard." He introduced himself.

"As in one of Frollo's lackeys?" Ritsuka interrogated, crossing his arms indignantly.

"Well, I suppose I was, but after today, I'd rather hang from the gallows than obey that madman!" Phoebus declared with a look of disgust on his face. With this, Ritsuka's demeanor finally relaxed, the boy sensing his sincerity that Hanox had apparently noticed right away.

"Madman?" Quasimodo said, clearly offended, reminding Ritsuka that the Hunchback was still very much loyal to the cruel man.

"That's right, kupo!" Moguri interjected, floating in between them and Phoebus. "You should've been there Ritsuka, I was out looking for Cynthiera, when I see Frollo commanding a gang of Heartless to attack Phoebus!"

"Why would he attack his own soldier?" Ritsuka inquired.

"Because I refused to follow his order to burn an innocent peasant family." Phoebus said, much to Ritsuka's own shock and disgust. "When word reached him that Esmeralda had escaped Notre Dame, he led the entire guard on a rampant crusade to find her, unjustly punishing anyone who refused to cooperate. I decided I could no longer go along with his madness any longer, and that's when he turned those... demons on me, I wouldn't have made it out of there if it weren't for your friend here."

"I was gonna try and take him out then and there, but he had this crazy big Heartless on his side, so we decided to retreat, kupo." Moguri added.

"No..." Quasimodo said, stepping back with a distressed look on his face. "No, that can't be. Master Frollo would never do such a thing." He insisted, though it was clear that he was more trying to convince himself then anyone else.

The Heartless dodged out of the way of several of the swarming pillars of tainted light, a couple coming very close to hitting him. "Well that's a bit rude," he said while dodging out of the way of two more pillars. "We've only just met." After another pillar comes dangerously close to his side (he just managed to jump out of the way), the Heartless disappeared in a small explosion of Darkness, appearing about a second or two later, a few yards behind Raixon. He started to move in for the kill, sword held aloft, but a pillar came out of seemingly nowhere and grazed him in the side.

The Heartless felt a burning sensation as a sizzling sound was heard. He hissed in agony, before jumping back several yards. "Shit..." he swore under his breath. He stepped out of the way of another pillar before conjuring up what seemed to be a sphere of corporeal, malevolent darkness a few inches above his right palm. He hurled it directly at Raixon's back, the sphere still expanding as it approached the Nobody. "Have some of that," he hissed under his breath, still somewhat in pain.

--Traverse Town, courtyard--

Raixon's Keyblade was firmly planted into the ground, and by sensing the patterns of light and darkness, he could feel where the Heartless was with no need of seeing it. "One chance meeting does not alter Fate," the Nobody mused as he pulled his Keyblade out from where it was embedded between the stones, just in time for him to toss himself out of he way of the sphere of darkness--though even still he could not avoid being singed by the malevolent energy. A patch on his cheekbone and a portion of his upper arm now seemed to sizzle a deep violet, with fumes of smoky dark rising upward from the small wounds.

The whispers were all around him for a moment, and he shook himself off to clear his head. "You cannot win, Heartless, lest you stand down and begone from this realm." He then turned towards the Heartless, pointed his Keyblade at him as if in accusation, and spoke, the word(s) inaudible.

A powerful shockwave emanated from the tip, speading out in a wide arc and expanding even as the razor swipe of tainted light hurtled towards the Heartless. Two Samurai Nobodies faded into existence aside him, one on each side, ready to lunge and attack at their Superior's signal.

The Heartless' eyes widened for a split second before he was spurred into action. Taking a few steps' running start, he dove over the shockwave into a forward roll, missing the arc of tainted light by only a few inches. All in one motion, he finished on his right knee, drew his sword from the scabbard slung across his back, and made a horizontal slash from left to right, sending his own wide shockwave - this one made of the same malevolent Darkness as the orb he had conjured before - back at the three nobodies. The two Samurai were destroyed on contact, exploding into bursts of white light. To the Heartless' dismay, however, Raixon dodged to the side as it approached him.

Hanox cut a glance at Quasimodo as he tried to convince himself that Frollo was not the vile human being that the others claimed him to be. Hanox had arrived late to this particular party, so he wasn't really one to pass judgement on him. However, he remembered Ritsuka saying the previous evening that Frollo was the one who was controlling the Heartless on this World, and he had just heard what Frollo had done from Phoebus, so he figured that the others' assessment of him was accurate. He still didn't say anything, though. It wasn't his place.

The Nobody looked back at Moguri and Phoebus. "Moguri, is it?" he said. Looking back and forth between the Captain and the Moogle, he continued, "What do you mean when you say 'crazy giant Heartless'? What did it look like?" After asking his questions, he realized that he had subconsciously slipped a slight bit of trepidation into his voice. Weird. Again, it was something he really needed to look into.

The Samurai tried to raise their swords in their defense but it was in futility, as they still burst into their pale light. The Nobody had tossed himself to the side as soon as he could, and only with a bright sheen coating Twilight Continuum with some unspoken spell was he able to block the majority of the malevolent energy streaking towards him. However, he still ground his clenched teeth, inhaling sharply as the streak bit into his blade arm, slicing across his forearm and causing another streaming tendril of darkness to leak from there as well. Keeping his teeth gritted, he murmured, "You mock me with your insolence, Heartless. But any nuisance must be done away with..."

The blindfolded Nobody's visage began to shimmer slightly, before it seemed to separate, one at a time, into many translucent instances. Each instance vanished almost immediately after separating from what appeared to be the original. But with every instance that disappeared into thin air, he seemed to grow more and more transparent until he had vanished altogether. For several moments, nothing seemed to happen.

A sudden force seemed to slam into the Heartless' back without warning, sending him forward and at the very least off balance. Not a moment later the air seemed to distort before him and Raixon was suddenly there before him, smacking him with his Keyblade like one would a bat--immediately after the hit he was gone. Just gone--

Struck from the side. Then the other side. Front, back, striking hip, spine, kneecap. The Nobody was there one instance right before the blade struck and then he was gone in the next blink after the blow, and then suddenly striking elsewhere. Quick. Too quick. It would seem like he was everywhere at once, pounding upon the Heartless and sending his body back and forth in a fairly small, localized space. Just when the blows didn't ever seem like they would stop, they did at last, and the final instance of Raixon, solid now with the cohesion of the others, jumped backward, black boots skidding against the paved stone to come to a stop several feet away from the Heartless.

He raised his Keyblade once more, readied to lunge, to leap, to jump, even as it glowed a bright white-gold, energy charging and swirling around his blade.

"Well, like I said, it was big, definitely big enough to be a boss Heartless, kupo!" Moguri began, stretching his arms and floating just a bit higher into the air to illustrate the size of the creature. "It looked kind of like of like a gargoyle, with wings made from shards of stained-glass, kupo!"

"It was hard to believe that a creature of that size could even fly at all, let alone keep up with the two of us, we barely escaped with our lives." Phoebus added. Ritsuka considered the new information before look over to Quasimodo, who no longer seemed to even be paying attention to the conversation. He was turned away, his hunched back hunched even further as he was undoubtably debating what to believe of the man that had raised him. "And pretty soon, the gypsies will have nowhere left to run either." This one comment brought Quasimodo attention by the collar and refused to let go.

"What? What... do you mean?" Quasimodo asked with an anxious look on his face.

"Before I left, Frollo said that he had located the Court of Miracles, the gypsies haven within the city, and that tonight he was going to unleash those demons upon it." Phoebus explained, much to everyone's shock.

"No... Esmeralda." Quasimodo breathed in despair as he thought of the first friend he had made in his entire life meeting such a terrible end.

"Heh, so you actually managed to get the big boss to put in some effort. Well, that's about the very least I should expect from you." Ryuga couldn't help but chuckle as he saw his fellow Seeker of Darkness get pummeled by Raixon. To the untrained observer, it would have seemed like the match was fairly even up to this point, but Ryuga had been observing his adversaries for a long while, and he knew for a fact that Raixon hadn't even begun to tap into his full power even now. That being said, the last thing he needed was for this Heartless to fall into the hands of the enemy.

The moment Raixon moved to strike, Ryuga appeared between them in a cloud of shadows and held his hand up, summoning a Dark Barrier. It was nowhere near impenetrable, but it was enough to deflect his strike with the amount of power he was using.

"Hey, do me a favor," Ryuga said over his shoulder to the Heartless before summoning a Dark Corridor behind him. "Go through that, I'll catch up in a second." He instructed, his nonchalant tone never betraying the amount of effort it took for him to hold back Raixon's strike.