Chapter 8 - Flurry of Blades

Xaphire gazed with mocking eyes as Sora continued to fall down the never-ending drop. Xaphire had no emotion in his face, just his dark, piercing right eye locked onto Sora as the body disappeared into the darkness.
"SORA!!!" A voice bellowed out.
Xaphire turned towards where the voice originated from, he noticed Riku kneeling on the floor, holding his chest tightly. Behind the long silver hair, Riku’s eyes were locked on Xaphire with fury, his teeth bearing as if they were fangs.
"There's no need for you to call out to him, Sora won’t be able to hear you." Xaphire told him in a low, dark voice. He then began to crack a grim smile. "All I can say now is one down ... One left to kill."
He suddenly appeared close up in front of Riku; his left Blade disappeared from sight, and grasped him tightly around the neck. Riku tried to wriggle his way out of Xahpire’s clutches but his strength was too powerful to escape from. Xaphire gradually lifted Riku up with ease, Riku’s feet kicking out pointlessly. Riku began to choke as Xaphire strengthened his grip. In retaliation, Riku began clawing Xaphire’s grasped hand. But this was no use.
"You are as pathetic as your dear friend; I continue to wonder how you two became the cause for the Organization’s demise." Xaphire teased as his voice echoed the room.
"You shouldn’t … underestimate us." Riku wheezed, feeling Xaphire’s grip continuously tightening.
“Tch … That’s funny; for the entire duration of this so called ‘battle’, I’ve been thinking that I was overestimating you two.” Xaphire argued back, his face expressionless.
Xaphire’s grip was overwhelmingly strong, causing Riku to begin losing his consciousness due to the lack of oxygen. This was now or never. Riku, with all the strength he had left in him, launched his entire leg skywards, colliding straight into Xaphire’s face. Xaphire instantly released his clutches and fell back. Riku fell to the floor, smacking his back against it in the process. He began to gulp in large quantities of precious oxygen as he regained full consciousness and strength. Xaphire spat out to the side in disgust. As he turned to face Riku, blood could be seen trickling from his lip.
"So you haven't given up yet ... good." Xaphire chuckled, cuffing up the blood.
Riku leapt to his feet, Keyblade in his hand, and allowed no time to attack Xaphire. Xaphire instantly parried Riku's Keyblade like it was nothing. But Riku continued to attempt to inflict blows; Xaphire eventually brought out his other Blade and clashed blades with Riku's. They continued to clash with countless strikes non-stop, but then suddenly Xaphire released an aura of energy from his Blades as he countered Riku's next attack. Riku noticed it in time and jumped as high as possible as the energy aura shot past him.
"Dark Aura!" Riku suddenly roared in retaliation.
Riku gradually raised his Keyblade above him as everything around Riku and Xaphire suddenly turned pitch black. Riku instantly disappeared into the darkness; for a few seconds, Xaphire carelessly scanned around to try to spot him but this had been no use, he was nowhere to be found. Suddenly, from out of nowhere, Riku had reappeared flying towards Xaphire with his Keyblade pointing ready to strike the target. His speed was unbelievably fast, it was almost impossible to follow his movements. Xaphire dodged it just in time but instantly Riku reappeared from another direction shooting towards Xaphire again. Xaphire kept on trying his best to evade as Riku continued on repeating the attacks. Xaphire then halted in his tracks and readied himself for Riku to do the same attack, but Xaphire’s timed this at the worst point of the attack. Riku had instantly reappeared and this time held his Keyblade sky high once again. His body then dropped to the floor with the Keyblade’s direction pointing towards it. When his feet touched the ground, he forced his Keyblade to pierce the floor. Suddenly, this caused streaks of auras to shoot from all directions of the platform. Xaphire evaded most of the sudden blasts but one collided into him, catching him off guard. Xaphire was thrown high up into the air. Riku knew this was his chance. He swiftly leaped towards Xaphire, ready to strike, but as he swiped his Keyblade, Xaphire unexpectedly recovered and parried the Keyblade. With his other Blade, he swung it round to Riku’s side; the Sword collided against Riku’s ribs and was thrown back. Riku had the wind knocked out of him, struggling to breathe. He collided to the platform, jolting his body. Air instantly got to his lungs, allowing him to fully recover.
“Dark Firaga!” Riku retaliated, panting and wheezing.
He quickly threw his left arm to Xaphire’s direction and immediately a multiple number of dark auras shot out of the palm of Riku’s hand. The blasts of dark auras sped towards Xaphire, but were easily deflected back towards Riku as they collided with the two blades. Riku quickly evaded the blasts but one caught him by surprise and sent him to the floor. He landed heavily onto his side; but swiftly got back to his feet and continued to evade the deflected blasts. After all the blasts were evaded, Riku readied himself to attack again. Swiftly, Xaphire appeared in front of him and punched him in the stomach; the impact threw Riku backwards to the floor. With the wind once again knocked out of him by the punch, Riku got to his knees and tried to recover. Xaphire didn’t at all hesitate as he appeared again above Riku and dropped to the ground with his Blades aiming for the head. Riku just in time recovered and parried the attack with as much strength as he could. Xaphire leaped back as Riku struggled to his feet.
"It seems you still like to use those dark powers of yours, even though you do not reside in the Dark Realm anymore.” Xaphire stated, as he had carefully examined the way Riku fought during this battle.
As Xaphire spoke, Riku suddenly noticed something about him; there wasn’t a scratch or drops of sweat on his body at all, the blood that was trickling down his mouth and the cut on his chest had somehow completely disappeared. But there was also something Xaphire said was troubling Riku.
"How do you know I used to belong to the Dark Realm?” Riku questioned, closely watching Xaphire.
"Once you had entered this Castle, it had instantly copied all the important memories of you and Sora. With them, I was able to … play about with them a bit." Xaphire explained, feeling that it didn’t matter too much explaining this information to him.
"This Castle copied our memories!?" Riku echoed, caught out by surprise.
"Yeah, and the Organization gave this place a unique name … Castle of the Eclipse." Xaphire continued.
Riku strengthened his grip on his Keyblade; he suddenly got the feeling that this Castle had a similar purpose to Castle Oblivion.
“So, you were the reason why I was seeing hallucinations and Sora was being affected by his Anti-Form!?” Riku shouted out, anger burning up inside him.
“Yeah, I guess I did.” Xaphire shrugged. “I found it quite fun toying with both your heads.”
“Well, we’ll make sure that will come to an end!” Riku roared.
He suddenly launched himself towards Xaphire and swiped his Keyblade horizontal. Xaphire leaped casually into the air to evade the attack and landed softly behind Riku. Riku swiftly turned to face Xaphire again.
"Here’s a question ... what do you mean by 'we'?" Xaphire asked curiously.
"Both I and Sora will take you down and stop your meddling." Riku stated confidently.
"Is that right? Don't forget, Sora fell down the drop." Xaphire noted, pointing towards the edge of the platform.
"He may have fallen, but something that simple won’t stop him from fighting back." Riku argued, grinning with confidence.
"hmph, now wouldn’t that be a surprise!" Xaphire joked sarcastically.
He suddenly swung the Blades towards Riku’s waist; Riku quickly saw this coming and leapt backwards in retaliation. Xaphire didn't follow after him; instead he slowly released his grips on his Blades. His Blades began to hover in mid-air on their own like they were puppets on string. Xaphire swiftly threw his right arm across, the right Blade reacted by this command and flew spinning towards Riku. Xaphire then threw his left arm across, and so the left Blade followed the right Blade towards Riku. Riku swiftly retaliated as he parried both Blades with the Keyblade. But as he did, the Swords continued to attack by themselves. Riku constantly parried and evaded all of the incoming attacks, but struggled to keep this up. One slip and he was done for. Xaphire carelessly stepped closer to Riku; feeling rather bored not doing anything.
"You Keyblade wielders are all the same; you act tough and confident about having strong hearts yet you are in fact so blind of the openings surrounding it!" Xaphire spat as Riku continued to parry his Swords. “No wonder you were so easily corrupted and your friend was unable withstand the Darkness in his own soul!”
“I’ve learned from my mistakes!” Riku bellowed back, almost losing his footing as the Blades kept swinging towards him.
Xaphire suddenly held up his right arm, halting both Blades from continuing to attack Riku. He swiftly threw his arm back to his side; the Blades reacted instantly to the command at the same time and stabbed from opposite ends of Riku. Riku tried his best to evade the left Blade but wasn't paying close attention to the other. The edge of the Blade sliced down Riku's back, causing Riku to scream from the immense pain. Riku fell to the floor, unable to move. Xaphire strode towards the fallen Riku while at the same time grabbed the hilts of the two Great-swords as they flew towards him. Xaphire stood towering over the wounded Riku; kicking the Keyblade out of his hand. Riku's wound was deep; the agonizing pain caused him to shake violently and very close to passing out.
"Like all Nobodies, I have no heart; but if I did have a heart of my own ... part of me would feel sorry for you." Xaphire taunted, showing his dark, eerie smile. “… While the rest of me would laugh hysterically at your pathetic self.”
Riku gazed at him with droopy, weak eyes, ever so close to losing consciousness. All of a sudden, something collided into Xaphire from behind; Xaphire flew and tumbled into the distance, but swiftly recovered back to his feet.
Xaphire then pointed a Great-sword towards his surprise attacker, “You’re recklessness knows no bounds!” He bellowed in fury.
Sora stood gazing with determination, his Final Form executed, ready to strike with his floating Keyblades at any moment. He was panting heavily; his right side deeply wounded from Xaphire’s earlier attack. But he brushed the pain away like it was no big deal.
“I refuse to give up when my best friend’s life is on the line!” Sora shouted out, fists clenched tightly.
"S-Sora ... H-How did you ...?" Riku tried to get the words out of his mouth, but the intense pain from the wound prevented him from doing so.
Sora swiftly flew towards him, "It’ll be ok; I'll heal you as quick as possible." Sora hushed Riku.
“Y-you idiot … n-no matter what y-you do … he’s impossible t-to defeat.” Riku struggled.
"Heal!" Sora shouted out, his Keyblades spinning around the both of him.
But he was instantly interrupted by Xaphire’s sudden kick to the stomach. Sora instantly recovered from being driven back. Feeling the frustration rise inside his body; Sora flew swiftly towards Xaphire and launched himself high up into the air, Keyblades following him. He then threw his arms out towards Xaphire’s direction; his Keyblades reacted to the command and flew towards that direction. Xaphire parried both these with his own Blades. But as doing so, Sora caught him off guard by taking him out from behind. Xaphire was caught by both Keyblades, slicing both his right arm and the back of his left leg. Sora swung his leg low aiming for behind Xaphire’s knee. Suddenly, Xaphire caught Sora’s leg just before it collided into him. Sora’s was then launched uncontrollably into the distance. He quickly recovered in mid-air. He readied his Keyblades for the next attack. As Sora began to execute the attack, Xaphire leapt to the side. As doing so, he threw his own Blades at Sora’s direction. Sora quickly retaliated by sending the Keyblade to clash with the Blades. The whale platform rumbled as the weapons collided into each other. Within seconds, all weapons were back to their wielder’s sides. Instantly, Xaphire disappeared from sight. Sora was caught off guard as he was suddenly elbowed in the back of the neck. He tumbled across the floor but swiftly turned his body and leapt back onto his feet in one smooth movement. As Xaphire landed back onto the platform, he casually stretched his shoulder.
“So is this all you have to offer?” Xaphire sighed.
“There more yet to come.” Sora determinedly told him, showing off his cheeky smile.
“Ah! That’s fantastic!” Xaphire shouted out happily, catching Sora off guard completely. But this was sarcastic.
Suddenly, a dark, horrifying voice whispered behind Sora’s ears, “It’s a shame that I’ve grown tired of you.”
Within a split second, the world complete froze all around Sora. He couldn’t move at all. The Xaphire in front of him began to wisp away into dark flames, disappearing from sight. At that point, Sora’s chest lurched forward. Sora’s head slowly dipped down, his eyes wide open and his face completely turned white with the shock. He noticed a large golden Blade poking out from the middle of his chest. The Blade had gone right through his body with no warning. Sora turned his head round to see Xaphire towering over him with a smile so grim; he might as well have been the Grim Reaper. His eyes were locked on Sora like daggers hitting the target.
“You were just another fallen pawn in this cursed Keyblade game.” Xaphire stated deeply.

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