Kaida still was not particularly fond of going on a boat, though she was extremely grateful that the boat was not a rowboat of some kind. Her arms were tired just thinking about the week of rowing they had to do in order to even get to this island. She looked between the others who were asking if anyone knew how to drive one and she refused to answer. Mainly because she had no idea how. She was not born on a world that had any body of water for her to have learned much about swimming, let alone driving a boat. And for all she knew, it could have been several times harder than using a keyglider. Not that she got the hang of that quickly either. She remembered the two months of training she had to have with summoning it and riding it, having far more problems controlling it than necessarily standing on it, but it was not like she ever road a bicycle either. She just overall had very little driving experience as much as a good idea of travel and survival instincts. When she got into the boat she tried to sit towards a side so she could zone out if she got sea sick or something since that was not an ideal state for her to be in. As Aux had trouble starting the boat, she clung onto it for dear life not trusting the fact that her friend may very well drive them into a rock and crash the boat. And she really would not have liked that. As the boat sailed out further and Kaida prepared herself for a long boat ride, she began to notice while the storm began brewing. At first it was subtle enough for her to think maybe it was just a rain shower, but then the storm kicked up suddenly with no real time to adjust. Lightning was flashing, winds were relentless, and this was not going to end well. The blonde kept shifting her weight in the opposite direction to whichever way the boat rocked trying to at least keep a balance. Kaida was about to tell Aux to head back when he suggested it anyway, which made her at the very least calm that someone else was reading this situation as dangerous as well. She knew it probably would have been safer to just find some sort of eye in the storm, but at this rate they had not gotten out very far and she felt pretty confident they could make it back safely. Then the engine stopped. When Aux had noted it was not him, she totally believed it despite the track record otherwise. There was an instant regret taking this kind of a route, she had no idea how to navigate properly and now they did not even have an engine. Kaida still had no idea whether or not riding on their gliders would have been the better choice, or if they would be in just as much hot water. She shifted to go and get one of the oars to help at least get it moving while Aux tried to start up the engine. But the waves grew taller and Kaida had a feeling in her stomach they were definitely going to capsize. Kaida had been banking pretty hard on how lucky they had been so far, but she knew she should not have gambled on something this serious. Maybe they would have done better if they looked at a weather prediction or something. She knew not every world had that, her homeworld had one and so did Central Haven, but not most worlds. Probably because most worlds had similar weather. This made her wonder for a moment if perhaps they were no longer even on the world to begin with, and if this was the change between worlds. At that moment of realization, Kaida quickly got herself up from her spot and shifted quickly over towards where some of the boxes were to try and hopefully find life jackets. She did not know if the boat even came with any but boy was she going to be hopeful. But after several more harsh waves, they were knocked overboard. Kaida thought she would start shooting up to the surface and flail around hoping for something to cling to, maybe begin to flail and do a poor attempt at treading water. But this was different than she expected. The water was not the same tropical waters that she had the chance to feel on the last island. This water was cold. Not to the point of hypothermia, though certainly enough to feel herself being put into shock. Her head broke up past the water, but she could not get her mouth above it. She tried to breathe in through her nose but instead for her trouble she got a nice nose full of salt water which caused her to sneeze and gasp water into her. She was not able to move, she could not swim up to get enough air though her head bobbed the slightest bit above water but not enough for her mouth to leave it. She felt herself go numb, like her body was trying to respond to the situation but stopping her from panicking only to make her panic inside without the ability to move. She just kind of stared upwards as she was pretty sure she head someone trying to scream over the waves telling them if someone could not swim to relax and face the sky and float, but she could not yell back. She knew she was drowning and she could not do anything about it. The blonde tried to will herself into at least have her body parallel to the surface but she could only just manage her hands just to splash She tried to tell her body to move, screaming to herself in her head to move and desperate about it, before she felt herself sinking below. She could feel the cold a lot more and the terror she faced from it as she sunk. It reminded her of the days she spent alone in the forest. The rain that kept her cold and shaking with no real place for shelter. The way she was worried that if she went back she would never be able to be herself again, or she would die by freezing to death. The cold reminded her of when Seiza and her ended up stranded on a broken ship in space. No way to beg for help as things became colder. When the light shined in and flung its way straight through her mentor's chest as she became ever so alone and desperate for help. The inability to move reminded her of the way No Heart froze them in place with no way to move as they were helpless to the events that occurred around their bodies. Watching Aux walk up to her with everything so focused on the darkness as he became ready to execute her without any remorse or even apology in it. It was a helpless feeling, one she only felt when she was almost certain she was going to die and there was no way out of it. There were times she knew she could have died, but that feeling of chilling paralysis was all she felt and with no one around this time... she had no idea what to do. Kaida had become so lost in her own thoughts that when she felt her body jolt and she sucked in more water, it genuinely surprised her and she opened her eyes. Her eyes stung from the salt water while everything else felt numb as she watched herself sink further. Her eyes focused on her hand as she looked at her wrist to see Hikaru's name slowly washing away with the water and she felt a pain in her heart as she tried as hard as she could to cling to his name. Cling to his name as hard as she could as she placed the name with a face... his face. A face she could not recall clearly as she tried to place it in her mind in different memories. But all she could see now was Aux's face and she knew that was not right. Deep down that not right. But it did not even matter as her mind finally started processing while the name completely washed away that she was dying. She was unable to swim upwards or even move as she looked up to try and find the others with her eyes only to at most some shadows and even those were not clear. Kaida closed her eyes as she kept herself in a state where she would not breathe and tried to focus on something else. Try to focus on... the face? The name? A part of her told her that his hair was definitely blue and that he was not nearly as big as Aux was. Kaida felt her ability to move suddenly return to her, if only for an instant, and she was desperate not to drown and if she could at least kick herself up to the surface, maybe she could lean on something and breathe, maybe cough up the sea water, maybe she would be safe. But she found that attempting to swim to the surface was too much for her to manage and she was too weak, and she realized at this rate she was not going to be able to swim up to the surface unless someone had grabbed her. Everything inside her hurt and she felt all of her nerves buzzing in pain as her body tried to tell her to shutdown. Kaida felt herself freezing up and going faint as she started losing consciousness. That was until she faintly saw something odd. Floating towards her under the waves, probably caught by the undertow, was a stone like crystal that seemed to glow and float past her. She was curious how something that would theoretically seem heavy would float, but she tried to reach out for it trying to figure out what it was. She had a suspicion maybe someone nearby sent it her way, but from what she could see, there did not seem to be another soul in this area that she could see anymore. It stopped it's glow and suddenly felt heavier in her hand as she decided to at the very least hold onto it in case it was something that could get her out of there. But after a long enough time, nothing seemed to happen at all and she realized she was putting faith in something foolishly once more. She wondered if maybe she forced herself to go up faster she would have been able to make it there rather than focus on what seemed to her like a useless, albeit beautiful stone. Her mind did not want to think too much on it anymore. With barely a breath left and most of the energy gone from her body, Kaida tried to pull the stone closer towards her to put in her pocket and looked up to see if someone she did not know happened to be above that she could hail down. There were no shadows above her, no one swimming in her direction or just above her, and she could not even see signs of Aux, Ananta, Steel, and Stratos anymore. The blonde looked at the stone once more before she gasped in water and felt it fill her lungs, unable to hold her breath any longer since it was a miracle she had managed as long as she did. As her eyes were wide and she was certain she was about to die, she felt an almost tingling sensation, different to the rest of the pain, and she suddenly could not see anything and could breathe in air again, temporarily as she coughed up water. She was not drowning, for she was not in the ocean anymore.
Take had gotten on his keyglider and was expecting this to go business as usual. He heard murmurings of conversations from other people but he was more focused on getting to the others. But he snapped out of that thought as soon as he saw Torrin suddenly cut through and then falling down. Tinarah reacted first while it took him a moment in hesitation to process what just happened. He shifted down quickly to try and find where Torrin fell, choosing intentionally to land a little bit away from where he thought Torrin fell in case his landing didn't go smoothly. He paused when he heard a male voice he didn't recognize and peaked out from behind the tree to see Tinarah speaking to some random guy. From what he could gather, this guy was most likely the attacker. He knew he probably should have gone in there to fight with her, but his immediate instinct was to find Torrin to make sure he didn't bleed out. Take slipped back into the green and put his hood up to help camouflage himself. He had a good feeling Torrin couldn't be too far away so he started looking. Hoping that Boreas and Chrono would be backing up Tinarah.
Requests completed! Spoiler original artist is Ebara Spoiler
I'm spending all my crowns on defense and resistance. it is split as followed: defense-70 crowns (raise by 7) resistance-80 crowns (raise by 8) Defense is now 24 Resistance is now 24 Remaining crowns: 0 hit 95 achievement points, claiming +5 hp up HP is now 95 (+6)
"Hmm, well there's very few flavors I personally don't like. But... I don't know what your preferences are on stuff, but strawberry flavor is pretty good. You can get a chocolate and vanilla swirl. Or you could get vanilla ice cream and try out different toppings. I highly recommend hot fudge." Kaida looked like she could talk about this particular topic for a while, "Don't get any of the super unique flavors with toppings I think it kind of ruins it. Like putting chocolate sprinkles all over chocolate chip cookie dough... like... what's the point of having cookie dough at that point...?"
Kaida kind of stared off for a minute trying to figure out whether or not these plans could actually work, but after a bit her mind just kind of cancelled out everything and she ended up ignoring the conversation and said, "Man, cake batter ice cream is just one of my favorite flavors. Have you ever had cake batter ice cream?" her brain flatlined on the fact Stratos didn't even seem to have ice cream before this world or anything. 31/31
"Well if you fly out on the keyglider, you risk the chance of leaving without the lanes open. It's not exactly easy to explain but... it's easier to travel from the ocean and end up in another world.. than it would be to be on the keyglider and fly through the sky to get to another world. I know that probably makes no sense..." she paused the conversation when she got to the stand and asked for cake batter ice cream on a cone. When she had it she walked a bit away and said to the others, "We could buy one... or... uh. What's the word... commandeer one?" 30/31
At the suggestion of others, who all seemed to be interested in the idea of getting some ice cream, she turned around and looked over at Lilo and Nani, the whole team over there seemed at least distracted in their own conversations for the time being. She shrugged and said, "Alright, sure. We probably shouldn't be too long since we should proooobably give them a formal see-ya-later as opposed to just disappearing... but I think I need ice cream." she shifted her hair back and walked over back to them and said, "Maybe after that we could ask them about boats.." Kaida looked up the beach to see if she could see any ice cream stands around and there seemed to be a couple on the shoreline selling to some of the beach-goers. She pointed towards them and said, "There's some." and she started walking towards it to at least get the walk started. 29/31
Kaida tried to keep up with every point brought up since she wanted to acknowledge whatever she could. She heard Steel and Stratos' describing the Land of Departure and was curious about it, but then she kind of just looked up at the sky again for a while before she looked over towards the ocean. She didn't say another word before saying, "You know what... we'll probably do better with a boat. We're not gonna be able to directly get ourselves to the land of departure or anything like that, but it'll get us off this rock. There's just the risk we could die but that risk is more likely if we try to fly out at this rate..." Kaida started to wander away yelling, "I hate boats! I really hate boats! My world didn't have boats and everything was just fine. But we're going on a boat I guess. I would rather not because of how risky and unnavigatible it is, but I'm not gonna risk myself nearly dying in the oceans between again." she was already walking away from everyone kicking the sand up in the air and getting irritable about it. 28/31
Kaida looked to Stratos after hearing the others seem to sufficiently answer most of those questions probably more eloquently than she would have. When he mentioned asking about basic questions she said, "Hey, it's alright. We all had to learn this stuff eventually and there's no shame in getting some of this stuff known." there was only one part to his question not full answered was the last part, Kaida looked unsure and said, "It's uh, a little more complicated with Central Haven. It has a really strong barrier as a matter of protection because it's a world that's supposed to take in those who have lost their world or have been otherwise displaced from it. It's a... safe haven if you will. That wasn't supposed to be a pun. So while it is almost a melting pot, it's still well guarded. I know the Order specifically put it's security system in place to help with those who wished to enter it willingly." 27/31
"Locking keyholes? That helps protect the heart of the world from being consumed by heartless. If the world's heart is consumed, well, the world is destroyed. So us locking those keyholes is a form of protection and a really good thing." Kaida clarified for Stratos and reassured, "If there's one thing we should definitely keep doing cause it's a good thing, it's keep locking those keyholes. Also it's not really a 'for a while' type deal, if you lock a keyhole it should never be opened again." The blonde rubbed the back of her head and sighed, "I wasn't exactly able to ask anyone what the best way of travelling would have been, so what I'm hoping is that if we get a ship that we can leave the world with no problems and hopefully get to a place where we can meet everyone else." 26/31
"If there are heartless on the world, it is a safe conclusion to believe that the barrier is broken... we have not seen any heartless, so I don't actually know." Kaida looked up at the sky and said, "I have an itch that they may already be broken anyway due to the timeline mess going on anyway. But uh... it's easier to leave a world than it is to get into one. So we might get lucky. I don't like completely relying on luck but it's all I've got to go on." she bit her lip for a moment and shrugged, "Or maybe even the fact that Jumba and Pleakley are even on this world is evidence of a break. That's all the evidence I can bring to the table." 25/31
When Stratos said they weren't using armor, Kaida was quiet for a moment before she blinked and said, "Wait... what?" she paused for a minute to process it before saying in shock, "What?! You guys haven't been using armor?" she looked at him and the rest of them concerned and asked, "H-how? The strength of darkness in the paths between makes it so it could literally tear someone apart... how... hm..." Kaida looked around while she was in thought before saying, "Maybe it has something to do with the timelines merging together. Perhaps because of that it's not affecting us in nearly the same way it should be. I'm pretty sure our keyblades were the primary reason we were so protected in the realm of darkness, so maybe something involving that? It's so strange though." Kaida looked back over at Stratos and said, "Seiza and I were almost killed for having our gummi ship break down in between worlds, the darkness was leeching in at an incredible rate and we only got out of it in what honestly has to be considered a miracle. The fact that you guys could just travel in that way puzzles me completely... wait... you guys were the one's that had Master Yen Sid sending you places before, right? Maybe he used some magic on you guys to protect you. That might be the better explanation." Kaida shifted her jacket to open it up a bit to show her keyblade armor activator that was strapped to the shoulder of her shirt and she sighed, "I usually have armor myself but, it got broken when we transitioned from the realm of light to the realm of darkness. But since we can't travel through the lanes right now with the keyglider method because of the lockdown, I hadn't honestly considered armor protection." 24/31
"Okay so uh... you know how every world has a heart... right? Well, if you don't uh, every world has it's own heart. And each world's heart naturally protects itself from anything foreign. When a barrier is broken, that's when outsiders, darkness, and heartless are more easily able to get into the world." Kaida paused to give a moment for him to process that before she continued, "When you use a ship, you usually cannot travel to other worlds, the world will not allow it and it'll probably destroy your ship while you're at it. The lanes between are like... smaller routes that a keyblade wielder can make to allow themselves an entry point without causing harm to the world's barrier. Usually only a keyblade master can grant access to those paths and it's sort of a trade secret. The lanes are more dangerous technically because of the darkness and that's why we wear armor." when he mentioned other ways to get there she said, "There... are other ways to get to a world, but they're a lot harder to do? I don't really know how reliable boats are myself. But another way I suppose are portals. I... have no idea understanding of that one though." 23/31
When asked about her telling some history, Kaida almost wanted to sigh since she said that was her personal least favorite section of the bunch when taught, but since the two of them at the very least seemed curious about the subject, she looked between the group and shrugged, "Alright uh, what kind of history would you like to know about specifically? There's a lot when the topic is just other worlds or something broad like that." she tried to think of an example topic to delve into but she couldn't think of any topics besides super specific things, so she tried to think of one thing and shrugged and said, "Uh... hm... fun fact? Gummi ships are only able to be used when the natural barriers that protect worlds are broken. It's not exactly safe for the world when that happens which is why the lanes between is usually the primary way a keyblade wielder would travel between world. Though, if you're desperate enough and don't want to, you know, break the world's natural barrier, you can use gates and still use gummi ships. I just... don't really know how they work to be honest." she stopped and looked around and said, "That was... much less a fun fact and more just a rambling of three different facts... probably unclear too." 22/31
Kaida listened to his tales with fascination, especially over the idea of them having to fight a dragon and a rhino without keyblades. And the heartless that are another heartless. When he asked her about the order she shook her head and said, "Not really, no. Most of the teaching at Central Haven was catered towards helping maintain word order and keeping an eye on the princesses of heart. Sure we had a lot of history related topics and discussions about heartless and nobody types, but we never had a point where they talked specifically about what all the possibilities would be when we went to a world." Kaida looked a little embarrassed as she admitted, "If it were that interesting I probably would have learned a lot more. Instead I can answer really random history facts. Especially about the time of the Thirteen Xehanorts. I... I don't even like to think about it, it's way too confusing. Even my master who was there didn't fully comprehend everything, said something about the whole thing being nuts." 21/31
"...tossed suns?" There was a lot to unpack from what he just said but it was that particular thing that threw her off for a second before she rubbed her head and said, "I just wanna work on it because I uh... decided that I wanted others to be my shield since I knew others had my back... but I wanna at least be able to survive if I end up on my own..." Kaida thought for a moment before saying, "You seem to get in some exciting fights. What's the weirdest fight you've been in? Mine was probably that one we had with Mizrabel... but that last uh, heartless battle had some really odd moments in it too." 20/31
Kaida thought about his question for a second before saying in a question, "Maybe? Hm... a lot easier but I'm not sure about flying colors." she shrugged and said, "Admittedly I was hoping to try and get in a little training for taking hits since I don't do that very well. Maybe after some of that it'd be a flying colors deal." she stretched a bit and let out a yawn and said, "Or maybe we're so powerful now we don't even need to take a hit at all. Knock it down before it has the chance to flinch. Depends on how resistant they are to certain magic. I could probably keep casting stopga and we could hit it until it dies." 19/31
Kaida kind of chuckled at Stratos' comment about that being what they excelled at cause he was kind of right. She scratched her nose and said, "Man, we wander aimlessly until we find the right path. We just kind of help out aimlessly hoping it'll lead us to the goal. Really we should have been called the aimless ones or something. Instead we've got the... what does SOS stand for again?" Kaida shrugged and said, "I don't know, I just know it seemed like..." she looked down at her wrist quickly trying to make it seem casual before continuing, "...Hikaru named us, you know? What is it... I just know SOS for save our souls..." Kaida drifted off and looked horrified and asked, "Wait, are we the Symphony of Sorcerers? I wasn't prepared for the magic test. Is this why..." Kaida looked at her wrist again and continued, "...Hikaru suddenly became a mystic class when he was a guardian?" 18/31
"The land of departure?" Kaida had absolutely no idea what he was talking about for a minute before she placed her fingers under her chin to think and tapped at her chin a bit while she made tiny popping noises with her mouth as she tried to think before asking, "Is that like... castle oblivion or something? Um..." she paused for a moment before shaking her head and said, "Timeline stuff probably. Anyway, uh, I have no idea where or what that is. But if it was the original or one of the meet up places... maybe it wouldn't be a bad place to go? Unless the place was already compromised?" she didn't know the answer to that question though but she shrugged and said, "Maybe we're just gonna have to hope for a little luck and accidentally run into everyone. Though I remember the last time something like that happened we were following a beacon in the realm of darkness.... and I had the greatest concussion ever." she unintentionally looked straight at Aux with a slight look of indignation. 17/31
