Kingdom Hearts - Blades of Three Realms

[[XIII] Roxas]

By the time Crystal and Roxas made their way back through the tunnels of the Underground Concourse into the main part of town to hit up the ice cream shop they would find Shiro and Xion already there.

"It looks like they must have had the same idea," Roxas observed with a pleasant smile.

"Seems like it," Crystal agreed. "We should say 'hi' while we're here."

Xion looked up after picking out another ice cream to try. This time around she opted to try the Milky Way ice cream because it sounded interesting. It was supposedly a cross between cotton candy and ice cream. At the very least it looked colorful and tasty. It did turn out, however, that the keychain promotion was one per customer so she and Shiro wouldn't be getting any extra. Xion was surprised to see Roxas and Crystal again so soon, but she was also relieved and happy to see that they were still together considering it had seemed like Roxas in particular hadn't been feeling so sure of himself at the start of their 'date'. They seemed happy now though so that was a good sign.

"It looks like you two must be having fun," Xion smiled and waved in greeting.

"Well, you know, can't complain," Roxas grinned a bit sheepishly with only a slight hint of a blush for once.

"And we're not done yet," Crystal added with her own grin. She slipped over to the ice cream shop to place an order. Roxas would be satisfied with the usual sea-salt ice cream so that was an obvious choice, but Crystal also got a Fabracadabra and a Donald Fizz with part of her master plan being to make sure Roxas at least got a taste of them. Particularly since letting her eat all that sugar by herself was probably a terrible idea. And, of course, they both also received the special promotional keychain that was being given away right now.

"Oh cool, we're gonna have to test these out later," Crystal was all the more cheerful by the time she was handed the ice cream treats she had ordered. "So, did you two wanna come with us to the clock tower or are you doing okay on your own?" she directed this question toward Shiro and Xion.

"Oh, um, aren't you two still on your date?" Xion wondered while blushing a bit at the way Crystal had posed the question.

"Well, yeah, but visiting the clock tower is more like a special exception," Crystal answered. "Besides, I'm going to need help eating all this ice cream."

"We're really just making this up as we go along," Roxas admitted. "Well, Crystal is, but I'm only going along with it because her ideas are pretty good."  

[Kuukyo_Fushichou]

Shiro had actually taken to eating a Vanilla glitz for the second go around, but since he didn't get the second keychain, he'd just have to find way of sending word to Wolfwood about coming to get some ice cream later for himself to get one. in either case he'd look over to Crystal and Roxas with a smile as he took some ice cream in, biting down on the 'gemstone' to get a burst of fruity flavor from it which actually surprised him a bit, but either way he'd speak up "hope Seifer didn't ruin the mood any for you guys." he said, having guessed that he saw them first before finding Shiro and Xion themselves as he ate, not going to speak much more as he was still working on cooling off, so to speak, his temper, it can wait until the tournament which he now actually had to train for, well, not really train, but more along the lines of sharpening his skills so he could get ready to decimate the competition so he can put Seifer in the Hospital for a few weeks or a couple months. either way he'd definitely work on his single sword swordplay since he doubted he'd get a second Struggle bat to accompany his dual wielding style.

Roveth meanwhile just chuckled as he continued working "well, i have been studying up in my travels with Shiro and the others, and technology just seems to dance at my fingertips." he said, finishing off the security upping and the firewalls changing, as well as the dimensional isolation to prevent Heartless and Nobodies from getting in and ruining things, before working on the evasion training course, which would be using the entirety of Twilight town but starting with Sunset Hill, for accuracy training the junk smacking idea is good, both stationary, moving (via large virtual pests like rats) and then aerial junk flying towards the person for them to smack away, the evasion run would also double as an endurance test and exercise both since the course was so long, then of course there's the real-time battle simulations against data-Vivi, Data-Hayner, a Data-Setzer, and Data-Seifer, though Roveth did put in the best he knew about Shiro's skills that were non-lethal in Struggle, to make a Data-Shiro as a 'secret' boss in case Hayner managed to get passed Seifer. "and... everything's set up. head on in and head for the back-alleys for the accuracy training, Sunset Hill for the start of the Evasion/Endurance course, and Sandlot to practice against data versions of opponents, and yes, you'll likely face yourself in it."  

[[XIII] Roxas]

"Well, you know how it is with Seifer, he tried to bait us and wouldn't back off when we asked him to leave so Crystal sent him and the other two packing by force with a bit of magic," Roxas decided to fill in Shiro on what had actually happened with regards to Seifer and the Disciplinary Committee before biting into his own ice cream.

"Between that and what Shiro just did to him, I doubt Seifer will be bothering us again today," Xion pointed out.

With the mention of Seifer it made Crystal wonder vaguely if Seifer had been trying to back Shiro into a corner with regards to the Struggle Tournament. It didn't exactly matter to her whether Shiro entered or not, but if he did she was certainly going to be along to cheer him on. "Well, I suppose that means we get to actually enjoy the rest of the evening without having to worry about any more interruptions," she smiled and took a bite of her Donald Fizz ice cream. "Oh wow, that's weird. It tastes the same as the sea-salt ice cream, but it's got soda fizz going on too."

Before long, assuming Shiro and Xion did decide to accompany them, Roxas and Crystal would arrive at the top of the clock tower to take in the view of the town while polishing off the ice cream treats they had brought up with them. Crystal had a pretty good laugh when she finally convinced Roxas to try a bite of that Donald Fizz being as he made a rather comical face while trying to process what he was tasting.  

[Kuukyo_Fushichou]

Roveth would chuckle a bit, working on keeping the screens in realtime for now while letting Hayner do his work and all "might be true, but at least i warned him beforehand of letting him into the system, given the original file data had him in there for the Struggle Tournament, him, some gambler name Setzer, the little mage kid Vivi, and of course Seifer. i had added Shiro in once i got a look at the data files pertaining the struggle tournament as a 'secret boss' if he manages to beat Seifer in there. for the evasion/stamina training, he has to dodge a random wall of white orbs that come out with fixed patterns in the dodging, thankfully i'm keeping this on the ground for him because i know he's not confident on trying to wall-jump or anything like that, either way, if he's hit once, he gets sent back to Sunset hill, and the exercise is over unless he restarts it up. to start the accuracy training is only to start smacking the junk around in the back alley."

Shiro had indeed followed them to the clock tower, having no problems with this while eating his ice-cream and all as he chuckled a bit "yeah well after using -that- nickname he kind-of deserved it especially with all the insults before that." he said, trying to wave off the fact he easily put Seifer down and not too gently, though if he really had any say, he'd have put him six feet under if he could.  

[[XIII] Roxas]

Crystal finished off the Donald Fizz before moving on to the Fabracadabra once again making sure to encourage Roxas to have a taste of the three different fruity flavors of ice cream, being melon, orange, and peach. These were obviously a bit more normal than the soda fizz added to the sea-salt of the Donald Fizz so there weren't any funny faces to be associated with those particular flavors.

Xion, of course, was working on the surprisingly light and fluffy multi-hued Milky Way ice cream. She was very glad that things had quieted down and that the situation with Seifer hadn't escalated any further for today. Shiro was certainly justified in believing that Seifer deserved his punishment, but his presence was way more pleasant when Shiro wasn't being provoked into unleashing his violent tendencies. And Seifer himself just seemed way too desperate for someone, anyone, to compete with him. It must have been real tough on him not having a real rival here in Twilight Town full-time. That had to be it.

Xion was also happy to see that going on this 'date' seemed to be alleviating any doubts that Roxas and Crystal were having before they left as there was now a comfortable closeness that could be felt between them. Apparently she hadn't been paying enough attention to pacing herself with her ice cream while she was thinking about all that because the next thing the others heard from Xion was, "Ack! Brain freeze!" followed by an irresistible fit of laughter.

Laughing caused Crystal to lose focus as well and almost immediately she too had fallen victim to a bout of brain freeze from her sweet cold confection. She recovered soon after and gazed off momentarily into the distance with a sort of contemplative smile. "No question, the view from up here is truly phenomenal," she decided after nodding to herself. Then she returned her attention to working through that ice cream with occasional help from Roxas, since she had said she couldn't possibly finish it on her own, although she was making a very good show of otherwise.

"So, out of curiosity, where are we going once we're done here?" Roxas wondered given that Crystal had implied before that they weren't actually finished with their date, although he had no idea at all what she was planning or anything.

"We're going to enjoy a bit of the night life and then I'm going to show you a place where we can really see the stars," Crystal answered without any great air of mystery. "It's a spot I discovered myself so it's a little off the beaten track, but it isn't real far. It's actually where I used to pitch my tent to crash for the night."

"Sounds good," Roxas smiled. He knew by now that Crystal seemed to find places like that on almost every world she visited so this revelation came as nothing of a surprise as far as he was concerned.

"It sounds a bit romantic, doesn't it?" Xion directed this question at Shiro as a roundabout hint to Roxas that he might want to think a little more carefully about what he was getting himself into. Although, with Crystal there wasn't any direct proof that that was even her intention, but it was an opportunity.  

[Kuukyo_Fushichou]

Shiro would at least manage to eat his paced enough, laughing a bit with a chuckle of his own as he continued eating, though once they had finished and were splitting up, Shiro ctually had headed back down to lower main street with Xion "well that was fun. wonder what next... ooh." of course, what attracted his attention was a small gathering of people watching some random person (Pleb!~) try and hit a ball in the air as a challenge to fail on their fifth try on it, of course, Shiro would ask around about it, and after taking the 'job' from the board on it, would get ready to start, grinning a bit as his eyes glowed, and he brought out Torashinai for this.

Roveth meanwhile would let out a yawn as he smirked a bit seeing the slow but gaining improvements from Hayner as he flipped on the comms "remember, while you can stay in there indefinitely due to there being rest and food, it'd be best to come out soon, it is starting i think to become night time on our end." he said, while turning to Pence and Olette "and i'm positive he'll improve, how much is completely up to him, but these simulations should help teach him not to make wasted movements, and conserve energy in the case of the endurance test, the rest is for when he's on the attacking front."  

[[XIII] Roxas]

Once they split up with Xion and Shiro, Roxas accompanied Crystal to the Tram Common area where they checked out some of the local shops before continuing on toward the hole in the wall leading into the woods just outside of town. Rather than heading off in the direction of the abandoned mansion, however, Crystal continued deeper into the woods until a small clearing came into view. Roxas had never been out this far into the woods before, but something definitely felt a bit off.

Crystal had stopped in response to a rather foreboding presence up ahead and sure enough there could be seen looming in the clearing was what seemed to be a disjointed patchwork suit of lightweight armor. It really wasn't even close to a full suit of armor. It was more like scattered and different sized pieces of armor that had been hastily outfitted over someone's casual wear. The most notable feature of the whole assembly was that there was a huge gaping hole through the chest plate and claw marks all over what remained.

Roxas was suddenly reminded of the rumor from the virtual Twilight Town about how the old mansion was supposedly haunted back when he'd gone to meet Namine. Seeing what he was seeing now he wondered if perhaps there was some real world basis for that rumor after all. "Maybe we should head back," he suggested while watching Crystal carefully as she seemed to be a bit agitated by what was happening here.

"It's me it wants," Crystal responded in a clear and even tone. "After all, it used to be mine. This hasn't ever happened before, but I think probably it wants me to put the past to rest."

The floating armor materialized transparent ethereal versions of Crystal's own Time Warp and World's Rift Keyblades. Crystal held up her right arm and brought up the holographic display on the digital wristwatch was actually her highly sophisticated electronic storage device. "Materialize, Dragon Blade," she spoke as her left hand closed over the hilt of a katana still in its sheath. The hilt resembled the head and body of a blue serpentine dragon with an eerie purple jewel in its mouth. The blade, as Crystal drew it out, was short and silvery, gleaming in the dim light of woods at night. What was really surprising, though, was that the blade had exactly the same presence as Crystal herself. It was as though, like the strange levitating armor, they were one and the same. She dismissed the holographic display and gripped the hilt of the Dragon Blade firmly in both hands.

Roxas really wasn't too sure what to do in this situation, but it didn't seem like his input was really even needed at this point.

The levitating armor was moving on its own toward Crystal, wielding the two ethereal Keyblades in an almost haphazard fashion while Crystal deflected them blow for blow with the katana she called the Dragon Blade. When the Dragon Blade clashed with the ethereal Keyblades they seemed to fade as fragments of the armor also started to vanish. The armor didn't actually disappear though. The material was being assimilated into the blade of the katana, gradually causing it to be re-forged into an entirely new blade the weight and balance of which was a bit better suited to Crystal's current body size. Eventually, the whole of the armor had been assimilated into the Dragon Blade until nothing else remained. However, it wasn't just the armor that was being absorbed. Crystal's own long dormant memories were also being transferred along with it.

Memories of an endless battle. The Keyblade Unions had fallen into anarchy and war with each other and themselves. The forces of Chaos threatened to overthrow the castle. Crystal was forced to remain at the castle as the only Keyblade wielder and the only one who could keep the Heartless at bay once the number of wielders had begun to dwindle as a result of the ensuing Keyblade War. Day after day, week after week. The months passed slowly and with each passing day the Heartless grew more numerous, more powerful, and more relentless. Crystal could do nothing to stop the forces of Chaos and the forces of Cosmos from annihilating one another while the Heartless continued to hunger more and more for the heart of the world and to plunge everything into darkness. Then, at some point near the end, her brother had discovered their grandfather's old Keyblade hidden in his study, but he didn't have the ability to wield it and passed it along to Crystal to use for herself. He had known that their world was coming to an end and that soon everything would be plunged into darkness. He told Crystal to run away and to find somewhere safe, that if she survived their kingdom had a future somewhere, and that she should believe in the friends she found she could trust.

The castle had fallen. There was no one else left. Crystal continued to fight off the Heartless until her strength gave out and she could no longer stand. They must have found the heart of the world because soon after everything went dark. She must have lost consciousness for a while because the next thing she knew she could feel the Heartless scraping away at her chest, but their claws met with resistance from the crystal safeguarding her heart even long after her physical armor had been torn through by those same claws. It had hurt all over, but there was also a dull glow coming from Crystal herself, probably a phosphorescence produced by the barrier generated by the crystal inside of her. Crystal had mustered enough strength to summon back her Keyblades to swat away the nearby Heartless. It was quiet for a good while after that, as though any other Heartless there in the Realm of Darkness had learned the futility of their endeavor to attempt to steal away the girl's heart.

"The way to your future is now open," Crystal had heard her brother's voice then too. She hadn't really understood what he had meant at the time, but it came as a reflex that she somehow knew what she had to do using Time Warp to free herself from the Realm of Darkness. And then, once she was back in the Realm of Light, Crystal found herself there in the wood's outside of Twilight Town. She remembered fighting for what seemed like an eternity, but she had no idea how she had managed to survive without becoming one of the Heartless herself. It had frightened her severely knowing what she was capable of, reflexively fighting off swarm after swarm of Heartless with ever growing efficiency and ruthlessness. It made her wonder what she might have done to another human being. And, for a brief time, she started to wonder if perhaps she truly had become a monster.

Crystal braced herself as it all came flooding back. She was older now and wiser to what she had been through, but she still remembered the pain all too well. "Right, that's how it really happened," Crystal sank to her knees for a brief moment and Roxas rushed to her side to make sure she wasn't hurt. "I guess I wasn't the coward I thought I was. I didn't run away because I was too afraid to fight. I was crazy and desperate enough to survive that I didn't stop fighting even after there was nothing else left to save. And when I first appeared here I realized what I had done and I was afraid of what I might become if I continued down that path. I was terrified that I might hurt someone."

"But you're okay now, right?" Roxas was clearly worried.

Crystal sheathed the Dragon Blade, the sheath having also adjusted to the new dimensions of the blade, and brought up the holographic display on her watch again. "Digitize," she spoke into the interface causing the katana to disappear into storage. Then she got back on her feet. "I'll be fine," Crystal nodded as she turned to face him.

"What was that just now anyway?" Roxas wondered.

"Well, the armor was possessed by an old remnant of my soul from before I tried to forget about what had happened," Crystal explained. "And the katana is one I've used since long before I became a Keyblade wielder, forged from a piece of my own soul. Basically, since both came from the same source, namely me, it was natural that they should join together to become stronger, but it also meant restoring the dormant memories connected to the armor that had caused it to become possessed in the first place. If that's too complicated, the short version is that it's all weird spiritual stuff that even I don't totally comprehend."

"Anyway," Crystal tugged Roxas out into the clearing and pointed up at the sky. "I said we were coming out here to see the stars so now that that's all sorted, there they are."

The stars were nice. The view was certainly better than they would have gotten in town with everything all lit up. But Roxas really wasn't interested in the stars right now. "Give me a break. I'm not just going to let that slide because you act like everything is okay. Honestly, it seemed totally bizarre and more than a little bit dangerous and I couldn't do a thing to help you because I had no idea what was happening," Roxas placed his hands on Crystal's shoulders. "I care about you. You don't have to act strong if you're feeling overwhelmed by something. Remember, I'm here if you need me."

"That's just it, I know that," Crystal smiled and hugged him. "I'm not alone anymore and that's why I have it in me to face things like that even if it does sometimes scare me."

"Right, well that kinda scared me too," Roxas sighed and hugged her close. He was glad that was all over with for the moment.

"It won't happen again," Crystal assured him. "I'm pretty sure that's the only memory I ever tried to leave behind."  

[Never Soldier B]

Put put put put "Hmm I don't remember installing a car engine on this thing..." Whirrrrr Click beep beep beep "I'd better land this thing before—"Ah-ooh-ga bwwob bwwwobbubwub BOOM "No parachutes in stock, looks like I'm doing this the hard way today."

And in the northern sky, you'll see a shooting star before dusk; very lucky. But watch out for falling gummi ship parts!

Blaze landed face first, skidding right into the Sandlot; furrowing the cobble stones the whole way. Some small children—claiming the lot as their own after all the much larger teens had vacated it—gasped and went to investigate (hand-me-down struggle bats held high). "What is it?" "Is it alive?" "I'mma poke it." With a prod, Blaze bonelessly wobbled to his feet. His arms flapping everywhere, "Oww oww oww oww oww." "It's a monster!" "I'm a monster?" "He's a monster, do something!" "Huh?" "I'mma smack it."

After some pummling, Blaze started chasing them around yelling "I'm a monster RAWR!" much to their giggling delight, till it was time for them to run on home.  

[Kuukyo_Fushichou]

Roveth had pondered on it, before getting up from his seat "i do have something i need to take care of in town before i turn in for the night, so i'll follow along until i see what i need." he said, following along with the trio of kids, as well as treating them to ice cream, pocketing the complimentary Keychain for later experimentations with his keyblade, and so on, once they parted ways, Roveth would go find Axel to tell him of the event going on, and then head off to find a nearby bank or legal place to get claimed ownership of that Mansion.

Shiro meanwhile had been actually doing well via the Grand Standing job, hitting the ball up in the air, using various flip-tricks with Torashinai to knock it higher sometimes while also doing some wall-jumps, backflips, so on, basically being a show in of himself, when it was finally all said and done, he had managed to hit the ball for a combo of 510 times, definitely more than the current record held by Sora, given he was working to entertain Xion as well as continue cooling off from Seifer, it helped immensely he was envisioning the blonde haired brat every time he hit the ball, especially one particular time he smacked it multiple times in quick succession by flinging up the blade in a perfect spin to attack it.  

[[XIII] Roxas]

Roxas and Crystal had missed the spectacle of Blaze's Gummi Ship crash being far enough from town that they would have barely heard the impact anyway and because they weren't exactly concentrating on the sky at the moment. Roxas continued to hold Crystal close and he could feel her trembling so he knew that he was right that she had been effected by what happened more than she was willing to say. Slowly but surely, Roxas was learning Crystal's subtle signals that something was wrong. She often diverted attention or tried to change the subject when she was hurting or feeling nervous about something. She wouldn't ask for help, but gladly accepted it when it was offered. She didn't want to make anyone worry. It was actually surprising how much more easily Roxas could read her now compared to when she used to keep him at a distance. Actually, he had seen through some of Crystal's more contradictory behavior before, but back then he had hesitated to make himself available to support and comfort her because he hadn't realized that was exactly what she had needed. Roxas probably still wasn't as perceptive as Riku, but that was a pretty unfair comparison considering how well Riku seemed to be able to read pretty much anyone he had a conversation with.

"This is better, right?" Roxas waited until Crystal stopped trembling. "Maybe once you let it all out of your system we should start heading back to the apartment. It seems like it's probably gotten pretty late already."

"That's probably a good idea," Crystal nodded while she continued to hang onto Roxas like a sort of lifeline a little while longer.

"Although, there is one other thing that's been bothering me," Roxas admitted. "I mean, the armor is gone now, but why was there that big hole in the chest plate?"

"The Heartless did that," Crystal answered softly. "I'm sure you remember what I told you and Xion before about how I'm not really so badly effected by the darkness. Well, the truth is, after my world sank into the darkness, I was unconscious for a long time in the Realm of Darkness before I escaped to this spot here. The Heartless must have been clawing at me the entire time, but even once they managed to scrape through that armor, they couldn't get at my heart. It wasn't for a lack of trying though. There was some kind of barrier. I think it was probably protection cast by the crystal to keep me alive until I regained consciousness. All I really know for sure is that at the time, when I woke up, my whole body was glowing. That hasn't happened again since, but I'm betting it was probably Cosmos. Anyway, that was why I didn't hesitate to jump in after you when Vanitas opened up that rift into the Realm of Darkness. I was never in any danger. Shiro didn't know that though, which is why he got so angry at Vanitas. And up until recently, I didn't really know what it was that had happened that first time either. I thought it might even have been some kind of strange dream."

"Well, you probably shouldn't rely on that too much," Roxas suggested as he loosened his hold on Crystal to take a step back so he could look at her face again. "I do understand now why you did it though."

"You're probably right," Crystal smiled sheepishly. "It is sort of a long shot to assume that's always going to work. And I guess, especially now, I should really try to be more careful."

"Good, that's all I wanted to hear," Roxas smiled. Then he leaned in to kiss Crystal, only this time it was a bit different from those fun, random, spur of the moment sort of kisses from earlier. There was more feeling behind it, a greater intensity and passion. It only lasted for a brief moment, but it was probably for the best that they didn't have an audience because it would have been entirely too obvious what must have been going through their heads afterward before they managed to regain their composure.

"Okay, right, we should probably definitely head back," Crystal found her own voice first. "That's probably a smart idea."

"Um... yeah, that was the plan, wasn't it?" Roxas agreed while he took a bit longer to snap out of it. Part of the reason for that was because he actually enjoyed finally seeing that Crystal could, in fact, be effected by him like that. Particularly after all that fidgeting and flailing he had gone through during the early part of the day when she had been wearing that thief outfit. Roxas took Crystal by the hand, still grinning a bit more than was absolutely necessary, and they started back toward the town, leaving the woods behind them.

It didn't take too long for them to arrive back at the apartment where there was still the small matter of finishing up the laundry. And thankfully Roxas was more or less back to normal otherwise he could only imagine the response he might have gotten from Axel.