Kingdom Hearts: Kingdom Hearts: Light Chaser

The ease with which Dentro seemed to dodge his attacks frustrated him, even more so when Dentro actually stood on top of his blade. Boreas was prepared to pay the price for his mistake there and then, not even flinching he stared right back at Dentro as he fully intended to push the weapon over, tilting it far enough to throw Dentro off but Torrin was already there to take Dentro who was sitting there as pretty much a sitting duck gloating at his foe instead of dealing the blow. With Boreas' weapon freed again and Dentro away from them and the wound started to close again as Dentro taunted them. "As a Captain I won't say no to tactics, he may have gotten tougher and faster but it matters very little we'll still take him out or we'll die trying. No retreat, no surrender." Boreas said keeping his voice low, despite Dentro's warning he could still hear them.

"You may be tough recovering from grievous injuries, but if you think we are just going to give up because of that you may be too used to the weaklings of the Realm of Light, our lives are defined by our struggles, we won't surrender just because we face a tough enemy!" Boreas spat back shifting his keyblade back to the standard form, if they were going to combine their attacks then he had an idea. Dentro had never seen what he had done to Chrysanteum in their duel, Torrin had caught the tail end of it and he looked at his friend for a moment making sure they understood each other and then he went in across the right towards Dentro, slashing agressively a few times using his free hand to throw punches at Dentro's face as well and elbows to his ribcage while he used his blade to hook down his leg and pushing him off balance onto the ground to open up for Torrin.​

 

Qamar's form faded and she was once again removing the hairbow from around her neck. She tied it back into her hair and looked towards Thallasa. She was already urging them to leave and that didn't sit well with Qamar. She crossed her arms and voice her opinion. "I don't think we need to just pretend Illiana didn't just ask for us to fill things in. But I guess I'll have to be the one to speak." she looked to Illiana, the frown that was on her face remained. "I didn't follow her orders and so I followed Aria. Thus, you were left with Taran and appeared to manage. I'm sorry I left you alone, Illiana. But I know you can take care of yourself, right?" she said this and continued. "I heard magic and knew that Aria was the only other one that could use magic other than Master Thallasa. So I ran in that direction and we literally ran into each other. We managed to find a torture chamber and ended up saving Fflam, the old bard. Afterwards, we were able to meet up with Master Thallasa and we were on a cliffside. A man in a long coat with a flower patterned scarf approached us. He called himself Ardyn Izunia. He claimed he found a communicator like Master Thallasa's broken, but...I doubt that."

Took a deep breath and sighed. "He left after and well...we found Glyde's keyblade and his cloak. Glyde is gone. Killed by Ardyn Izunia, I believe. I'm making accusations, sure, but he came from the same direction we went to find Glyde. Glyde's light was JUST floating off as we found him. There's no way he wasn't killed just before we arrived...." Qamar swallowed hard and hugged herself. "Believe me, I know this is true. Ardyn had to have done it. There's noone else."

Closing her eyes, she let go of herself and looked at Illiana. "Nothing much happened after that, we ended up finding you and here we are."​

 

Boreas had done his part of the plan and while Dentro retaliated and the cold darkness washed over his armoured arm, he could feel the skin beneath the armour being affected by the darkness, it hurt significantly but Boreas wasn't going to give up. Torrin doing his part dealt a heavy blow to Dentro but even still he seemed to recover but not as easily as he made it seem, with Torrin's follow-up attack Dentro still seemed unharmed but with the short deep breaths it clearly showed he wasn't as invulnerable as he let on, he couldn't keep this up forever, neither could they but it proved that Dentro wasn't as invincible as he claimed he was, recovering from that clearly was taking it's toll on him. "Do not relent Torrin!" Boreas barked. With that Boreas transformed his keyblade back into the Glaive-guisarme, with his arm hurting he wasn't going to be as good with his weapon but Boreas refused to give up. He started with diagonal slash turning the weapon and on the backswing go directly for Dentro's face with the staff followed by a horizontal swipe at the neck, shifting his blade back to the normal keyblade, holding it in a reverse grip going for another slash at the neck, followed with an elbow to the face on the backswing, followed with ramming the pommel of his keyblade into the side of Dentro's head. Boreas had been drawing the attention again to buy Torrin some time to regain his composure and grab his weapon again. Boreas then let his blade go for a moment to grab Dentro by his ears and giving a headbutt onto his nose, picking up his blade and going for the same overhead slam that he was denied in his duel with Chrysanteum.​

 

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They did it, despite everything that had literally been thrown at them, they managed to beat the clown. A moment that should've been met with celebration was instead faced with Chrono holding his keyblade in a defensive manner while barely managing to stand for the clown that they had just beaten planned to drag them down along with him. His legs were too shaken as a result of everything that had happened ready himself as the clown inched closer and closer.

Then he was gone in an instant, leaving nothing behind but a black wisps as the scenery around them changed to a much brighter setting. A hill that happened to overlook Edna's home. A nice enough sight for Chrono's arms to just flop to his sides, causing his keyblade to land on the ground before fading away. Tinarah suddenly started leaning against him and it didn't bother Chrono too much. A lean was a lean, not like she'd collapsed onto him. Besides with his legs still shaking he wasn't going anywhere right now, though the healing did help return feeling to them. "I sure hope so, I don't think my legs will keep me standing much longer."

 

Illiana looked over to Thallasa as she gave out her orders. She shrugged her shoulders before following after Thallasa. Before Illiana could move further, Qamar had decided to open her mouth. "I don't think we need to just pretend Illiana didn't just ask for us to fill things in. But I guess I'll have to be the one to speak." Illiana looked back at her with a hand on her hip. "What now Weepers? We have more pressing matters at hand. We can talk about this later." Qamar had immediately frown as she spoke her next words. "I didn't follow her orders and so I followed Aria. Thus, you were left with Taran and appeared to manage. I'm sorry I left you alone, Illiana. But I know you can take care of yourself, right?" Illiana rolled her eyes as Qamar tried to explain herself. Honestly, Illiana couldn't care two bits about what her excuses were or how sorry she was. She basically didn't really give a crap about Qamar.

The girl continued to inform Illiana about prior events. Illiana had sort of zoned out as Qamar kept talking until something had piqued her interest. "A man in a long coat with a flower patterned scarf approached us. He called himself Ardyn Izunia. He claimed he found a communicator like Master Thallasa's broken one, but...I doubt that." "Oh Flowdora man? Ardyn Izunia...Interesting. Nevertheless, that old man is the reason me and Taran are here with Eilonwy. Definitely gave me some peace and quiet from some certain people but I digress." Illiana shrugged before crossing her arms.

However, Qamar's next words had immediately silenced Illiana "He left after and well...we found Glyde's keyblade and his cloak. Glyde is gone." Illiana's eyes widen as she looked over. She then shook her head before laughing a bit. "That's such a bad lie. He isn't gone. The kid can hold his own." She looked at Qamar and saw her face was not lying one bit. Illiana went silent as she lowered her arms. Qamar continued. "Glyde's light was JUST floating off as we found him. There's no way he wasn't killed just before we arrived....Believe me, I know this is true. Ardyn had to have done it. There's no one else." Illiana turned around and started to walk away. "Just shut up and keep walking. We're wasting time. And don't start that 'it'll be fine with friendship and time' crap. It's annoying and it's stupid." With that, Illiana followed after Thallasa. Another one falls.....Dammit....It's too late to run now....Glyde...He was only a kid. He had his whole life ahead of him...This is ridiculous...Illiana continued walking toward Thallasa, hoping she had a plan thought out already.​

Quick little shoutout to Arch for helping with the banner!

 

Boreas kept Dentro on his toes while Torrin recovered he was quite agile but Boreas wasn't going to let that stop him from wiping that grin off his face, the grin that was still there after he had headbutted him square on the nose. His blow was once again denied and the kick to the chest sent Boreas backwards, landing on his back the wind knocked from his lungs. Boreas took a moment to catch his breath laying on his back, Dentro's words swirling around his mind. You can't beat me.... you can't beat me... you can't beat me... another voice joined in until they merged and spoke as one. Boreas rage flared as he scrambled up to his feet. He didn't even hear Torrin's question whether he wanted to finish Dentro off, he ran towards him rage coursing through his veins as he tackled Dentro to the ground and started to relentlessly punch him. "You may have been granted those gifts but you lack spirit! The dogged refusal to die to drag out another day! You're just prancing around with your fancy mending powers, pretending to be far greater than the little boy you actually are, the little boy that was deceived ! I told you you should not have shown your face here!" Boreas shouted as he brought down his gauntleted fists on his face again and again. Boreas summoned his blade, got up and slashed several times at Dentro.​

 

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Qamar filled Illiana in before she could. Glyde's demise was not given a gentle way of putting it, and she could see that Illiana was upset about it. Rightfully so. "I'm sorry..." she said quietly to Illiana, and then hung back. She could still feel the sadness lingering in her heart from the whole ordeal. They didn't even get a chance to save him or see what happened. Just that his light was floating away. For all she knew, he could have been suffering while waiting for them to come his way.

Remembering about Hen Wen, she looked over to Taran. "I had Hen Wen back at the castle, but I was overwhelmed. I got caught outside on this balcony, and all of these thugs were closing in on us. I pushed her into the mote so she wouldn't get captured again. I was going to go after her, but I couldn't with all those thugs trying to attack me."

Aria rubbed her shoulder as she walked, keeping her eyes down to the ground now as she fell further behind the others. Usually she was the happy, optimistic one, but she had nothing to give. She felt like she failed in some form in many areas, and it was weighing on her. Maybe she shouldn't have came out on this mission after all to find the other princesses of heart. Maybe she should have been back at the castle with the other masters. What spark and flame she had before was dimming almost to the point of being snuffed out. The fact that no matter how many times and how hard she tried to prove herself, people still thought she couldn't hold her own which made her feel useless. She put others in danger because she ended up on her own and worried others. For the first time in over a year since she left her home world, she wanted to go back to the farm. Things weren't going to be the same anymore, and it was only foolish dreaming.

 

Qamar looked to Illiana and sighed. Yet again Illiana acted as if she had no relation to anyone here and that she didn't give two craps about anybody. Qamar shrugged it off this time and shoved past Illiana, trying to walk closer to Thallasa. She was thinking to herself about the events and she couldn't help but feel....nothing. Qamar was upset they lost Glyde now, but she wasn't able to feel anything else right now. Maybe it was because she just saw Adalric die. For all she knew, he hated her, but she still thought they got along. For what it was worth,they had to work together a few times in any case. She was used to him being there and now he was just gone.

Her feet stopped as the others passed her and Qamar stared at the ground. For most of her life, she was able to protect herself and a few others around her. Now she was unable to do that and it made her feel terrible. She hated this feeling and she just wanted to be able to prove she was able to keep others from disappearing. She saw a set of feet walk far behind the others before she looked up and saw Aria. The girl looked down in the dumps now and Qamar knew something else was going on. Walking forward, she stood next to Aria and then put a hand on her arm. "Aria, is there something wrong? Do you wanna talk about it?" she asked, trying to talk lowly. "And I would like to point one thing about now. I'm concerned as a friend and nothing more. I'm not gonna just blurt out your problems to Master Thallasa or Master Gero...I just don't want you to think I'm that kind of person."

She could talk to her about how she felt Illiana was being unfair later, since Aria was more important right now.​

 

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The sudden hand on her shoulder made Aria flinch as she was pulled out of her thoughts. When she realized it was Qamar and she was trying to talk to her, the girl relaxed a bit and smiled sadly. "It's... it's silly." Aria laughed a bit in spite of her herself, trying to lighten the mood. The last thing she wanted to do was weigh anyone down with her own thinking. "Even if you blurt it to them, it wouldn't matter much," she said with a small shrug. "I mean... My life is exposed as it is right now. With me being a princess of heart and such. I don't think anything of mine is really private anymore. Even stuff I don't know about, but everyone else seems to." Aria rubbed the back of her neck as she kept on walking, trying to push her feelings down. "Like I said, it's kinda of trivial. It's nothing anyone should worry about. I'm just feeling sorry for myself, that's all. I'll pull my head out of the sand eventually. Probably more so when we distance ourselves from that weird old castle... What about you? Are you holding up okay?"

 

Qamar didn't really believe Aria right now. "I'm fine." she put it bluntly. "But I don't want to talk about me. I want to talk about you. I wanna know why you're being way more careful this world. Last I saw, you were rip raring to dive headfirst into anything and now...." she stopped talking and thought about what Aria just said. "Or maybe you don't know since people like to hide stuff from you." She sighed and let go of Aria.

"But...since you asked about me..." she clenched her fists again. "I'm burning with anger that I can't get a hold of. I'm doing everything I can to hold back my inner darkness, but that last battle..." She looked at her hands and saw wisps of darkness float off. "I enjoyed beating those thugs up. I'm not supposed to, I'm supposed to be able to hold my anger back...." she grit her teeth. "I wish there was somebody I could talk to."​

 

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Careful? That was a funny way to put it to Aria. After all, she took the iniative to grab Hen Wen first and fight off thugs singlehandedly. Maybe it was just careful about her spirit and mood in general? She didn’t focus on that too long as soon as Qamar started to open up to her. Aria’s looked to Qamar’s hands in time to see the dark wisps flow off of them and her eyes widened. She sort of seen how Torrin handled his darkness, and he seemed to be in complete control of it. On the other hand, Qamar seemed like she was having trouble with it.

Aria hummed to herself as they continued on. “Well... I’m not an expert on it, but I’ll see what I can do if you’d like me to have a go at it.” She smiled a little and then went back to the matter at hand. “So... what’s gotten you mad? Maybe we can start there. Unless you don’t want to dive into that right now and that’s okay if so.”

 

Thinking to herself, she noticed Aria sounded a little chipper. That was good, since Qamar hated to see her so sad...the rainbow girl was not supposed to be sad, after all. "Well...lots of things..." she glanced at Illiana and back to her hands as smaller wisps of darkness spewed off again. She rubbed them together in a frantic manner, trying to hide it and hoping rubbing at them would stop them. It helped, she supposed, as she could hold her hand out and not unknowingly call upon the darkness that was teeming within her.

"It first started with Glyde brushing off my catching him. I got a little upset, since, ya know, he could ahve at least not brushed me off." she pulled one of her fingers down. "Next is her and then Master Thallasa and Torrin and myself." she pulled down four more fingers, leaving her thumb on her left hand and her entire right hand. "The biggest thing was Dentro and my inablity to avenge Adalric properly. Don't get me started on Master Aster shutting off the communicator and not letting me talk to somebody else. Master Thallasa brushed it off. Why does she keep doing this? She's keeping a hell of a lot of secrets, after all. Shouldn't she trust us as much as we trust her...?" she glared forward. Her fists were now both clenched. "I feel like a ticking time bomb...."​

 

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This girl had some serious issues. Aria saw the way Qamar’s darkness seemed to flare up more when she looked over at Illiana’s way. She listened closely to Qamar’s plight, taking each invidiual scenario and pieces it together in her mind. “So, let me see if I got this... you don’t like being pushed to the side, you don’t like how some people are treating you and how they’re not putting their trust in you, and you’re feeling guilty for what happened back on the other world...?” Aria rubbed her chin as she mulled over the assumptions and then glanced at Qamar. “I dunno what it’s like having this power crawling under my skin and threatening to take over at any time and hurt people. Well, maybe I kinda do,” she thought aloud, thinking on the nightmare, “but not enough to know your situation. But I can offer some insight... One, it’s good that you’re talking about it now instead of bottling it up. Cause if you bottle it up, then you’ll get a bigger explosion of emotions on your hands.”

‘Pot’s calling the kettleeee.’

Aria ignored the thought and continued. “Two, acknowledging that you’re upset and hurt is another way you’re staying ahead of this. I mean, no one can be happy and have it together all the time, right? I mean, it’s hurtful when people keep pushing you aside whilst you’re dealing with grief and other strong negative emotions. Which leads to thought number three, find a way to channel all of that out of you without hurting others. I like to make things, or go for a run. Give myself some me time, you know? If you wanna beat things up, beat up a pillow, or a practice dummy, or an old tree trunk. Something like that. It’s okay to feel like this,” she added, “it’s not okay to let it consume you completely and take it out on everyone else.”

The girl sighed out as they walked, kicking at a stone and watching it roll ahead of them. “And with Illiana, no one’s gotten close to her. I thought I did at one point, but then I got her mad by dumping some tea out she made cause I didn’t want to fall asleep. I don’t think she’s ever forgiven me about that.” Aria forced a smile and placed her hands behind her back. “I found that you can’t force people to like you... or to see your point of view. I just have to work with what’s given to me and make due with it the best I can. If they give me something more over time to work with, great! If not, then I don’t force it. It’ll just make me frustrated and the other person frustrated as well, and then you get an even bigger mess of emotions than you had before. Give her some space, and give her some time... if she comes around, kudos to us. If not, that’s on her... not us.”

 

Her eyes looked to Aria and she listened to the girl as she talked out the frustrations. The first point was discussing all this now. She nodded in agreement with Aria. It was a good idea to not bottle this all up, after all. The idea of beating up a tree trunk reminded her of simpler training times. She smiled and chuckled a bit, thinking back to one of the many times that Adalric was training and she was basically punching and kicking at him. She managed to knock a large spot into a tree after getting frustrated. Of course she got in trouble, but she learned to hold back a little bit after that.

Aria shared her experience with Illiana and that confirmed that the girl was just hard to get along with. That confirmed her doubts on being able to actually get anywhere with the girl. Scratching her face, she closed her eyes a second and turned to Aria. "I appreciate you talking to me. I just...i needed this, I think. A good talk." She took a deep breath and stretched. Then she skipped forward and turned on her heel. She cleared her throat and pointed at Aria.

"Now that I've poured my feelings, I wanna hear you." she smiled. "It's not the same if you're not happy. Please...let me know what's wrong?"​

 

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Now it rotated back to her. She knew she would have to brave and be able to share her feelings openly at one point. She was used to the fast pace of missions and how her own worries and problems were a second thought to the main threats at hand. It was better that way though, they couldn't be distracted from the dangers ahead of them. Aria walked on, willing to continue the conversation as they were getting closer to the woods to find Hen Wen. "I... feel like I'm getting in the way," she said quietly to the girl. "I'm a princess of heart, and I didn't know I was one until a few days ago... And my master didn't tell me, no... It was the Light Chaser. But Master Choma knew all along that I was a princess of heart, but didn't tell me because I would throw myself in harm's way and be reckless... Still..."

She sighed out and rubbed her arm. "I feel vulnerable, but I don't want people to keep protecting me. I want to be depended on, too. All I wanted to do for most of my life was help out in any way I could. I protected my farm from monsters, both human and not. I trained really, really hard with Master Choma. And even when he wasn't training me, I would push myself to do so much more. And now I'm told I need to stay back, let others handle the problems. I don't feel like I'm trusted to hold my own in a fight... and I'm starting to wonder what's the point of having a keyblade if... If I can't help. You know? So far the only one who's trusted me to hold my own, at least openly, is Master Thallasa. And I know I can't run headfirst into every battle and I have to size up my enemy before charging in. Like if I should really right or not. But then I have this thing going on inside of my head that's not really giving me that option right now," she said, pointing to her temple. "I can't sit back, even if I tried. I fall asleep, and I have this demon facing me and trying to kill me the last couple of days. So I'm going to have to fight, even if no one else wants me to or trusts me to sustain myself..."

Aria laughed nervously and rubbed the back of her head. "So... that's what's going on with me. And I probably just rambled a bunch... But yeah. There you go... That's kind of why I'm out of it."

 

Chrys nodded in agreement with Avra as they neared the manor.

"We can hope. I may not know what it's like to have that exact kind of relationship with my siblings, but I can relate to wanting to do your best for them even if they might not feel all that positive of you as a result." She winced and she felt the words tumble out of her mouth awkwardly.

"Sorry, I'm still better at listening than actually knowing what to say." Chrys chuckled with self-deprecation. "Still..." She looked behind her at her three remaining companions before looking ahead to their destanation once more. "We're getting there..." She said to the girl beside her. "Little by little..."

It wasn't really the manion she was talking about.
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