Seek the Stars

XVIII

Sora slowly rose to his feet and gripped his head at the sudden dizzy spell, giving a groan that echoed and reechoed down the tunnel he was in. around him, others were slowly moving and Sora watched Riku slowly get to his feet. Riku was shorter than Sora remembered and immediately closed his eyes in a little self-hatred. That wasn’t Riku. That was Kaoru, the clone-Riku. When Sora reopened his eyes, he found Kaoru staring at him, and tried not to swallow in admission of his guilt for confusing the two.

“Where is everyone?” Sora asked the other Keyblade master.

Kaoru shrugged. “Not where we are, obviously.”

“Don’t be a smart ass.”

Kaoru stuck his tongue out at Sora and moved to look for their missing companions. Sora followed close behind and tried not to start yelling. He watched Kaoru pick up speed as if he saw someone, and followed the smaller boy down a rocky incline toward a blonde girl casting a healing spell on a silver-haired man. Sora tried not to heave a disappointed sigh at the sight of Naminé and Sephiroth, and no one else.

When Kaoru reached Naminé she looked up and asked, “Is it just us?”

Kaoru frowned and closed his eyes for a brief moment. When he reopened them, he nodded. “Yeah. Just us. But there’s a Door nearby, so once we get back on the Corridor, I can locate the others.”

“Whoa, wait. Time out.” Sora crossed his arms before him in an X. “What happened to separate us in the first place?”

Kaoru rolled his eyes. “The Stalker attacked us. So we jumped from the path and dragged you with us. We must have let go of each other because we were separated.”

“So it was a roulette on who we’d up with?”

“In short, yeah.” Naminé sighed. “It’s a hazard of using the Corridors. If you jump off the path, there’s no telling where you’ll end up.”

“So what world are we on?” Sora asked.

“I would assume we’re on what used to be my home world.” Sephiroth muttered. “This is Mount Nibel.”

“Mount what?” Sora asked.

“Mount Nibel.” Naminé said. “It’s a mountain that rose over Nibelheim, the village that Cloud came from. There used to be a Mako Reactor here.”

Sephiroth looked at the girl and frowned. “You seem to know a lot.”

“It’s part of being a Princess.” Naminé replied with a smile. “We’re supposed to be omnipotent.”

Kaoru snorted. “We learned it in history class back home.”

“Ruin all my fun, why don’t you.”

“I will.”

Sephiroth rubbed his temples. “We’re getting off the mountain.” He didn’t give the teenagers a chance to protest, and turned to march off down some path the kids couldn’t see.

“He’s tense, isn’t he?” Sora whispered to the others.

“Just a bit.” Kaoru replied.

Naminé took up the lead for the trio, all of them hurrying after Sephiroth down the mountainside. To fill the silence, Sora asked questions and either Kaoru or Naminé would answer them. Sephiroth didn’t look back at them until they hit a plateau that held two paths. One led down, no doubt to the village, and the other led up, to the Reactor. Sephiroth began to take a hesitant step toward the latter path, but changed his mind and started down the former. The teenagers hurriedly followed. The conversations became less and less audible to Sephiroth, and soon it became apparent to him that the kids had simply stopped talking. He paused to look back at them and found them staring back up at the mountain. Slowly, he moved to stand behind them and looked in the direction they were staring in.

“What are you three looking at?” He questioned softly, unable to see what they saw and edgy about it.

“There are lights coming from up there.” Sora pointed. “Green lights.”

“Isn’t that where the Reactor is?” Naminé wondered.

Sephiroth was frowning almost instantly, on edge and ready to attack. He looked away from the strange lights and to the teenagers. “Stay here.”

Sora folded his arms over his chest as they watched the older man begin to stalk up the mountain and huffed. “What does he think he’s doing?”

“Whatever he wants to do, apparently.” Kaoru said. The silver-haired boy began to move after Sephiroth, quickly followed by Naminé. Not wanting to be left alone, Sora followed the other two and was sure he was going to be the first to die.

The trio kept at a distance from Sephiroth as they followed him up to a busted and rusted old Reactor and hid behind a cliff wall as they watched him go inside the obvious death trap. Quickly, the teenagers moved toward the stairs in a running crouch, and Kaoru was the first up the stairs, peering into the dark interior of the Reactor. He waved the others up and took the lead inside. The Reactor’s interior was lit by an eerie green light that pulsed and shivered as if it were alive. Kaoru could see Sephiroth’s figure down below, and carefully led Naminé and Sora forward to a point where they could easily escape before they were spotted.

“What’s he doing?” Sora whispered. His companions immediately shushed him.

Kaoru simply pointed in a direction for Sora to watch.

Sephiroth was moving lower into the Reactor’s core, as if he were looking for something. He moved with a feline grace that not even Riku could mimic and stopped at a certain point on the catwalk, frowning. He continued to pace forward, then back, and finally he moved to peer over the edge into the viscous green of the Mako. The three teenagers flinched at the sound of twisting metal.

Sora leaned over to Naminé. “That wasn’t him, was it?”

Naminé shrugged. “I don’t know.”

Kaoru eased back into the shadows and rose from his crouch. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Why?”

Kaoru shook his head. “Something bad is coming. Personally, I’d like a wide open space to fight in.”

Since Sora wholly agreed with that idea, he and Naminé quickly followed Kaoru out of the Mako Reactor and back onto the mountain path. They were about halfway down when the ground beneath their feet began to rumble. Behind and above them, that great green light became more intense, and suddenly became a fountain as the Mako kept in the Reactor suddenly shot toward the sky.

“Jesus Christ!” Sora yelled as the glowing green goop began to fall around them. “What the hell is this!?”

Naminé quickly threw up a Barrier around the three of them to protect them and watched as the surface of her shield became more of a neon green than a teal blue. “It has to be Mako.”

“Mah-what?”

“Mako.” Kaoru said. “Or Lifestream. It’s basically the planet’s energy. All living things join the Lifestream at some point and become part of this mess. Materia is solidified Mako, and it’s used for spellcasting for those who don’t have an innate skill for magic.”

“And one touch of pure Mako can drive you insane.” Naminé added.

“So what about Sephiroth?” Sora asked, partly worried for the man’s safety and partly worried for their own.

A black-gloved hand fell on Sora’s shoulder. “I told you to stay at the foot of the path.”

Sora jumped and stifled his scream, staring wide-eyed at the otherwise unharmed Sephiroth. Sora prudently stepped behind Kaoru.
“Did you honestly think we’d listen?” Kaoru asked. Sephiroth stared at the boy for a long while and heaved a sigh.

“Not really.” The SOLDEIR General finally replied.

Kaoru nodded and looked at Naminé. “Can you move and sustain the Barrier?”

“Yeah, but I’ll have to recast it in a minute.” Naminé replied, beginning to back down the path.

“That’s all right.” Kaoru looked up at the falling Mako rain. “So long as this is all we have to deal with.”

Ten minutes later, three pairs of eyes glared accusingly at Kaoru when their path was blocked by three Enigma, each salivating and already covered in blood. Kaoru shrugged and called in Reaver.

“Try to kill them quickly.” Sephiroth ordered, his voice clipped.

“Great.” Sora griped. “You pissed him off, Kaoru.”

“Shut the hell up Sora.”

Naminé pulled back the hammer of her pistol. “Stop fighting each other and fight them.” She dropped the Barrier.

Kaoru exploded into movement, a blur of black and red mixed with silver and Reaver hit the first Enigma head on. The Keyblade crushed the Enigma’s nose, but the sharp edge did nothing more than make a shallow slice. The Enigma howled in pain and snapped at its attacker, missing by a hair. Kaoru danced back and Sora impacted the Enigma from the side with Air Raid. Sephiroth engaged the second Enigma, Masamune opening a gash in its side from shoulder to tail. He ducked under its claws and snarled as he pulled Masamune back for a second strike, thrusting the long blade through the Enigma’s middle. He tore out guts as he withdrew his sword, but event hat didn’t deter the creature. The last Enigma lunged at Naminé, but she proved just as dangerous as the males, firing off three rounds into the Enigma’s head and shoulders.

It chased Naminé up an incline, and the girl dodged loose boulders and globs of Mako as she hurried up. She hit a flat plane and turned to fire off two rounds. The bullets impacted hard enough to send the Enigma flying back down below her, and Naminé watched it right itself and begin another attempt to climb. Then she watched in horror as the Enigma changed its mind and turned toward Kaoru and Sora. The two had their hands full with one Enigma, and even Sephiroth was having difficulty dispatching his opponent.

Kaoru ducked under a swipe and jammed Reaver up through the Enigma’s lower jaw into its brain, and jerked on his weapon to get it out of the bone. He cursed loud and long when Reaver jammed into bone and locked in place, leaving him vulnerable and open to attack. Sora’s Ultima Keyblade swung up high and down with all the strength the brunette could muster, and even still it took two more strikes to completely decapitate the monster. By then, the third Enigma was upon them. Kaoru cursed and vanished Reaver, dodging claws and calling his Keyblade back as he rolled to his feet, meeting a lunge to buy Sora time to cast Curaga on the men.
Sephiroth wasn’t faring much better, as the Enigma he battled seemed to be unfazed at the wounds Masamune was inflicting. The SOLDIER General sported a few new wounds, shallow cuts that oozed blood, but he ignored them, fighting to stay alive. He heard a yelp and turned his head to see Kaoru go down under the Enigma, and Sora quickly cast Firaga to get the monster off. Sephiroth cursed and thrust out his hand to summon Meteor, only to be blocked and forced to back off toward the boys. Sora and Kaoru met Sephiroth’s back and the three formed a triangle, eyes on the two circling Enigma.

Kaoru glanced up. “Shit.”

“What?” Sora panted out. “More?”

“No. Naminé.”

Sora’s attention snapped onto the blonde girl who stood on a large boulder, high above the combatants. She held a gun to her head, her other arm outstretched as if she were going to jump. Sora’s mouth went dry. He wanted to scream.

Naminé jumped and pulled the trigger.

Then Sora did scream, as Kaoru pulled him out of the way. Sora watched as Naminé fell, pale and lifeless. Around her, crystal snowflakes appeared, and a gentle blue light surrounded her body, making a cocoon. The Enigma howled and whirled to meet the easy prey, and Sora jumped as he felt the shockwave of the cocoon’s impact on the earth. The light became an oval and shot out as it dissipated, revealing Naminé. She wasn’t dead, but her skin had turned an icy blue, and she was draped in sheer liquid fabric. Slowly her eyes opened to reveal pale blue irises that automatically focused on the Enigma. She raised her hands above her head and as blue light collected in her palms, she opened her mouth to breathe.

Only then did the Enigma realize something was wrong.

But it was too late.

Naminé’s hands came down and a torrent of frigid water crashed over the Enigma as if she had just pulled a glacier out of thin air. It froze almost immediately, and as Naminé drew her hands back, the ice cracked and shattered into a fine powder.

Kaoru was the first to move onto the battlefield, moving over to Naminé with a wry smile. Naminé’s blue form dissipated, leaving the girl Sora remembered. He slunk up behind Kaoru and stared at Naminé.

“What the hell was that?” Sora squeaked.

“That,” Kaoru said with a smile, “was Shiva.”

“Shiva?”

“A summon. The goddess of ice and snow.” Naminé said, blushing. “This gun, the Evoker, lets me use my body as a medium for the summons.”

“You should see her as Ifrit.” Kaoru grinned. “Gives a whole new meaning to fur coat.”

Naminé slapped Kaoru. Hard. The small Keyblade Master burst out laughing anyway. Sora felt his face heat up and looked away from the two over to Sephiroth who stared down the mountain. The moment Sephiroth began to descend, the other three were quick to follow.