Kingdom Hearts - Blades of Three Realms

[[XIII] Roxas]

"Come on Axel, the ground is hardly the place for a nap," Roxas prodded him lightly with his foot while Xion squatted down to poke at him a bit to see if that might wake him up.

"You'd think after all those times mouthing off to Larxene he'd be able to take a Thundaga better," Xion commented.

"I think he's just being dramatic," Roxas responded with a slight shrug. "Still, what do you think we should do with him? We might have to drag him back to the tavern at this rate."

"Well, we both know Axel will be fine, but I really think you should go check on Crystal just to be sure she isn't doing anything reckless by herself," noted Xion. "Why I don't I wait here with Axel until he comes out of it and we'll catch up with you later?"

"Huh? You too?" Roxas raised an eyebrow. "Why is everyone suddenly trying to convince me to go chasing after her anyway?"

"I can't exactly speak for anyone else, but you did just promise Riku that you were going to look after her so you probably shouldn't start by letting her out of your sight like this," Xion replied. "Besides, I'll be fine because I'm with Axel and he's bound to snap out it sooner rather than later."

"Okay, that's a fair point," Roxas agreed somewhat reluctantly. "I'll go check on her." With that he turned to leave, following the same path he had seen Crystal take toward the fountain and waterfall plaza. As he left Xion behind she could be seen rifling through one of Axel's pockets to procure a cleverly concealed permanent felt-tipped maker with which she proceeded to doodle on his face because there wasn't anything better to do at the moment.


When Roxas reached the fountain and waterfall plaza he found Crystal fully engrossed in her meditative training exercises. Watching her for a moment was pretty mesmerizing as she seemed to have worked out the timing of the different fountain jets and would advance toward them in time to match blows with her own reflection in the columns of water shooting up from below. It was really sort of poetic, beautiful even. And certainly not the way he would ordinarily have categorized a training routine.

"You want to have at it?" Crystal greeted him once she noticed Roxas was staring in awe of her little martial arts training dance of sorts. She threw out her right hand, giving her wrist a snap to materialize Time Warp.

"Now hold on a second," Roxas's attention shifted to the Keyblade the girl had summoned into hand. "Do you seriously want to fight me?"

"I know it isn't your fault that Riku is suddenly convinced that I'm going to need a bodyguard," Crystal replied. "And it's really not his decision to make either. But, if you want to travel with us, then I'd like to see more of how you fight. Besides, there's nothing wrong with a good sparring match." She threw out her left hand and gave her wrist a snap to materialize World's Rift. "So, what will it be?"

"I really don't know why you want to do this, but I guess I'll give it a shot," Roxas was hesitant to say the least. But reflexively he materialized his Oathkeeper and Oblivion Keyblades into hand. And pretty soon they were clashing blades, with Roxas becoming bolder once he realized that Crystal truly wasn't playing around. Her strength might have been augmented by the magic of the Keyblades she wielded, but her fighting style and movements were all her own. Roxas had only really known Crystal's skills as a spell caster and was genuinely surprised by her skill with her blades. She was fast, graceful, and she was definitely giving him a run for his munny by keeping up with his speed and anticipating his movements. They would clash blades, rebound, glide through the towering jets of water that encircled their aquatic battle arena, and clash again with increasingly ferocity. There was no malice. Only raw grit and determination as gradually neither of them seemed willing to back down. It was pretty surreal, like being in some sort of hypnotic trance.

And then, just as suddenly as the clash had begun, it stopped. Both Roxas and Crystal were panting and drenched from charging haphazardly through the fountain jets time and time again. The sun had set, but the air was still warm. Crystal was appreciating her reflection accompanied by the backdrop of stars at her feet.

"That was... different," Roxas honestly couldn't put what he was feeling into words right now.

"You're a pretty good sparring partner," Crystal grinned at him. She seemed to be in a much better mood than when she stormed off after taking offense to Roveth's comments earlier.

"Is this something you usually do for fun?" Roxas was still puzzled by what exactly had brought this on in the first place.

"Why don't you tell me? Don't you feel relaxed after just letting it all out until all that frustration and angst is burned out?" Crystal responded casually.

There was no question. Roxas did feel less tension now that the match was over. It was strangely peaceful. "You really are just full of surprises, aren't you?" he spoke after giving it some thought. "But you're right. That was actually pretty refreshing."

"Glad to hear it," Crystal smiled thoughtfully. She kept glancing between the stars in the sky and the reflection at her feet. "Wow, the view here is really amazing."

"I can see why you picked this spot to practice like this," Roxas agreed as he stood beside examining the scenery for himself. "It's comforting, sort of like watching the sunset in Twilight Town, but different."

"I'll definitely have to see that sometime soon," Crystal nodded thoughtfully.

"So you really like scenery like this, huh?" Roxas observed.

"I guess it just makes me happy somehow," Crystal replied. "Like even though there might be difficult times ahead, seeing the light of those other worlds out there proves that we still have hope." It looked like talking about it so bluntly had gotten her a little embarrassed again, but this time it wasn't enough to get upset over, just a little bit fidgety because she thought she probably sounded kinda weird for saying so.

"You shouldn't worry," Roxas smiled gently and placed a hand on her shoulder. "It's a nice thought."

"Anyway, we should probably start heading back to the tavern to dry off," Crystal pointed out while attempting to maintain her composure. "I had fun though," she admitted through the persistent blushing. "Just remember that whatever you decide to do, it should be your decision. I'm not going to force you into anything. And you shouldn't let me or Riku or anybody else force you to do anything you don't want to."

Crystal started to head for the exit to the fountain and waterfall plaza, and finally slipped with a resounding splash. She had been so wonderfully coordinated the whole time she was out there practicing, but as soon as she got just a little embarrassed it was like her sense of balance had given out on her entirely. Roxas kindly offered her a hand up.

"Come on, we'll go back together," Roxas smiled as he helped her out of the water. "Besides, I'm starting to think I can probably get used to this. We seem to have plenty in common and sparring out here was surprisingly fun."

"Fair enough," Crystal decided to just go along with it. After floundering in the fountain there for that brief instant she was done feeling embarrassed and simply wanted to get dry again.  

[Kuukyo_Fushichou]

of course Axel -did- wae up after Roxas left, but not because he felt like quitting being dramatic, but because he had finally sorted through the pain from the Thundaga, given it had been a while since someone (Larxene) fried him that badly. though once he saw Xion with the felt tip marker, he'd snatch it up and started chasing her in an attempt to draw on her face next.

meanwhile shiro had finally walked out of the tavern even though it was getting a bit late now, and sighed, stretching a bit before tracing out Kanshou and Bakuya into hand, lightly flicking the blades about quietly as he brought one up towards the star and moonlight of Radiant garden to look at them with a somewhat pleased hum ~finally got free from Shiroi Senko, even if it was later than i intended, don't really feel like sleeping at the moment anyway.~ he thought to himself, and just moved off to nearby to start working on his own Katas with the falchion blades, his 'suicidal' style move he had.. honed, before becomng a keyblade wielder.  

[[XIII] Roxas]

Xion would make a run for it, of course, dodging and evading as much as possible until finally being caught by Axel to receive her punishment for drawing on him first.


After Riku left, Squall had gone back upstairs to nap while all the energetic teenagers were still out on the town and he could have some peace. Cloud, meanwhile, would have ventured outside around the time that Shiro managed to free himself from being confined to bed by Shiroi Senko. He would watch with a sort of vague interest as Shiro practiced by himself with his two blades, but after a little time spent watching would finally approach him directly.

"You're pretty good," Cloud acknowledged. "But are you sure you don't want someone to practice against?" he was definitely volunteering himself for the task if Shiro was interested.


Not long after the thoroughly drenched pair of Crystal and Roxas would arrive back at the tavern seeming rather lighthearted after the events of the day.

"Looks like Shiro finally managed to escape the nest," Crystal chuckled a bit while pleased to see him back on his feet. She could still feel that dull ache in her heart, but it had grown faint enough to the point that she barely even noticed it anymore, although that could also have been because she was feeling significantly more at ease herself.

"Yeah, but it looks like he's got some feathers stuck in his hair," added Roxas with an amused laugh. "But at least this means now you don't have to worry so much about him, right?"

"I think I'll have to reserve judgement on that for after Cloud gets finished with him, but I think that will probably be fine," Crystal scratched behind her ear a bit vaguely.  

[Kuukyo_Fushichou]

Shiro had looked up from his Katas, and cjuckled a bit, while lightly rolling his shoulders a bit letting them crack a bit "huh.. guess not much can keep you down either Cloud? makes me wonder if Leon's turning into an old man with how he is so lazy." he said with amusement while taking up his basic stance, full of holes, if anything, but a good portion of them -were- traps in the making and all due to his style, as he crushed Kanshou and Bakuya's grips in hand, and after sending them back to prana, he'd trace out two English longswords, more capable of handling attacks from the Buster Sword. "ready whenever you are Cloud." he said calmly enough as he readied himself.

roveth of course watched nearby, ignoring the fact he should be snickering at the jibe on Leon's part, or the fact he had more teasing material with the wet crystal and roxas, but he kept to himself on it, and was more focused on keeping an eye on Shiro for everyone's sakes, as who knows how things could go during this spar, if Cloud pushes him hard enough to deploy -that-...  

[[XIII] Roxas]

Cloud readied his Buster Sword and proceeded to charge at Shiro with a sudden burst of speed while swinging the huge blade vertically in front of him. "Let's see what you've got!"

As interesting as it would be to watch Shiro and Cloud going at it, Crystal and Roxas headed inside the tavern to fetch some towels at the very least. This led to some lecture questioning from Tifa, mainly because Crystal's usual water magnetism troubles didn't explain why both teens were completely drenched at the moment. After getting a vague summary of what had taken place over at the fountain and waterfall plaza, made almost indecipherable because Crystal and Roxas were performing the very childish non-explanation technique of talking at the same time, the soaking wet pair were finally permitted to leave back outside with the towels draped over their shoulders to soak up the excess moisture while they found a good spot to watch Shiro and Cloud go at it.

Xion would eventually find her way over to them once she managed to escape Axel's artistic retribution. "Why are you both all wet?"

"We got into a bit of a sparring match at the fountain and waterfall plaza," Roxas chuckled a bit. "How'd it go with Axel?"

"He's fine," Xion explained. "But he was so busy chasing me around with that marker I didn't really have a chance to tell him about Riku asking you to keep an eye on Crystal."

"Well, I think we can afford to tell him after we're done watching Shiro and Cloud going at each other's throats," Roxas replied.

"There's no way we're gonna miss this," Crystal agreed. Apparently while they were inside the tavern she had also snagged some popcorn because there was definitely some blatant munching going on now.  

[Kuukyo_Fushichou]

Shiro had reinforced his body almost immediately seeing that burst of speed, but given it wasn't a level he couldn't handle just yet he made sure to reinforce both swords and limbs to the max, the former without breaking them, and proceeded to cross both longswords together and push them up to block the Buster sword with a loud 'CLANG!' and sparks going flying, as he winced a bit "Jeez.. sure do pack a lot of strength there." he said, before moving to turn the blade aside as best he could while using one sword to still block ,and then using the other to proceed to counterattack with a diagonal slash of his own with some decent speed.

Roveth meanwhile had only taken his eyes off the stirring battle to look over to the three clothes pattern matching observers and just slightly smiled, not a full smirk that'd bely his teasing, but a small smile he'd keep hidden from his light and all, before schooling his face back to neutrality and resumed watching the fight. ~lets see if Cloud pushes Shiro to use his Zanpakuto or Reality Marble...~  

[Kuukyo_Fushichou]

Shiro hissed mentally in pain as the blade easily broke from the first swing to counter his attack, the second swing was met with his second blade temporarily being two handed and cracking easily under the strength and pressure of the second strike, which finally shattered that blade as well, sending Shiro flying with a spin into a random building's wall, nto cratering it thankfully, but kicking a good dust cloud up, but it wasn't long before four black and white falchions (two each) flew out of said dust cloud like boomerangs going in wide arcs for cloud, while shiro barreled out of the smoke tracing two more as they glew a bright blue, before transforming, growing much larger, and becoming almost wing-like in nature in his hands "Trace.. Over-edge! Spirit and technique, flawless and firm. our strength rips the mountains. our swords split the water. our names reach the imperial villa. the two of us cannot hold the heavens together..." he chanted, before unleashing a ferocious combo of sword slashes at Cloud, even while the boomeranging flachions were coming in, though they seemed to miss Shiro pretty easily, showing how familiar he was with the movements of the blades. "Kakuyoku Sanren!"  

[Kuukyo_Fushichou]

Shiro twitched an eyebrow, but seeing how fast Cloud was moving, he grimaced a bit, before mentally hearing a voice he had recognized, and nodded, as he dismissed the Overedge falchions, and instead reached back, a guardless handle forming not from magic or prana like his normal traced blades, but instead forming from raw spirit energy, as he manifested a large black cleaver, and proceeded to block the overhead blow barely with enough time, but it clearly forced him to one knee as he had to shudder through his body just to appreciate cloud's raw strength like this "ugh, technique mean nothing without skill and power both.. and you have power... so it's time i stepped up a notch myself in power.." he said, his eyes looking up to clouds shining a bright glowing blue color as the blade ignited in a blue flame of raw spiritual energy "as a friend ofm ine from another world would say... GETSUGA TENSHOU!" he shouted out, before using the compressed spirit energy flowing out to push upwards and launch the crescent bladed blast of energy both to try and engulf cloud with it, and to push him away from him.  

[Kuukyo_Fushichou]

Shiro could tell Cloud was on his last legs stamina wise, but to pull out his best move, Omnislash, gave him no time to react and deploy his reality marble, so instead he had let Zangetsu go, dissolving into spirit energy particles, before tracing at lightning speed a large stone sword which looked bigger than his own body, and his arm bulged out the moment it made contact with it "I am the bone of my Sword..." he intoned, before rearing back and the omnislash was starting to be met with multidimensional slashes from Shiro himself "Nine Lives Blade Works!" he cried out, before unleashing the very move Heracles used to fell the Hydra (not -Herc- in the Disney movie obviously.) and it wasn't 9 slashes all at once this time.. it was literally hundreds, to both try to protect himself from Cloud's Omnislash, but also to at least get him back with some damage.  

[[XIII] Roxas]

Roxas and Xion both watched in awe as Shiro clashed blades with Cloud, not being all that familiar with the full extent of Shiro's combat abilities in the first place. The only real surprise factor for Crystal's observations would be Shiro's choices of weapons in this particular instance. Either way, the three were watching intently as the two continued to clash loudly into the night. The noise was probably what had driven Squall from his cozy bed in the upstairs of the tavern because he had come outside with his own blade drawn. Crystal, Roxas, and Xion would then watch in amazement as the third swordsman suddenly flung himself amidst the oppressive flurry of blows between Cloud and Shiro, his blade managing to somehow lock between the blades of the other two before he whirled around and smacked Cloud in the back of the head with his boot knocking him away to the side of the road and then deflecting off of Shiro's blade back into the night sky to land lightly on the roof of the tavern.

"What the hell are you two idiots doing?" Squall would reprimand them both. "Both of you are supposed to be resting from your injuries!"

"Too bad, looks like the show is over," Roxas was only mildly disappointed considering how exciting that had been to watch, but he knew that Squall was technically right on that subject. But now that the match had been decided by Squall's intervention he would notice that Axel was still notably absent from his field of vision. "Huh, I wonder what happened to Axel. I can't believe he missed all that."

"That's strange," Xion agreed. "I thought he was still right behind me."

"I guess he must have gotten sidetracked," Crystal considered as she also glanced around.  

[Kuukyo_Fushichou]

Shiro had skidded back after being blocked and sent back by Squall deflecting Nine Lives Blade works, his Prana channels running hot still, so he sighed, and let the steam slowly waft from his body and proceeded to dismiss the large stone blade, chuckling a bit "well, i -was- doing some light Katas to work off pent up energy, when Cloud asked if i wanted a spar, so i obliged him." he said calmly, while ignoring the going numb left arm as it started to twitch a bit, seems he pulled/ripped them uscles in the arm a good bit going further than 9 strikes, but thankfully reinforcement mitigated most of the damage, so the twitch was a lot less than it should be. "you should invest in a noise-maker to make white noise so your beauty sleep won't be disturbed." he said with a bit of a headtilt and all.

Axel of course had chosen that time to appear via corridor of darkness, snatching up Roxas, Xion, and crystal all at once in a bear hug of sorts without squeezing "speaking of resting, you three rascals need to go to bed, let the Rip-Van-Winkle wannabe in Leon handle the two knuckleheads dueling out here." he said in amusement, starting to haul them inside just like that.  

[[XIII] Roxas]

"Looks to me like it got a little more intense than just simple sparring," Squall shot a glare in Cloud's general direction.

"Relax, I was just trying to give him a challenge suitable to his level," Cloud got up while dusting himself off mildly. "Wouldn't be fair to go easy on the kid when he's being serious."

"This is exactly why I can't decide which of you is being more childish!" Squall sighed in exasperation.


Naturally, there was much wiggling in protest as Crystal, Roxas, and Xion were being dragged into the tavern by Axel. No doubt, Axel would have noticed too little too late that the towels hanging off Crystal and Roxas were basically soaked through while the teens themselves were still mildly damp from their excursion to the fountain and waterfall plaza.

"I think I might need a shower before bed," Crystal insisted as she squirmed some more. Axel had a surprisingly good grip on the three of them.

"There's something we seriously need to talk about!" Roxas added along with his own wiggling.

"And I still need to wash off my face," Xion added as a reminder about the earlier antics involving a felt-tipped marker.