Kingdom Hearts - Blades of Three Realms

[[XIII] Roxas]

"We'll see whose sore by the time I'm through with you," Vanitas smirked while taking the punch to the face in stride, raising one hand in front of him and holding it out to Shiro's chest to blast him with a barrage of fiery orbs of darkness at point blank range.

Roxas appeared along with Crystal and Xion. He immediately brought out his Spin Swords to start going to work on any nearby Unversed. Xion brought out her Power Bow and did the same.

Crystal kept close watch on Shiro's confrontation with Vanitas. She flicked out her left hand to summon Light's Shadow, charging a great deal of power into the blade causing it to glow with extreme radiance. "Prismatic Soul Blast!" she called out unleashing her charged Limit Break to blast Vanitas in the back with a powerful prismatic shot of light energy.

Vanitas howled in pain and rage, having not been expecting that in his almost gleeful attempt to vaporize the boy in red. The blast hurt like hell and it had also disrupted his dark barrage against Shiro. And now that little pest in yellow was completely ignoring him as she took off to start pounding on the nearby Unversed like it was nothing. "Oh, it's on now!" Vanitas drew out his Void Gear and momentarily forgetting he was supposed to be fighting Shiro went to fly after Crystal.

Crystal, fully expecting this reaction, immediately cast Haste on herself and took off even faster while mowing down any Unversed in her path.  

[Kuukyo_Fushichou]

Shiro of course got sent flying back with sparks flaring over his suit and pushing him back just as Crystal attacked Vanitas and dealt some damage, of course, Shiro didn't bring out his keyblade, instead his eyes began shining under the helm and proceeded to slam his hands to the ground "i'll Show you i'm serious... Take This! SHINING BIND!" he called out, just as the skies darkened, and a rainbowy array formed underneath Vanitas's feet, before quickly launching out multiple Light-based energy chains that would be strong, as strong as steel, if not stronger due to holding onto a dark based creature, and given Vanitas's nature, it would be painful to be held by the chains as it is concentrated light energy.

Roveth of course would be continuing to melee down Unversed with Axel, though he did switch to blaster and started shooting/sniping a few trying to sneak up on Shiro, Roxas, Xion, and even Crystal.

Axel of course would be WTP (What the Pwn!) the Unversed as well with a mix of Power blaster and Saba swings, even firing fireballs out of Saba's mouth right in a Bruiser's face.  

[[XIII] Roxas]

As Shiro unleashed his Shining Bind to keep Vanitas restrained, Crystal performed a shoulder roll before springing back onto her feet and quickly spinning back around to fling Light's Shadow while using Strike Raid to smack Vanitas hard in the body to send him reeling back sharply from the blow. Then, while Light's Shadow was arcing back around to return to her, Crystal began to rise up on an array of light.

Roxas was all too familiar with this particular spell, having favored it himself on occasion. And he figured, why not go for it? It would probably do some good damage to Vanitas as well as to any nearby Unversed. Roxas would rise up on an identical array of light and there was then a simultaneous declaration of, "Holy!" leading to many, many magical columns of light shooting up from the street vaporizing Unversed and also striking Vanitas rather painfully. It was hard to say for sure, but it seemed like the spell was somewhat more powerful than standard Holy magic normally would be.

"I didn't know you could combine magic like that," Xion observed while continuing to shoot down Unversed that were distant enough to have avoided being caught by the sudden heavy bombardment of light based magic.

"I'm not really sure what happened either," Roxas admitted while checking around for another target to go after. That was definitely way more damage than he would have expected just from himself and Crystal happening to cast Holy at the same time.

Crystal landed on her feet, holding up her hand to reclaim Light's Shadow as it finished arcing back to her. "Well that was new," Crystal was also surprised by what had just happened as even she wouldn't have expected so much power from the combined Holy attack, not that it had been exactly planned to begin with, although there was no question that the simultaneous casting had somehow drastically amplified the spell's power. She'd have to keep that in mind for the future, although pulling it off just so would require an extensive amount of practice. She dropped beneath the street using the Ninjetti Underground Movement ability to instantly transport herself over to another cluster of Unversed to begin unleashing Thundaga down on top of them.

Vanitas was becoming increasingly agitated as he struggled against Shiro's Shining Bind attempting to free himself even after enduring the immense pain caused by that over-the-top light show. "Just you wait until I get out of this... I'm going to end you!" It would be very unclear who exactly Vanitas was even yelling at anymore.  

[Kuukyo_Fushichou]

Shiro of course was not letting up with Shining Bind, in fact, it went even tighter to increase the burning pains as he narrowed his eyes a bit "looks like we're dealing a good bit of damage.. how about having some more, ya lousy punk!" he called out, before launching himself into the air and swinging his arms out, forming two arrays in front of each hand "Let us see the Difference of power..." a large array formed underneath Vanitas once more, before lightning began bursting out of it to unleash onto the jerk "Realize the absolute Disparity!" the power started growing, as next a MASSIVE holy blade launched down to the ground through another spell array, unleashing burning light energy to flood the array area "INDIGNATE JUDGMENT!!!" he shouted clashing both hands together, and the sword exploded unleashing large amounts of light energy in a nova like blast, which would both destroy shining bind, and at the same time launch Vanitas into the air, just as Shiro had clenched his hands and proceeded to focus "Trace... ON!" he called out, launching off the array as he gripped a sword handle, which quickly fleshed out into an exact copy of Cloud's Buster Sword, which began to glow golden along with his body, as he reinforced it from within "Omnislash!" he called out before starting to unleash into a blistering speed level of slashes, going for vital points as best he could, due to the speed he wouldn't chop off limbs unless Vanitas was -very- unlucky, before SHiro jumped up higher into the air, and bounced off an array to use the flat of the blade to slam Vanitas back to the ground, causing a small crater and a bit of air pressure to hit, before the buster sword shattered from the repeated slashes from earlier, his prana flowing and pushing him higher and higher magically until his presence was like a beacon as flames started to burst around him, before ringing around his wrists and ankles, and his helmet changing to look more feral.. or look like Ifrit, one of the two as it roared in primal fury, Shiro summoning Revival and Ancient into hand before igniting them with powerful flames as he resumed his onslaught by blasting down to the ground, and started unleashing keyblade slash after keyblade slash "Collapsing Roar... HELLFIRE BLADE WORKS!!!!" he shouted, literally unleashing into a flurry of explosive fire blows, with Shiro only glancing towards the quickly dwindling power bars within his HUD, clenching his keyblades before unleashing a cross Slash, and causing a good X-based trench on the ground while slamming the attack into Vanitas, before dismissing the Keyblades once more, slamming his hands onto the ground to re-engage Shining Bind without using the incantation, running on pure instinct and then backflipping to get some distance, panting as he skidded a bit narrowing his eyes within the suit "all out... never surrender... I am the Bone of my Sword!" he muttered to himself, before standing up, and pinted his index finger into the air, black and purple reiatsu gushing out in an aura around his body "Seeping crest of turbidity. Arrogant vessel of lunacy! Boil forth and deny! Grow numb and flicker! Disrupt sleep! Crawling queen of iron! Eternally self-destructing doll of mud! Unite! Repulse! Fill with soil and know your own powerlessness! WAY OF DESTRUCTION NUMBER 90! BLAAAAACK COOOOFFFFFFFIIIINNNNNN!!!!!" he roared into the sky, with purple and black gravity reiatsu launched up, quickly starting to form a massive almost megazord sized box around the bound Vanitas, and spike-like protrusions slammed into the box, impaling it and working to impale Vanitas within much like a Magician's sword box thing, to lacerate the b*****d from head to toe. of course, after a few seconds of the spell finishing, it would start cracking, and shattering, what it would reveal is unknown at the moment, as Shiro was tired, and he had de-morphed out of Legendary Mode back to Super Megaforce Red ranger to conserve what energy he could.  

[[XIII] Roxas]

Vanitas would be hurting badly after all the punishment he suffered from Shiro's practically endless assault so when the opportunity to escape presented itself he fled. "You know what, you pests can have this worthless slab of a world," Vanitas's voice would carry from a wispy black vapor cloud in the empty space left behind by the shattered box. "I'm out of here!" And after that Vanitas would be gone.

Roxas, Crystal, and Xion would continue eliminating what remained of the Unversed that were left behind. Once all the Unversed were finally eliminated they would de-morph and finally have a chance to appreciate Shiro's amazing handiwork for having gotten rid of Vanitas, for the moment at least.

"He ran away again," Roxas frowned mildly. "But I doubt he'll be wanting to come back here again anytime soon."

"And you were worried about having to lead the fight against him," Xion gave Shiro a pointed look. "But you fought brilliantly and I doubt Vanitas will soon forget it."

"And if he forgets and decides to challenge us again, we'll give him a painful reminder not to mess with us," Crystal added. "We did good work today and now I think it's time for some well deserved downtime back at the Command Center."  

[Kuukyo_Fushichou]

Shiro had stared at the fading whispy black vapor as it faded, beofre his energy meters went to Zero, and he de-morphed fully and collapsed to one knee, panting as he closed one eye, hiding it behind drooping white hair as he focused a bit on recovering a bit of stamina, before hearing the compliments from everyone, blushing in embarrassment "uhm.. well.. aye yai yai yai yai.." he said, not really sure how to respond to complements and all, given it took everything he had to use those high powered moves he had in such a chain, not to mention whatever happened that bursted around him to add to things with fiery explosions.

Roveth had chuckled a bit, seeing this "well well, mister popular today huh Aibou?" of course, this got Shiro sputtering even more while chuckling a bit as he rubbed his hands together "as for taking a bit of downtime, i have to agree, though it probably was tiring in general, Shiro -does- look like he's about to pass out, probably because he chained such high level moves... as well as whatever happened that allowed those flames..."

Axel chuckled, grinning as he de-morphed as well, crossing his arms behind his head "that was -so- satisfying to watch Vanitas get thrown around like a rag-doll." he said with clear amusement, while looking at least not as tired as he was when he first Morphed to help everyone and all.  

[[XIII] Roxas]

"Yep, Shiro totally put Vanitas in his place today," Crystal wasn't about to deprive him of his time in the spotlight. Being a skillful diversion was hardly praiseworthy as far as she was concerned although she did have to give some credit to Roxas. "Although that was some amazing timing you had with the Holy magic. Vanitas and those Unversed really didn't like being lit up like that."

"I saw what you were doing and just followed your lead because it seemed like it couldn't hurt to give it a try," Roxas shrugged. "That was definitely way more damage than I was expecting though."

"It certainly made eliminating the Unversed easier," Xion pointed out. "That move got rid of a whole lot of them all at once."

"Anyway, Shiro can't even stand on his own anymore so we really should be heading back," Crystal concluded before any more of that praise could be redirected at her. She tapped the button on her communicator and whooshed away in a column of yellow light going on ahead.

"Of course, Shiro might not have landed so many clean hits on Vanitas if it hadn't been for Crystal running interference like that," Roxas pointed out. "It was risky, but that definitely left Vanitas wide open."

"It probably has to do with what she mentioned before about being able to play off each other's strengths and weaknesses after being around someone for long enough," noted Xion. "She knows what she's doing and she trusts that Shiro will pick up the slack when she gives him the opportunity. And don't forget, you were reading her moves too."

"That was only because I recognized the spell," Roxas protested mildly. "It was an honest fluke. But, we should probably get going too." He departed next, vanishing in a column of green light.

"They're awfully humble, aren't they?" Xion of course turned to Axel and Roveth with this last comment.  

[Kuukyo_Fushichou]

Shiro of course just blushed in embarrassment, despite his tiredness he was -definitely- not the best at taking praise well and just decided to pull a Crystal, and tapped his communicator and disappeared in a column of red light and electricity back to the command center.

Roveth chuckled a bit while Axel smirked and crossed his arms lightly "definitely looks like it, especially Crystal and Roxas." axel had stated while roveth rolled his shoulder a bit lightly and letting the bones crack within them "Shiro however.. well.. he's never gotten praise often, usually scolding, yelling or otherwise." he said, pondering things "so praise is a bit foreign to him due to the fact he typically believes himself expendable despite his beliefs of being a 'Sword', he even probably thought if his combo didn't work and Vanitas tried something against one of us, he'd probably jump in the way as a sacrificial shield to let someone else get the last blow, given he was so tired." he shrugged a bit "well, that's how Old Shiro thought, dunno what he's thinking now, with all these options he seems to be gaining from Persona to the Ranger Stuff, to more unknown spells, to the spiritual attacks he learned back on 'a Bleached World', and especially to whatever just happened with the fire and explosion stuff." he finally looked to the sky, smiling, before disappearing in a column of blue light and electricity, with Axel following after in a silver version.  

[[XIII] Roxas]

Xion of course followed suit in a column of pink light to rejoin the others back at the Command Center.


When Roxas first arrived back at the Command Center and didn't immediately see Crystal anywhere nearby he figured she had probably gone off somewhere to be by herself again. He was therefore taken by surprise when she suddenly appeared from the vicinity of the kitchen carrying a generous supply of sea salt ice cream.

"Well, Vanitas got away, but we still beat him so that's worth celebrating right?" Crystal still looked embarrassed about before, but she had a bit of a sheepish smile too. Truth be told she was making a concentrated effort not to want to go back into hiding by herself.

"Sounds fair to me," Roxas nodded and decided to just go along with it. He certainly wasn't going to pass up sea salt ice cream. Roxas of course nabbed one as they were walking back into the main chamber to regroup with the others. With the possible exception of Shiro, considering he had probably passed out already, but they could always save him one for later.

"It looks like you've both cheered up nicely," Xion greeted the pair as they returned with the sea salt ice cream.

"It's hard to be upset when there's ice cream," Crystal snatched a stick for herself and crammed it in her mouth before she could be made embarrassed again.

"And technically we did win," added Roxas. "Shiro did most of the work, but it was a team effort so we deserve to celebrate."  

[Kuukyo_Fushichou]

Shiro actually had been in the main chamber not passed out, but he was leaning against the wall giving off deep breaths at the moment, Roveth howerver took two stick of sea-salt ice cream and passed one to Shiro, who took it, though he did blush at the mention of his part in it, and looked aside while taking a bite off his bar after unwrapping it ~dammit... next time i'm just going to be the bait instead of being the workhorse damage dealer...~ he thought to himself, while Roveth just licked at his bar with amusement as Axel took one too "can never say no to ice cream, no matter the season!" of course roveth just chuckled, and kept silent for now, knowing he and Axel had little to do this last fight, but that was fine with him at least.  

[[XIII] Roxas]

"Anyway, now that Vanitas has abandoned his attempts to conquer this world, I guess we should probably think about starting to make our way back toward Twilight Town after we rest up tonight," Crystal pointed out. "There could even be some interesting new worlds to visit along the way."

"Back to Twilight Town, huh? I guess we do owe Demyx an explanation for our prolonged disappearance," Roxas admitted.

"Well, there's that and I really need to set the record straight with Riku because otherwise he's just going to keep worrying that Master Xehanort might come after me when I'm really not the kind of 'pure light' Riku seems to think I am," Crystal pointed out. "Not that he really bothered to hear me out about it in the first place."

"Well, even if you don't actually need a bodyguard like Riku wanted, I think I'd still prefer to travel with you guys," Roxas smiled. "It's interesting and it keeps me from wanting to strangle Sora."

"I'd like to actually meet Sora if I can," Xion admitted. "It might help me to cast away the lingering doubts I have about myself if I were to finally meet him in person."

"That's fine," Roxas nodded. "Just don't say I didn't warn you. Sora is a real handful."

"He means well, but sometimes he goes a little bit overboard," Crystal had to agree having met Sora and seen his high energy cheerfulness and enthusiasm firsthand. "It's best to approach him when you aren't the single focus of his attention because otherwise his personality can be pretty overwhelming."  

[Kuukyo_Fushichou]

Axel had nodded lightly, pondering things as he hummed a bit and tilted his head "well, i might've used a corridor to get here once one of the assassins found this world, but i doubt i can pull it off again from this far, so i'd say we transit to a few worlds towards twilight town, and once i or even Shiro can get a betterl ock on Twilight Town, we'll use the Corridor of Light or Darkness to get there."

Roveth nodded lightly, while pulling out a small hand-held circular device, and tapped it with his thumb as a bunch of small dots appeared in the air above his hand, some of them expanding out to show actual worlds they've been to, and their current location. "looks like from my 'World Star' Map here we are about tree or four jumps away from Twilight Town, so that's a lot." he said, looking at the choices of worlds that would be on the path to Twilight town, and expanded the first three closest towards the direction of twilight town from their location "these three here are the path towards it, one's called 'Treasure Planet', another one is called.. lessee... ah, here we go, 'Bending Harmony'... and the last of the three is a world called 'Wasteland Paradise'." he then looked over to Shiro as he seemed to perk up "something up, Shiro?" Shiro wandered over and looked at the chart a bit "yeah.. if i remember right, Wolfwood mentioned something about coming from a Desert Wasteland Planet.. and from the looks of it, this looks like the one he's from." Roveth raised both eyebrows in mild surprise, while axel raised a single eyebrow. "while true, i doubt he'd be there on his world at the moment, he's usually running around doing other things."  

[[XIII] Roxas]

Crystal would have perked up at the mention of Treasure Planet. "Oh wow, we're actually close to Treasure Planet? It's been ages, but I've been there once before. Solar Sailing was just about the coolest thing ever!" There was real, genuine excitement evident in her voice.

"That sounds amazing, but how did you ever manage to wind up way out here if you normally stick close to Twilight Town?" Roxas wondered.

"I got lost," Crystal quickly looked embarrassed again as she scratched behind her ear. "Places I'm familiar with are easier to get back to, but I don't exactly have the greatest sense of direction."

"But you did manage to find your way back the last time," Xion pointed out.

"That's true," Crystal nodded. "It was back during my wandering phase so I wasn't in any real hurry and I didn't actually have a particular destination in mind, but I did eventually make it back to where I had started. Naturally, this was before I met Shiro."

Roxas was intrigued. The way Crystal described her excursion to Treasure Planet wasn't unlike their group outing to Neverland. There was no mission, no reason to be fighting all the time, just a profound sense of joy and wonder at the prospect of becoming immersed in the culture and pastimes of the worlds she happened to visit. No one had been there to tell her what to do or how to go about living out her life, yet somehow she always seemed to find some way to make an adventure out of it. No secrets, no hidden agendas, just a desire to learn and see everything there was to explore. And she had done it all on her own. True, it seemed lonely, but then as soon as she had friends to share her experiences with Crystal had done her best to make sure they got the same thrill and excitement from being there. Shiro was really lucky to have her around. He desperately needed someone to ease the weight of the crazy burden he seemed to always be under. Although, it did seem as though Crystal couldn't really take the constant pressure either. But how did she get so lost?

"That still doesn't answer my question," Roxas realized. "These worlds are extremely far away from Twilight Town and the other worlds that we're mostly familiar with. And I know for a fact that you don't have your own Gummi Ship so how could you have gotten way out here in the first place?"

"I used World's Rift to open a path and then I tried to follow the chart on the Dimensional Distortion Grid," Crystal explained while rubbing the back of her head. "I was still getting the hang of things so I ended up way more lost than usual. But, everything turned out okay."

"You really are something else, you know that?" Roxas would have found the whole thing pretty unbelievable if it had been anyone else. And Crystal didn't sound like she was making this particular story up either.

"Well, I have gotten better about it," Crystal pointed out. "I know my way around certain worlds a heck of a lot better than I used to."  

[Kuukyo_Fushichou]

Roveth hummed a bit lightly, while nodding in general towards Crystal's explanation.. though he did seem to narrow his eyes as if he caught on to something she was leaving out in particular, but he decided to not say anything about it given he knew why Shiro 'never picked up on it' for crystal's feelings and lyings, it was because he willfully, or subconsciously told himself not to, for Roveth it was hard -not- to pick up on the dodges, but he just continued on looking at his map with a raised eyebrow "well, getting lost aside, it -did- kinda get much worse once shiro and Crystal met, if only because Shiro, as a whole, is a 'chaos factor' of sorts, given back in El Nido, Shiro here.." he said, giving his light half a pat on the back "went and got himself -lost- in a 'stable' dimensional warp." he said with amusement, while Axel chuckled, apparently finding that a bit funny that despite Crystal having gotten lost a lot, that she could explain as being new to her capabilities. Shiro? the kid's a walking trouble magnet. plain and simple. Shiro of course whined into his ice cream bar about being reminded how things typically go to hell in a handbasket around him.  

[[XIII] Roxas]

"It does seem like Shiro has some seriously uncanny bad luck," Roxas agreed. It was almost like the universe hated him or something. "But he has some interesting talents of his own. Like that thing he does to manifest those different swords. Most of the time I don't recognize any of them, but that one he used on Vanitas was definitely identical to Cloud's Buster Sword."

Crystal decided to step aside for the moment. Roxas was going to get Shiro talking about swords and tracing and that crazy Reality Marble of his and that was conversation that she'd heard plenty of herself. Roxas was going to be in for quite an earful given this was probably the one subject that could get Shiro genuinely excited for a change.

"Come to think of it, it did look like the same sword that Cloud was using when they fought on Radiant Garden," Xion also realized. She hadn't really given it any real thought until now.