Kingdom Hearts: Kingdom Hearts: Light Chaser

​

"Hmmm?" From a state buried into the deeper recesses of contemplation, Glyde emerged from his own head to Take's voice. Slightly dumbfounded, he returned to the awareness of his physical surroundings. Remaining planted against wall, he stared down the hall as Take ran past. At first, he stood in a puzzled response; his mind processed whatever it was Take had said.

Slowly, the brain caught up to the ears. An inappropriately bright flare of understanding shone across his face. "A run?" He looked across the hall to the door into the Masters' chamber; it was still shut tight, with no evidence of opening soon. "Better than standing here for God-knows-how-long, I suppose."

He wasn't sure he's be able to keep to keep up with his peers; he had never been astute to formal physical training. Even so, he pushed off from the wall, whipping off his cloak and leaving it in an a miraculously neat bundle in the hallway. Taking a slow start to warm his body, he jogged outside, where would catch up with Take and Boreas. "Where do we run to?"

 

Adalric throughout the whole meeting with the council seemed... distant. He'd listened to Tinarah's story. He'd heard the words of those who came from the realm of darkness. He payed attention to Aria. His gaze, however, never left the master of masters. He'd never seen the man before yesterday, and even that had been for mere moments. Adalric had a discerning eye better than most. He didn't really need to see someone fight to understand how strong they were, it just helped. If he was able to observe them long enough, he could even tell how they fought.

Master Gero was so...powerful. it kind of scared him, honestly. If he was this powerful...what was the light chaser like? The thought sent shivers down Adalric's spine. They could run away all they liked. They could sit tight in their castle and guard the princesses, but eventually there would come a day when they had to fight him. That was why Aster had started training him. To make up for the gap left in Gero's wake when he was believed to be dead.

Finally, the meeting was adjourned and all the apprentices left the room. Several of the others broke off into groups, seemingly troubled. Qamar had a newfound fascination with the master from the realm of darkness. He understood why, he just...prayed she didn't come on too strong when she interacted with him. She was the type to forget that not everyone was as headstrong as she was, and that she'd know these people for less than 24 hours.

He stood by himself shortly outside the hall where the meeting had occurred, processing what had transpired. Suddenly a voice snapped him out of it. Take had invited him to go on a run with them. "Oh um..I...Ive got something to do I'm afraid. I'll catch up later if You're all still together." Adalric politely declined Take's invitation and began to walk toward the training grounds. A courtyard in the middle of the castle. It was secluded, and had various flowers growing around the perimeter of the smooth stone pathways that led into the open center. This was where he spent nearly all of his time that he wasn't training with Aster. He often spent time with Qamar here, but that was usually because she invited herself in and he was too polite to refuse her.

A glimmer of light and a few ethereal petals emerged from his hand, and his keyblade formed from nothing. He took a deep breath a few times to steady his heartbeat in preparation. Closing his eyes, he held his keyblade nearly parallel with his body, leaning slightly outward. Quickly, he deflected a strike that hadn't really been there at all. He sidestepped just as soon, blocking another phantom strike.

In nearly ten minutes, he only found the room to strike back three times. Meanwhile, he defended flawlessly. Each Parry, each guard, was very well executed. Such was his forte. Eventually, he seemed to have found an opening in whoever it was that he was fighting's defenses and kicked what appeared to be their ankle out from underneath them, followed by plunging his keyblade toward the ground.

Panting, adalric opened his eyes, his hands trembling. After one of his "training sessions", he always found himself incredibly wound up. He dismissed his keyblade, and sat down, trying to steady his breathing. Once he was ready, he stood up to face his next opponent. ​

 

​

Aria could see her words hurt Tinarah, and she felt a twinge of guilt within her. She put her drink down and moved by Tinarah's side once more, wrapping an arm around her shoulder as she cried and had a look of concern on her face. "I'm really sorry," Aria whispered softly.

It was then Take came to them and asked them to go for a run. To her surprise, Tinarah wanted to go as well. Maybe for just a walk, but at least she would go out and get fresh air. Aria smiled and nodded her head. "You know me. Master Choma couldn't get me to stay put in the castle for three seconds..."

She laughed a little and then looked to the girl, giving her shoulder a squeeze. "You will get first swing. I'll make sure of it... And it probably hurts you more because its in the heart," she said quietly as she touched her own chest. "You care so much, which isn't a bad thing. It means you are a good person. You work at your own pace, Tinarah... We'll always be here with open arms for you, no matter what you decide to do. And I'm sure Master Stamatis never once had blamed you for what happened... How were you supposed to know it was a trap?"

She smiled a little, glancing at the floor for a moment. "Being a Princess of Heart... I feel like I'm a pawn too... I want to be out there and protect you guys, fight along side you... But I won't be able to if the Light Chaser gets at least two more princesses. I'm like a hazardous risk. I don't want to be a tool of manipulation. I want to be able to continue to be myself and build my strength along side all of you. It seems like it'll be over once we're down to the last few princesses and I'm the only one standing... I don't want to put everyone at risk because of me."

She let her arm fall away from Tinarah's shoulder and held up her wrist that had the Light Chaser bracelet on it, right next to Mika's friendship bracelet. "See this thing? The Light Chaser gave it to me before Torrin found me. I can't take it off," she tugged on it, showing it painfully tighten around her wrist before she winced and let go of it. "One of the masters said it doesn't track where I'm at. All I know what it does is protect me in battle... Like this like bubble comes around me and saves me from really bad hits. It's like... he knows I'm kinda reckless. And it's kind of creepy to think about that."

Aria sighed out and then stood up, offering a hand for Tinarah to take. "Let's go get some fresh air, mm? I think it'll do us some good too." She grinned at the girl and tilted her head. Although she was a running person, she would walk with Tinarah. Tinarah needed a friend right now to trust, and Aria wanted to be that friend for her.

 

Boreas couldn't help but smile at Take's enthousiasm for this short run, even going as far as going around to see if he could round up some more people to join them on this run. Boreas waited for Take to return and the other people to start turning up too. The first to join in aside from Take was Torrin. This was going to be good, a nice opportunity to see how the good master had kept up his condition. The person who arrived after his friend was something he didn't know the name of yet but going over the list of names tha Atmos had mentioned there was only the possibility of them being either Glyde or Illiana. Unless Atmos had left another name out once again, but he was going to hazard a guess and say this was the Lieutenant General, interesting to see if the top brass kept up their exercise too.

"Well, ma'am I simply intended to go do my physical training, figured I'd ask Take to come with who wanted to go see who else might want to join us and now here we are. I'd personally pick a different pair of shoes, but I'm not the one running in them so be my guest." Boreas said, after saluting her. "I am Boreas by the way and if I had to hazard a guess I'd say you are Illiana." Qamar asked something about leaving the pack she was carrying with her safely. "We're going to return here and unless people can't keep up we're not going to split up, I don't imagine we're going to take a break, but if you want to get rid of that backpack, I'm more than willing to carry it along." Boreas said. Then yet another person joined them, had Take drummed up almost everyone? He didn't imagine that Tinarah was going for a run with them given how weak she was the day before when they were getting out of Choma's Castle. "I'm not sure yet, but those mountains do look quite inviting if I must say so myself." Boreas said pointing to the mountains in the distance.​

 

​

Tinarah’s current condition was a concern, yet Aria knew if Grandpa Gero was on his feet now, maybe Tinarah would be able to work up to there as well. And her comment about having Aria in the group verses being locked in the castle was nice to say the least. She couldn’t help but to smile a little at it.

Soon, they were outside in the sunshine. Aria felt the chilly mountain air and shivered as she smiled to herself. This reminded her of Master Choma’s Castle a little, yet she felt they were higher up. Maybe it was the illusions of the clouds.

Aria pulled out a hair tie from her pocket, tying her long braid into a bun of sorts so it wouldn’t get in the way. Even if she was going to mostly walk with Tinarah, they were going to be out in nature.

After some struggle of tying her hair up, Aria began to do light stretches; touching her toes, stretching her each arm over her head, doing whatever she needed to do before they got started. She glanced at Tinarah as she did this, happy to see that she felt more at peace outside, and Take seemed to be doing so much better than what she saw earlier. Everyone seemed in good spirits for the most part.

For once, and very rarely she did this, she chose to keep quiet. She wanted to enjoy everyone’s company and see them come out of their shells, setting aside their worries for a while. She would go with what they all decided, knowing full well that no matter what they chose, she was gonna hang back by Tinarah.

 

​

Take scratched the back of his head when Illiana asked what brought about the run, Boreas explained it fairly well but he said to Illiana, "Yeaaah, I guess I might have gotten a little excited and asked everyone else, but most people seem to be interested in this sort of thing."

When Qamar asked about leaving a basket somewhere we were meeting up, Take was surprised to see she had packed a picnic lunch. Mainly because he wasn't expecting anyone to put that kind of care into this spur of the moment run (well spur of the moment to everyone but Boreas). "Yeah um, maybe just leaving it here until we get back. It'd still be a picanic outside of the castle. Ya know?"

Take didn't need to respond to Glyde's question, but was nonetheless glad he had joined them.

When everyone who seemed to be going had arrived, Take clapped his hands together excitedly. Then immediately regretted it as he said, "Cool. I didn't think everyone was gonna wanna do this. This'll be exciting. Well, maybe. Some of you may be lost along the way. I'll carry you to freedom though."

 

​

Takehiko had a pretty great time getting that run in. Despite the fact some people by the end were needing a lot more rest. He snacked on something small with the picnic since others seemed to grab at that desperately. The boy enjoyed having the company of everyone around after everything. It felt nice. But when Gero showed up telling them they had a new group leader, Thallasa (who Take was surprised to see was still alive), he just kind of sat there quietly a second to process before sighing and standing up, "Alright. I guess we're moving on then. But would you mind if we gave gave our masters a quick goodbye before we ran off?" Take wasn't even looking at Gero or acknowledging him at this point, "If anything happens I don't want it to be on poor or unresolved terms."

 

​

When Tinarah told Aria to go on ahead without her, Aria made sure the girl was comfortable before taking off. She ran hard, and fast once she was out of Tinarah's line of sight, running off her frustrations and the negative vibes she was feeling all day. She woke up with a nightmare, and never really had much of a break to herself since then. She let her lungs burn as she kept an even sense of breathing, and her legs were equally on fire, but she didn't stop. The others were too far ahead of her, which she didn't mind at all. This gave her time to stop thinking for a moment and just enjoy the thrill of the run with her heart pounding in her ears and the birds chirping with the wind whispering through the trees around her. A few times she looked back and saw glimpses of someone following behind, but didn't think much about it. There were people going at different paces, and this was a safe world as far as she knew.

When she got back to the castle, she saw Tinarah was already there waiting for them along with a few others. She finally slowed down and walked it out, panting and shaking out her legs to get rid of the blood rushing feeling in them. She then immediately started to stretch again, knowing that if she didn't, she was going to feel it in the morning.

Aria wasn't hungry for food and waited around a bit before having a look to see what was there... Even though she wasn't really hungry. She was surprised to see her thermos of hot chocolate brought out and smiled to herself. It was then she noticed Torrin was sitting alone on the castle steps and she thought of an idea. Soon she approached him, quietly handing the cup of hot chocolate to him while sitting down by him with her own small cup. "That was a good run," she said quietly. Her hands were trembling slightly, but she didn't mind. She had so much to process and let out, this was just a sign she pushed herself just enough.

Soon the peace and quiet was over as Grandpa Gero stepped out. Aria stood to attention, setting the hot chocolate aside. She watched the older man with concern, knowing that this change of events meant that Grandpa Gero was just pushing through his weakened state. She was glad to hear she wasn't going to have to stay behind though and would be able to go with everyone else.

It was then the other master appeared, and Aria looked on with surprise. It seemed like the Council of Light had tricks up their own sleeves, which made sense given how cunning the Light Chaser could be. She nodded in respects to the woman, and then looked at Torrin, seeing the shock on his face. Aria smiled, happy that Master Thallasa ended up being alive all this time. Aria listened to Take's request, and then Tinarah's request... Both were very important, and she wondered what would be said on the manner.

 

​

As Aria was watching the interactions with Gero and Tinarah and Take, she felt a suddenly tug on her bracelet. And the Light Chaser one to be exact. “Hey, hey, hey!” She whispered under her breath to Torrin, her eyebrows knitted together in confusion. She had no choice but to sit since the thing was tightening around her wrist and was threatening to get tighter if she didn’t move with it. “What are you-?”

It was then she was handed the note and raised an eyebrow. She saw the little smiley face on it along with a T and blinked at it. She didn’t know what it meant exactly, but he handed it to her without looking at her and pretending to look at the people who were speaking at the moment. She then looked down at her hands, seeing them shaking and then looked at Torrin. Did he notice earlier and wanted her to sit...?

She looked over her shoulder at her grandfather figure, knowing he had other things to attend to at the moment. He wanted to talk to Take for some reason... odd. She then looked back at the note and carefully folded it back up, slipping it in a pocket to be hidden away. She didn’t know his reason exactly for it, but it was nice she supposed.

After she finished her hot chocolate, she stood once again and smiled at Torrin. "I'm going to find Master Choma," she said with a slight shrug of her shoulder and headed into the castle. She soon found Master Choma and gave him a big hug, and a pouty face. "I wish you could come with us," she said and then let go of him. She fell back into seriousness and smiled, rubbing the back of her neck. "Well... I guess I'll see you later, Master Choma. I promise I'll do my best to stay out of trouble." With that, she bowed her head to him and then turned away, heading back towards the others so they could get going.

 

​

After Gero gave them permission to say goodbye to their masters. Take went to go and walk until Gero suddenly mentioned wanting to speak to Take. The boy was thrown off for a moment, but went in quickly. Getting up the stairs in no time at all to give Atmos a very basic goodbye. Letting her know he was alright considering the last place they'd left. He kind of wished they hadn't run so far. The short run was fine for him, but probably not for anyone else at that point and he hoped they weren't too exhausted.

When Take had gotten back from giving Atmos a quick and uneventful goodbye. He finally got to Gero, who had already separated himself from the rest of the group so they could speak privately. When he finally got there, Take just kind of looked at the old man for a long moment before crossing his arms and saying, "Hey."
"I am sorry we could not speak sooner but it is good to see that you are doing well, Takehiko." Gero spoke with a small smile.
"I'm... glad you're not... dead?" Take wasn't exactly sure how to reply to that.

The boy shifted a bit and looked up at Gero, he sighed and let his arms uncross as he asked, "You're the one that gave me the keyblade... aren't you?"
"Yes. Yes I am. I knew you would be worthy, child."
Take was trying very hard to stay distant. But it didn't really last long. The boy smiled one of his small smiles before saying, meaning it as a joke although it was delivered flatly, "You didn't make a point to see if I would be very long."
"I do not need to see rain fall to know that the ground will be wet or a moon rise to know night has come. You were worthy. You just needed to find that out yourself."

"I..." Take closed his eyes and gave up on attempting humor at that point and asked, "Why... were you there that day?"
"You needed to find a higher calling. You were destined to be more than another soldier on the frontlines, Takehiko."
Takehiko stopped for a moment and looked back up at Gero and he didn't realize it, but he started smiling, though it was a sad smile this time, "But I still am another soldier on the frontlines. It's just a different weapon and a different enemy now. That just seems to be the card dealt no matter where you place me."

"Are you telling me that is all you have done on this journey? Have you not made bonds so far?"
Take was quiet at his response before saying, "I bonded with other soldiers on the battlefield at home. I don't think it changes the endgame here..." he felt himself getting angry, and he didn't know why this was building up again.
"Bonds change everything. Perhaps you need more time to explore that."

Take tightened his fist and finally the anger bubbled up, "It doesn't change the fact that I'm gonna end up probably dying out there on the field while you and all of your masters sit comfortably here waiting for the point you have to do something. I've played this game before Master Gero and I'm more than willing to just let this be my role if that's all it is but with a different color of paint this time." the boy turned away and said, "I don't need to hear more of your vague lessons. It's not like they're helpful anyway."

Takehiko walked away, he paused a minute and looked back, feeling guilt for a moment over snapping like that, before he shook it off and kept walking.

 

​

"Don't worry, I'll be fine." Chrono said, chuckling a bit nervously after Take had gone off to find anyone else to join them in the run. While he was decently in shape, least he thought he was, running up a mountain was on a completely different scale then what he was used to doing back home. He would often climb things when he found the time to do so. Usually just trees. The last time he tried climbing a building, he didn't get far before someone spotted him and pretty much freaked out.

As time went on, more and more people started to arrive. To be honest he wasn't expecting this many people to arrive and when Tinarah had shown up with Aria, Chrono felt relieved to see her outside, but was still concerned about her overall well being. He told himself that she would be fine. If anything were to happen he would do something about and felt safe in thinking that he wouldn't be the only who to act.

At the start of the group run, Chrono had been doing fine in keeping up a decent pace with the others who were actually running. Eventually his pacing started to grind down not to a halt, but to a point where it was very clear that he was pushing himself to keep up. His legs felt like jelly after a while, will power being the primary means of keeping him standing. When it came time to eat at the picnic his legs might as well have vanished from underneath him as he straight up collapsed on the grass, taking a much needed breather.

Their return was greeted by Master Gero himself along with Master Thallasa, who in itself was a surprise to see. Chrono himself had no idea what it was that he could say to Master Atmos before heading out again beyond a simple goodbye. Having heard that Master Gero wanted to speak with Take didn't help either for it made it so that this was what he was curious about. Curiosity got the better of him as he ended up followed Take to where he went to speak with Master Gero, finding a place to hide in which he hopefully wouldn't be spotted.

 

Qamar shrugged at Boreas. “Nevermind, I’ll just carry it.” she said, stretching. She had no intention of changing her shoes, either. As if she didn’t already think about training in them. She loved heels and would never, ever not wear any. Besides, it gave her an advantage when trying to kick people and she liked kicking people. She glanced over to see Aria putting her hair up and that caused Qamar to giggle to herself. Her braided hair looked odd, but hey, it did it’s job. Tinarah had joined them and that made Qamar happy to see her trying to enjoy herself some. She also looked like she was doing a lot better now after taking a bath and eating. Of course Torrin kept behind the rest.


Once everyone had arrived and were ready, Take and Boreas had started off. Qamar raced off to be in front with those two, making little comments about the scenery as they made their way through the mountains. She even pointed out a place where she fell off a tree and broke her arm when she had first came to this place. She still had the scar on her arm from where she hit it against the rock. It wasn’t so bad, though. Just a small scar.


Eventually, she raced off ahead of them and stopped at the castle steps. Taking a moment to breathe, Qamar drank some water she had stopped to get up in the mountains. She looked up to see the others start to arrive and she took that as a sign to set up the picnic. She laid out a large blanket and placed the basket in the middle, taking out plates and napkins and the other fixings. As others sat down, she listened to a few of them and conversed a little between bites of food. The hot chocolate was even delicious and hit the spot after Qamar’s second sandwich. She sat back and listened to the birds and wind rustle the trees before she heard the door to the castle open.


Qamar quickly stood up and bowed to Master Gero. A woman came out and Qamar tapped her chin for a second. The lady was somebody she had only heard about, she thought at least...Qamar couldn’t be so sure. Although Master Gero didn’t have to restate that Adalric and her were coming with the group. She could have sworn Master Aster had told them they were already going. The woman soon introduced herself and Qamar snapped her finger. “Ohh, Master Kide had mentioned her before…” she whispered to herself, nodding.


Thallasa soon mentioned Adalric and Qamar grumbled. “He’s probably in the training room as usual, Master Thallasa.” she commented, crossing her arms. “If we’re all allowed to go see our respective Master’s, I need to speak to mine, definitely.” Qamar nodded. Looking about once more, she waved to Tinarah and walked up the steps. She then waved at Torrin and Aria, smiling at them. At the top of the steps, she bowed once more to the two Masters and headed inside.


Her heels clacked against the floor as she walked the stairs leading to Kidemonas’ room. Yet again, she knocked on the door and announced her arrival. “I’m coming in, please don’t let there be a billion books everywhere.” she called out, stepping inside and beginning to talk without even bothering to listen for a reply.


“Now I know you know I’m leaving, but tell me what you’ve been researching before I go because I really am curious.” she admitted.​

 

As everyone had gathered for the run and Qamar said she'd be fine carrying it Boreas just shrugged. "Alright, everyone fall in behind me, Torrin I want you to bring up the rear make sure no one gets left behind. Now move out!" Boreas almost shouted. Boreas started with setting the pace and had to remind himself that he was supposed to hold back a little, despite of it he wasn't going easy on the runners and was glad to see that despite Take claiming to be out of shape he still kept up with him. And as everyone came to learn the term short run that Boreas had coined ran into the double digit miles, as he ran Boreas silently lipped the words to a marching song to set his pace. When they were almost back he simply sighed at Qamar running off ahead of him, had it been one of his soldiers or raw recruits he would have ordered them to do fifty push-ups for the inability to follow very simple instructions properly but these weren't his soldiers. They had caught up on Tinarah near the Castle but he hadn't expected any different from her. As everyone had returned, he smiled a little as Chrono unceremoniously collapsed instead of sitting down. "Nicely done, all of you." Boreas said, grabbing some food and sitting down.

Torrin seemed to be comfortable around Aria, which was something unusual atleast unless that had changed, he wasn't really one to warm up to people so easily. Boreas made no remarks on the matter when Gero and another person came out of the castle. Boreas kept a wary eye on Gero, despite his permission to stay he had called his presence interference between that and everything that had been said by Tinarah made him wary of the master of masters. Boreas was even anticipating criticism for taking everyone, especially Aria out of the relative safety of the castle and out on a run. When no such thing happened and instead it was revealed that Thallasa was still alive Boreas was a little surprised, Atmos had mentioned she had gone missing. So Atmos and Choma now had to stay behind and Thallasa was to lead them, someone atleast missing and presumed dead as Atmos suggested, as did Torrin's surprise at seeing her there.

It turned out that Boreas greasing the wheels a little would be unnecessary as Gero wanted a moment to speak with him alone. They were permitted to go say goodbye to the other masters, Boreas went to find Atmos and Choma as well even if they weren't his master. He gave Choma a firm handshake. "A shame we could not fight side by side, but we all have our duties, perhaps some other day..." Boreas told him before moving on to Atmos. "Should, I not be able to do so on your behalf, remember what his majesty requested of you in return for our help to you. I wish you good luck with your duties here and thank you for bringing me up to speed." Boreas said shaking her hand as well and taking his leave without looking back to them he rejoined the others outside. "Where are we headed Master Thallasa?" Boreas inquired it'd be good to get an idea of where they were going.​

 

Chrys would be lying if she said she wasn't as shocked as Avra, but she kept her doubts to herself for the moment and did as her master said. Not that she wouldn't be thinking about it all the while. "Yes, Master." She bowed before turning around and walking away. If she was to be asked personally, she did not agree with what the Light Chaser had done. Yet it was likely necessary all the same. If the other princesses were still in the same state Kida had been in before she departed, then it wouldn't take much for Pocahontas to become convinced they had lied to her. In such an event they would be forced to incapacitate her... something they had done anyway.

Chrys wondered if she shouldn't have just knocked the princess out in the first place. It felt better at the time to talk her down and convince her that they were attempting to do what was right, but in the end, it just felt like they had manipulated Pocahontas and betrayed her trust. Her attempt at a peaceful resolution practically went up in smoke. Her words had once again meant nothing, only causing others harm. Chrys shook her head and banished those thoughts from her mind. As she walked up to the tavern, "The Black Mages," she was briefly struck with the thought that it sounded more like the name of a band than a tavern. Nevertheless, the majority of her companions were inside resting, as she herself intended to do after all that had just happened. To that end, she stepped inside.​