Welcome to Adventu, your final fantasy rp haven. adventu focuses on both canon and original characters from different worlds and timelines that have all been pulled to the world of zephon: a familiar final fantasy-styled land where all adventurers will fight, explore, and make new personal connections.
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year 5, quarter 3
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A profusion of horror compels Yuna to run for shelter against the spreading calamity, yet it proves insufficient at keeping her safe from the Ronso's wrath; the tree she chose to act as her shield in lieu of Kimahri found itself swallowed by the torrential conflagration, quickly filling the empty space around the summoner and her berserk guardian with a screen of smoke and ash. Her plan had utterly backfired.[break][break]
Yet, adversity can inspire hope, and resilience. Unwilling to surrender her closest friend to the maleficent will of the Headstone Forest, Yuna takes it upon herself to drench her own figure with a rushing pour of conjured water, using it to insulate herself against the expanding flames, even as they moved and roared to scorch at her skin and burn away her clothes. Filled with determination, the High Summoner bounds through an opening in the growing wall of fire, never ceasing momentum even as she leaned forward to retrieve her staff until she was far enough away from both Kimahri and the inferno quickly encircling around them from every side.[break][break]
In her mind, Yuna's desperation to pull Kimahri back from the crushing jaws of insanity hinged on the likelihood that he had been afflicted with some form of ailment, a malaise exclusive to these treacherous and evil woods. With her staff returned to her, she channeled her willpower into the weapon, concentrating all her boundless compassion into a singular spell that she would aim in the suffering Ronso's direction. Her aim was to use Esuna to purge him of his torment.[break][break]
A paling of iridescent light envelops the convulsing Ronso as he drops to all fours, claws digging into the mud and soil as if trying to grasp it in handfuls. Still, foam and saliva spilled from between his gnashing fangs, the Ronso's glazed expression lost to his own bestial fury, unable to recognize the one person willing to endanger herself, personally, for the exclusive sake of rescuing one of her guardians.[break][break]
Once again, Yuna had failed to break the forest's hold over him.[break][break]
Kimahri's muscles jerk and twitch erratically as he begins to slowly rise up from the forest floor, straightening out his posture with an aura of renewed menace. The flames conceal his features in shadow, hiding all but his rabid, murderous stare. His respiration remains painful and labored, yet each heavy breath the Ronso took in tandem with the spreading blaze and the noxious smoke that accompanied it highlighted the escalating urgency of Yuna's predicament. Will she choose to abandon her closest friend in favor of self-preservation, or continue to press her odds and risk dying in vain alongside him?[break][break]
Such resolve to defy the impossible could only be the mind of a woman who had done precisely that. The High Summoner of Spira, destroyer of Sin, she who ushered in the Eternal Calm. To cast away the shackles of fate itself ran through her very blood. Blood that the Headstone Forest had just now sampled for itself.[break][break]
Underneath the blistering curtain of fire that roared above head, setting tree after tree alight with its combustive fury, Kimahri stood firm and rigid, eerily so, as if whatever had caused him to lose all semblance of control had somehow managed to subside itself. But there was no satisfaction to be had in this turn of events; the Ronso guardian would remain unresponsive to Yuna, regardless of how badly she begged and pleaded for him to regain composure and see the light of reason.[break][break]
From a mindless wild beast, to an unfeeling mechanical sentinel. This was no mere ailment.[break][break]
And it would seem that, in her frantic efforts to fight back against the groves that burrowed deep into Kimahri's flesh and heart, Yuna had now become worthy of being revealed the true source of his dark and terrible transformation from loyal protector to this, a creature without thought or emotions, unable to act outside of base animal violence.[break][break]
Emerging in the midst of the spreading chaos, a female body appeared as if out of thin air, stepping out from behind Kimahri's tall and imposing form with a slow, almost contemplative gait. Black boots, a pleated skirt dyed purple, a white camisole with matching sleeves, a yellow sash embellished with a hibiscus motif. Brown hair, cut in too familiar a way, a single braid hanging down from behind the right ear. The entity turns, revealing eyes colored blue and green, in exactly the same places. The only visible difference that could be recognized rested entirely in her smile — cold, disturbing, and uncanny.[break][break]
She turns to examine the Ronso with a patient gaze, in spite of the rampaging blaze that mercilessly continued devouring the surrounding forest unabated. The figure tilts her head, deep in reflection, lifting a hand up close to Kimahri's as if to scan his thoughts, or whatever resembled them. A realization strikes the entity, causing her eerie grin to fade ever-so-slightly, and her focus to transfix itself onto Yuna with increased curiosity.[break][break]
“Such a magnificent creature... such boundless potential...” the being would speak at long last, imitating the voice of the one whose face she wore, yet superimposed over several others, as if they were a composite of many individuals sharing a single vessel, “...pitifully wasted in the service of a child.”
[attr=class,bulk] Esuna had failed. Yuna knew it instantly in the way that Kimahri rose to his feet. His movements were erratic, and even though it was getting hard to see through the haze of smoke in the air, his yellow eyes blazed brightly through. He still didn’t recognize her. Whatever hold the forest had over him, it wasn’t going to be cured easily.
“Not an ailment then...” Yuna coughed into what remained of her sleeve. Her eyes were starting to water from the smoke, but she forced herself to stand her ground as she searched desperately for a path forward. The vines were clearly what was affecting him, but it hurt him too much to remove them manually. There had to be a way to get them to let go on their own.
Unless...she needed to find their source?
The Headstone Forest had always been eerily good at reading the people who ventured into its depths. Yuna had experienced firsthand that the visions that could strike at any time were specifically tailored to cut deep into the victim’s psyche. She’d wondered before if there was something within the trees that reacted to a person’s thoughts--something like the Farplane for instance. So while Yuna gripped her staff tighter when a girl suddenly stepped out from around Kimahri, she wasn’t altogether surprised at the timing.
It was like looking in a mirror. The young woman looked exactly like her, but in an ethereal, unblemished way that was just slightly off. The real Yuna certainly didn’t look anything like her at this moment with her burnt clothing, scorched wounds, and messy hair. If that was specifically designed to make her feel inferior, then it couldn’t have worked any better.
Her doppelganger reached up as if she were going to touch the Ronso’s broken horn. Yuna stretched out a hand, very nearly shouting at her to stop, but the creature lowered her arm and spoke instead. Her words made Yuna’s stomach clench even more than the off-putting echo behind her voice. Lowering her head for a moment, Yuna very nearly let the despair wash over her before her hands tightened their grip on her staff instead.
Raising her head, she looked at the shapeshifter with blazing eyes. “You’re right. He deserves to follow his own path. And I’ll see that he finds it, even if I have to fight you both!” Stepping back towards the flames, Yuna stretched out her arms and looked up towards the sky in a gesture that Kimhari would find familiar if he were in his right mind. She hoped that he would at least subconsciously recognize the mark of a summoning and stay back as a cold wind started to whip through the clearing. If she were back on Spira, then Ifrit may have been a better choice given their hellish surroundings, but Shiva had been the only aeon to answer Yuna’s calls ever since she had set foot on Zephon. She would just have to pray that the aeon would weaken the fire and not the other way around.
The cold air around her was a welcome change from the burning heat, and as Shiva descended in front of her, Yuna had to wonder a little sadly what Kimahri would make of her changed appearance if they both survived this. Unlike on Spira, the Shiva of Zephon was clothed in icy armor that glinted in various shades of purple and blue, but there was no time to puzzle about that now. Eyeing her other self cautiously, Yuna gripped her staff tightly to prepare for what was to come.
The girl was so close to losing all sense of hope, so close to allowing the flames that spread around the Headstone Forest to burn away her will until nothing but ash and ruin was left. Her despair was sustenance for this impostor, her sorrow gave it power, the kind a predator feels upon leading its prey into a corner with no means of escape. Not only did this fiend get away with stealing her face, it had succeeded in taking away that which Yuna cherished most: her friendship with this pitiful animal, fettered to the whims of a child.[break][break]
But this creature was not Yuna. It could not possibly fathom the sacrifices that were made by one so determined as she, who lived her entire life following the whims of other people, adhering to principles that cared nothing for her own well being or those she called friend. She, who pierced the veil of lies cast by Yevon and was rewarded with excommunication, risked everything to break the cycle of suffering—and she lived to tell the tale. Her actions absolved the Al Bhed of a thousand years of prejudice and hatred, and they would also vindicate the fallen souls of the brave Ronso warriors that died in their efforts to prevent the crazed Seymour Guado from interfering with her pilgrimage.[break][break]
To the aberrant nightmare that mimicked her face, Yuna refused to submit. To her most loyal companion and guardian, she refused to submit. And, had he been right of mind, in this moment, Kimahri would have felt boundless pride for her determination.[break][break]
Instead, Kimahri's face remained still and emotionless, showing nothing but the subtle indications of a deep and powerful hypnosis that kept him restrained to the point of total immobility. As if he were intent on guarding the duplicate of Yuna, instead. Not even the ceremonious flowing movements of the High Summoner's staff evoked any feelings of concern or dread in this otherwise astute Ronso, for he was truly not cognizant enough to know, let alone recognize, what was about to transpire next.[break][break]
Suddenly, the heat coming from the roaring conflagration shifted, becoming frigid and bitter. Pockets of flame ripple as the wind picks up, extinguishing all but the largest of them. What little moisture remained in the atmosphere hardens into crystals of glimmering white, swirling around Yuna in soft helices until they coalesced into a gathering of enormous glacial shards that descended from on high, slamming into the forest floor between Yuna and her doppelgänger, while regrettably putting space between herself and Kimahri, as well.[break][break]
From a screen of radiance, she appeared, clad in frozen armor of incandescent blues and violets, leaving gentle flurries of snowflakes behind her cerulean figure. The immediate space surrounding this new presence turned cold and brisk like winter's morning, an omen of ope in this bleak portrait of despondency and dread. The second her feet made contact with the ground, a blast of arctic wind followed, successfully erasing what little remained of the terrible fire that Kimahri had unconsciously started moments before.[break][break]
Yuna prayed for a miracle, and was rewarded with Shiva herself.[break][break]
However, rather than cower before the fayth's arrival, as most fiends in Spira might have done, Yuna's clone observes its descent with intense fascination, mismatched eyes practically glowing with a preternatural awareness of the impetus that drove the High Summoner to fall on such a boisterous and powerful ritual. It could sense her desperation, and it had everything to do with the urgency of losing somebody precious to her life.[break][break]
Her duplicate then smirks in mocking contempt for the original's display of courage, certain it would rattle Yuna to the core of her very being. In doing so, she moves closer to the Spirit Lance, bending low enough to take the weapon up in her hands. “So you would fight your own guardian, to promise a future he can never have?” The question rolls from the impostor's mouth with indifferent venom lurking beneath every syllable, unfazed by whatever reaction they might draw. “The last of his kind...alone...without culture or community to adhere against...” Her gaze sharpens, tone lower in register. “...doomed to be forgotten by history, and the world...”[break][break]
With slow, eager strides, the false Yuna offers the celestial weapon to her new silent emissary. Kimahri's hand accepts the lance without hesitation, but makes no sudden moves thereafter.[break][break]
“You could end the suffering of this poor Ronso...” The voice of Yuna's copy warped and shifted in register, as did her own image, rippling and shuddering beneath Shiva's frozen resplendence as a face bled its way into view, resembling someone Yuna would undoubtedly recognize on the spot. The Headstone Forest had already earned a reputation for its nature as a place of illusions and deceit, but it seemed as if the vassal of this evil grove had every intention of shattering her willpower completely.[break][break]
Standing before Yuna was none other than Seymour Guado, seemingly back from the Farplane once again, as if to haunt her every waking moment. These were the exact same words spoken to her at the summit of Mount Gagazet, following the brutal massacre of the Ronso tribe. Only now, they were being offered to the summoner as a choice: fight Kimahri and risk killing him; or be killed in vain by her closest friend.[break][break]
“Allow Kimahri to die, and release him from his pain.” Upon the evil imitator's utterance of this, a flicker of malign instinct gleams from behind the cloudy haze within the spiritually comatose Kimahri's eyes. A single twist of the Ronso's hand is all it takes to cause the Spirit Lance to follow suit, permitting the brainwashed warrior to flourish it with almost supernatural alacrity before its golden blade came to an abrupt halt, pointed straight at Yuna.[break][break]
Without any further warning, his body would lunge forward into a mighty sprint, spear ready and eager to plant itself deep inside Yuna's ailing heart. Not even Shiva's presence would deter him from this goal. If the earlier fires had been a barrier for escape before, there was no going back now.[break][break]
[attr=class,bulk] Yuna could breathe a little easier from behind Shiva’s protective stance, but it was the extinguished flames that really brought her relief. The smoke had grown so suffocatingly thick that she doubted she could have remained there much longer if the fire had continued. However much it would have hurt, she might have been forced to abandon Kimahri in that case. Thankfully Shiva had eliminated any need for that.
Her clone didn’t look particularly surprised by the aeon in front of her, but then Yuna assumed that the creature had gotten a good look inside of Kimahri’s head. The thought enraged her, and she stiffened in place as the doppelganger bent down to grab the Ronso’s spear. “Don’t touch him,” she insisted, even though the celestial weapon was obviously separate. Still, the creature had violated him enough already without making more of a pont.
“You’re wrong!” Maybe it was pointless to engage the unknown fiend in conversation, but it seemed to know exactly which buttons to push to make Yuna feel like she had to defend Kimahri. “Even if we can’t go home. Spira will always remember what he did for the world. And his people were brave warriors who risked everything to help us. I-...I will not take their sacrifice in vain!” Truthfully, it had been hard not to blame herself for how many of the Ronso had fallen at Seymour Guado’s hands. They had promised her that they would crush any enemies behind her, and they had died for it. It had taken Yuna a long time to be able to place the blame firmly where it belonged. The blue-haired unsent had haunted her every step once, but he was slowly becoming only a memory.
Until his voice came from the creature’s mouth.
Yuna wasn’t able to control her flinch backwards. Her twin had morphed into the half-Guado that she had hoped to never see again. There were even details that she herself had forgotten--how much he had towered over her in height, the oily malice in his voice, the way his serene smile hid how warped his thoughts really were. “Maester Seymour,” she breathed out on instinct, even though she had watched the transformation. The real Seymour was gone. She had sent him during their final confrontation inside of Sin, so he was resting in whatever measure of peace he had been able to find. This creature was only trying to disarm her.
He used the man’s words from the summit of Mt. Gagazet against her, and Yuna raised her chin in defiance. Kimahri bent into a battle pose, and in front of her, Shiva tensed in preparation to match. “No. We will live and face our sorrow, as we always have before. I have nothing more to discuss with you!”
The fiend seemed to feel the same way as Kimahri suddenly sprang forward with his spear outstretched. Yuna knew how powerful his blows were, so she quickly brought her staff down in a spell. “Protect.” The barrier against physical attacks formed in front of her, but Shiva leapt forward to meet his spear before it could touch her anyway. The aeon stretched out a graceful hand as ice was flung at Kimahri in a clear Blizzara spell.
“Wait!” Yuna stepped forward to direct Shiva towards the spectre of Seymour behind Kimahri instead. The creature’s goal might be for Yuna and Kimahri to fight, and she would give it that. But the fiend was still the real threat here and needed to be taken care of. A summoner and her aeons were connected at every level, so Yuna didn’t need to explain her intentions out loud. Twirling her staff, she called down a spell from the sky instead. “Thundara!”
The thunder spell was directed towards Kimahri--even if it didn’t hit the Ronso, Yuna intended to drive him away from who he was protecting. Given the opening, Shiva floated forward to engage the false Seymour in battle instead, the Heavenly Strike ability rising to her fingertips. With that completed, Yuna turned to face her oldest guardian, her heart pounding loudly in her ears.
“I will be your opponent, Kimahri.” All she had to do was buy Shiva enough time.
Anticipating her guardian, Yuna evokes a paling of arcane light before her, ready to intercept the Ronso's thrust attack, of which she was fully aware could kill her without difficulty. In tandem with her emotions, the aeon Shiva gracefully slides in between her summoner and Kimahri, armored feet moving across the ground as if friction did not apply to her, stretching out a hand to halt the beast-man's advance with a powerful Blizzara spell.[break][break]
Though Shiva's magic had the effect of stopping Kimahri in his tracks, Yuna's willpower served as a direct translation of the entity's own; her trials and tribulations in Spira empowered the aeon's spell to such a degree that large, razor sharp fragments of ice were being propelled toward Kimahri at high velocities, each shard ripping into his flesh as effectively as any metal dagger, spraying the air behind him with even more blood.[break][break]
The malevolent creature sneers, form shimmering and shifting between that of Yuna's and Maester Seymour, as it watches Kimahri mindlessly endure the full brunt of Shiva's attack. The girl merely inflicts more pain against the warrior, amplifies his suffering by throwing all of herself into this fight, even if he lacked the mental state necessary to acknowledge what was happening beyond pure, unbridled animal rage. Rage that the fiend of the forest could now exploit even further.[break][break]
When the High Summoner errs by hurriedly verbalizing the aeon to hold off, the doppelgänger's gaze becomes bold and sharp, as if it were sending an order of its own to the Ronso that now served as its brainwashed vassal. From the network of injuries both fresh and coagulant came brand new clusters of scarlet tendrils, quickly wrapping and binding themselves around Kimahri like sinewy ropes, a blatant insult to Yuna's earlier attempt to free him from the Headstone Forest's control; only this time, they would stretch even further up and down his body. The evil imitator had no plans of releasing Kimahri from this forced bondage.[break][break]
In the space it took Yuna to cast her next spell, Kimahri had already succumbed to the addling effects of the parasitic vines, hunching over as pain turned into anger, and anger turned into power. Instinct would then compel the Ronso into a dynamic spinning corkscrew, in mere fractions of an instant before her Thundara spell had the opportunity to connect. Had she forgotten that the two of them journeyed through the Thunder Plains, learning to evade nature's wrath as they traversed the break between Guadosalam and Macalania Forest?[break][break]
With the Spirit Lance following his figure closely, the enraged Kimahri twirls the weapon around his body with uncanny precision, with every limb of his body acting purely on muscle memory as he doubled over, flourished the spear in deadly golden arcs, only to then be maneuvered into a series of mighty stabbing attacks, each one as fast as they were strong, performed in rapid succession to one another so as to completely overwhelm the physically-disinclined Yuna, protective barrier or no.[break][break]
No signs of resistance could be found in his glazed yellow eyes. Foam dripped menacingly from the corners of his feline mouth, fangs bared and eager for a taste of Yuna's blood, knuckles burning white from gripping down against the Spirit Lance's shaft as he slashed, carved, and stabbed at his summoner, his friend, with nothing less than the unconscious intent to erase her from the planet.[break][break]
Meanwhile, the cretinous clone of Yuna, still imposed over the residual phantom image of Maester Seymour, patiently awaits Shiva's next attack.[break][break]
Almost as if it were eager for the aeon to demonstrate its powers in full, desperately so.[break][break]
[attr=class,bulk] Yuna saw Shiva deliver her Heavenly Strike attack towards the creature wearing Seymour’s face, but she was too caught up with Kimahri afterwards to really pay attention to their battle. She could still feel Shiva’s movements of course, but it was a bit of a whirlwind to keep up with them as she stared down her former guardian instead.
Kimahri had even more wounds than before--Shiva’s Blizzara attack had done worse to him than she had feared it would, and that seemed to have compounded the creature’s control over him. More of those red vines encircled his body, and he had dodged Yuna’s Thundara spell with more grace than she had expected. That was probably foolish of her though. They had spent hours in the Thunder Plains dodging lightning strikes during their travels. She knew that, but seeing the familiar movement of his dodge sped up her heartbeat with hope again. Even if it was only muscle memory, there was still a part of him in there. That wasn’t something the creature could make him do. It was something he had learned in Spira.
“Kimahri. I know you’re still in there,” Yuna entreated even as she held out her staff defensively. “Help me fight it, one last time. You’re the strongest person I know, and you deserve to follow your own path. Not hers and...not mine either.” It was a sad thing to admit. It felt almost like she was letting him go, but he deserved that. He had always done what Yuna wanted, from staying on Besaid to protecting her on her pilgrimage. It was time for the Ronso to live his own life and time for Yuna to protect herself.
Unfortunately there was no sign of recognition in her friend’s eyes, and he attacked her with a ferocity that took her aback, even with all her knowledge of him. Yuna did her best to keep her distance from him, casting black magic spells in an attempt to keep the fight on her terms. She could only keep him away for so long though, and as soon as Kimahri managed to dive in close, Yuna was at an immediate disadvantage. She was no physical fighter, as much as she tried to push him off her with her staff. And even with her Protect spell up, his spear kept getting through--a slash on her arm, a long cut on her stomach, a deep gash to her leg. But the worst came with a stabbing attack straight towards her middle.
Yuna just barely managed to twist to avoid getting impaled, but the spearhead still drove itself into her side, leaving her gasping more from the shock than from the pain. “Fire,” she managed to cast in an attempt to force him back, but the spear being wrenched from her side finally caused the pain to slam into her like a shoopuf. With a strangled scream, Yuna fell to one knee, using her staff to support her weight on the other side as she pressed a hand to her bleeding wound. “Cure.” She needed more than that--she’d been healing the wounded for long enough that she could tell how bad this one was, but she was saving the magic for something bigger.
Looking up, Yuna met her attacker’s eyes, smiling weakly as she slid her hand down from her wound towards her sash. “We’ve never fought before, have we?” Kimahri was always there to protect her instead. Holding her up when she’d collapse after getting a new aeon. Standing in front of her whenever there was a fiend or when Maester Seymour showed his true colors. But not this time. Yuna only had herself, and it was her job to protect him now. Left-handed, she gripped the hilt of the dagger that Celes had gifted her. The blonde general was fond of saying that Yuna shouldn’t always rely on magic, and it looked like she was right. Pulling it out of the sheath inside her sash, Yuna flung the jeweled blade towards Kimahri before rolling to the side. She was sure that he’d knock it aside, but the point wasn’t to injure him.
The point was to buy a moment to attack the source together.
As one, Yuna and Shiva changed the course of their attacks to both face the fiend wearing Seymour’s face. Shiva brought two fingers to her lips and spun in a circle to begin her Diamond Dust limit break, causing ice to spring out that would attempt to hold the creature in place. At the same time, Yuna flung her staff out like she was summoning again and glared at the fiend with every ounce of her determination.
As the frenetic exchange between the brainwashed Kimahri and his troubled summoner continued, Yuna's aeon channels pure elemental power to her fingertips, releasing it in the form of her primary technique, Heavenly Strike. From above the shape-stealing fiend's head, a great boulder of ice, clear as crystal, materialized itself into being, before gravity took control of the resulting construct and pulled it straight down, aiming to crush the enemy beneath with nothing less than righteous impunity.[break][break]
With a resounding crack, the frozen block seemingly connects with its intended target, shattering into dozens of smaller fragments as they scattered in every direction. But a closer look would reveal that it had not, in fact, completely struck the mark—a fact the malevolent mimic relished with a diabolical sneer, partially obscured by a familiar pearlescent screen of light that seemed to oscillate and pulse in time with the fading magic of Shiva's attack. It, too, had cast a Protect spell, one powerful enough to mitigate the full brunt of her Heavenly Strike, if only by a partial amount.[break][break]
Kimahri's spear continued to puncture and penetrate through Yuna's defensive barrier with unprecedented strength, and even though the spell had all but completely prevented his strikes from being immediately fatal ones, the Spirit Lance's blade was wide, and broad, enough to inflict a worrisome series of injuries against the High Summoner, despite her valiant efforts to evade the Ronso's animal rage and uncanny precision, even while she tried to fend him off with a litany of magic spells. As he performs another vicious thrust, her form twists at the last possible moment, yet it is a fraction of a second too late; the blade carves into her side like a roasted chocobo breast, and the spilling of even more blood appeared to make the entire Headstone Forest murmur with ravenous glee.[break][break]
In the moment it took the Ronso to pull his spear back for another stab, a gout of arcane fire disrupts any further attempt to continue the onslaught. Kimahri snarled violently, foam and froth dripping from the corners of his mouth, staggering backwards to avoid being engulfed by Yuna's spell. Only the invisible influence of the crimson vines that spread across his body like a network of nerves seemed to impel their host to keep away, seeing as how her earlier endeavors to burn them off had failed to spectacular effect. It takes but another for the enthralled guardian to double down once Yuna's spell had run its course, until—[break][break]
Shunk. Kimahri's advance is stopped entirely by a single object. Something small and beautiful, yet deceptively deadly in the right circumstances; traits that Yuna herself could invoke in a moment of extreme pressure. But this? This was new, even for her, someone who utterly loathed the idea of participating in an act of overt violence. However, desperation had forced her hand, and from the bloodied sash around her waist flew a bejeweled dagger that quickly found itself plunging deep into Kimahri's chest with eerie precision and abnormal force.[break][break]
But there is no reaction. No cries of pain. No howling rage. No breath. No glimmer of acknowledgement that a weapon had even punctured his flesh. Only the sound of cold, hollow silence washed over the pair as a river of blood stained the Ronso's fur in horrible coagulant streaks, body stiff and inflexible as it always was.[break][break]
In the space it took for the knife to paralyze Kimahri in his tracks, Yuna had flung herself as far away from him to direct Shiva's attention toward the evil avatar wearing Seymour's face. As if blowing a kiss, the aeon twirls on her heels, summoning a blast of subzero wind that soon caused the entire forest floor beneath the creature to flash-freeze, pinning it in place as the air surrounding it rapidly dropped in temperature.[break][break]
A bolt of grim realization then strikes the fiend, and its confidence finally began to crack.[break][break]
Pinned in place, unable to escape what was coming, a cluster of radiant pearls descended from on high, encircling the creature at every possible angle. They rocket towards the heavens in concert with one another, tracing arcs through the air as they came crashing down over the doppelgänger's form as a fusillade of consecrated energy, pummeling their target with a relentless barrage of projectiles. One, after another.[break][break]
There wasn't even room to scream.[break][break]
However, by concentrating fully on her carbon clone, this gave the enthralled Ronso a window to act on behalf of its evil mistress. Slowly, his only free hand lifted up to wrap around the dagger's hilt, gripping the weapon fiercely before he yanked its blade out with a harrowing squelch. The vines surrounding his body would only tighten themselves even further, pumping their vile pheromones into his bloodstream until every last muscle became overpowered by the rush of adrenaline, sending him back into mindless fury once more.[break][break]
Only this time, he intended to lunge for Yuna with the very tool she had hoped would hold him off.
[attr=class,bulk] Yuna’s spell hit its mark, and her heart beat even faster as pearls of light rained down on the doppelganger. The white magic was so bright that the creature was entirely obscured from view for a moment, so Yuna couldn’t tell if Holy had finished the siren off or if Shiva needed to step in again. Either way, Yuna had no intentions of taking her eyes off of the fiend that had ensnared Kimahri until a sudden squelching noise made her eyes flicker back towards her guardian.
Yuna could barely take in what she was seeing for a moment, but when all of the blood trickling down his blue fur finally sank in, she pressed one hand to her mouth in horror. The pretty, decorative blade that Celes had bought her was clutched in one of Kimahri’s hands, but it looked far more threatening than beautiful when the jewels were stained with her friend’s blood. Intentional or not, she had stabbed Kimahri, and the open wound on his chest looked dire.
“I’m so sorry!” Yuna stepped forward with one hand stretched out entreatingly. “Please, let me-!” Before she could finish approaching him, Kimahri lunged forward with Yuna’s own dagger. The summoner only had a split second to react, and it wasn’t enough when the attack had caught her off guard. Her staff was held downward at her side, and Shiva was still far away by whatever remained of the fiend. Her Protect spell was still up, but that could only help so much as Kimahri thrust the dagger straight into her center.
The force of the blow rocked Yuna backwards, and she gasped as she instinctively latched onto his wrist that held the dagger. She didn’t dare look down to see how far the blade had impaled her--the pain was intense and she could feel the blood soaking into her white chemise, and that was enough. What was worse, she was low on magic after casting Holy. She had plenty of ethers in her bag of course, but she doubted that either Kimahri or the fiend would give her time to rifle through it. Which meant that her final spell had to count, and looking up into Kimahri’s eyes, Yuna knew what it had to be.
Letting her staff fall to the forest floor, Yuna reached up her free hand to lightly lay it on Kimahri’s chest. “Curaga.” The magic pouring out from her left her body feeling cold, but it was worth it to see the ragged edges of his stab wound starting to knit itself back together. Despite Kimahri’s frenzied eyes and the red vines that still encircled his body, Yuna smiled at him in relief before her knees buckled and she landed heavily on the forest floor by his feet.
Thankfully Shiva wouldn’t vanish until she lost consciousness.
Tragedy strikes. Neither Yuna, nor Kimahri, would have ever allowed this to occur, had they both been involved in a different set of circumstances. But here, they were victims of the Headstone Forest, mere playthings to its creatures, to be abused and discarded at the whims of the evils that so desperately hated the living and the sapient.[break][break]
In the wake of the summoner’s desperate gambit to simultaneously fend off her brainwashed companion and exact righteous judgement upon the creature responsible for trying to sever the bonds of their friendship, horror finally seizes Yuna’s heart, and she tries to undo what was, for all intents and purposes, an unintended mistake.[break][break]
Kimahri’s only response was to viciously drive the jeweled dagger deep into his ward’s abdomen, unable to resist the poisonous pheromones of the monster wearing Yuna’s face, yet fully unaware he had even done so to begin with. The blow sends her reeling, but not enough to prevent Yuna from grasping against the Ronso’s wrists out of reflex, if only to avoid falling prone and vulnerable to further assault.[break][break]
The radiance of her Holy spell vanishes soon after, as if to highlight the magnitude of her ultimate failure. Worse yet, the monster that stole Yuna’s face was nowhere to be seen. Had she actually won the fight? Or did it even matter anymore, now that she was bereft of her closest friend and guardian, and suffering from a certainly grievous stomach wound, despite the success of her attack?[break][break]
To Yuna, it was far more important for her to ensure that Kimahri remained safe from the forest’s merciless wrath, even if he was no longer cognizant of anything else. With the final vestiges of her power, she performs one last healing spell—Curaga—to undo her most recent error, sending powerful threads of restorative arcane energy into the bloody gash upon the Ronso’s chest, stitching and weaving it together until it appeared as if nothing had happened at all. Even under the threat of her own impending demise, she refused to succumb to the malice of her duplicate.[break][break]
Her compassion and purity sends the forest into a palpable frenzy, as if the very act of trying to rescue Kimahri had managed to unleash some hidden rage that dwelled deep in the darkest, most corrupt pockets of this godforsaken woad. The trees rattle and shudder, casting an ominous pall over the two friends and the conjured aeon that served as Yuna’s protector in lieu of the Ronso, who had all but now belonged to the Headstone Forest in everything but spirit.[break][break]
With a violent and thunderous crash, clusters of thorny crimson vines erupt from the forest floor to split Kimahri apart from Yuna, pushing the brainwashed beast-man away with nothing less than furious contempt for his failure to end the summoner’s life; his body makes contact with the trunk of a nearby tree, slamming into it hard enough for the Ronso to let go of his grip on the Spirit Lance until both he and his weapon fell to the ground, unmoving. In that same breath, a second cluster of tendrils emerges from directly below Shiva, attempting to wrap and bind around her figure with aims of crushing the avatar of frost as a boa constrictor might.[break][break]
From the tangle of thrashing vines and thorns emerged a great, bulbous shape, stained deep red like the blood that continued to spill from both friends. The congested cluster encircled the injured summoner, wrapping around any part of her body they could as a matter of restraint, until the crimson mass started to expand outward, layer after layer, until its form resembled the petals of a rose. Within its center, in place of stamens and pistils, lurked a familiar presence that was certain to inflict only the purest dread, staring back at Yuna with her own smiling face, now perversely warped and cracked to resemble its true, hideous nature.[break][break]
“This forest is mine!” the monster screamed at Yuna, guiding its thorned tendrils around her neck, a clear indication it meant to physically strangle the life out of its victim. “Your precious pet is mine!” There laid Kimahri, motionless and without a scrap of strength left to fight back against the fiend’s poisonous influence, even as the network of vein-like growths around his body began to wither and die. “Your summoned toys are mine!” Meters away from him was Shiva, who would be hard-pressed to fight back against the creature’s newly-revealed power. “Everything you are, and will ever be in this world is mine!”[break][break]
Was this the end for the both of them?[break][break]
[attr=class,bulk] Yuna had landed at Kimahri’s feet with one hand clutched to her abdomen to stem the bleeding, but she didn’t have time to rest. She barely even had time to breathe before the same red, thorny branches that ensnared Kimahri suddenly burst from the ground below their feet. There were so many in the cluster that Yuna lost sight of her guardian for a moment, but she heard the crack as he was thrown bodily against the trunk of a tree. He and his lance landed hard in the grass below, and Yuna’s heart leapt when he made no movement to get back up.
“Kimahri!” Yuna desperately stretched out a hand to try to reach him, but a vine lashed itself around her wrist before she could move. She tried to tug away, but another had already grabbed her leg, causing her to trip back to the ground. The harder that Yuna tried to slip free from the plant’s grasp, the more of the cluster encircled her until the summoner could barely move at all. The vines’ grip was tight and the thorns dug into her skin until Yuna didn’t know how Kimahri had been able to stand it for so long during their battle. As it turned out, she had bigger things to worry about than the tendrils though as the bulbous head of the plant unveiled itself directly across from her.
“You,” she breathed, though she really shouldn’t have been surprised as her doppelganger’s cracked face stared back at her from between the petals. The creature had been the cause of Kimahri’s grief like she had suspected--the fiend had just been much stronger than Yuna had realized.
One of the vines started to wrap itself around her neck, and Yuna was powerless to stop it with the rest of her limbs already restrained. She choked as her airflow was immediately constricted, her vision starting to swim as the fiend screamed in her face. With her lack of oxygen, the creature was starting to resemble the plant-like structure of Yunalesca’s final form that they’d fought in the Zanarkand Temple. Maybe it was that more than anything that inspired Yuna to use the last of her air to choke out “You own nothing of them!”
Kimahri still hadn’t moved, and Yuna could feel Shiva weakening nearly to the point where she’d have to disappear, but it didn’t matter. They would fight and carry on even if Yuna herself died here.
With her last bit of strength, Yuna tried to reach her discarded bag and staff with one restrained arm. She had ethers in the bag that would restore her magic, but it was a token effort at this point. She’d never have the time or energy to break free before she suffocated.
This could be the end for them. Yuna could only hope that Kimahri himself could escape one day.
