![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Refrain of Darkness Chapter 9
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.
9.
"Well, that was suitably impressive," Aqua muttered, and peered into the area ahead. It was a large space, a courtyard of some sort no doubt. Once perhaps it had been neatly maintained, but now the entire space was covered in sprawling vines and thousands of flowers in full bloom regardless of the season. That would certainly make for interesting footing for the oncoming battle. They would have to be careful not to catch their feet on the vines. Aqua summoned her blade to ensure she'd be ready for whatever was coming.
As they cautiously picked their way into the garden, a voice across the yard addressed them. "Well, well. I should have known it would be a wielder forcing their way through to reach me. You're an unfamiliar face, however. As is your friend. But I can see he's not like you." The owner of the voice stepped into the light, and Aqua knew him at once. As she had suspected, their enemy was indeed Lauriam.
Sara crackled in anger and anticipation as the darkness filling the courtyard continued to thin, allowing Juste to see the owner of the voice.
His first thought was that it was a very tall, very muscular woman, despite the deep tone of the voice, but the body structure under the form fitting black leather coat and black trousers quickly informed him that it was a very feminine man instead. A man with a face that many women would sell their soul to have, blue eyes that put his own to shame, and... pink hair?
He resisted the urge to laugh at the absurdity of it all, but the power rolling around the courtyard was centered on the owner of said pink hair. A quick glance at Aqua's face told him what he needed to know.
"You must be Marluxia." he said evenly.
"I was, once," the man agreed. "But I am no longer merely that weak husk. My true name is Lauriam. But it is no matter," he dismissed with a careless wave of his hand. "I don't know who you are, and I don't particularly care. All that matters is that you both have been disrupting my plans, but it ends now. I'm more powerful than I was the first time when I was defeated by that brat. It won't happen again, I assure you. The two of you will die, and I will continue as though nothing had interrupted me."
"You should care," Aqua stated, leveling him with a hard stare. "You might be more powerful, but so am I. Sora was a child when he defeated you the first time. I'm a Keyblade Master, and far stronger than he had been back then. You're not going to succeed here. I will give you one chance to step down and return to Radiant Garden with me. If you withdraw, we'll pretend this never happened and you can be judged solely on your past crimes. But if you refuse, I have no choice but to take you down. This time you won't come back."
He smirked. "Not going to happen, little girl."
Seriously? She was a full-grown woman, how dare he refer to her that way! She had been to hell and back again, and dealt with more difficulty than he ever had; no way was she anything remotely resembling a child now. She glared and her hand tightened around her blade's hilt.
Juste kept his gaze fixed on Marluxia, or rather, Lauriam, as the man talked to Aqua. Something about this was very wrong. Lauriam's soul was a dim, rather pathetic looking thing that appeared to be struggling to keep itself alight. A weak soul would have never been able to resurrect the castle, regardless of how much power the owner possessed. That meant only one possible thing...
"Are you truly Lauriam?" he asked. "Or am I speaking to Dracula?"
Lauriam merely chuckled. "I am myself, fully complete, with my heart, body, and soul. Now it is only polite that you give me your name, since you know mine."
"You know who I am; I am certain that Dracula has told you."
Lauriam's eyes narrowed. "He has told me nothing."
"But you admit that he is there?"
Lauriam's blue eyes flashed a bright, glowing red for a brief second, and Juste heard Aqua gasp quietly to his left.
Dear stars, another possession. Haven't I dealt with that enough by now? Terra was the worst experience she'd ever had the misfortune to be faced with, but Ven's possession was just as heart-wrenching. Then after being rescued from the Realm of Darkness, she had helped the other bearers of Light face Xehanort's corrupted, possessed Thirteen. Would it ever end?
"Present, yes. But that is insignificant, for his power is mine now. I have control. I have spent too much time in my life struggling for power to let an undead spirit take it from me now that I have it," Lauriam snapped.
"You have his power," Juste said without taking his eyes away from Lauriam, "because Dracula allows it. You may be using it for now, but he'll take it back soon enough. You never should have let him in."
Aqua wanted to question him on that, to ask him if he was sure, given that Marluxia – Lauriam - was no pushover, but she dared not do so right now. They would find out one way or the other anyway.
"Not going to happen," the man repeated. "His power is mine, and it's going to stay mine. Let me prove it to you by killing you both now."
Juste shook his head sadly. "You fool. You've been doomed from the instant you let Dracula into your soul." He stepped back as the swirling power around Lauriam grew in intensity. The light in the area seemed to dim, dust sifted down from the walls, and the plants nearest to him withered and died.
"It feels strange to be asking you this for once," Juste murmured to Aqua, "but anything I should watch out for?"
"I...I'm not sure," she replied a little shakily. "If he really is possessed, he may have a whole host of other powers I have no knowledge about. All I know about are the use of a scythe and plant magic, as I already told you before. Keep an eye out for the vines rising up to trip you or grab hold of you. Though I wonder if he might not have as strong a grasp on his usual magic as he should. I doubt he would deliberately choose to let the plants directly around him die off like that."
"That would be Dracula's influence, no doubt. He cares nothing for his pawns or their feelings, and Lauriam has nowhere near the control he thinks he does." He kept his gaze on the pinked haired man as he held one of his arms up in the air, and a scythe appeared in his hand. "Miss Aqua, is he really going to attack us with what amounts to a giant flower?"
"Don't let the appearance fool you. According to Sora, the one who killed him before, he's shockingly fast, and that scythe is very sharp. Try not to let it touch you. I don't know if we could recover from having our entrails ripped out," she remarked flatly.
Juste just stopped himself from saying something about dead people not wanting to stay dead, and it was just as well, as Lauriam seemed to vanish from where he had been standing, leaving a few red flower petals in his place, and reappeared right in front of him. Juste dropped to the ground, and he could hear the sound of the blade cutting the air as the scythe sliced through the air where he had been standing.
Aqua leapt back the moment she saw Lauriam appear nearer to them, avoiding the blade and gaining some distance from Juste. Lauriam was primarily a close range fighter, and if they were in different areas, he'd have to pick one of them to focus on, leaving the other to do as they pleased. She moved to dart back into range to strike at him herself, but it was a fruitless endeavor, as he flashed out of sight only to appear behind her, already sweeping the scythe towards her. It was pure luck that she managed to throw her barrier up in time. The scythe rebounded off her shield, and she immediately took the opportunity to counterattack, but Lauriam blocked her strike easily. He's so damn fast! she thought frantically. They're going to have to up their own game swiftly.
Dear Lord, Juste thought as he scrambled to his feet. He had never expected anything like this! How much of this man's speed was his own power, and how much of it was Dracula? Going head to head such a person while using only a whip would be suicide. He'd have to trust that Aqua could handle herself, while he used magic from further away. Hopefully, between the two of them, they could keep him off balance.
As Lauriam blocked Aqua's counter, Juste called up his magic and sent a few smaller fireballs his way to hopefully act as a distraction. The fire impacted against Laurium's head, but he only turned to Juste with an annoyed expression.
"Tch. You burned my hair. How distasteful." Lauriam drew upon his magic, casting three great circles of darkness and thorns in the courtyard to shred anyone who might get too close to them. He could stand in the middle of them and receive no injury, but his foes weren't so lucky. Aqua was forced to jump back, away from him, and managed to fire off a solid Triple Blizzaga, which he dodged with ease given his speed, and flew at her, whirling his scythe around him so quickly it was difficult to follow. In her haste to avoid the blade, she stumbled into one of the rings, having temporarily forgotten them with her preoccupation with the greater threat of being sliced to ribbons by Lauriam himself. The thorns tore at her, ripping small holes in her clothes and bloodying her skin. She swiftly removed herself from the area of effect, and pushed the smarting of the superficial wounds to the back of her mind as she focused on Lauriam again.
Juste found himself staring mutely at the dark circles on the floor, at the thorny vines spinning around them. He saw Aqua jump back, bloody scratches marring her skin. So this man was truly a plant elemental of some kind. Well, one thing that all plants hated was fire, so...
Two pinwheels formed of white hot flame went skidding across the courtyard towards Lauriam. He merely looked at them and sneered, perhaps thinking that they were the same spell as before and that Dracula's power would shield him. He was soon proven wrong.
The whirling flames smashed into the vines that swirled around Lauriam, acting as a shield, and they promptly went up in flames themselves. From within them, Lauriam could be heard cursing, and he dropped his shield and stopped his attack as he vanished with another cloud of flower petals. Juste didn't think, he just dropped and rolled, and none too soon, as Lauriam reappeared where had been only seconds before.
"I despise fire elementals." Lauriam said with eyes bright, and Juste suddenly found himself surrounded by vines that formed a cage around him. They were too close to set on fire, and when he drew one of his daggers and tried to cut his way out, the blade bounced off like he had hit a solid wall. So that left only one option. He ran.
"Oh you do, do you?" Aqua murmured. That gave her an idea. The longer this drew out, the more tired the two of them would be, whereas who knew what Dracula's power might do for Lauriam. Right now, Lauriam was focused on Juste, which meant he wasn't paying her much attention. But she couldn't let Juste get caught in the blast either, because it might well hurt him just as much or more. She ran in his direction, much easier now that Juste's attack had disrupted his area effect and the circles vanished. The vine cage around Juste paused while he continued running himself and exploded behind him, at which point Aqua arrived just close enough to him that he would be unlikely to get caught in the blast, but Lauriam would. She came to an abrupt halt, pointed her keyblade in Lauriam's direction, and cast Mega Flare. Her vision blanked out for a few moments in the sheer bright white of the blast.
Aqua's "Fire!" was the only warning he had before a wave of heat exploded behind him and sent him stumbling for a few steps. He turned around just as the enormous fireball that Aqua had launched at Lauriam began to fade. The vines, flowers, and trees nearest him were gone, burned away, and the flagstones were cracked and blackened from the heat. Lauriam appeared to be stunned.
"You need to teach me that." he said in a shocked whisper, before he ran forward. He sent the Vampire Killer swinging in a wide arc in front of him, and it caught Lauriam just as he began to come out of his daze. The unexpected hit made him stumble to his right a bit, and it opened large tears in the leather of his coat and drew blood. Lauriam snarled and brought down his scythe, obviously intending to cut the whip in half, but Juste jumped back and pulled the whip back with him, causing the swing to miss entirely. He quickly cast Magic Missile, and used the distraction to move away.
Aqua wasted no time trading places, taking back up on close combat with Lauriam as the man used his scythe to catch Juste's spell since it followed when he attempted to dodge. She didn't wait for him to be ready before she attacked once again. He blocked her anyway, and immediately struck in return, moving faster than she could. She threw up a barrier, but that prevented her from countering. Then the moment the barrier fell in order for her to attack, Lauriam utilized his strength to redirect his scythe to slash at her faster, and it caught her dominant arm, slicing a long cut down her forearm. She dropped her keyblade and cartwheeled quickly back, possible given that she didn't need her main arm for that. She attempted to cast Cure as soon as she could, as the score bled copiously, but Lauriam flashed behind her and slammed the tail end of his scythe into her side, interrupting her and sending her tumbling across the ground. He pursued, and raised his scythe above his head to send it ferociously down into her form. She used all of her strength to fling herself aside, but it still cut into her side as she was a bit too slow. She cried out and curled around the wound protectively, summoning her blade into her off hand, just to provide herself some measure of protection until Juste could get him off of her.
Juste summoned a block of ice, which came streaking down from the sky above and smashed into the back of Lauriam's head. Any other man, and he would have assumed that the hit killed him instantly, but this was a Dracula possession that they were dealing with. As it was, Lauriam was knocked forward, face down onto the ground, but he was quickly back on his feet, despite the copious amounts of blood staining his hair. He summoned his scythe to him, but he did not move. Instead Juste felt almost like a lurch in the flow of energy through the castle, and several Alura Une vines erupted in circular patterns from the floor throughout the courtyard
A quick count of the them revealed eight of the creatures, and Juste was forced to throw himself to the ground as they started flinging barbs at him. A quick glance to his right showed Aqua slowly moving away from where she had fallen. She would never be able to dodge them.
Juste hung the Vampire Killer from his belt and jumped back as far away from the Alura Unes and Lauriam as he could. Summoning was tiring, but their need was dire. He ignored Lauriam striding towards him, scythe raised as Juste pulled hard on his magic, dragging as much of it up as he could.
"Come!"
There was a screech, and Lauriam paused and looked up. Juste ignored him. Instead with the summoning done, he ran on shaking legs over to Aqua and stood over her while she cast her healing spells on herself. The Alura Unes turned to them, but the screech repeated, and a massive bird appeared over the courtyard. Its wingspan was wider than he was tall, flames licked the tips of its gold and red plumage, and its yellow eyes burned with intensity as it regarded its summoner for a brief second. Its gaze then moved to Aqua, who was getting to her feet, and Juste nodded at it. The it screeched again, and fire began to rain down from the sky with every beat of its wings.
Aqua yanked an ether from her pocket and downed it in rapid gulps, having exhausted her magic with the Mega Flare and dual Curagas she'd had to cast. She couldn't help pausing for a moment afterward to stare at the immense phoenix in the courtyard. "You summoned that?" she gaped. It was honestly beautiful, even as it hailed destruction on the flower monsters below it. She didn't know whether the fire would hurt her or not, so she chose to hang back and wait for it to finish its work.
Lauriam snarled and teleported out of the field, plastering himself against the wall on the outer edge of the courtyard to avoid the flames. The Alura Unes were unable to move far from their place, however, and were slowly consumed by fire, screeching in agony as they burned.
Juste fished a Mind Up from one of his pockets and downed it. His magic levels quickly rose to normal, and the shaking stopped Lauriam was huddled under an overhang, unable to come out until the Phoenix summon ran its course. He reached down and gripped one of his daggers.
"Cover me, if you would, Miss Aqua?" he said. He pulled the dagger out, and pulled hard against his magic.
"1000 Blades!"
He had just enough time to catch a startled look on Lauriam's face before Juste hurled the silver dagger at him, followed by another, and another, and another. He conjured them as fast as his power would allow, and flung them with both arms at his target. The first several caught Lauriam by surprise. One caught him in the arm, a second hit his shoulder, two slammed into his gut, and another caught him in the left leg, just above the knee.
Lauriam howled and moved away from the barrage of knives as quickly as his injured leg would allow, but Juste pivoted in place and kept on him. Most of the blades missed, but enough had landed true by the time the spell ran its course.
As soon as he got a break, Lauriam summoned one of the maids the two had faced elsewhere in the castle as his eyes flashed red once again. He grabbed the maid and bit into her neck, hands pinning her in place. Burns and knife wounds began to close up and heal over as he drank her blood.
Aqua stared in horror for a long moment. She couldn't believe this was happening. She had never actually seen anything vampiric attack someone before, and it was terrible. She shook herself suddenly, regaining her mind, and shot a fireball at him to make him stop.
Lauriam withdrew at the sound of the spell, and threw the drained maid into its path. She whimpered, lacking the strength to do anything more, as the flames engulfed her.
Juste darted off to the side to get some distance between himself and Aqua. He quickly drank down another Mind Up, and as soon as the man stepped out from under the overhang, he cast Hydro Storm.
He was unprepared for the scream that the possessed man made as the holy water poured down on him, burning holes in his skin and clothing. Smoke rose from his wounds.
"Dracula is gaining control!" he called to Aqua as the spell ran out. "We have to end this quickly!"
Aqua observed the damage Hydro Storm had caused to Lauriam, eyes widened at the sight. The spell affected him like acid rain. Was that what holy water does to a vampire? She really hated possession. She raced out onto the field, the storm doing nothing to hurt her. They couldn't afford to give Lauriam a break, so she fired off a Thundaga Shot, and although Lauriam dodged, he was still too close to where it hit the wall behind him, and it zapped him anyway, the effect multiplied by his wet state.
Juste was right on her heels. The effects of the Hydro Storm told him all that he needed to know. He ran across the burned and broken flagstones, across the withered plant life, and he sent the Vampire Killer out to wrap around Lauriam's right wrist. Lauriam howled in pain as his wrist smoked and burned, and he was forced to drop his scythe to try and free himself, and the weapon vanished as soon as it hit the ground.
Juste pulled on the whip, which brought Lauriam stumbling towards him. He then released the man's wrist and sent Sara flying forward to crack solidly over Lauriam's heart just as he pulled a holy water out and threw it at the man's feet. Flames erupted on the ground and quickly climbed up Lauriam's clothing, and Juste jumped back as the flames seemed to consume him.
When the fire died, Lauriam was lying huddled on the ground. His clothing and hair had been destroyed in the holy fire that had covered him. His skin was mostly gone, and he was making little gasps and choking noises.
"You're finished, Lauriam." Juste said quietly.
There was a pained nose, and Juste stepped back a step when the burned body began to spasm, but a second later, Lauriam started to chuckle. Quiet at first, but then soon it increased to a high pitched laugh that echoed off the walls and floor of the courtyard.
"No," came Lauriam's voice, sounding shocked and horrified, "You swore that you would make me immortal."
"No," Juste whispered as he realized. He went back several more steps and pulled Aqua back with him. The burns began healing, leaving smooth, too pale skin in their wake.
"So I did, child." came a second voice, deeper and with a slower, more even cadence. "Your body is immortal. You, however, I no longer have need of."
"No!" Lauriam shrieked. "You were supposed to grant me the power to defeat my enemies!"
"And I will do so. After I am finished with this world, then I will move on to the next. And the next. And the next! God's universe will fall before me!"
Lauriam – no, Dracula – began to stand up.
Aqua couldn't help a shudder. It was incredibly creepy to hear two entirely different vocal tones coming from Lauriam's mouth. But it seemed that it wasn't really Lauriam anymore. The man before them had Lauriam's build, but the skin and eyes were the wrong colors. Aqua kept her gaze pinned to him, incredibly wary and trying to repress flashbacks of finding Terra with the wrong color palette, and knowing someone else had taken control of him.
Juste ran forward, magic on his fingertips and the Vampire Killer already in mid-swing, but he suddenly bounced off of a solid surface, and he found himself being flung backwards, away from Dracula. He landed on the flagstones with the snap of a breaking bone in his leg, and the impact forced all the air from his lungs.
He felt one of Aqua's healing spells wash over him, mending his leg, and he hauled himself to his feet to see Death hovering in front of Dracula, holding his own scythe to block them from getting any closer.
"You shall not harm Lord Dracula."
"But that is Lauriam's body. Didn't you ask us to get rid of him? Isn't he still part of him?" Aqua protested, keeping well away to avoid being attacked.
"I did, and you have." Death replied, his voice echoing on the still air. "What remained of Lauriam Fiore is gone, smothered by the darkness within him, consumed to resurrect Lord Dracula at full strength."
...Smothered by the darkness within him. Aqua shuddered hard at the exact wording Death used, identical to the phrase Xehanort had used to taunt her in Terra's body, her face paling as memories threatened to overtake her. She clenched her free hand hard, digging her nails into her palm as she strove to remain calm and in the present. Losing himself to the darkness was likely Lauriam's fate, but to have been forced to die by an interloper in his body...it's just wrong. Possession was the worst sort of violation a person could suffer. She may not have liked Lauriam, he may have been their enemy and she was here to destroy him, but...not like this. This was not how it should have happened.
Juste put his hand on Aqua's shoulder as she seethed. He needed her to keep her head. They couldn't afford to get into a battle now.
"I see a Belmont has already arrived." The sound of Dracula's voice made Juste shiver. He'd never heard it before. He'd broken Maxim's possession before Dracula could take full control, and the wraith he'd faced afterward had never spoken. He wondered in the back of his mind if Dracula would remember him.
"How long has it been?" Dracula said casually. "A new Belmont, here in my castle, though you smell similar to dear Simon. 'Tis a shame my curse was not able to finish him off."
"A shame for you perhaps." Juste said as he tightened his grip on the Vampire Killer.
Dracula chuckled, and the sound seemed so wrong coming from Lauriam's colorless lips. "Indeed. Leon's descendants have proven rather difficult to kill. Still, you are here. What shall I do with you?"
He looked at them for a moment, seeming to be thinking about something. "Such strange power Lauriam had. 'Twas a shame that he didn't use it to its full potential." He looked at them, red eyes glowing. "Let us rectify his mistake."
Juste rocked back in shock when the courtyard was abruptly plunged into total darkness. Ahead of him came the sound of Dracula's laughter, followed by the sounds of dozens of bats, and his presence vanished from the courtyard. Death quickly followed.
Tiny claws raked across his leg, and Juste lashed out and felt his foot connect with a small, cold form.
He grabbed his cross and held it up high and cast Grand Cross, and the glow allowed him to see that the ground around him was tightly packed with Heartless of all kinds. He could not see Aqua, but as he dropped to the ground as the spell ended, he could hear her calling her attacks and see flashes of spellfire.
She knew the sensation indicative of Heartless, and so started attacking the moment she felt them summoned to the courtyard. She had been in the Realm of Darkness for years. This was nearly normal to her, and she saw the Heartless around her with clarity against the backdrop of black. There were so many of them! Clearly Dracula's power was vaster than that of Lauriam. Probably because the castle wasn't fighting against him. She leapt back twice to gain some distance, then channeled Meteor Shower, targeting the horde of enemies and shooting liberal magic missiles at them, a storm of shooting stars.
Juste jumped into the air and cast Hydro Storm to try and clear some breathing room. The weaker Heartless withered and died under the spell, while the stronger ones merely flinched back away from him. It was enough space to work in when he dropped back down to the ground and swung the Vampire Killer out in front of him, clearing a bit more space. He cast Stardust, and the magic rained down on the creatures, killing several more.
Aqua knew they needed to clear the miasma of darkness around them, but the spell they needed was one she didn't know. But she knew who did, so she reached out with her heart, forging a D-link connection with King Mickey. With his help, she cast Sign of Faith, and a tornado of light formed in the center of the Heartless mass. It swept up a dozen Heartless in its path, and then a beam of light shot through the center. Not only did it kill the Heartless within it, but the light broke through the curse of darkness, banishing it, revealing the courtyard and remaining Heartless once more.
"Thank you, Miss Aqua." Juste murmured as the darkness lifted. The flagstones were still covered in a teeming mass of Heartless, but at least he could see. He threw a vial of holy water on the ground in front of him, and it cleared a path that allowed him to edge closer to Aqua. She saw him coming and did the same, and quickly they were standing nearly back to back, surrounded by Heartless.
Aqua formed the thought of Firaga Burst in her mind, and shot the spell straight up above them.
Juste saw the spell being cast, and he cast his own Holy Fire. He didn't flinch at the flash this time, and when it cleared, Aqua was standing with her weapon pointed in the air, a large meteor spinning above it. Pinwheels of flame were flying off of it, and they went spinning across the ground, bouncing off of the walls, and they exploded whenever they found a target. He continued to send magic into the spell to maintain it until Aqua released it on her end.
The Heartless around them had been cleared out, leaving only clusters of them on the fringes.
"Shall we get this over with, Miss Aqua?" Juste said as he watched the shuffling horde slowly creep towards them.
"Of course." She didn't bother approaching them this time, just sent volleys of magic at them until the stragglers drew close enough, at which point she quickly dispatched those nearest to her with a few swipes of her blade.
Juste sent a wave of ice flowing across the ground, clearing another path for himself. He then moved in close to better use his whip. It didn't take long for them to finish clearing the courtyard, and when the last Heartless disintegrated under Sara's power, they turned to each other, nodded, and then they turned and walked out of the courtyard.
******
They needed to recover a bit before tracking Dracula down, so Aqua let Juste lead them to a Sanctuary for a respite. Her healed injuries ached, and it was a great relief to touch the statue and feel the soothing magic flow through her. Once that was done, however, she moved out of Juste's way and sat on the grass, arms wrapped loosely around her legs as she set her head on her knees. This whole Marluxia/Dracula thing was seriously doing bad things for her mental state.
Juste watched her flop down on the grass with no small amount of concern. He also touched the statue, before sitting down a few feet away in front of her.
"It really drives it all home, doesn't it?" he said, which caused her to look up at him. "How close you came to losing it all? In the weeks after I rescued Maxim and Lydie from this cursed place, I tried not think of how it could have gone, otherwise I would have gone mad. Maxim fought the possession for days, but it was only the sight of this -" He pulled back his sleeve to show a frayed braided leather cord around his wrist, with an "M" stamped on a small metal disk. "-that gave him the strength to expel Dracula before he could take full control. Lydie made two of them, one for me and one for Maxim, when we were children, and we never took them off." He pushed his sleeve back down and let his hands drop to his lap. "When I found the opposite to this one, stamped with a "J" instead of an "M", I realized that something was seriously wrong. I'd already been consumed with worry at that point, since the woman I had hoped to one day marry was missing, and my best friend was acting very strange, but finding that bracelet abandoned in the castle sent that worry spiking to new heights."
"Possession is never an easy thing to deal with, even when the victim is an enemy, because no one deserves having their free will taken from them like that. I can only say that the best thing we can do for Marluxia now is to kill Dracula, so he can go to whatever afterlife awaits him."
"I don't care about Marluxia, really. He was an enemy that I would have had to destroy anyway. But the fact that Dracula just...repressed him to death... I hate possession. Absolutely despise it. My two best friends were victims of it, Terra especially was possessed for years until the darkness destroyed his body and released his heart, and I was part of the team that fought against thirteen versions of the same man, because he had twelve 'vessels' that he had poured his soul into... It's all just too much."
Juste felt it best not to mention that Marluxia wasn't dead, that his heart and soul were trapped in the body that Dracula controlled and would remain that way until Dracula was defeated. Killing the host body was the only way to bring Dracula down now.
"Well we can't do anything now." he said instead, and he pulled two more meal packs out of his pockets and released the spells on them. "We must eat and then sleep for a least a few hours before we can go on from here. No doubt we will have to face Death before we can deal with Dracula, and he is always a difficult opponent." He handed one of the packs to Aqua. "Hopefully food and rest will help clear your head."
Aqua dug into the food, not because she was at all hungry at the moment, but because she knew it was necessary. She barely tasted it as it passed through her mouth, though she did feel a bit bad about that since Juste's wife had taken the time to prepare them all. It seemed a bit ungrateful not to appreciate them. It was just difficult to taste anything with the way she was feeling. She could probably have eaten Indian curry and barely noticed it right now.
Once she finished, she burned the remains with minimal fire magic, then found a comfortable spot on the grass and tried to rest.
Juste ate his own meal as he watched her curl up to try and sleep. He ate in silence, burned his trash, and then decided to follow her lead. He pulled his coat off and laid it on the grass, before he pulled his breast plate off, and lying down on his coat. Hopefully thoughts of what had almost happened to Maxim and Lydie wouldn't haunt his dreams.
Aqua closed her eyes, but sleep evaded her. She did her best to rest, but the best she could manage was a partial meditative state by clearing her mind the best she could. She feared dreaming, reliving all of the experiences she'd gone through in her fasirly short life. She was only in her mid-twenties, and yet she and her friends had suffered so much. Ven was only 14 when everything with Vanitas and Xehanort happened the first time, and when he finally awoke with a repaired heart, he had to go right back to fighting them all over again! It wasn't fair. She knew that she had signed up for a hard life when she accepted her destiny as a Keyblade wielder, and then again when she pursued and received her Mark of Mastery. She knew it wouldn't be easy. But she had never known what she was really getting into when Xehanort got involved. He ruined so many lives. She and her friends had had to pick up the pieces once he was gone, and try to establish some semblance of life again. Five years, and it still felt surreal. Maybe this was all some elaborate dream, and she was still in the Realm of Darkness. How would she really know?
Chapter 8 -- Chapter 10
Back to the Main Archive