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He raises his head, reaching towards the source of the moonlight that washes against his lifted arms, dances across the backs of his eyelids. He can feel it against his back, rippling like a tide, so much intent twisted in so many directions it should be impossible for one not to feel it.
Across the room, the boy and his companions tense, warily assuming a fighting stance, but he doesn’t care. Can feel his ability to care about this boy, this fight, about anything being dragged away in the pull of the moonlight.
He’s raised into the air, can feel his head throw back, and in a sudden burst loses any sense of coherent thought he might have had. There’s a roar from his gut, echoing the manic snatches of thoughts and feelings that pulse through the moonlight. So many lost hearts, so full of grief and anger and frustration and fear. One would be hard-pressed to find someone who loses their heart feeling anything other than negative emotions, after all. Unless one is a keyblade wielder, in which case it would seem there’s an exponential increase.
In any case, the hearts can hardly sort themselves out long enough to move any further along than what their last moments, can hardly tell the difference between themselves and the mob around them. It’s almost peaceful to lose himself in the clamor of the throng.
It’s hard to worry about the back and forth murmur of hatehimdistrusthimreplacementpitifulnogetawaynothere’ssomething, hard to worry about angerhatehimmanipulateprovokenonocan’twon’tmust, hard to think about the guiltfaultlonglongheartresentment, hard to worry about the constant feeling of there’s something wrong, insistent tugging, somewhere deep and sick-feeling and hard to ignore.
It’s hard to do anything but notice the sensation of being swept away, away, away, the lurch of his chest and the ache in his throat.
He comes back to himself with his whole body ringing. There’s fresh pain across his torso, and his arms thrum from the harsh impact of his claymore against stone.
The boy darts away as soon as his feet touch the ground, and he takes the moment to call his claymore back to him, banishing the extras that litter the floor. The stone slowly oozes together, healing the gouges carved into itself in a quirk of the world.
He looks to the boy again, and for all that he’s glaring determinedly, he’s panting in a way familiar to him, as one unfamiliar to a rush of such power. The hero wouldn’t be able to enter the state again unaided.
He takes a deep breath in, relishing his ability to once again feel the sudden sensation, and pulls his weapon behind him, stalking forward. The odd walk and bulk of his weapon hide any tells to his wound that may slip by him.
The push-pull sensation resurfaces with a hit landed between the two of them. After the first time it makes him falter, pull back a little on a swing, let the force slide it the hero’s side (youngweweretooyoungwhitisofnomatterdelayhim), he sets it aside, as usual.
The double-time pulses of indecision are pushed out of his mind again as he raises his arms and the moonlight resettles around him. He loses himself again in the chaos, feels rage form and bubble up from the pit of his stomach as - nononotmydaughtergiveherbackgiveherback and I’llmakeyoupay and ithurtsithurtsstopitstopitmakeitstop - swirl from the moon through his head.
One voice rages at itself for not being faster, stronger, better , and it’s caught and echoed by many others who push their own regrets and rages. Another cries their denial, not myyourour fault. It’s the world, they call, in overlapping tones, it’s all so unfair.
You took, cried without direction. You broke you slaughtered you stole .
There’s a reason no rational thought exists in this state. He senses, rather than sees, the person opposite him, feels indignationdisgustbetrayalrage rise and the inferno, torrent, mob at his back.
A target, outlet, scapegoat found, they roar as one. And now you stand against me!?
He doesn’t think the moonlight of the Garden had been like this, numbing him to multitudes of screeching voices. He thinks it had simply reinforced and then magnified emotions, perhaps in the process leaving him somewhat irrational. He thinks it had still been him, as the catalyst for every thought, every movement.
It’s different, now. He can hardly stand the moonlight of the Garden, nowadays. The incessant tugging had lurched into being the moment it had touched him, rapidly gaining strength until he could barely think for the pounding in his head.
He’d left as soon as he had been able to collect himself, never even slipping into the trance he had planned to test. The Garden had been avoided after dark since.
A blow sends him staggering backwards, clutching his side. He shakes away any lingering haze.
“I misjudged you,” he admits. Ha. The mental back and forth has sharpened, has come into focus like the sound of a heartbeat at the end of the world.
His wound stings, but moonlight billows against his back, and he knows the pain won’t last long.
The boy had darted away the moment he’d broken out of range of the trio’s attacks, and now was eyeing him, searching for any way to predict his next move.
Not like it’s hard. Silence.
He moves forward once again, and the three scatter, trying to maneuver behind him.
“No exit,” he hisses.
Focus, boy.
The boy’s companions are nearly laughable - slumped on the ground in a few hits. The boy snarls at him, oh-so-familiarly.
I think that’s enough. Be rid of him.
He lets the grimacing mimicry of a smirk leave in favor of a snarl of his own, feeling the light pool around him and sink into his bones.
“All shall be lost to you!” Shoulders heaving, liquid lightning numbs his veins.
When the haze clears again, smatterings of cold fire still smoulder on the floor around him, biting and cold and bitter and furious all at once.
His lungs ache with the memory of full-throated war cries. His body aches with the remnants of blows, shakes with the after-shock and recoil and the sensation of burning muscles and languid movements all at once.
The boy sprints to his companions’ sides, and he gives himself the moment to readjust. He forces all but one of the the scattered claymores away, and calls it to hand.
May not be long, now. You may at least be able to slow him down for a while longer. Go.
The scrape of his blade against the ground reaches his ears. He hefts it higher, further behind him, then swings it around, letting its weight pull him forward in a dart towards the trio.
There are wounds canvassing the whole of his body, but it’s so easy to not care.
One of the companions shouts a warning, but the hero dodges to late. The other casts a hasty healing spell at his cry of pain, and quickly all three of them are back on their feet and running.
His existence is starting to blur at the edges, and he can feel his limbs beginning to wisp as his body stutters in its failed attempts to heal itself.
The moonlight that gathers now is stronger, but he can do less to filter it as it grows, and the building chaotic clamor only impedes the process further.
It doesn’t matter, either way.
The boy spins aside as he attacks, lands blow after blow as he reels backward.
The final strike is clear to the both of them, and the hero quietly draws back.
His claymore slips from his grip, clattering to the floor in a disharmonious tangle of noises.
The voices, be they the tension within or the clamoring tangle behind him, are for once silent, and, quietly, he revels in it.