Crossover Fic: Awakenings (Chapter 2)
Title: Awakenings
Author:![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
way2dawn
Characters/Pairings: Shinji, Roxas, Quatre, ensemble. Various yaoi and het pairings.
Rating: PGish
Summary: Post-KH2. Crossover with Neon Genesis Evangelion, Gundam Wing, and FF7: Advent Children; familiarity with all source media is not necessary. Post-End of Evangelion, anime timeline, but with some elements from the manga. Post-series Gundam Wing, no-movie AU. When Shinji Ikari met the three strange teens with mysterious weapons called Keyblades, he didn’t expect that he would be able to wield one as well, nor did he expect to be taken on a journey to various worlds, stopping the threat of the Heartless and finding the Awakened. For a boy who only wants to be at peace, how will he deal with this strange new set of circumstances? When the threads of the past interweave with the events of the present, what future will he make?
A/N: Many thanks to my two lovely betas,myth and cozzybob. This idea has been rolling around in my head for a very long time. This is the Kingdom Hearts universe told from an outsider’s point of view, so familiarity with the games is not necessary, although there will be spoilers for at least KH1 and KH2. This entire fic was plotted out before BBS or Coded came out in Japan. This chapter also has a drawing I made and colored :)
Prologue - Chapter 1
Awakenings
Chapter 2
Shinji was amazed by the sight of his new surroundings. Where had the beach gone, where was he now, and why were there pictures of people in glass on the floor? He recognized one of the people as Sora, which was strange enough in itself, but the person facing Sora was some blond boy who Shinji had never seen before, though he did bear a strong resemblance to Sora. Images of crowns and ice cream bars framed the two boys, the background as a whole was a deep, rich blue. But just as he was contemplating this, he was interrupted by something much more bizarre.
Simultaneously, three objects appeared in front of Shinji; a sword, a shield, and a staff. He didn’t know how, but he knew that he had to choose one of them. Which one would help him the most, though? He didn’t want to fight, but if what happened on the beach was any indication, he would need a weapon to fight off the… Heartless. The sword it was, then. He felt its strength, but it disappeared as he grasped it. Now what?
Now you have to choose which of the others to give up, a disembodied voice said. Of course; nothing was truly free, here. The voice seemed to be many people and no one all at once, and Shinji couldn’t tell from which direction the sound had come. Deciding to not worry about where the voice came from for the time being, he looked once more at the shield and the staff. Which would he choose to give up?
Shinji honestly had no idea what the staff would be for, but he knew that defense was just as important as offense, and had learned when fighting the Angels just how valuable a shield could be. He would give up the staff, then, and was just about to tell the voice his decision, but it vanished into thin air, the second he opened his mouth. At the same time, a warmth filled him, and a weight settled into his right hand.
Looking down, Shinji was amazed that he didn’t drop what had appeared in his grip. About the length of his arm, with a shaft that looked like a striped, green cord and blood-red… teeth surrounded by a deep purple mouth. The black grip, surrounded by a simple purple set of guards, felt light in his hand, and was that his old SDAT music player dangling at the end of the short, silver chain?
It was his EVA.
No, it was a Keyblade; that was the word that Sora, Riku, and Kairi had used, the word that the voice kept whispering as he held it. But it looked exactly like EVA-01 would, if it were a… a Keyblade. Which this apparently was. He knew instinctively that its name was Hedgehog’s Dilemma, and Shinji didn’t think he really knew what that meant, but it was his Keyblade, and he could fight with it.
There was a flare of light out of the corner of Shinji’s eye, and as he turned, he saw a large, ornate, rose-colored door ornamented with gold filigree appear out of thin air.
Be careful, the voice said.
Beyond that door lies a completely different world. A different world? Shinji tightened his grip on Hedgehog’s Dilemma. But don't be afraid.
Don't stop walking...
Seeing as there was nowhere else he could go, Shinji pulled the door open and walked through.
At first, it didn’t seem as if he had gone anywhere at all, but looking down, Shinji saw that the image in the floor had changed. Instead of Sora and the unknown boy, the stained glass now showed a picture of Kairi and a blonde girl in a white dress. Facing each other with eyes closed, each of the girls held a star-shaped object in her hands, and Kairi’s necklace, lifted into the glass air between them, glowed with a bright, calming light. Surrounding the girls were colored pencils in many different shades of pastel, all on a pale pink background.
But the light was not to stay like that for very long. Moving in quickly from outside the circle of stained glass, a small, black puddle slid across, stopping in the center to reveal a small, black Heartless emerging up, short antennae twitching every which way but yellow eyes glowing dully and fixed right on Shinji.
Thinking of Hedgehog’s Dilemma as the Heartless ambled single-mindedly toward him, he felt the Keyblade once again solidify into his hand. The Shadow moved to swipe at him with a clawed hand, but Shinji swung and felt it connect, driving the small body back a few paces. For a second, the Heartless appeared to be stunned, but it shook the hit off and attempted to attack Shinji again, this time with slightly more force. Swinging again, Shinji managed to hit it, but didn’t stop to see how much damage he did this time. He followed the first hit with two more successive swings, and as he swung for the third time, he felt the momentum catch up with the Keyblade and let out a more powerful, final strike as the Heartless disappeared into a puff of black smoke.
So things are more powerful in threes, Shinji thought. But even as the notion occurred to him, three more puddles moved onto the glass and formed into three twitching, shuffling Shadows. It doesn’t look like it’s always in my favor, though. It also didn’t seem right, somehow, to see the little dark bodies standing anywhere near a picture of Kairi or the blonde girl, and those yellow eyes made the hairs on the back of his neck prickle uncomfortably.
Still, there wasn’t anything he could do besides attack these new creatures just like he had the old one. Trying to keep the idea of sets of threes in his head, he hit and swung, and even tried stabbing until all the Heartless were gone, the dark smoke drifting away and out of sight. When the last one had disappeared, another door appeared in a flash of light, along with a small red-gold chest. Walking over to the little chest, he opened it to find a small glass bottle filled with a bright green liquid.
A magic Potion, the voice said. When you suffer from the claws of an enemy, it will cleanse your wounds and restore your health. He’d have to save it, then, and maybe ask Sora, Riku, or Kairi how to best use it. Sticking the bottle in one of his pants pockets and hoping it wouldn’t break in what seemed like inevitable future battles, he turned and walked through the second door.
After first looking around once and seeing no more dark puddles, Shinji looked at the floor once more. This image showed two girls he had never seen before, older than Kairi and with hair in different shades of blonde. The girl with the darker shade had her hair pulled back with a black bow, and was dressed in some type of embroidered suit. She seemed deep in thought, and appeared to be reflecting on the beat-up, stuffed bear she held in her arms. The other girl - whose hair seemed to be mostly slicked back, save two long bangs - was dressed all in black and staring intently at a set of blue cards she held in one hand. The background was a sort of yellow color, with images of lighting and small daggers circling the edge of the portrait.
Shinji was about to step closer to the center of the circle, so as to see the girls’ faces in greater detail, but stopped suddenly when he felt that same chill on the back of his neck. Whipping around and concentrating on pulling out his Keyblade, he saw the edge of the platform darken into another of those black pools. It grew and spread, and as he stepped backwards to get away from it, saw the liquid shadow soon cover almost half of the stained glass.
Rising up from the blackness, a giant pair of those dull-glowing eyes was surrounded by a beaked face that was all-too-familiar to Shinji. Large shoulders gave way to thin arms and sharp claws, and in the center of the long body was a hole shaped like a heart. This was what he had to fight now? It was so much larger than the other Heartless he had seen since his encounter with the three strange teens, standing at what seemed like at least thirty feet, and a much more recognizable kind of terrifying than the small, twitching Shadows.
The giant Heartless attacked at once, one inky-black arm rushing down and trying to catch him in its grasp. Jumping out of the way as quickly as he could, Shinji tried to maintain his balance as the monster’s hand slammed into the floor, not breaking the glass but sending a tremor outward nonetheless that almost knocked Shinji off his feet. How was he supposed to fight this huge thing? He had to aim for the core, right, or something like it? That was how the Angels had been defeated, and Shinji assumed that was how the Shadows were defeated, too. But there wasn’t a core tothis Heartless that he could see; there was a giant hole where the core was supposed to be.
As the Heartless pulled its arm back up and shifted its feet, Shinji tried to rack his brain for another strategy. If he couldn’t find the core, were there other parts that seemed vulnerable? Turning slightly, feet landing heavily on the ground, the Heartless kept its eyes fixed on Shinji.
The eyes? Well, it was worth a shot, he supposed. But how was he going to reach them when its head was all the way up there, and Shinji was all the way down here? The Heartless’s shoulder seemed to bulge and it started to rush down with its other hand, and Shinji jumped out of the way again, just barely missing the claws. In a flash of inspiration, he jumped up onto the Heartless’s hand, ran up the length of its arm, and started hitting its head with his Keyblade, trying to aim for the eyes.
He must have started to do some damage because the next thing he knew, the Heartless was letting out a high-pitched scream right into his ear, shuddering and trying to shake him off his perch. Although Shinji tried to keep his balance, one of his feet slipped, and he clutched on with his left hand onto who-knows-what on the thing’s shoulder. But the Heartless flexed its arm again, and he fell off, losing grip on his Keyblade in the process and landing awkwardly on the glass floor.
Nothing seemed amiss at first, other than the angry, giant Heartless, but when Shinji tried to stand up again, his leg gave out beneath him. Looking down quickly, he saw the strange angle his ankle was bent at the same time he became conscious of the pain.
Not good. What was he going to do with a broken ankle? He called Hedgehog’s Dilemma back to his hand, but he didn’t see what use it would do. Even if he got out of here alive, he’d be no use to the others injured. Wait… the Potion! Now, he just had to figure out how to use it.
Well, the bottle looks like something you’d drink out of. To his great surprise, the bottle was unbroken when he pulled it out of his pocket. People… drink this stuff all the time… right? That green color looked so disgusting, but he had no time to waste. Downing it and hoping for the best, he tried to jump one more time, and saw a dark, clawed hand hit the floor once again. Shinji didn’t really have any sense of what the Potion tasted like, and he didn’t really recall exactly how he got back up the Heartless’s arm, but after two more set-of-three hits to the eyes, threethreethree, he heard the Heartless scream once more and felt it shudder as it slowly started to collapse in on itself. He jumped off as soon as he thought he was close enough to the ground, backpedaling quickly.
As the giant Heartless writhed on the ground, darkness rising in plumes and tendrils as it slowly faded away, the light from the floor seemed to be in the process of being swallowed up as well. The darkness was flowing out along the floor as the Heartless disintegrated, covering the picture of the two strange girls and rushing to capture Shinji’s feet. He tried to lift his legs, but only found himself sinking further and further down.
He began to thrash, panic rising sharply in his chest as the claustrophobia caused his breaths to become shallower, but that only seemed to pull him down even faster, the darkness reaching his waist now and rising every second. But just as he thought he was going to be lost in the darkness forever, he saw two of the palest hands grabbing onto one of his each. From their joined hands, a bright, white light radiated outwards. As the light began to encompass everything, Shinji could have sworn he saw two identical –
The light faded, and Shinji found himself back on the beach, his Keyblade clutched in his right hand. The Heartless who had attacked him earlier was gone, and although another one seemed to be coming closer, when he swung, striking it a few times, he watched it disappear in a puff of darkness. He was about to swing again towards a third, but saw it struck and disappear before his eyes by a red-orange blur. Looking at the source, he found none other than Asuka, her own Keyblade held firmly in her grasp.
“Well, don’t just stand there gawking,” she said, a pleased smile on her face and a gleam in her eyes that Shinji hadn’t seen for a long time. “A little variety never hurt anyone. I’ve finally found something to hit that isn’t you.” The only way to describe her weapon was that it looked like EVA-02. The shaft went from red to orange as it traveled outwards, ending in a set of three teeth that looked like white-hot prog knives. On the end of the chain, he could just make out a little red blob swinging that appeared to be one of the synch enhancers Asuka used to wear as hair clips.
Shinji could only make a small noise of protestation, but she had already turned around, weapon slicing at more of the creatures. Riku, who had been ready to intervene the last time Shinji saw him, was now looking at him with something that was almost amusement. Forcing himself to ignore the other boy, Shinji turned and began focusing on attacking another small group of Heartless.
But it soon became apparent that fighting off so many of the dark creatures was easier said than done. Though the Keyblade was a powerful weapon, Shinji and Asuka had very little experience, mostly relying on luck and blunt force rather than any sort of technique. Even Sora, Riku, and Kairi, who seemed to have a much greater skill, were starting to wear down under the sheer number of Heartless that had been called. Attempting to dodge the swipe of a Neoshadow’s claws, Shinji merely felt them carve deep gashes in his left arm instead of ripping it from his body. Wincing, Shinji managed to beat it off, but felt his blood drip slowly down his arm.
“We can’t stay here much longer,” Riku called, hacking his way towards Kairi, even as the rest of them moved closer towards each other in a defensive grouping. “We’re too close to the ocean as it is, and we’ve got two brand-new fighters with us.” Shinji barely managed to take this in, trying to concentrate on hitting the Heartless and pretending he wasn’t losing any blood, curling his injured arm close to his body.
“We’ve fought before,” he heard Asuka reply testily. “I’m not going to give up just because there are more of them then there are of us.” She was moving closer as well, however, and soon came to stand just outside of Shinji’s swing range on his right side.
“I have to agree with Riku on this one,” Sora said. “I don’t like the idea of leaving when there’s still Heartless here, but I know what a strategic retreat is.” Were they really going to leave? He didn’t want to think about his arm or how much it hurt, but if he could manage to defeat that giant Heartless back in the room with the stained glass, why couldn’t he fight against these smaller ones? Was there anything he was capable of doing when faced with a vicious enemy other than running away?
“We’re already back at the rocks,” Riku added, in a preemptive response to whatever he thought Kairi was going to say. She looked like she was about to protest, but stopped once Shinji caught sight of her.
“Shinji, you’re hurt!” she exclaimed, looking distressed. “And my magic isn’t recharged yet… Sora?” Shinji couldn’t see her face, as he was preoccupied with beating off another Shadow.
“I’m out, too, Kairi,” he heard Sora call back, tense. Shinji felt the backs of his legs hit the rocks.
“I don’t want to run away,” he said to himself, almost under his breath. He barely swatted away another Heartless, even as he felt the rocks digging into him from behind.
“I’m not letting you guys get hurt,” Riku said firmly, though it seemed to Shinji to be directed more towards Sora and Kairi. He swung his Keyblade at a few Heartless violently. “Sora…”
“Alright,” Sora nodded, herding Shinji over the rocks to the other side as Riku did the same with Kairi and Asuka. Shinji let his fingers trail over the stone as he reluctantly clambered over, ignoring the throbbing pain shooting up his arm. His vision was tunneling rapidly, and he only distantly realized just how shaky and labored his breathing had become.
“I still feel like there’s something else here that we should be staying for,” he thought he heard Kairi say as they made it over the rocks and down across the other side of the beach. Shinji’s vision became blurry, and his legs didn’t seem as strong as they had a minute ago. “…don’t know,” Kairi’s voice said distantly, “just something.” His legs finally gave out, and his vision went black as Sora reached out to him. For a second, he thought he saw another boy looking at him and catching him as he fell over, that one with the lighter hair from the glass… but all he could think about in those last seconds of consciousness was to wonder whether he’d managed to touch that broken statue on his trip over the rocks.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Aaaaaaaaand, that's Chapter 2. You guys even got adoodle drawing this time :) I have a couple other drawings for later chapters here and there, but I think I'll leave it as a surprise as to when you guys get to see the next one.
Author:
way2dawnCharacters/Pairings: Shinji, Roxas, Quatre, ensemble. Various yaoi and het pairings.
Rating: PGish
Summary: Post-KH2. Crossover with Neon Genesis Evangelion, Gundam Wing, and FF7: Advent Children; familiarity with all source media is not necessary. Post-End of Evangelion, anime timeline, but with some elements from the manga. Post-series Gundam Wing, no-movie AU. When Shinji Ikari met the three strange teens with mysterious weapons called Keyblades, he didn’t expect that he would be able to wield one as well, nor did he expect to be taken on a journey to various worlds, stopping the threat of the Heartless and finding the Awakened. For a boy who only wants to be at peace, how will he deal with this strange new set of circumstances? When the threads of the past interweave with the events of the present, what future will he make?
A/N: Many thanks to my two lovely betas,
myth and cozzybob. This idea has been rolling around in my head for a very long time. This is the Kingdom Hearts universe told from an outsider’s point of view, so familiarity with the games is not necessary, although there will be spoilers for at least KH1 and KH2. This entire fic was plotted out before BBS or Coded came out in Japan. This chapter also has a drawing I made and colored :)Prologue - Chapter 1
Awakenings
Chapter 2
Shinji was amazed by the sight of his new surroundings. Where had the beach gone, where was he now, and why were there pictures of people in glass on the floor? He recognized one of the people as Sora, which was strange enough in itself, but the person facing Sora was some blond boy who Shinji had never seen before, though he did bear a strong resemblance to Sora. Images of crowns and ice cream bars framed the two boys, the background as a whole was a deep, rich blue. But just as he was contemplating this, he was interrupted by something much more bizarre.
Simultaneously, three objects appeared in front of Shinji; a sword, a shield, and a staff. He didn’t know how, but he knew that he had to choose one of them. Which one would help him the most, though? He didn’t want to fight, but if what happened on the beach was any indication, he would need a weapon to fight off the… Heartless. The sword it was, then. He felt its strength, but it disappeared as he grasped it. Now what?
Now you have to choose which of the others to give up, a disembodied voice said. Of course; nothing was truly free, here. The voice seemed to be many people and no one all at once, and Shinji couldn’t tell from which direction the sound had come. Deciding to not worry about where the voice came from for the time being, he looked once more at the shield and the staff. Which would he choose to give up?
Shinji honestly had no idea what the staff would be for, but he knew that defense was just as important as offense, and had learned when fighting the Angels just how valuable a shield could be. He would give up the staff, then, and was just about to tell the voice his decision, but it vanished into thin air, the second he opened his mouth. At the same time, a warmth filled him, and a weight settled into his right hand.
Looking down, Shinji was amazed that he didn’t drop what had appeared in his grip. About the length of his arm, with a shaft that looked like a striped, green cord and blood-red… teeth surrounded by a deep purple mouth. The black grip, surrounded by a simple purple set of guards, felt light in his hand, and was that his old SDAT music player dangling at the end of the short, silver chain?
It was his EVA.
No, it was a Keyblade; that was the word that Sora, Riku, and Kairi had used, the word that the voice kept whispering as he held it. But it looked exactly like EVA-01 would, if it were a… a Keyblade. Which this apparently was. He knew instinctively that its name was Hedgehog’s Dilemma, and Shinji didn’t think he really knew what that meant, but it was his Keyblade, and he could fight with it.
There was a flare of light out of the corner of Shinji’s eye, and as he turned, he saw a large, ornate, rose-colored door ornamented with gold filigree appear out of thin air.
Be careful, the voice said.
Beyond that door lies a completely different world. A different world? Shinji tightened his grip on Hedgehog’s Dilemma. But don't be afraid.
Don't stop walking...
Seeing as there was nowhere else he could go, Shinji pulled the door open and walked through.
At first, it didn’t seem as if he had gone anywhere at all, but looking down, Shinji saw that the image in the floor had changed. Instead of Sora and the unknown boy, the stained glass now showed a picture of Kairi and a blonde girl in a white dress. Facing each other with eyes closed, each of the girls held a star-shaped object in her hands, and Kairi’s necklace, lifted into the glass air between them, glowed with a bright, calming light. Surrounding the girls were colored pencils in many different shades of pastel, all on a pale pink background.
But the light was not to stay like that for very long. Moving in quickly from outside the circle of stained glass, a small, black puddle slid across, stopping in the center to reveal a small, black Heartless emerging up, short antennae twitching every which way but yellow eyes glowing dully and fixed right on Shinji.
Thinking of Hedgehog’s Dilemma as the Heartless ambled single-mindedly toward him, he felt the Keyblade once again solidify into his hand. The Shadow moved to swipe at him with a clawed hand, but Shinji swung and felt it connect, driving the small body back a few paces. For a second, the Heartless appeared to be stunned, but it shook the hit off and attempted to attack Shinji again, this time with slightly more force. Swinging again, Shinji managed to hit it, but didn’t stop to see how much damage he did this time. He followed the first hit with two more successive swings, and as he swung for the third time, he felt the momentum catch up with the Keyblade and let out a more powerful, final strike as the Heartless disappeared into a puff of black smoke.
So things are more powerful in threes, Shinji thought. But even as the notion occurred to him, three more puddles moved onto the glass and formed into three twitching, shuffling Shadows. It doesn’t look like it’s always in my favor, though. It also didn’t seem right, somehow, to see the little dark bodies standing anywhere near a picture of Kairi or the blonde girl, and those yellow eyes made the hairs on the back of his neck prickle uncomfortably.
Still, there wasn’t anything he could do besides attack these new creatures just like he had the old one. Trying to keep the idea of sets of threes in his head, he hit and swung, and even tried stabbing until all the Heartless were gone, the dark smoke drifting away and out of sight. When the last one had disappeared, another door appeared in a flash of light, along with a small red-gold chest. Walking over to the little chest, he opened it to find a small glass bottle filled with a bright green liquid.
A magic Potion, the voice said. When you suffer from the claws of an enemy, it will cleanse your wounds and restore your health. He’d have to save it, then, and maybe ask Sora, Riku, or Kairi how to best use it. Sticking the bottle in one of his pants pockets and hoping it wouldn’t break in what seemed like inevitable future battles, he turned and walked through the second door.
After first looking around once and seeing no more dark puddles, Shinji looked at the floor once more. This image showed two girls he had never seen before, older than Kairi and with hair in different shades of blonde. The girl with the darker shade had her hair pulled back with a black bow, and was dressed in some type of embroidered suit. She seemed deep in thought, and appeared to be reflecting on the beat-up, stuffed bear she held in her arms. The other girl - whose hair seemed to be mostly slicked back, save two long bangs - was dressed all in black and staring intently at a set of blue cards she held in one hand. The background was a sort of yellow color, with images of lighting and small daggers circling the edge of the portrait.
Shinji was about to step closer to the center of the circle, so as to see the girls’ faces in greater detail, but stopped suddenly when he felt that same chill on the back of his neck. Whipping around and concentrating on pulling out his Keyblade, he saw the edge of the platform darken into another of those black pools. It grew and spread, and as he stepped backwards to get away from it, saw the liquid shadow soon cover almost half of the stained glass.
Rising up from the blackness, a giant pair of those dull-glowing eyes was surrounded by a beaked face that was all-too-familiar to Shinji. Large shoulders gave way to thin arms and sharp claws, and in the center of the long body was a hole shaped like a heart. This was what he had to fight now? It was so much larger than the other Heartless he had seen since his encounter with the three strange teens, standing at what seemed like at least thirty feet, and a much more recognizable kind of terrifying than the small, twitching Shadows.
The giant Heartless attacked at once, one inky-black arm rushing down and trying to catch him in its grasp. Jumping out of the way as quickly as he could, Shinji tried to maintain his balance as the monster’s hand slammed into the floor, not breaking the glass but sending a tremor outward nonetheless that almost knocked Shinji off his feet. How was he supposed to fight this huge thing? He had to aim for the core, right, or something like it? That was how the Angels had been defeated, and Shinji assumed that was how the Shadows were defeated, too. But there wasn’t a core tothis Heartless that he could see; there was a giant hole where the core was supposed to be.
As the Heartless pulled its arm back up and shifted its feet, Shinji tried to rack his brain for another strategy. If he couldn’t find the core, were there other parts that seemed vulnerable? Turning slightly, feet landing heavily on the ground, the Heartless kept its eyes fixed on Shinji.
The eyes? Well, it was worth a shot, he supposed. But how was he going to reach them when its head was all the way up there, and Shinji was all the way down here? The Heartless’s shoulder seemed to bulge and it started to rush down with its other hand, and Shinji jumped out of the way again, just barely missing the claws. In a flash of inspiration, he jumped up onto the Heartless’s hand, ran up the length of its arm, and started hitting its head with his Keyblade, trying to aim for the eyes.
He must have started to do some damage because the next thing he knew, the Heartless was letting out a high-pitched scream right into his ear, shuddering and trying to shake him off his perch. Although Shinji tried to keep his balance, one of his feet slipped, and he clutched on with his left hand onto who-knows-what on the thing’s shoulder. But the Heartless flexed its arm again, and he fell off, losing grip on his Keyblade in the process and landing awkwardly on the glass floor.
Nothing seemed amiss at first, other than the angry, giant Heartless, but when Shinji tried to stand up again, his leg gave out beneath him. Looking down quickly, he saw the strange angle his ankle was bent at the same time he became conscious of the pain.
Not good. What was he going to do with a broken ankle? He called Hedgehog’s Dilemma back to his hand, but he didn’t see what use it would do. Even if he got out of here alive, he’d be no use to the others injured. Wait… the Potion! Now, he just had to figure out how to use it.
Well, the bottle looks like something you’d drink out of. To his great surprise, the bottle was unbroken when he pulled it out of his pocket. People… drink this stuff all the time… right? That green color looked so disgusting, but he had no time to waste. Downing it and hoping for the best, he tried to jump one more time, and saw a dark, clawed hand hit the floor once again. Shinji didn’t really have any sense of what the Potion tasted like, and he didn’t really recall exactly how he got back up the Heartless’s arm, but after two more set-of-three hits to the eyes, threethreethree, he heard the Heartless scream once more and felt it shudder as it slowly started to collapse in on itself. He jumped off as soon as he thought he was close enough to the ground, backpedaling quickly.
As the giant Heartless writhed on the ground, darkness rising in plumes and tendrils as it slowly faded away, the light from the floor seemed to be in the process of being swallowed up as well. The darkness was flowing out along the floor as the Heartless disintegrated, covering the picture of the two strange girls and rushing to capture Shinji’s feet. He tried to lift his legs, but only found himself sinking further and further down.
He began to thrash, panic rising sharply in his chest as the claustrophobia caused his breaths to become shallower, but that only seemed to pull him down even faster, the darkness reaching his waist now and rising every second. But just as he thought he was going to be lost in the darkness forever, he saw two of the palest hands grabbing onto one of his each. From their joined hands, a bright, white light radiated outwards. As the light began to encompass everything, Shinji could have sworn he saw two identical –
The light faded, and Shinji found himself back on the beach, his Keyblade clutched in his right hand. The Heartless who had attacked him earlier was gone, and although another one seemed to be coming closer, when he swung, striking it a few times, he watched it disappear in a puff of darkness. He was about to swing again towards a third, but saw it struck and disappear before his eyes by a red-orange blur. Looking at the source, he found none other than Asuka, her own Keyblade held firmly in her grasp.
“Well, don’t just stand there gawking,” she said, a pleased smile on her face and a gleam in her eyes that Shinji hadn’t seen for a long time. “A little variety never hurt anyone. I’ve finally found something to hit that isn’t you.” The only way to describe her weapon was that it looked like EVA-02. The shaft went from red to orange as it traveled outwards, ending in a set of three teeth that looked like white-hot prog knives. On the end of the chain, he could just make out a little red blob swinging that appeared to be one of the synch enhancers Asuka used to wear as hair clips.
Shinji could only make a small noise of protestation, but she had already turned around, weapon slicing at more of the creatures. Riku, who had been ready to intervene the last time Shinji saw him, was now looking at him with something that was almost amusement. Forcing himself to ignore the other boy, Shinji turned and began focusing on attacking another small group of Heartless.
But it soon became apparent that fighting off so many of the dark creatures was easier said than done. Though the Keyblade was a powerful weapon, Shinji and Asuka had very little experience, mostly relying on luck and blunt force rather than any sort of technique. Even Sora, Riku, and Kairi, who seemed to have a much greater skill, were starting to wear down under the sheer number of Heartless that had been called. Attempting to dodge the swipe of a Neoshadow’s claws, Shinji merely felt them carve deep gashes in his left arm instead of ripping it from his body. Wincing, Shinji managed to beat it off, but felt his blood drip slowly down his arm.
“We can’t stay here much longer,” Riku called, hacking his way towards Kairi, even as the rest of them moved closer towards each other in a defensive grouping. “We’re too close to the ocean as it is, and we’ve got two brand-new fighters with us.” Shinji barely managed to take this in, trying to concentrate on hitting the Heartless and pretending he wasn’t losing any blood, curling his injured arm close to his body.
“We’ve fought before,” he heard Asuka reply testily. “I’m not going to give up just because there are more of them then there are of us.” She was moving closer as well, however, and soon came to stand just outside of Shinji’s swing range on his right side.
“I have to agree with Riku on this one,” Sora said. “I don’t like the idea of leaving when there’s still Heartless here, but I know what a strategic retreat is.” Were they really going to leave? He didn’t want to think about his arm or how much it hurt, but if he could manage to defeat that giant Heartless back in the room with the stained glass, why couldn’t he fight against these smaller ones? Was there anything he was capable of doing when faced with a vicious enemy other than running away?
“We’re already back at the rocks,” Riku added, in a preemptive response to whatever he thought Kairi was going to say. She looked like she was about to protest, but stopped once Shinji caught sight of her.
“Shinji, you’re hurt!” she exclaimed, looking distressed. “And my magic isn’t recharged yet… Sora?” Shinji couldn’t see her face, as he was preoccupied with beating off another Shadow.
“I’m out, too, Kairi,” he heard Sora call back, tense. Shinji felt the backs of his legs hit the rocks.
“I don’t want to run away,” he said to himself, almost under his breath. He barely swatted away another Heartless, even as he felt the rocks digging into him from behind.
“I’m not letting you guys get hurt,” Riku said firmly, though it seemed to Shinji to be directed more towards Sora and Kairi. He swung his Keyblade at a few Heartless violently. “Sora…”
“Alright,” Sora nodded, herding Shinji over the rocks to the other side as Riku did the same with Kairi and Asuka. Shinji let his fingers trail over the stone as he reluctantly clambered over, ignoring the throbbing pain shooting up his arm. His vision was tunneling rapidly, and he only distantly realized just how shaky and labored his breathing had become.
“I still feel like there’s something else here that we should be staying for,” he thought he heard Kairi say as they made it over the rocks and down across the other side of the beach. Shinji’s vision became blurry, and his legs didn’t seem as strong as they had a minute ago. “…don’t know,” Kairi’s voice said distantly, “just something.” His legs finally gave out, and his vision went black as Sora reached out to him. For a second, he thought he saw another boy looking at him and catching him as he fell over, that one with the lighter hair from the glass… but all he could think about in those last seconds of consciousness was to wonder whether he’d managed to touch that broken statue on his trip over the rocks.
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Aaaaaaaaand, that's Chapter 2. You guys even got a