Work Text:
Kairi and Lea had been trekking across the rolling dunes for an hour before the sandy monotony was finally broken by a rocky gorge. The loose sand made a drift that sloped down between two cliffs, ending in a massive area filled with the ruins of what had been a major well, but the water source had dried up a long time ago. According to the distress message they’d received, Ienzo should be in the area.
“Geez, couldn’t’ve picked somewhere less like an oven to need a rescue in?” Lea complained. He was starting to regret his decision to keep the black coat, practically envious every time he looked over at Kairi in her sleeveless short dress. “Normally I can handle the heat, but this is too much.”
“It’s not his fault he ran into trouble,” she tried reasoning.
“What is he even doing in this giant sand pit anyway? How does surfing the digi-scape for pieces of lost people turn into a beach vacation sans water?”
“He mentioned something about some devices that might have extra data stored in them, but he can’t connect to them remotely, so he needed to retrieve them. The data he currently has is fine, but apparently every little bit counts when trying to attract a heart into a vessel. Something about a chain of memories…”
“Wow, so scientific, so specific.” Lea rolled his eyes. “Did he lecture you to sleep during that explanation or were you too busy making eyes at him for it to sink in?”
Kairi huffed. “Why are you so cranky today?”
“All we’ve done is walk and I already have sand in my ass crack! Did I already mention that I am baking right now? And this wasn’t even necessary! He could have asked anyone even slightly more capable of taking care of themselves to just do this one task for him – Sora, Donald, Goofy, Riku, Aeleus, Dilan, they were all available.”
“Ienzo is totally capable of taking care of himself! He’s great with magic.”
“Definitely the eyes,” Lea grumbled. He shaded his eyes, scanning the basin for their missing ally. As well as that, he kept his eyes peeled for the trouble that was apparently bad enough for Ienzo to send a distress call back to Radiant Garden, yet there didn’t seem to be any. Odd. “Hey, Ienzo! Are you out here?” Lea called out. “Give us a sign if you’re alive!”
A figure of white and grey popped up from behind some collapsed columns.
“Well, that was easy!” Lea grinned. It wasn’t too far away either. Kairi ran over to the pile of rubble, Lea jogging behind her. Several collapsed walls and columns had created a nook with a sturdy roof that must have been difficult to get in and out of. The only way Ienzo could have gotten in would have been to crawl backwards into it, and that’s if he wanted to get out easily again.
“Ienzo, are you okay?” Kairi fussed, looking over him worriedly. His lab coat had torn a seam at his right shoulder and his trousers were ripped at the knees, but otherwise he seemed uninjured. Outwardly at least. “Do you need healing?”
“I’m fine,” he answered, putting his hand up to stop her as she was already priming Cure. “I’m came prepared with potions and elixers. Also, thank you both for coming.”
Lea grumbled, “finally, someone who knows how to appreciate how far people go for them!”
“I apologise for the trouble.”
“Don’t mention it, there wasn’t any.”
“No trouble?” Ienzo said sceptically, brow furrowed. “None at all?”
“Just bad heat and a lot of sand,” Kairi told him. “But you look a little worse for wear. Let’s get you out of here.”
Ienzo opened his mouth to say something to that, a troubled look clouding his face. However, no sound came out, even as his lips moved. Kairi and Lea both blinked in astonishment. Lea went to quip something, but he too was completely silenced. In the basin surrounded by cliffs, the wind couldn’t blow across the sand, putting them in a dead zone of sound. Then suddenly, Ienzo’s eyes widened in horror and he pointed behind his rescuers.
The cobra-shaped Heartless was already looming over them by the time they turned around, having been hidden under a thin layer of sand and looking like ordinary sand drifts. Its black body was segmented in gold and white armour, and the underside of its hood was decorated with a facsimile of its own fanged face with ruby eyes. The eyes on the hood glowed violet as it hissed at them.
Kairi and Lea summoned Keyblades immediately. Lea tried to shout something out to Kairi, but nothing came out. They both split off as it struck out at them. Kairi forgot the silence as tried to call back to Ienzo, worried for him as the strike lifted a cloud of sand, but as it subsided, she could see him taking cover behind a leaning pillar. She turned her attention back to the Heartless, reminding herself of what she asserted earlier – that Ienzo could take care of himself – so she could focus on defeating this monster with Lea.
Kairi knew she wasn’t as strong or as fast as Lea, so she always needed to cover her defences first. She tried to cast Aero. Her lips moved but no sound came out and no magic sparked from the tip of her Keyblade. As if sensing her weakness, the Heartless’ slithering body turned to her. It fanged jaws opened in a loud hiss. It lunged.
It missed. Kairi had already sprung back to dodge as best she could, but it was Lea’s blow against the back of its hood that shoved it face-first into the sand. He sliced and slashed his way up its back to its head, getting some hard hits in before it lifted itself up. Its jaws snapped at him, so powerful that even Lea’s on-point parry unbalanced him. Kairi dashed in from the side, striking its eye. Getting in so close was risky for her, proven as such when the surprisingly speedy jaws bit into her flesh, so large that they engulfed her entire arm. The sound was stolen from her scream, but she persisted with beating against the Heartless’ head with her Keyblade until it let go. Rearing back, it was clear it wasn’t her attacks that had done it – one of the eyes on its hood was no longer glowing, exposing an empty socket.
Lea skidded back beside her. He pointed to his left arm, quirking his eyebrows as if to ask her whether she was okay. She nodded, even though she was wincing. Lea pointed to himself, then to the Heartless, then to her, then waggled his fingers, to which Kairi nodded as if she understood most of that. Then he charged in while she took a potion from her bag, pouring it over her arm. The Heartless met Lea head on, but all of its strikes met his Keyblade. Focussed at it was on him, Kairi snuck up on the right and slashed at the purple orb with an upswing. She tilted her wrist, bringing the blade back for a second strike, then a third, then a spin for the final strike in the combo. The orb sounded like a glass bubble bursting as it exploded and the glow faded.
The sky went dark. Right above them, a small swirl of nearly-black clouds formed. Kairi and Lea wisely leaped out of the way before a barrage of lightning rained down on the Heartless, followed by a giant fork of lightning that fried straight through it. It collapsed on the sand, but it wasn’t fading yet.
“Blizzard!” Kairi yelled, surprised that it actually worked this time. The ice hit square on its head, bursting into steaming icicles. She ran around it, keeping it frosted from all angles to stop it from getting up. As she did, a ring of fire started running around it in the opposite direction. When the loop closed, it flared, swirling almost like a tornado. Flecks of black began to rise into the sky with the flames as the body of the Heartless disintegrated and released a powerful heart that disappeared with a brilliant flash.
Kairi slumped to her knees with a tired sigh. Who knew such a short fight could be so exhausting? The Keyblades disappeared, and Lea trudged towards her from the other side of the sandy field, shaking sand out of his coat and loudly complaining about how it was “even more everywhere” now. A gentle hand patted her on the shoulder, prompting her to look up at Ienzo looking down at her, smiling, yet with a concerned slant in his eyebrow.
“Do you need any further healing?” he asked.
She shook her head, putting on a brave smile. Her arm still hurt – in fact, all of her muscles were beginning to hurt – but the potion had closed the wounds and brought her well out of danger. The aches just reminded her of how far she still had to go. If she ever faced an enemy that strong again but with better constitution, she wouldn’t survive that fight. “I’m okay, but thanks. And thanks for the Thundaza, too. I think that cut our fight down by a lot.”
“Wow!” Lea complained as he reached them, leaning on his thighs to stare at them mockingly. “Yeah, sure, thank him for casting one powerful spell, which he couldn’t do before I did most of the work to beat it down enough and disable its Silence ability. That’s cool, I guess.”
“I helped fight, too!” Kairi pouted. Ienzo clicked his tongue and rolled his eyes. “But… yeah, I wouldn’t have been able to do it without you… and you probably could have done it without me, so… thank you, too, Lea.”
Lea bowed theatrically, which elicited a huff from Ienzo. “She gave you what you wanted. You don’t have to be so sardonic about it.”
“I feel like you two are ganging up on me. Just go out already!”
Kairi blushed and hurried to change the subject. “So, that Heartless was stopping us from using magic?”
“Yes,” Ienzo replied, shooting Lea one last stink eye before turning back to Kairi. “Those orbs on its hood were emitting a continuous spell, creating a zone of Silence when activated. Without the ability to speak the incantations, magic can’t be performed, and, sadly, magic is my primary mode of defence. Smaller creatures I can just bludgeon, but this one was quite a bit too big for me to handle on my own. In hindsight, I maybe should have known better, since the data from Sora’s journals contained an entry for a very similar Heartless. Although, it seemed exceptionally powerful, according to Jiminy’s description of it, so I came on my own believing that there would be an extremely small chance that the same conditions that spawned the monster called Kurt Ziza would be met again—”
“Okay, science boy,” Lea interrupted, clapping his hands over Ienzo’s monologue until he stopped talking. “We can get the full mission report back on the Gummi ship, in the air conditioning. C’mon, let’s go.”
“Who said the mission was over?” Ienzo countered.
“Excuse me?”
“I haven’t found the device yet. This Heartless interrupted me.”
Kairi stood up, hands clenched determinedly. “There could be more of that type of Heartless. It wouldn’t be right to leave you here if you can’t defend yourself while it casts Silence.”
“I couldn’t possibly ask you to go up against it again,” Ienzo told her magnanimously. “That was your first time actually experiencing Silence, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah. It was kind of a surprise, but I’ll be prepared for it now. And anyway, I need to get better at melee fighting without relying too heavily on my magic if I’m going to catch up with Sora and Riku. This could be a perfect learning opportunity, right?” Kairi clasped her hands together, gazing up at Ienzo for approval.
Lea groaned. “By the stars, you two need a room,” he muttered under his breath. Then, louder, he declared, “Sounds great! You two can continue this little mission-date—”
“It’s not a date!” Kairi protested.
“—and I will go back to Radiant Garden where it’s less hot and way less sandy.”
“You aren’t seriously considering leaving Kairi as my only bodyguard, are you?” Ienzo shot back. “After all, you did have to do most of the work to vanquish it. Why, if you left her to shoulder the burden of protecting me all alone, she might perish. What would the Guardians of Light think of you then?”
“He’s got a point,” Kairi implored. “I could really use your support.”
Lea glared daggers at Ienzo, who smirked back at him smugly. The staring match went on for several seconds, with Kairi glancing between the two of them, before Lea finally groaned, throwing his hands up. “Okay, fine! I’ll come too. Geez! I’m gonna be washing sand outta my junk for weeks and it’s gonna be your fault. Hope you’re happy.”
“Thanks for this,” Kairi grinned, only to immediately turn back to Ienzo. “So, where do we need to go?”
“Well, according to the information available, the best lead we have is that the devices might be close to the world’s heart,” Ienzo explained, gesturing for Kairi to follow him as he began to walk out of the canyon he’d been cornered in, Lea trudging behind them with his arms folded. “So, in this world, we’re looking for a Cave of Wonders…”