Kingdom Hearts - Blades of Three Realms

[[XIII] Roxas]

Xion was already there by the time Roxas and Crystal made it up to the top of the clock tower. Hayner, Pence, and Olette all arrived not long after with Pence happily sifting through the stack of photos he had taken of the spectacle at the library. Roxas was in his favorite place, with all his favorite people, and eating sea salt ice cream so you know he's happy.

"So, how did it go at the library?" Xion would ask once they were all settled and enjoying the sunset.

"We had some real success," Roxas answered before taking another enthusiastic bite out of his ice cream.

"Yeah, we even found an enchanted book that my brother left behind for me to find after my disappearance," Crystal added while gesturing to Pence and his photos. "Even though he's gone, it's like he's still somehow looking out for me."

"That's pretty amazing though," Olette chimed in. "He must have known that you'd be able to solve the mystery because you both knew each other so well."

"We never really had a chance to just be kids together so we had to make the most of the time we did have," Crystal smiled wistfully.

"But this also means what Roveth said before about you being a princess is absolutely true, doesn't it?" Pence inquired. "I mean, these photos pretty much prove it."

"I doubt it's enough proof to convince the whole town," noted Hayner. "Don't forget, there's a lot of skeptics out there."

"Yeah, that's true," Pence agreed.

"It doesn't really matter either way," Crystal spoke up. "That was in the past and it's a title that has no measurable impact on my future. You're all free to believe what you want, but even if it is true it's not like that really changes anything. At the end of the day, I'm still just me."

"And there's nothing wrong with that," Roxas assured her with a smile.  

[Kuukyo_Fushichou]

Shiro nodded a bit as he glanced to Helba upon hearing her explanation of the area as he headed into the area. sure, he was a bit worried, since he had no idea what to expect, and with his use of prana effectively sealed for some reason he'd have to utilize some of his other stuff, like his element grid and maybe Scions... either way, he'd step into the area, and once the parasite dragon came out, Shiro only had time to say "well that's... a unique crea-WAH!" and get cut off mid comment by a tail- slam sending him flying into the barrier and beginning to be slapped about while Shiro shot at the Parasite dragon, dealing some damage, but nothing critical, as it showed in his lack of structural analysis he was definitely doing this forced into a corner already. of course Shiro would at least put the gun away once he saw it doing very little damage, and instead went through his element grid, before choosing one of the 'Omega' Elements, and thrusting his hand forward a large green ball of energy formed "Eat Omega Green!" he shouted, firing the blast, sure enough, it'd make contact... but once the explosion-based dust got blown away, it'd show no change to the parasite dragon, before it belched fire at him, causing him to yelp, and dive away from the fire, only to get tail-slammed back into the barrier wall again, grunting and coughing up a bit of black blood there "Gah! okay, who the hell made this thing immune to magic!?!" he shouted, before calling out "Apocalypse!" of course, out of Shiro's back came the demon sword, as he looked about, raising an eyebrow, before whistling "damn that's an ugly lizard." of course, Shiro reached up and swatted Apocalypse's head "not the time damnit! sword form now!" of course, Apocalypse got the hint, and proceeded to transform into a large one-handed Katana blade, with Shiro grasping the hilt with both hands, splitting the blade into two as he frowned lightly, both blades growing mouths as his eyes went ice cold and his presence, without prana, started permeating the area "Scream Resonance!" Shiro and Apocalypse would shout out, before the blades began screeching in their own way, though the sounds would at least be muted for Helba, Aura, and Roveth, so they wouldn't have to listen to Apocalypse screeches, while the Dragon continued to literally pummel the CRAP out of Shiro as he tried to fight back using Screech attacks, and slashing with the twin vibrating blades.

Roveth would watch as Shiro went into the thing, and once he started fighting, Roveth knew immediately something was off, first off, Shiro wasn't using his tracing capabilities, and he definitely wasn't using Structural Grasping if his shots were- that- bad against the dragon "aaaaand now we see how horribly under-trained my light half is because he hasn't got his ace in the hole..." he muttered, proceeding to facepalm when he saw Shiro haphazardly use an Omega Element and getting nowhere, and now with him using Apocalypse, and only slowly dealing damage to the infected thing, he definitely had an urge to jump in there and throttle Shiro himself for not training his capabilities beyond the basics.

Axel of course would be up on the clock tower eating his own sea-salt ice cream, not noticing he'd have so much company soon and all, though he had a funny feeling that Shiro was probably getting into something funny and yet sad at the same time, he shrugged it off and just waited to see if anyone would show up if they weren't too busy.  

[Kuukyo_Fushichou]

Shiro had been fighting hard to keep from doing anything too crazy, of course, it'd take a while but one Screech Gamma was enough to cause the parasite dragon to pause and shudder a bit, before resuming its attack, of course, to Shiro's eyes, that moment of hesitation meant to him something was up, and he slammed his swords together, bringing them back into one katana form before pulling back in the black blood, and using a tail swipe Shiro would jump into the air with a back flip, bringing his bracelet laden arm to point at the Parasite Dragon as it changed, going from the golden bracelet it looked like into a polygonal shaped bracelet which had large wing-like protrusions which began wibbling in expectation as he nodded, apparently his hunch was right as he begun focusing on the bracelet's power as it begun to shine "DATA DRAIN!" he shouted out, unleashing a large multi-data stream like cannon blast straight for the Parasite Dragon, once it hit, Shiro would instinctively pull back, dragging the erroneous data with him back to his hand to grip it. after that, Shiro would re-summon Apocalypse back into Twin Katana form, and proceed to start slashing and hacking away once more if need be.

Roveth still raised an eyebrow, as he chuckled a bit. "definitely very true... he has been through far worse and is still alive, this is probably one of his easier fights, compared to say... fighting Sephiroth." he said, frowning a bit seeing the wounds on Shiro's body ~though it seems he and i need to have a talk about his healing skills, or lack thereof..~ he thought to himself, narrowing his eyes lightly.  

[[XIII] Roxas]

It got even more crowded when Isa, of all people, decided to show up because he was vaguely curious to know what all the fuss was about. "I see, so this is why you all come up here," Isa stared off at the sunset. "The view from up here is really something."

"It sure is," Roxas was clearly enjoying himself. Enough so that the surprise of seeing Isa didn't really seem to phase him.

"The sunset here is always really amazing," added Xion. She was certainly surprised to be seeing Isa like this, but she knew that Axel was probably glad to have him there. Especially to offset just how many teenagers there were up on the clock tower right now. It was a pretty big crowd today.

"It really is," Crystal seemed thoughtful as she also agreed. She smiled at Roxas, glad now to really be a part of this. She didn't feel like an outsider anymore. There hadn't been any sign of Shiro back at the mansion so he was probably still busy with his training and knowing Roveth, he must have been down in the basement monitoring the computer system and most likely wouldn't be back up for a while. And Crystal knew also that this was a safe world and she hadn't sensed anything out of the ordinary so those two really wouldn't want her worrying over them when she finally had a chance to be with Roxas under more relaxed circumstances. Shiro and Roveth were both more subtle about it, but much like how Axel and Xion seemed to keep trying to give them some time alone it wasn't hard to guess that Shiro also wanted for Crystal to pursue her own interests without letting his troubles get in the way of things. He hadn't really said anything, of course, but it was clear from his actions that he was being supportive in his own way, mainly by remaining low key about it. As for Roveth, all his teasing teasing, had very clearly advocated that Crystal shouldn't hold back and hide her feelings. And in all honesty she wanted to give it more of a try too.

"Hm?" Roxas blinked innocently. Obviously, he had no idea what was on her mind right now.

"It's nothing," Crystal looked off at the sunset again. "Although, you've really been surprising me. You have some really good ideas even they do sometimes take me outside my comfort zone."

"You mean like those water slides on Tenrei?" Roxas grinned in amusement.

"Yeah, like that," Crystal admitted. "It was scary, but you being there made it okay."

"It sounds like you two have gotten pretty close," Pence commented with a knowing look.

"Yeah, it's really romantic," added Olette.

The timing couldn't have been more perfect as both Roxas and Crystal were made to start blushing at those remarks and then Pence carefully angled his camera to quickly snap a picture of them.

"What the?!" the pair called out in surprise as the camera's flash startled them slightly in surprise.

"Don't worry, I'll be sure to get you guys an extra copy," Pence assured them in amusement.

"You should really be more careful around those two," noted Hayner. "They really love gossip."  

[Kuukyo_Fushichou]

Roveth nodded lightly while humming a bit lightly as he crossed his arms a bit as he hummed "truthfully Shiro's taken on monsters three times that size and beat them down like weaklings, depending on his mood, and for anyone else it's usually a chore and a half to take em down." he said with a shrug "as for it being a rare boss.. i can believe it, given how much damage its actually caused Shiro." he commented, wincing only slightly at one particular tail slam proceeding to imprint Shiro into the ground, but as per the norm, he'd get up, and resume his assaults, seemingly going faster and faster, making Roveth raise an eyebrow ~that technique huh..? interesting choice.~ he thought, as he watched Shiro fight.

Shiro of course continued to be battered around, as it was still a dangerous enemy, to the point where he growled a bit, and sent images to Apocalypse, and out formed two straight long-swords (Elucidators) into Shiro's hands instead of the Katana's, the blades vibrating due to the mouth nearest to the hands each as he began focusing, before quickly sidestepping one tail swat, and then the next Shiro would immediately jump over, swinging the blade along it, pretty much slicing it in two, of course the tail regrew quickly but the sequence had begun as both blades begun glowing a vibrant purple "Screech Gamma Revised... SONIC STARBUST... STREAM!!!!" with that, Shiro began unleashing a -ferocious- counter-attack, slashing deeply into the dragon with each clash they had, spinning around, cleaving marks left and right after narrowly dodging a few times, and getting hit in the face with a claw, of course, when it came down to the last few hits, one of the blades was impaled into the dragon's claw, as Shiro growled out, seeing something shift once more "Data DRAIN!" he called out, taking in that data once more, but before the form changed, Shiro would thrust forward with the second sword glowing with raw power as he yelled out, catching the dragon on the head -just- as it changed into the mini baby dragon like creature, and finally bursted into light particles and vanishing, as Shiro stood there, holding the second glowing pulsing orb of data, with the first still put away for the moment as he slumped a bit forward, before leaning back and letting out an almost feral sounding cry of Victory, before collapsing to his knees to focus on at least staying conscious for the moment.  

[Kuukyo_Fushichou]

Roveth chuckled a bit, while stretching "well, if anything, Shiro -is- both a bit crazy and tenacious enough to pull said craziness off." he then would walk over even as the energy orbs finally solidified, one into a small purple and red pulsating crystal, the other into another crystal and what looked to be a strange pair of tri-bladed daggers of some type, as he nodded to Helba's explanation of another ability of the bracelet in conjunction with those odd crystals as he glared at his light half "very true, speaking of being careless..." he said, proceeding to slam his fist into Shiro's head, making him hit the ground and comically gain a knot on the back of his head with Roveth's fist smoking "what the hell was that? DEMYX could've done better against that thing than your fumbling along using things you hadn't trained on in a while! not only that, you -SERIOUSLY- need to start considering learning some healing options because Crystal won't save your goddamn arse every time you get like this!"

Shiro of course would groan from the hit, but then shot back to his feet in Roveth's face "well excuse me for realizing that for some reason Prana doesn't work here unlike the rest of the training grounds you normally set up Roveth, not only that THAT WAS THE POINT OF ME ASKING YOU TO SET ONE UP BEFORE I GOT ACCIDENTALLY SENT HERE BY MISTAKE YOU ASININE DARK HALF!" of course, cue the bickering for a few more moments with a couple of knots more on Shiro's head and a Chop-shaped indent on Roveth's skull from a patented Shiro Chop before they got it out of their system Shiro would at least nod to Helba while pocketing the cores, and at least using a bit of mana (not prana!) to attach the blades to his belt for the moment as he hummed a bit "makes sense. also felt something... off happening to me after each drain, so i guess there's possibly a downside to using the bracelet too much." he said, humming a bit with a frown, something was bugging him, but Roveth beat him to it "one last thing before that's answered Shiro.. why didn't you morph if you were having trouble? you could've at least mitigated most of your bloodshed with that on!" Shiro blinked, and facepalmed, mostly at himself more than anything, and cue a small internal rant of baka baka idiot, ahou, so on while having the gloomy anime look in general when you realized you screwed up.

Axel would nod, but then turn to see Isa, he'd actually blink a few times and give off a slight startled yelp seeing Isa actually look happy, but not only that, the hoodie threw him for a loop too! "hoy! i expected the kids at least to be up here, but i didn't think you'd show up Isa!" he said, before grining a bit and getting back on his perch a bit "yeah, best view in the town in my opinion as well as being with friends and eating sea-salt ice cream." he said, waving his own bar around in amusement before taking a bite.  

[[XIII] Roxas]

"Yes, well, knowing you were back in town I had a pretty good hunch that you'd be up here at some point today," Isa would respond with a slightly amused smirk before finding room to sit down himself. It was crowded, but at least there was plenty of room. And then, just to drive the point home, he unwrapped his own bar of sea-salt ice cream. "And it's not like I have anything better to do at the moment."

"Well, we're still missing some friends, but I guess we can't really expect Roveth to take a break for us when he has a chance to tinker at the mansion," Crystal admitted. "And Shiro is probably so caught up with his training that he lost track of time."

"Not to mention we know Sora and Kairi are still busy with their training at Master Yen Sid's tower," added Xion.

"Yeah, and they just had that break to visit us in Christmastown so I don't think Sora will be getting off the hook again anytime soon," noted Roxas. "I can't really think of what Riku and Namine might be getting up to though."

"It seems like those two don't get out much without Sora and Kairi," noted Hayner.

"Yeah, we don't really see them in town too often," Olette agreed.

"Maybe Namine's just been busy with her drawings," Roxas considered. "I mean, she was pretty worried before we left for El Nido and that is generally how she's been keeping tabs on all of us."

"That's true," Crystal nodded. She chuckled mildly to herself. "You know, I always thought I was a bit socially awkward, but Riku is actually way worse. Not as bad as Shiro being left to his own devices, but he's pretty bad when he doesn't have Sora to fall back on. We might have to pull an intervention and drag him outside while we're still in town."

"It sounds like you're itching for a little payback after all those times he's teased you," noted Xion.

"It's not like he doesn't deserve it," Crystal responded with an amused look. "Besides, like Axel said, it's good to spend time with your friends. Some of us aren't as good about reaching out though and might need a little shove to get us on the right track. Riku does it to me all the time so I figure I might as well return the favor."

"You've got a point there," Roxas admitted. "Plus, it'll fun to watch him be the one getting surprised and called out for a change."  

[Kuukyo_Fushichou]

Shiro would smile, and softly shake his head while looking to aura "it's alright.. i've actually had worse fights that left me completely bedridden for a few weeks, so this was actually not that bad despite how clumsy i was." he said, rubbing the back of his head, while Roveth rolled his eyes, and pulled out a couple of cards, namely Dian Kieto the cure masters, to heal Shiro back up to full, once his cuts and wounds (and knots) were gone, Shiro would look much better as he nodded to Helba's warnings about the infection levels, figuring it might take time to let it slowly erode away into nothingness as well, so that was fine "makes sense enough, well... i think i need to get back to what i originally tended for doing, so i'm gonna head back to Twilight town and try to enter the proper simulation this time." he said, chucking as he turned to head off with a wave to Aura.

Roveth just shook his head, sighing at his light half as he disappeared in a small beam of light heading back to Twilight Town "well that was... interesting enough." he said, shaking his head a bit before turning to Helba and Aura "well, seems i have a new job for Shiro then should i need his capabilities of data draining." he said with amusement before looking serious once more "is there anything else i should be warned about the connection to this world? just so i know how to at least handle it and not freak out like i did with Shiro disappearing to here, as well as any ideas you wanted to discuss now that i am here?" he asked, curious on what the hacker might have in mind, much less ideas on how to ramp up Shiro's training as punishment for slacking off again.

Axel of course just laughed a bit, before taking a bite on his ice cream bar himself before looking over to Crystal, nodding "too true, after we got Roveth hooked on technology in Angel Grove, he's been quiet on the pranking and teasing front. good thing huh? as for Shiro... i honestly don't think his luck will let him rest for long much less let him train." he said with a shrug, while looking to Isa "being out and about though can be fun in of itself, so even if you have nothing to do, as long as you're with friends, it'll be a good time." he said, glancing over to Pence and Olette with amusement "i want a copy or two of that photo you took, if only to have some chuckles on these two." he said, pointing to Crystal and Roxas, amused "not to mention to give Roveth one so he can start trying to tease them again." he said, with amusement and mirth written on his face all too easily.  

[[XIII] Roxas]

Since Shiro would probably be spending the next few days working on his training and Roveth would very likely be absorbed in going over the information that Helba had given to him, it stood to reason that the others would simply continue doing random stuff around Twilight Town in the meantime. Xion would, of course, continue with rehearsals with the Magical Dreamers by returning to El Nido, but that only lasted for a small part of the day so there was still plenty of time to visit with and hangout with the others. Roxas and Crystal would have been staying up late pouring over the books they had checked out from the library, although they weren't actually pulling all-nighters even if they did end up passing out with books on their laps, so they would be able to return them all in a timely fashion once they were done. That was, until a night several days later when Crystal was shown a vision while she slept.

Crystal was surprised, at first, to be visited in her dreamscape by none other than the Dragon King, Bahamut, himself. He then carried her away to a familiar foreboding landscape of a vast canyon wasteland littered with rows upon rows of discarded Keyblades left behind by their fallen wielders. Two blades in particular, one resembling a monk's staff that had belonged to Master Shiva and one whose teeth had the appearance of sickle-blades not unlike their wielder's namesake, caught Crystal's eye before she woke from her vision.

"Right, I guess this means it's time that I should go back there," Crystal murmured to herself as she woke up on the futon sofa that was the bottom bunk in her room with a large hardcover volume still open on her lap as she noticed she had been leaning on Roxas. Naturally, he was still asleep for the moment. Crystal sat up, closing up the book that was on her lap, and then got up before collecting the one Roxas had been working on so she could place the books on the desk to get them out of the way. She felt a twinge of guilt because she knew the Keyblade Graveyard was one place she probably shouldn't bring Roxas with her even though she had promised she wouldn't leave him behind anymore. Moreover, it was also a place that Shiro should never even learn exists.

"This is gonna be a tough one to explain," Crystal sighed as she rubbed the back of her head and headed for the small kitchen area to start brewing up some tea so she could try to ease her mind.

Roxas woke up a short time later and almost immediately he could see that Crystal seemed to have something on her mind that appeared to be troubling her. "Did something happen?"

"More like, something is going to happen," Crystal sighed tiredly. "There's a place I have to go to, but it's a place I can't take you or Shiro with me. Shiro I can't bring with me because he can never know that place exists. And it's not that I don't want to have you there with me, but there's just this feeling that I have that you shouldn't go there either."

"Are you talking about that place that was in the drawing you told Namine to get rid of?" Roxas remembered it because it stood out considering Crystal didn't seem especially bothered by any of the rest of the drawings Namine had derived from any of her other memories.

Crystal nodded. "I went there once before, by accident, but I started having terrible visions the moment my feet touched the ground so I couldn't stay to do what I'm meant to."

"And now you want to go back there?" Roxas sounded understandably skeptical about that.

"Believe me, I wouldn't want to go there if it wasn't important," Crystal explained. "Bahamut showed it to me in a vision. Not exactly something to be taken lightly. I think he was trying to tell me that I'm finally ready to put the past to rest."

"Well, if it's something you really think you should do, then I'm not going to stop you, but I do think that maybe we should speak with Master Yen Sid about it before you go," Roxas suggested. "And, of course, I don't think you should go alone. Even if me and Shiro can't come with you, you should at least have someone there for backup."

"That's a good idea," Crystal nodded. "I was actually already thinking about that too."

"In that case, I guess today we'll be going to the tower," Roxas pointed out. "So we should probably try to get an early start."  

[Kuukyo_Fushichou]

of course, that next day the gang would see Shiro in the kitchen cooking like always, however he had a haggard, tired, almost -sleep deprived- look on his face, this was due to the fact of having been through these past few days on little sleep, getting put through the wringer by Roveth within the training simulators, however he had gotten quite a bit done in regards to his capabilities, with his Prana put to the side for the moment, he had learned how to quite extensively utilize Apocalypse to the point where he could flow between attacks and switching weapons in an instant, and making himself much faster and able to defend himself with hardening the Black Blood. of course, Scream Resonance was also instinctive to where the two would perform it wordlessly and immediately, and only needed to call out an attack when pressed hard enough. on the side of things with the rangers stuff, Shiro also learned to be in morph for harder enemies that could bypass even his black blood with ease, and also learned how to wield ranged weapons well as Roveth refused to let him wield any of the melee weapon based rangers to the point it was almost as good as his melee fighting, the final thing Shiro got thrown into the wringer with was his new stuff, known as the Dragoon Transformations, allowing him to don powerful and organic draconic armor and wield powerful melee/ranged weapons, hell, once shiro got a hold of the Addition Chain system, and the Dragoon Spells, he was actually doing quite well against say... more Boss style enemies, though the data bugs had been thankfully few and far between, if any. the only reason Shiro wasn't asleep right now was because during those few days and some -trickery- added into the simulation to speed time up within, it allowed him to get things done, yes, but at the same time he was put through hell to get everything up to speed (not to mention his Caster Gun aiming and firing, as well as the Ma-Ken usage...) case in point when Roveth enters...

Roveth would yawn, looking not as haggard as Shiro did, however he too was feeling a bit of strain from both researching the new info provided from Helba about the monster databases, so on as well as working more on the Chronopolis technology. either way once he sat down he had to tilt his head a few different directions to avoid flying kitchen knives flying out of the kitchen door aimed directly for his head, smirking all the same as he looked over "suck it up butter-cup, you needed that, and i'm going to run you into the ground today too." of course, cue Einlanzer narrowly missing Roveth's head as he ducked hard noticing the more lethal blade flying at his head "Oi! going a bit far don't you think?" Shiro would look out of the kitchen with a -very- icy cold stare, almost... -his- level of a glare when angry. ".... Izanagi. Cleave." sure enough, a burst of blue flame later and his Persona was trying to kill Roveth, failing of course given Roveth was too damn slippery for his own good due to the unreadable movements of kicking back the chair to duck one swing, roll back, and start backpedaling in a zig-zag formation ducking around the dining room dodging slashes from the Persona.

Axel of course would be the next to enter, followed by Demyx, who both looked at the currently fleeing Roveth from Izanagi, and looked over to Shiro, who was watching with barely hidden animosity towards his dark half, but nothing like true hate at least. "... yup, someone sure did the 180 this time... given it's usually Roveth who's murderous compared to Shiro." Demyx looked at Shiro despite his zombie-ness state, and shrugged with a yawn "given we hadn't seen hide nor hair of either of em for the past few days.. i think Shiro might've been training with Roveth's help, and Roveth worked him into the ground or something." he shrugged lightly, and sat down when a cup of coffee slid into his view, he would take it and drink it, glancing to Shiro who gave Axel and Demyx a warm smile, wearing his usual Apron "pretty much he did, moreso than i was planning to work -myself- into the ground, and i know i'm far from done with training as well, i still need to figure out those other transformations i keep having, like the flame one i used, still have no clue on that just yet."