Kingdom Hearts - Blades of Three Realms

[Kuukyo_Fushichou]

Roveth had glanced off to the side underneath the bandanna to see Riku and Namine's reactions, smirking a bit "oh ho... doth mine eye decieve me or are you two closer than everyone suspects, oh mister keyblade master?" he snarked a bit to try and distract everyone from the oncoming massacre about to happen.

Meanwhile the match started and the two started circling each other, before Setzer lunged into his high speed rapier like stabs, Shiro however parried them aside with enough force to nearly knock the Struggle bat out of the gambler's hands before surging forward himself, clear swats to each arm, one of his legs, and setzer's chest all ringing out at once causing massively intense pain, but at the same time Setzer could not move either without his limbs protesting to it, with what Shiro had hit was acute pressure points on nerve clusters to paralyze his opponents with the maximum amount of pain possible added onto it, leaving setzer a frozen whimpering mess as Shiro slowly collected the orbs, giving off the look of a predator stalking his prey, smacking more and more points to add onto the pain as well as gather more orbs, once Shiro painstakingly collected them all aside from the last one, Setzer was able to move again and painfully tried to flail at Shiro before he sidestepped the assault and slapped the mans legs and arms twice each, sending enough pain to knock him out and cripple him for a few hours until the points calmed down as he coldly picked up the last orb, and after checking to make sure Shiro didn't do lasting damage, was given the win, though at the moment he let his cold eyes look to Seifer as if saying 'you're next.' before walking off the fighting field.  

[[XIII] Roxas]

"You only just noticed?" Riku played it cool like always, although there was definitely a slight hint of a blush on his face at the comment from Roveth. "Considering how pivotal you apparently were to getting Roxas and Crystal to finally acknowledge they have feelings for each other, I thought you would have noticed sooner."

Once the match started Roxas and Hayner were both wincing on Setzer's behalf because Shiro's assault on the guy looked so insanely brutal. Hayner was also contemplating the warning he had gotten from Roveth when he'd agreed to help with his training about how he would do well not to provoke Shiro if they ended up in a match against each other. Even after another full day of training Hayner had never made it to the secret boss fight in the training simulation, but the idea of having to fight Shiro at all was suddenly highly intimidating. That was okay though because Hayner's next opponent was going to be none other than Seifer.

"Talk about overkill," Crystal had recovered from the shock of Shiro's cold killer presence.

"And he hasn't even gotten to Seifer yet," Xion realized also witnessing the aftermath of what Shiro had done to Setzer during their match.

"Yeah, this could get ugly," Crystal agreed. She clapped her paw-gloved hands together with a look of intense concentration. "Okay, we've got to do our part too so that Shiro's fighting style won't frighten away the spectators."

And so, a moment later, as Hayner was getting into the arena with Seifer to begin their match, the Moomba could be seen with Crystal and Xion stacked on top of its shoulders with Crystal in the middle as they balanced rather precariously as an adorable Moomba totem pole swaying in the crowd. This was clearly only possible because of liberal application of Float magic, but just the same the audience seemed delighted once again by the spectacle.

"If I didn't know those two can use magic, I'd swear that looks really dangerous," Roxas observed while watching the Moomba totem pole in action. Then his gaze diverted to the two combatants in the arena. It was Hayner VS Seifer. Whichever of them won this next match would be going against Shiro in the finals.

It was pretty much a forgone conclusion that it wasn't going to be Hayner. He fought admirably enough, using everything he had learned from battling it out in the training simulation. Unfortunately, Hayner still hadn't worked out the right approach for beating Seifer and going up against the real thing was somewhat more unpredictable than going against the simulated version as the real Seifer was much more prone to improvising. Still, Hayner showed that he could fight smart and didn't let himself get baited into taking foolish risks during combat. The reason he lost was ultimately because of Seifer's greater skill and experience. Even so, it turned out to be a close match and Hayner managed to keep it going until they ran out the clock, although in the end Seifer had the most orbs. Afterward, an exhausted Hayner stumbled back into the crowd finding his way to Pence and Olette who cheered him on anyway. There was also the cheering from the Moomba totem pole as Xion and Crystal both finally dismounted to land back on the ground to begin their next adorable routine.

"It's all up to you now to put Seifer in his place," Hayner approached Shiro with a grin while signaling him for a fist-bump of encouragement. Once Shiro was done with Seifer that bogus badass reputation he'd honed for himself was going to be tarnished forever. Or at least until next summer.  

[Kuukyo_Fushichou]

Roveth just raised an eyebrow before smirking at Riku a bit and chuckled "the only reason i hadn't noticed you two until now was because i had not seen you two so close together, remember, Namine was more interested in doing girl-talk with Xion Kairi and Crystal a bit before today, and i was busy in the basement the majority of the time you and Namine stayed at the mansion, so that's mainly why i hadn't noticed. granted, you two do go well together, i admit, do make the girl happy alright?" he said, waggling his eyebrows before looking to the- massacre- and winced with Roxas and Hayner "yup... and the idiot set the stage for Shiro... oh goodie..." he muttered a bit. before watching Hayner, cheering him on in the hopes he'd at least beat Seifer. once he lost he'd settle down, sighing, before smirking a bit "well, Hayner's done quite well in his training, but i think he'll need to keep going and not slack off if he wants to have a chance at the next tournament." he said with a thoughtful hum and all.

Shiro had been focused the entire match between Hayner and Seifer, when it came down to Hayner's loss at the end he'd just smile, and fist-bump with the teen "no problem.. Seifer's going down for sure." he said, before turning his gaze back to the ring, and proceeding to step towards it, eyes becoming ice like glaciers, the same iciness he had shown Seifer the very day he 'accepted' in joining this tournament, and stood with his back to the audience for now, in a sheer moment, Crystal, Roxas (maybe Xion) would see someone shadowing the strong back of Shiro, the armored white-haired image from within his own reality marble, the 'possibility' of what he could become. "so.. it comes down to just you and me, Seifer." he said coldly, almost in a dead monotone to show how serious he was going to take this.  

[[XIII] Roxas]

With that Hayner would have taken his place with Pence and Olette in the audience. Pence's camera had been filling up fast so it was a good thing this was going to be the final match and he was going to be able to get all those pictures developed once this was all over.

"True, you have been pretty busy with all that computer equipment," Riku admitted. "And we don't exactly stand out the way those two do," he added with a nod toward Roxas and Crystal. "It's surprising, to be honest, just how quickly they've grown on one another."

Riku's conversation with Roveth was derailed rather abruptly by the intense transformation in Shiro's presence. "You don't really get used to that, do you?"

Crystal and Roxas definitely saw the figure shadowing behind Shiro, knowing very well what it was, while Xion was understandably startled because she hadn't actually seen that figure before, but she did recognize the outfit as the same one Shiro had worn several days prior. The Moomba hissed and slid protectively between the girls and the figure emanating from behind Shiro, but Crystal placed a retraining hand on the creature's shoulder. The Moomba continued to stare with hackles raised at the shadowy figure, but it remained stationary in front of the two girls.

"It's fine," Crystal coaxed gently. "Shiro has this under control. He'd better have this under control," she added for greater emphasis.

"What is that?" Xion naturally had to ask sounding rather nervous now.

"It's a vision of Shiro's potential future self," Crystal gave the simple answer to that particular question. "Roveth can explain it better than I can, but even so only those of us connected to Shiro can even see that it's there. He must be subconsciously tapping into it trying to intimidate Seifer."

"Geez, he's not holding anything back this time," Roxas was pretty freaked out too, but he kept calm because he assumed if it were serious that Crystal would be making the first move to stop Shiro from going after Seifer.

"Out of respect for you actually showing up, I'll try not to laugh when I beat you into the ground," Seifer retorted. He assumed a ready stance and waited for the referee to announce the start of the match before taking a few test swings at his opponent. Obviously, fighting Seifer was going to be a bit different from Shiro's practice session with Roxas given that while Roxas did a fair imitation of Seifer's fighting style, his size and movements were quite a bit different from the real thing.  

[Kuukyo_Fushichou]

Roveth glanced at Shiro's body, seeing the imposing vision Crystal and the others had seen "... no one ever really should, because while it is a facet of the real Shiro.. it's one he's only shown to his enemies... and not many have survived that to tell the tale, in fact, i think theo nly one who has, so far, is Vanitas." he said, taking a breath, and lowing his bandanna over his eyes "i see either two outcomes of this... Shiro utterly decimates Seifer much like he rammed right through Setzer, or he draws an illusion of a chance." he said, sighing lightly "either way.. this is going to be ugly..." he muttered a bit.

Shiro just narrowed his eyes at the clear taunt, but he did not charge forward, instead he would, mimicing the image's movements, take up his favored stance for twin-weapon wielding, his 'suicidal' style, though he did adjust it slightly to cover the fact he only had one weapon "don't be surprised if the one in the end still standing isn't you." he said calmly enough, cracking his neck, as he narrowed his eyes ~Trace... On.~ he mouthed out, his eyes gaining that icy blue glow as he activated structural analysis for a split second to get what info he needed to adjust his timings for when he needed it "so... shall we start this fight, or are you okay with me letting loose on you like i did on that fool i faced last round?" he asked in a bit of an off-handed way in particular.  

[Kuukyo_Fushichou]

Shiro would hum a bit as he took on Seifer's hits without flinching, in fact, what he ad done, while making it look like he was getting beaten up, which he wasn't really, was he'd twist, turn, and diminish the blows power against his body, sure, it still dropped a good few orbs each hit, but Shiro also let loose some powerful blows in return using his style to 'feint' with his 'off' hand as if he had switched to it, but using his main hand to start whacking seifer a few times, gathering orbs, granted, it didn't completely stop them at an even pace of orb draining each other, but it was clear Shiro was giving Seifer a chance.. supposedly. "are those love-taps or your actual strength? if it's the latter then i'm actually impressed you got this far!" he taunted, unleashing a three-slash combo, not unlike what he might use for Kakuyoku Sanren, but it was muted due to the nature of the weapon he was using and the fact that he only had one in hand "i doubt this is all you have!"

Roveth listened to the battle, and winced, definitely realizing what Shiro was going for "looks like he's going for the latter... i honestly hope this doesn't break Seifer's poor little ego -too- badly..." he muttered more towards Riku and namine, while watching through his bandanna with a worried gaze, within reason, as shiro was -not- known for toying with his enemies like this unless he had something planned, and given what he and Roxas probably did in the dojo... he- really- felt sorry for Seifer... almost.  

[Kuukyo_Fushichou]

Shiro of course saw it, and just like before, his eyes flashed, and he felt the nudge, smirking as he spoke in an intoning method "and now.... " he would immediately move much like he was in the matrix, literally dodging the assault by a narrow breadth, before using his feet to kick himself onto his hands where he spring boarded into the air, proceeding to tap Seifer's head from behind much like he had done Roxas to make him whirl around, leaving his back exposed to Shiro as he landed from his movements, and gripped his arm "it's Over! Nine Lives Blade Works!" he called out, unleashing the phenomenal technique, instead though of it doing major damage to critical places which would assure death, Shiro aimed precisely in each area of the body hitting the pressure points of each limb, the torso, even the head, and then three more smacks to send Seifer packing, and leaving Shiro to work and gather up the orbs, even though it was probably over the moment Seifer was hit by that one technique alone.

Roveth continued watching from the stands, chuckling a bit the moment he heard the intoning, knowing exactly what he did "heh, ingenious, combining his knowledge of pressure points with that legendary technique, it was over the moment Seifer went into the air i bet.." he commented, glancing over to Roxas in amusement, knowing that the boy would know what shiro had probably done on Seifer.  

[[XIII] Roxas]

Roxas wouldn't notice the glance from Roveth over the sudden roar of the cheering crowd when Seifer hit the ground twitching, although otherwise unable to move. Once it was determined that Seifer was only stunned and would recover after getting some rest Shiro, the mysterious new-comer from out of nowhere, was declared the new champion. And then in recognition of his accomplishment he would receive a Champion Belt and the coveted Twilight Town Crystal Trophy. Now that the tension had lifted the girls and the Moomba were also back in action, cheering dramatically with arms flung wide has they jumped up and down from their place on the sidelines. Hayner and Olette were cheering too while Pence fumbled with his camera to get a good picture of Shiro being presented his rewards for being named champion. Roxas, Riku, and Namine were also cheering and applauding Shiro for his efforts. The only ones not cheering were Fujin and Raijin as they hauled Seifer up off the ground to carry him away to the hospital for some serious bed rest while he remained in an almost drunken-like stupor in disbelief of what had happened.

"It looks like the plan for attaining absolute victory was a success," Roxas spoke with some amusement since obviously he'd been in on it from the beginning having been the one to help Shiro prepare for it. And it sounded like the people of Twilight Town were thrilled to have that delinquent of the Disciplinary Committee finally dethroned.

"The look on Seifer's face, it was like he never saw it coming," Riku chuckled in obvious amusement. "It was priceless!"

Crystal, Xion, and the Moomba were eventually permitted to assemble around Shiro to congratulate him, but also because Pence really wanted a photo opportunity with all of them together because the cheer leading squad was just as much a part of the presentation as Shiro himself as far as the crowd was concerned. In fact, they would probably be held up a while with other kids wanting pictures taken with them at this point.  

[Kuukyo_Fushichou]

Roveth of course would work to get to his light half, who had noticed Roveth incoming, and handed him the Trophy and the belt for the moment "hold onto this.. i have something i wanted to do when i saw the cheer-leading trio." he said, Roveth just laughed, knowing what was about to happen, and sure enough, a poof of smoke happened later, and there went a chibi version of Shiro launching into the air to glomp at the Moomba cheerleaders "So Kyuuuuuuuute!" would be called out before probably leading into a dogpile of cuteness, but to heck with it, he -did- want to snuggle all three, but couldn't during the tournament because he had to keep his 'persona' up and all.

Roveth grinned in the background nodding to Roxas and riku "oh yes... i couldn't have done it any better myself! what a great victory for Shiro and spectacular defeat for Seifer!" he let off a mild cackle showing he was enjoying Seifer's de-throning way too much, granted it probably won't help his ego any, but at least it'll keep him from acting like an a** too much to his light half, and to him, by relation. "heheheheh~! but i have to admit, it's been a while since i've seen Shiro actually pull out his Chibi Self... guess the cuteness -really- got to him."  

[[XIII] Roxas]

*Click* *Click*

The last of the photos before Pence ran out of film in his camera were of the sudden adorable dogpile initiated by the appearance of Chibi-Shiro. Luckily for him the crowd had already begun to disperse so the surrounding laughter was at more of a minimum so it wouldn't be as embarrassing as it might have been.

"How did Shiro get so small?" Roxas hadn't witnessed this spectacle before so he was genuinely surprised.

"I think you're right," Riku chuckled in amusement while nodding to Roveth. "It took a while, but Shiro just couldn't contain himself anymore. The girls put on a good show." He smirked mildly at Roxas. "Don't get too jealous now."

"Huh?" Roxas raised an eyebrow at Riku incredulously. "Why would I get jealous over a thing like this?"

"Good, Shiro's finally back to normal," Crystal was glad that he wasn't projecting his cold killer presence anymore.

"This is normal?" Xion was baffled by Shiro's sudden reduction in size and apparent cuddliness.

"Er... well, for Chibi-Shiro mode, kinda," Crystal chuckled a bit while just letting Shiro get the cuteness out of his system.

"Meaning you knew this would happen," Xion made no attempt to mask the accusatory tone.

"It happens when Shiro sees something he finds too cute for words," Crystal admitted. "And I knew the Moomba would set him off eventually, even if we weren't helping. Besides, I thought it was fun," she added while collapsing into her own fit of laughter.

"It was fun," Xion had to admit as she also couldn't help laughing. "Next time we do anything like this we should practice more first and come up with more of an actual routine though."

"True," Crystal responded. "This time the idea didn't come until the last minute so we really had to wing it, but the crowd loved it so I think we made a good impression."

"It really is something watching you guys," Riku had to admit. "I mean, less than a month ago you could barely approach Crystal without someone else, namely me, pushing you to do it and she kept her distance because she was afraid of becoming too attached while she's still watching over Shiro, not to mention Shiro being chronically unable to tolerate spending time in crowded places with large groups of people, but now you're all such good friends. Or, I suppose you've become more than just friends with Crystal and I'm really not sure how that happened so fast."

"Sorry, I really can't explain it either," Roxas shrugged while trying not to blush so much at that. "She's confused and awkward like I am, but she opened up to me anyway and once we got to talking it just felt right, like we were already closer than we thought. And she's actually really cute once you've been around her long enough to see it," he added. Roxas was already blushing so naturally his face turned a brighter shade of red saying that. "At least that's what I've come to think. So, of course, I wanted to be around her more and that really hasn't been difficult since she hasn't been leaving me behind anymore. For a little while I was worried and jealous that there might be someone else. Not Shiro, obviously. I didn't realize until Roveth spelled it all out that it was actually me that Crystal was getting so worked up about."

"So that's why he hit me so hard!" Riku gave a nervous laugh. "Even so, the two of you are apparently better at this than Sora is with Kairi. I swear he's never going to make his move!"  

[Kuukyo_Fushichou]

Shiro of course just cooed and snuggled into the real moomba, and Xion, and Crystal (though the real Moomba and Xion considerably more than Crystal) before the giggling from him started "hehe... floofy and cute and cuddly, whee!" of course, it'd take a bit before Shiro actually at least sounded like his normal self despite being in Chibi-Shiro mode "yeah, i kinda have a big weakness to cute things, well them and dragons. you should've seen how i reacted to one of the few times i've seen Crystal summon Chibi-Bahamut. this is usually a good way to run damage control in case i've been.. well.. the 'cold killer' for an extended period of time." he said, while snuggling close to the moomba with a content sigh. "i'll prolly be fine in an hour or two at least." he said with a giggle and all, thankfully his snuggling wasn't suffocating the moomba, he's not cruel like that.

Roveth of course just chuckled listening to the banter between Riku and Roxas, though he did have to give an eye-smile to Riku for finally figuring out -why- he hit him so hard and all, and just watched everyone with a small smile ~such good memories... they are precious to Shiro... and me too.~ he thought to himself before shaking his head "anyway, let's hear it for the Struggle champion!" he said, with Chibi-Shiro moving to cheer at himself and all for winning.  

[[XIII] Roxas]

The Moomba really didn't take any effort to sustain at this point so it would more than likely remain materialized for quite a while even without Crystal channeling more magic into it. As such, the Moomba would remain with Chibi-Shiro for as long as he needed while Crystal went about the remainder of the day. She had decided that she wanted to do a little grand standing while she was still wearing her Moomba pajamas since the people in Twilight Town were already rather smitten with the adorable cheer leading squad that had been presented to them and it wouldn't be fair not to have an encore appearance while everyone was in such a festive mood. She brought out her double-bladed swallow weapon, the White Nexus, with its half-snowflake pattern blades. The shape of the blades was too irregular for the edges to be sharp, but it was a rather nice looking weapon nonetheless and it was an ideal showpiece for her performance with keeping that big white ball suspended in the air as she twirled the weapon expertly bo-jutsu style. Roxas stayed with her waiting and watching from the spectator area until she managed to get the grand standing out of her system. She didn't attempt to break Shiro's record today, but she did come pretty close before she finished. Then she and Roxas headed for the ice cream shop before making their way to the clock tower as was the usual routine for that sort of thing. All in all, the day of the Struggle Tournament had been a very good day for all parties involved unless your name was Seifer or Setzer.

*~El Nido Archipelago: Opassa Beach~*
3 Days Later...

The day of the big party had finally arrived. Sora was excited even though it wasn't his party. Roxas didn't suspect a thing until after he arrived at the beach with Crystal, Shiro, Roveth, Xion, and Axel. When he saw Sora, Donald, Goofy, Riku, Kairi, Namine, Demyx, and even Isa, as well as even somehow Hayner, Pence, and Olette (obviously they were passengers aboard the Gummi Ship), Roxas knew something was highly suspicious about the whole thing. There were collapsible picnic tables covered in an assortment of snacks and drinks fit for a party, including a couple of ripe smelling watermelons ready to be sliced. There was also a cooler filled to the brim with bars of sea-salt ice cream. And there was even a cake that looked more like a weapon of mass destruction for a food fight rather than something actually edible it was covered in so much frosting. Suffice to say that Roxas very quickly began to look embarrassed while going rather red in the face.

"How did you even come up with this crazy scheme?" Roxas was genuinely baffled until he remembered all the time he had spent working with Shiro's training in the dojo and how Crystal had been left alone with everyone else.

"The venue was my idea," Crystal admitted. "Off the beaten track, nice to look at, reasonably private, and this world is my home away from home so I know a few places we can go if you'd rather avoid everyone."

"No, that's okay," Roxas blushed even harder in embarrassment. "I mean, you guys planned this all for me so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and try to enjoy myself."

"That's the spirit!" Riku smiled thoughtfully instead of giving off his usual smirk.

"It still can't believe you brought everyone," Roxas was still in genuine disbelief about that much at least.

"Just for the party," Sora assured Roxas. "We'll take them back home to Twilight Town once we're through here."

And so began the long anticipated day at the beach.  

[Kuukyo_Fushichou]

Shiro and Roveth smirked a bit before giving each other a high five on their own end before Shiro spoke up "while Roveth and myself did not know exactly what everyone was planning, we knew they wanted to keep you busy so that you wouldn't find out, so the Struggle tournament and the training for it was a double motive thing where i'd get to work on readying to beat Seifer and at the same time keep you busy while the restcplotted this, a handy variable to happen really." Roveth nodded, chuckling "i had a bit more of an idea about it due to security footage and all but i kept silent because the less who were in on the plan, the better."


Axel of course grinned a bit looking to everyone "why don't Shiro set up the volleyball net and the rest of us party and do other things?" Demyx, oddly enough agreed with that a d actually pulled out a surfboard designed simialrly to his Sitar Arpeggio and grinned "Roveth, get some waves going, and let's surfs up!" Roveth of course obliged, turning to the ocean brining out a spell card "Field spell: umiruuka, Activate!" with that, the ocean began to toil and churn, creating much more larger waves for Demyx to play with as he dove into the water board first cackling "surf's up, everyone!~"