Refrain of Darkness Chapter 8

[eiahmon]

Title: Castlevania: Refrain of Darkness

Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Not mine, don't own.
Summary: Aqua receives a mission to investigate a new world that's appeared on the council's radar due to a Heartless invasion, and finds that everything is different here. Now she must team up with Juste Belmont and track down the source of the Heartless in a world where souls have all the power and hearts don't belong.
A/N: This was supposed to be posted early as a Christmas present of sorts, but fanfiction.net decided to be an ass and not let me upload the doc. I ended up having to take the doc of Chapter 7, clearing it, and them copy/pasting chapter 8 into it. And since I used ff.net for my formatting, if I can't post there, I can't post here. Grrr...

 8.

"What are you doing here?" Aqua questioned, surprise evident in her voice. "How did you get in here?"

"I'm not entirely sure myself," Terra admitted. "I don't really remember."

Aqua frowned. Something had to be odd about this. Weren't they in the middle of a castle? But somehow that didn't seem to matter at the moment. Seeing him now, she realized that the feeling she'd had before they entered the room made more sense, and she was confused that she hadn't recognized his signature right away. Terra had darkness in him even now, but he'd been working to control and utilize it the way Master Riku did.

"Miss Aqua," Juste said in a warning tone as she began to walk forward, "that's not who you think it is."

She heard Juste say something as she walked forward but she didn't quite catch it. And anyway, talking to Terra was more important. "Are you sure you don't remember anything?" she reiterated, concern written on her face. "Tell me everything you know, maybe we can figure it out together."

He shook his head. "I'm sorry, Aqua, it's all a blur."

She didn't even seem to hear him as she continued walking closer, and the Vampire Killer crackled with anger as Juste rested his hand on it. He walked up behind her and grabbed her by the shoulder to stop her.

"That's not your friend, Miss Aqua."

She removed his grip almost unconsciously, as if she didn't know he was even there anymore. "Maybe you should just come with me, Terra. We can figure out what happened along the way."

"That sounds like a good idea. Let's go," Terra agreed, tilting his head toward the next door.

Aqua nodded and continued to walk towards him.

Certain now that they were dealing with an Incubus, Juste ran forward and lashed out with the whip as Aqua reached out to take the creature's hand. The Vampire Killer whistled through the air, passed close enough to Aqua's head to stir her hair, and cracked right in the center of the incubus' face.

"Back to Hell whence you came, demon." he growled as he moved to stand between it and Aqua.

Terra snarled from the pain, and suddenly Aqua was sure that this was not Terra. He would never make an expression like that. She had grown up with Terra, and knew him better than anyone. She leapt back instinctively, as more and more began to click together. They were in the middle of an evil castle surrounded by monsters of all shapes and sizes; there was simply no way he could have gotten here in the first place, let alone before they did. She suddenly remembered that she and Juste had had a conversation about incubi and succubi back when they were in the forest on their way to the castle. She had even identified at the time that Terra would be the most likely subject for them to choose with her. How had she forgotten? She'd fallen under its sway so easily.

The incubus, seeing that his prey was lost to him, growled and dropped the illusion.

Juste smiled with relief when Aqua jumped back, and he turned his attention to the demon in front of them.

It was very much like the succubi that Leon had described; tall with a slender, curvy body, flawless skin, long, luxurious dark hair, clawed hands and feet, and two large bat like wings. It was also dressed very much the same, with the bare minimum of clothing. It was still obviously male however, and it snarled in rage as it flapped its wings to hover above the floor.

"Such a shame," it sneered, "I had hoped for a meal tonight."

"It would be really nice if Terra lookalikes would stop attacking me," Aqua muttered as she watched the illusion fade. She summoned her blade. "Remind me, Juste, any other tricks to watch out for or weaknesses to exploit?"

Juste called his magic up as the incubus flew higher up above them. "Holy and light elemental things work best, but watch out when it makes copies of itself. Attacking a copy instead of the real thing will result in a nasty shock."

The incubus snarled again, and a bolt of lightning streaked down from its hands to the floor, whereupon it then moved across the polished wood in a wave. Juste jumped over it and launched a fireball at the creature's wings, hoping to bring it back down to floor level.

Aqua jumped the wave as well, and sent a Triple Blizzaga at the creature as she landed, directing each of the three ice blocks in different directions. The incubus couldn't escape all four blows, and took a chance with one of Aqua's ice blocks rather than risk Juste's fire. This turned out to be a bad decision, as the ice collided painfully with the forearm of one wing, and the force of the blow sent it spiralling to the ground before it could recover.

Juste hurled a holy water at the downed incubus as it shook off the ice from Aqua's attack, and it screeched in pain as the holy substance made contact. Smoke rose from its burns as it flapped its wings again and flew backwards to get away from them. It raised its hands again and began hurling balls of pure magic at them, which forced them to dodge as they tried to close the distance between them and it.

Aqua rolled to the side, then threw up a barrier to begin charging her next magic attack. As soon as the barrier fell, she shot a fireball of her own at the incubus. The flames caught on a wing, and it was clearly struggling to maintain its flight. She quickly dodged another magic bolt before firing off a set of low magic ice crystals.

The incubus dropped to the floor to snuff the flames on its wing, and once the flames were out, the damage to the wing sail was clearly visible, making it unlikely that it would be able to fly anymore. It snarled again and spun around in place, creating a little whirlwind around it. It then split off into three, and Juste back up as he tried to figure out which one was real and which were the illusions.

Aqua wasn't far away and also took up a defensive stance while she attempted to analyze them. If only they were like the Mirror from Dwarf Woodlands all those years ago...it had been so easy to find the real one there. But these three were all acting independently from one another, so any one of them could be the real thing. It was nearly impossible to tell. "Exactly how much does that counter attack hurt?" she questioned, trying to weigh the potential costs and benefits of taking a chance.

"It can be enough to bring you to your knees, though you just might be able to avoid it if you're quick enough." Juste replied as he eyed the three creatures in front of them. They were all flittering about the other side of the room, but none of them were attacking. Perhaps that meant that this one was not powerful enough to attack through its copies?

Only one way to find out.

He pulled his cross and sent it spinning towards the nearest one. The thing didn't even flinch and vanished in a cloud of flower petals and leaves. Juste tensed his leg muscles to roll away but before he could, he felt the short hairs on the back of his neck stand up, followed by the feeling of something running through him, from his head down. He would have yelled if he could have, but his muscles locked up painfully tight and refused to obey him.

She glanced to Juste to find that he had just been hit by a massive bolt of lightning! She quickly cartwheeled away in case it happened to cause a chain reaction should she be close enough. Across the room, the second copy disappeared, and the incubus flashed in to Juste, who hadn't moved since the strike. Had he been paralyzed? It seemed unlikely that he wouldn't have had time to roll aside otherwise. The creature grabbed his face and kissed him, to her utter surprise, and in doing so, some of the damage they'd done to its wing healed. She recognized then that somehow the incubus could regain its health by presumably leeching it from them. She was too far away to strike it easily now, but she took a page from Ven's book once again and threw her keyblade at it to force it to retreat. She couldn't afford to coat it with magic like she typically would, however, for fear of hitting Juste in the process.

Just felt the hands on either side of his face, and... no, no. No! A pair of lips pressed against his, and he tried to pull himself away, but his muscles ignored his commands. Sara crackled in rage in his hand, but she was unable to help him anymore than he could help himself at the moment. He felt his life force draining, moving from him to the incubus that still had its mouth pressed against his. His knees trembled slightly, and the kiss was suddenly broken as the creature snarled and jumped back away from him.

Juste staggered back on legs that shook from the aftereffects of the drain and wiped out his mouth. He could taste that thing... He wiped at his mouth again and spat on the floor before he raised his head and glared at the incubus as it hovered nearby. Its wing had healed enough for it to fly, and it gave him a coy smile and licked its lips.

"Delicious," it sighed, "I have never before had the pleasure of tasting a Belmont."

Juste ordered himself to stop shivering like a frightened child and met its gaze. "You will never get a second one, demon."

Aqua's blade snapped back into her hand as the creature flew back. It was unfortunate that it could fly once more but it was no matter, really. They would just have to ground it again. "Are you all right, Juste?" He looked pretty shaken. Of course it was probably only to be expected, having just had life drained by their enemy. She quickly trained her eyes back on their target, shifting into an offensive stance once more. If he happened to need a bit more time to recover himself, Aqua could easily grab the incubus' attention herself. She shot several small shots of fire from her blade, and took a few swift steps away from Juste to force the incubus to turn away from him in order to keep track of where the attacks were coming from. Some of her projectiles hit, but they're minor annoyances, nothing particularly damaging. Once she deemed it suitably distracted, she pulled out the big shots once again, sending a powerful Firaga its way, aiming for its wings to bring it back down.

Juste gave Aqua a grateful look as she pulled the incubus' attention off of him. He was still shaking slightly, and his entire body shuddered as he remembered the feel of the creature's lips on his own. That would not being happening again. He wiped at his mouth one more time, determined to wipe away that taste, and then he picked up his cross from where it had fallen by his feet, just as Aqua launched a trio of fireballs at the creature's wings. That seemed like the perfect plan to him.

He raised his hand and a series of fireballs, smaller than the ones that Aqua had used, flew across the room towards the incubus. It saw them coming and dodged to the side, towards Aqua.

Perfect timing, in fact, as she cast Fission Firaga. In dodging Juste's attacks, it was unable to account for Aqua's, and the spell hit it and exploded, disintegrating the rather fragile wing membranes where it hit. It shrieked, an ungodly sound, and with the tattered remains of its wings, it angled its descent toward the closest attacker, Aqua. Anticipating its need to regenerate the wings with a healthy dose of her life force, she warded it off with a painful strike of her keyblade, then vaulted backward, leaving it to skid on the floor.

At any other time, Juste would have laughed at the pathetic sight of the incubus skidding across the floor, but there was no time for humor as he ran across the floor, dodging bits of charred flesh from the creature's destroyed wings as they fluttered down. As soon as he was in range, he sent the Vampire Killer whipping towards the monster's face, and Sara struck true.

The creature screamed as the whip cracked against its cheek, and the skin and bone disintegrated under the hit. It thrashed about on the floor, clutching the ruin of its face, and another whip strike to the forehead finally made it fall silent and go still. The incubus sprawled out across the floor, and complete silence fell in the room as it began to crumble into dust, then turned into leaves and petals and blew away on a sudden breeze, leaving the floor empty.

Aqua resisted the urge to kick it until it faded. How dare it take on Terra's appearance like that! Now that the fight was over, and no longer the focal point of her mind, her anger rose up. It caught her so damn easily! She ought to be better than that, falling for such an obvious trick. It shouldn't have been even mildly believable, and yet...

Juste caught the glint on the floor where the creature had lain, and a few swift steps carried him forward so he could pick it up. He could hear Aqua grumbling to herself, but he ignored her as he quickly fished the other five pieces out of his pocket. Yes, they finally had all six needed to open the door into the courtyard. He quickly began to fit them together, and the pieces joined with a click, though he could see no mechanism to make such a sound, and within a few minutes he had the completed crest in his hands. As Leon, Hector, and Trevor had described, it was the shape of a shield, a little bigger than his hand, with the head of a dragon in the center.

"Save your anger for later, Miss Aqua." he said as he looked up to see her glaring at the spot where the incubus had been. "We finally have what we need to get into the lower area of the courtyard. We can finally learn just what is going on here."

She breathed in for a slow count of five, held it for the same, and then released the breath in a long, smooth exhale, dispelling her anger with it. "All right, let's go. I'm ready to be done with this place."

"I couldn't agree more." Juste said, and he walked across the room, to the door that the incubus had tried to lead Aqua out of. On the other side was the other end of the chapel corridor that they hadn't been able to reach earlier, a warp room, and the staircase up. Opposite the warp room door was another open door, but he ignored that as he approached the staircase. No doubt it led up to the castle keep and the throne room, but he did not sense Dracula's presence. If Dracula was in the castle, he was not in the throne room, at least not yet.

"Let us use the warp room to get back to the castle entrance." he said as he looked up through the hole cut into the ceiling for the stairs. "From there we can -"

A strangled sounding "Erk," from Aqua made him pause, and he turned to see that she had walked past him down the hallway and was staring into the open doorway that he had spotted with wide, horrified eyes.

"Miss Aqua?" he asked as he began to walk towards her. "Are you all right?"

The room beyond the open door was like something out of a Gothic design catalog from back home. Everything was in shades of black, deep purple, and dark red, with an unnecessary amount of smooth curtains lining the walls and the object that had gained Aqua's understandable dread: an enormous, canopied bed, rumpled sheets that were likely silk tucked down invitingly. Like the rest of the room, they were red and black, and the chaise at the foot of the bed was the most garishly red item present.

She shuddered, and then once more, as she connected the exact purpose of this room. She did her best not to gag as she, against her wish, thought of that demon wearing Terra's likeness bringing her here and seducing her while she was biddable and pliable under the demon's spell. She wasn't going to be able to think of Terra for weeks without this coming to mind too. She wanted to go back and kill that incubus all over again for tarnishing her thoughts of her best friend in such a horrible way.

Juste came up to stand behind her, and he paused when he realized what he was looking at. He shuddered and took a deep breath to center himself as he tried not to think of Aqua, or even himself, lying in that bed under that demon's spell. She had been its main target, but it wouldn't have hesitated to go after him if the chance had arisen.

"Miss Aqua." he said quietly wanting to get as far away from from that bedroom as possible, "let's head to the warp room. From there we can warp to the castle entrance and walk to the courtyard from there."

She took a deep breath, in the manner of someone coming up for air after being underwater. She blinked and tore her line of sight away from the room. It sickened her so deeply. She felt equally that she wanted to be away from it now.

When she felt she could steady her voice, she answered him. "Sounds like a good idea. Whatever's coming, I want to have all my magic at my disposal." Who knew exactly what they would face in the end, now that they're nearly there? So far it had been only threats related to this world, but something from hers had brought her here. She had no idea what they would be up against, and chances were she would need her best spells available. She had ethers and potions stocked in her pockets, but it was only logical to go in as fully rested as they could.

Juste didn't say anything further as he made straight for the warp room. He stepped onto the pad and turned back to Aqua as the magic stirred his hair.

"When you go to warp out," he told her, "make sure you tell the warp room which room to send you to. Think of the one in the living quarters that we found earlier. It's close to the hole in the floor that drops down into the entrance. Sometimes you can pick your destination, sometimes you can't. Let's hope this one is one of the former. If I successfully warp out, then you'll know that you can." He waited for her understanding nod, and then he closed his eyes and willed the magic of the room to send him to where he asked.

Thankfully, it turned out to be one of those where the destination waypoint could be chosen, and when he opened his eyes, Aqua was nowhere to be seen. He then stepped off the platform, and waited for her to appear.

She had used similar transports in the past, so it wasn't particularly difficult for her to step onto it, visualize the correct destination, and activated its magic. When she blinked out at her new destination, Juste stood nearby, and she hopped down gracefully. She gestured for him to lead on. She had a fairly good map of the castle in her mind, but ultimately, Juste was still the more experienced of the two in this world's mechanisms.

Juste gave her a quick nod, and then he turned to the doors leading out. Hopefully, whatever it was that was in the darkness enshrouded courtyard would tell them what was going on in the castle, and he secretly secretly hoped that, just this once, it wasn't Dracula. It was a futile hope, he knew. Even if it wasn't Dracula, as Death had said earlier, once the intruder was dealt with, Dracula would retake control of his castle, and they would have to deal with him anyway.

All of that was stricken from his mind when he opened the doors. Ahead of them was the hallway that they had first gone down after entering the living quarters hours before, as well as the staircase they had taken up, but something had changed since they had last been there.

Flowering vines had climbed up the walls, spread across parts of the floor, and were slowly inching across the ceiling. Juste looked around, but he couldn't tell where they had come from, or even why they seemed to be thriving indoors.

"This is strange." he muttered to himself as they went down towards the hatch that would drop them into the castle entrance.

"The vines? I notice they're new," Aqua remarked. "Usually plants don't grow this fast. Let alone in such an unsuitable area. There's no soil or sunlight in these halls."

Juste shook his head slightly, while still keeping his eyes on the hallway turned garden in front of him. "No," he said, "Dracula's castle occasionally contains a garden, but it never spreads beyond its own area, and the only plants you'll see outside of it are the Unes and Alura Unes. This... this is not them. I don't sense anything either, so whatever this is, it's not some kind of creature we've never seen before. I have no idea what is causing this."

"Perhaps, then, it's related to what brought me, and the Heartless, here? I'm not sure, but if this isn't typical of your world, that's the only explanation I can think of."

"It makes me wonder what kinds of things you deal with out there." he said as he began to walk forward while resisting the urge to use his coat to cover his nose. The stench was starting to give him a headache.

"All sorts. But in this case I think it may be related to affinity," she replied as she followed him. "Some worlds and people are naturally aligned towards certain elements. Water, fire, perhaps plants in this case. So the magic of the world or person would be stronger with those favored elements, and usually that also reveals specific weaknesses as well. Obviously someone who is a powerful fire magic user would be weakened if doused in a wave of water. I'm sure that's obvious to you. But I say this because there are those who have an affinity for plants and related earth or life magic. There was one such being I know of, but never faced myself. He was taken down by a hero far greater than me. We had seen no sign of him since, however, so I'm hesitant to claim this to be his work. Surely there are others with similar powers. But it does seem like his sort of magic," she explained, eyeing the vines worriedly as they entered their territory.

Juste nodded as they reached the small alcove that had the opening that would allow them to drop down into the entrance. Through the opening, he could see that more plants had started to take over the entrance hall, though the floor was still mostly clear. "Anything in particular we would need to know if it was this person waiting for us in that courtyard?"

"I... Well, admittedly, I was a bit remiss in reading some of the files of past enemies," she said with a wince. "I remember that this man's name as a Nobody was Marluxia, that he wielded a scythe far more quickly than anyone ought to be able to, so he was likely quite physically strong despite a somewhat feminine appearance, or so it was described. And as already stated, he was quite strong in plant magic, though he possessed abilities unrelated to plants as well. I'm sorry; that's all I can remember at the moment. He was the master of a castle as well, however, so don't underestimate him. He was quite a challenge for the one who eventually defeated him."

My castle, at that, she thought. My home. I certainly haven't forgotten about that.

Wonderful, Juste thought as he hopped down through the open hatch and down on the floor of the castle entrnace. That is all we need.

"I admit," he said once Aqua had joined him, "that the idea of such a person being here worries me, especially when one adds Dracula to the equation." They started off towards the sanctuary a few rooms ahead, and he continued as they walked, killing the occasional zombie that appeared as they went. "Something attracted those creatures we saw outside the castle here, just as something gave Dracula and the castle the power to appear so soon. It's a frightening thought that a single person would be capable of all of that."

"If a person bears enough darkness within them, more darkness will be attracted to them, and if they possess a strong will, they will be able to control beings within the darkness rather than be overwhelmed by them. It's a rare person that can utilize the darkness without it overtaking them, however. More frequently someone like that will fall to it, and they will be lost. Then it's almost as though you're not facing that person at all anymore, but a puppet of the darkness bearing their face."

She shook her head, dispelling images of Xehanort in her best friend's body. That man... She knew it was not the sort of feeling that someone of the Light, especially a Keyblade Master, should have, but she never would forgive him for what he'd done to her friends, to her world, to so many worlds and so many people. That he had been permanently destroyed a few years ago made no difference. His death alone would not earn her clemency. Still, those thoughts would do her no good here. She couldn't be focused on the past with an important mission right here before her. "The power of darkness is seductive in its apparent strength. Those who have fallen to it have been capable of destroying entire worlds. I'm here to ensure that doesn't happen."

Juste made note of the mention of "entire worlds" but chose not to comment on it. As frequently as she mentioned it, as well as so many other things, had a small part of him wondering... as impossible as it should be... He shook his head. "Such was Dracula's fate. He reached out to the darkness to get revenge on God and later, on humanity, and now nothing remains of the noble man that was once Mathias Cronqvist."

They stepped through the door and into the room where they had fought the giant skeleton in what felt like days ago, and they both paused suddenly. "Heartless," Aqua confirmed, just before several of the creatures appeared before them. A duo of Red Roses appeared on either side of the hall, blocking their progress, and a single Defender sat in the middle, with a Fire Plant at its back. Larger shadows than they had yet seen in the castle rose up into Heartless that looked like an older relative of the basic Shadows with long limbs and antennae: Neoshadows.

Aqua cursed under her breath. "Okay, here's the deal," she rattled off rapidly. "That Defender in the middle is going to be a major pain, as the shield makes it impossible to hit from the front and I'm not convinced your whip will be very effective against its armor even at the back, so let me focus on that. The Neoshadows are much nastier than regular Shadows, their claws hurt, so watch out for them and try to keep out of their reach. The Fire Plant will be annoying but it isn't all that powerful so you can try to ignore the fireballs it tosses at you. The Roses probably won't move so leave them last."

"Alright," Juste replied, "How about I deal with the Neoshadows while you worry about the Defender? Then we can deal with the others once the major threats are dealt with."

As far as she's concerned, that was basically what she'd said. "Yes." And then she darted away, skating past the Neoshadows, which sank into the ground in her wake, to skid behind the Defender, which she then began raining blows upon until it swiveled to face her and blocked her with its shield. She then had to pop up a barrier of her own to defend against first a fireball from the Fire Plant she was now directly in straight view of, and then immediately following, a heavy counterstrike from the Defender.

Juste didn't have to move towards the nearest Neoshadow; it moved towards him, crossing the distance in a single bound with its powerful legs. He jumped right into the swing of the whip, which caught it on the top of its head. He ducked and rolled to avoid seeds shot by one of the roses, and then he cast Holy Lightning. The plants made little pained sounds under the spell's power, but the Neoshadows didn't even flinch. He skipped back several steps to clear some breathing room between himself and them before lashing out with the whip again. The Neoshadow staggered under the second blow, and he dashed in quickly and landed a final hit, before a group of fireballs from one of the plants forced him to back away.

Aqua didn't have room to worry about Juste's battle progress, as she was very consumed with making sure the Defender didn't get the chance to hit her. One blow from this thing, especially if made with the shield, could easily break just about any bone in her body. The dog's head on the shield opened its jaws and sprayed a cone of Blizzard, which Aqua had to cartwheel out of the way to avoid. Aqua flipped once more to get behind the shield and coated her blade in electricity as she slammed Stormfall into its shield arm, hoping against hope that she might be able to stun it enough to make it drop its shield, because without it a Defender is quite vulnerable. Its shield really does almost all of its attacks for it, even though the Heartless itself is technically wielding it.

Juste ducked and rolled under the claws of another Neoshadow as it swiped at him, and he swung the Vampire Killer as soon as he regained his feet. The horizontal swing caught the remaining two across their chests, but it barely slowed them down. He dashed to the left to get some clearance; as long as he had two of them, he couldn't afford to get too close. Once he had it down to just one, then he could mix things up a bit more. He cast Ice Needle, and as it spewed shards of ice at them, he used that chance to get some more distance from them. He followed that up with a Stardust spell aimed at the close one, and it exploded into wisps, which left him with only one remaining.

As Aqua expected, her attack didn't cause the Defender to drop its shield, but it did stun it. So she used that to her advantage to land a few really good hits on it while it was paralyzed. She heard the whoosh of a fireball being thrown at her from the Fire Plant behind her, and dodged left, causing the flame to hit the Defender instead. While it didn't do much, it still pleased her somewhat.

The Defender regained mobility and swung its shield in a wide arc around it, attempting to knock back its foe. However, Aqua leapt back out of range and cast Thundaga, striking all enemies in a radius around her for fierce damage. All the plant Heartless took a good hit, and the Defender in front of her at the epicenter of her spell even more so. She thought it seemed like it was slowing a bit more than before. Good, then a few more strikes will do it!

With only one Neoshadow to worry about now, Juste cast a spell he hadn't used up to this point; Seven Saints. Seven little crosses began whirling around acting as a shield and damaging anything they touched. To his surprise, the Heartless did recoil from the spell, even though his previous one hadn't seemed to bother it, but he didn't question it. The spell was Holy elemental, and the Heartless were creatures born of Darkness.

He pressed the advantage, using the slowly weakening spell to keep the Neoshadow from getting into striking range. Attacks from the plants also weakened the spell, but he could ignore that for now. The Vampire Killer could strike through the spell without interrupting it, and he exploited that ruthlessly, landing blow and blow on the hapless creature as it tried to get him with its claws. Its attempts were futile though, and soon enough it exploded into wisps just as the previous two had.

Aqua rounded the shield-wielding Heartless once again, and it now completely masked her from the Fire Plant, though not for long if she had her way. She wreathed her blade in electricity once more and brought her blade down against the Defender's armored back like a bludgeon, as she finally chipped away the last of its health. It poofed into shadow and released a large heart that floated upward and disappeared as usual. Aqua then shot a large chunk of ice at the Fire Plant, the opposing elemental damage strong enough to destroy it too. Meanwhile, the Red Roses watched on from the sidelines with almost cheerful looks on their flowery faces.

Juste saw the Fire Plant die under the force of Aqua's fire magic, which left only the roses. He didn't hesitate.

"Hydro Storm!"
The holy rain poured down on the roses, making them writhe and make sounds of pain as they wilted. Juste actually felt a little sympathy for them as they went up in flames and died.

Aqua, caught right in the middle of the hallway, knew she was well within the area zone of that spell, and the moment she heard the first part of the name, she threw up a barrier as fast as she could. I am not getting soaked again right now, thank you!

As soon as the spell ended, Juste dropped to the floor and turned to Aqua. "Let's hurry. I want to get some answers."

She nodded, a little tired. Whaling on an enemy was not her preferred method of handling Heartless, but with the Defenders, who are protected from a lot of magic by their armor, it was often the fastest way of taking them down.

"No argument here. Let's keep moving."

It was a short walk out of the room and into the spiral staircase. Inside, like the corridor they had just left, it was being overrun by plant life that hadn't been there before. They didn't say a word as they entered the sanctuary.

Juste touched the statue before he sat down on the grass and pulled out some beef jerky and a bottle of water. He was rather hungry, but he didn't want to eat a full meal before a large battle. And he was certain that one was waiting for them in the courtyard. If Aqua was correct, and it was someone from her home, then he was dealing with something he knew nothing about, other than what Aqua had told him. Still, he couldn't help but shake the feeling that Dracula was involved somehow. He always was.

Aqua retrieved another apple and some of her bread from her pocket as she took a seat against the statue. The sugar was especially helpful in restoring health and magic, and the bread would help keep her feeling a bit more sated. Like Juste, she knew it wasn't a great idea to go into a big or brutal fight with a full stomach to slow one down. "There were even more plants outside than before. It seems like our enemy really is gaining more control rather quickly."

Juste finished off his jerky and pulled out another piece. "There are two possibilities here. Either our enemy is truly that powerful and is slowly overpowering the castle, or something within the castle is feeding them power, and it's ending with the same result. Either way, I'm not looking forward to what is waiting for us above."

She offered him some of her bread to give him more than just dried meat, but not something so big as one of his wife's meals kept in stasis. "Well, if it does happen to be Marluxia, the good news is that he's primarily a close range fighter, and therefore can only really focus on one of us at a time, so the other will be free to spell cast at a distance. Sadly for me, I would guess that I'll be the one he focuses on given that I'm a keyblade wielder like the one that killed him the first time around."

Juste accepted the bread with a smile and made short work of it as Aqua talked. "If that were to happen, he'll learn quickly that he ignores me at his own peril. Even if it is this Marluxia that you speak of, it's truly not him that worries me. It's whatever allowed him to take control of this castle that frightens me."

He stood up and brushed the crumbs from his hands and clothing. "We should get ready."

He didn't wait for an answer. Instead he began to sort through his pockets, checking his potion count, moving empty vials to other places to prevent them from being grabbed in an emergency, and generally ensuring that everything was ready to go.

She had to admit, he probably had a point about who the real threat might be. Aqua didn't know this world, so her evaluation of danger could well be biased. She disposed of the apple core as she had before and did a quick check of her own inventory. She had a few potions (She typically preferred Cure for healing) and enough ethers to last her in a pinch, and she suspected that she would definitely be abusing the latter supply. It was a good thing she'd stocked up before coming.

Juste looked at her, and she nodded to show that she was ready. He nodded himself, and then he led the way out of the sanctuary. It was a short trip up the spiraling stairs to the barred doors, and the magic of the seal flickered across his skin as he pulled the shield out of a pocket and pressed it into the indent where the doors met.

The magic over the door wavered and then collapsed with the sound of breaking glass. Shards of the wards that had held the door closed drifted down to the floor, and their was a rumbling sound as the bars that ran across began to retract into the frame. The vibrations reverberated under their feet for several seconds before stopping.

And then with a click, the door opened.


Chapter 7 -- Chapter 9
Back to the Main Archi