Xion and the cloaked boy both let out a bellow as they charged towards each other, slamming their keys into each other and locking the blades in a battle of light and darkness. Despite the Oblivion being one of the stronger regular keyblades, Xion's Perfect Harmony far outclassed it. Even without her foe being filled with evil intent, she still wielded the superior weapon. And the cloaked being knew that.
He kicked off of her keyblade and propelled himself into the air, where he started firing blasts of fire towards Xion. Xion rolled out of the way of the first volley before she spun her keyblade around on a single finger and used the whirling blade to deflect the rest of the fireballs that had come near her. The boy landed and lifted his blade towards the heavens, calling down dozens of bolts of lightning that tore apart the ground.
Xion slammed the tip of her keyblade into the ground and summoned a rainbow barrier around herself, one that not only protected her from the bolts of lightning that came crashing down on top of her, but also turned the magical lightning into energy that restored her. She broke the barrier and rushed towards the cloaked figure, swinging at his leg with her blade.
He blocked the strike and knocked Xion off guard, giving him an opening. He thrust his arms forward and created an explosion of light that sent Xion tumbling backwards. He lunged towards her and thrust at her with his blade, yet by the time he had attacked Xion was already on her feet. She reversed the attack and slid behind the cloaked boy, who glanced around to see where she had gone.
He soon found out as Xion slashed across his back with a diagonal strike from her keyblade, before following up with a horizontal strike. The cloaked boy staggered under the onslaught, before he rolled out of the way of Xion's final strike. Instead of pressing the attack however, Xion let the boy get up to his feet and cast cure on himself.
"You really can't see anything in those hoods, can you?" Xion asked with a smile. "I remember back before I knew who I was I had my hood up all the time. Couldn't see anything in it. Saix always asked me how I always managed to do so badly on missions and he just assumed that I sucked. But nope. It was because I couldn't see anything in those hoods of theirs. Bad design flaw in my opinion."
The cloaked boy said nothing in reply. Instead he channeled ice around his blade before hurling it towards Xion. Xion hadn't expected a raid and was slow in getting her blade up to defend herself. She managed to deflect the strike, but the action caused her to stagger backwards and she had to throw her arms out to keep from falling over.
The cloaked boy seized his opening and teleported to his blade, snatching it out of the air before he dove towards the girl. Xion kicked to the side to avoid being struck, but she wasn't fast enough and the edge of Oblivion caught her in the side of the leg. Pain lanced up Xion's side, but she couldn't cast cure on herself as the cloaked boy pressed the attack.
"You should focus more on fighting than you do talking," the Maestro advised Xion, who had been put completely on the defensive by the attacking boy. "I have already told you that you cannot reach him. He is not the being that you thought you knew. All you are doing is wasting your breath and my time."
"I won't give up on him!" Xion roared before she lashed out with her own attack, catching the Oblivion in the hilt and ripping it free of the boy's grasp. The keyblade went sailing off to the side where it impaled itself into the ground, leaving the boy defenseless. Xion pointed the tip of her keyblade at him, but once more she didn't press the attack.
"Remember that time when I finally beat you in a fight? You were so happy with me that you agreed to buy all three of us ice cream," Xion told the cloaked boy, who turned his cloaked head slightly towards his keyblade. "And then you realized that you didn't have any munny and Axel ended up buying for all of us. For a being with no emotions, he sure seemed upset by that. But we all had fun in the end."
The cloaked boy leapt up and kicked Xion's blade to the side before he extended his hand towards his blade. Oblivion vanished in a flash of darkness and materialized in his hand a moment later. He attacked with an overhead slash, forcing Xion to block high to avoid being struck. She pushed back his blade before she went low, attempting to sweep the boy's legs out from under him.
The cloaked boy leapt backwards to avoid being hit before he lunged forward once more and stabbed at Xion's head. Xion moved her head to the side to avoid being struck, before she let out a roar and slashed at the cloaked boy with her keyblade. The boy had overextended and thus was caught in the chest by Xion's strike, sending him tumbling backwards across the ground.
"Hmm, it seems that you are a far better fighter than when I brought you back," Maestro noted, before glancing over at the boy that was getting back up. "Stop holding back. I give you permission to go all out."
The boy nodded his head before he crouched down, getting Xion to hold her blade before her like a samurai, in the stance that felt familiar to her. Then the boy rocketed forward with the keyblade extended with such speeds that Xion didn't realize that he had moved until he was right on top of her. She threw herself to the side and just managed to avoid being hit, but then the boy spun on a dime and came rocketing back towards her even faster.
"Enough of this!" Xion roared as she drove her keyblade into the ground, summoning six pillars of light which she then sent flying outwards with a roar. The boy swerved to avoid being hit, before closed the gap between him and Xion. Xion didn't have time to block and thus took a deep slash across her chest, one that nearly got her to collapse to her knees.
Yet the cloaked boy wasn't done. He came rocketing back around and slashed across her back, getting Xion to cry out in pain as she fell to her knees. She looked up just in time to see the boy circle around once more, but this time the tip of his blade was glowing with power and light. Xion knew if she took a hit from that she might not be able to get back up. So she closed her eyes and apologized.
"Roxas...I'm sorry." Xion then ripped her blade from the ground and pointed it towards the boy, a blinding light covering her body and blade as she did so. Eight chains of light then burst forth from the edge of her blade, chains that snaked towards the boy who was hurtling towards her. With the speed he was moving at, he couldn't get out of the way of the chains. The chains impaled themselves into his limbs, stopping his advance before they began to wrap around him.
The cloaked boy struggled to break himself free of the chains, yet his bonds would not be so easily broken. Now that she had a moment to breath Xion lifted her blade over her head and cast cure on herself, healing her wounds and getting her back into fighting strength. Before she could press the advantage the chains were shattered and the boy was free once more.
"This isn't the first time that we've been forced to fight like this either," Xion said in a small voice. "Remember when Xemnas messed with me? Remember when you were losing your power? That was the first time we truly fought. They said that only one of us could survive, because as long as we both lived I'd be slowly killing you. And I couldn't live with myself if I hurt you, Roxas. But I knew that you would never hurt me either. So I had to fight you, to get you to strike me down. So that we could free Sora."
This time her words got the cloaked boy to stop and consider Xion for a moment, almost as if something she had said was getting through to him. "But I know how much it hurt you, even if you don't remember it. Even if your memory of me was erased, I know how much it had to have hurt you to have to do that to me. So I'm sorry, I'm sorry that I hurt you. I hope...you can forgive me."
The cloaked boy responded by casting cure on himself, before he lunged towards Xion with another overhead strike. Xion lifted the Perfect Harmony and deflected the first strike, only for the boy to leap into the air with a second strike. Xion deflected the second strike as well, but to her bafflement the second strike was far stronger than the first. The boy then leapt into the air for a third and final strike, but as Xion lifted her keyblade to deflect the strike something in the back of her mind screamed at her to get out of the way.
Xion listened to instinct and rolled out of the way, just in time to avoid the final strike. And she was glad she did, for when she looked behind her to see why she had rolled out of the way she found that the third strike had created a massive gash in the ground, right where she had been standing. The boy then pointed his keyblade towards her and summoned a black ball of gravity that came crashing down towards Xion. Xion counter this by summoning a barrier of wind around herself, one that clashed with the gravity and cancelled both of the spells out.
"It seems that the two of you are equally matched," Maestro mentioned offhandedly to Xion, who cast a glare over at him. "Why don't you take on that giant form that you used the last time you fought Roxas? Because I am certain that will work out in your favor this time."
"Keep talking, Maestro. You'll get yours soon enough," Xion snapped back.
"Will I now? Because from what I have seen it seems like you are not willing to finish my pawn here off," Maestro pointed out.
"Do not call Roxas your pawn."
"Would you prefer puppet? Or do you prefer if people call you that instead?" Maestro replied with a smirk, one that made Xion seethe. "But back to my point. You are not fighting to win. You are fighting to stall. But you cannot stall forever. Even with that superior blade, eventually you will run out of magic. And then you will start to suffer more and more injuries, until you reach a point that you can no longer fight. And then my pawn will strike you down."
"No, I'll break through to Roxas before that happens," Xion promised as she pointed her blade towards the Maestro. "And then the both of us will work together to make sure that you never-"
In a blur of motion the cloaked boy was upon Xion, who snapped her head to the side to see him coming. She tried to get her blade up in time to deflect the first strike, but this time the boy kicked her blade out of the way. He then unloaded with a flurry of blows upon Xion, each more devastating than the last. The final blow from the boy knocked Xion up and away from him, before he leapt into the air after her. In her stunned state all Xion could do was watch as the boy spun the blade over his head before he pointed his keyblade at her, summoning untold amount of power into the tip of his blade.
He then fired all of the light held within the weapon towards her, unleashing ragnarok itself upon the girl in a storm of light missiles. Xion couldn't move her keyblade up to deflect all of the strikes nor could she summon any of her magic to stop the onslaught. That left her with only one choice.
An explosion of darkness consumed Xion, an explosion powerful enough to destroy the missiles that had been heading for her. The darkness wrapped around her like a blanket, before a moment later she burst forth from the sphere and lunged towards the boy. Her left arm grabbed around his head and slammed it into the ground, before she grabbed hold of his leg and hurled him into the sky.
"This ends now!" she roared as she pointed her dark infused left arm towards the boy, unleashing a beam of concentrated darkness towards him. The boy brought back his keyblade and let it fly towards Xion, cleaving her dark beam before the blade impaled itself into her arm. Xion roared with pain as her left arm went limp, glaring up at the boy only to find him flying towards her with blade extended. She slipped into the shadows right before the boy reached her, impaling the ground where she had been standing.
"You choose darkness to fight against him?" Maestro mocked once Xion emerged from the darkness. "You are in the land of Equestria. Your darkness has no power here. Not to mention that you are also fighting against a boy who has slain more darkness in a year than most have in their entire lives. If you wished to die so badly, you should have just asked. Demanded. Begged."
"Lesson learned," Xion replied before she closed her eyes and locked the darkness away once more, returning her to her regular form. She swung her blade around her side before holding it before her once more, in a stance that felt familiar to her. Her eyes then softened as she gazed at the cloaked boy, but then she looked behind her to see how the battle with the Heartless was going.
Her heart fell when she realized what she was looking at. The Ambassadors light seemed dull in comparison to how brightly they had been shining earlier and despite them continuing to blast apart the Heartless with their Rainbow Power, more and more swarms of Heartless lashed out at them from the ground and tried to consume them with darkness.
The sisters weren't fairing much better, with the two of them back to back and trapped behind a barrier of their combined magi. The Heartless were forming together to create a giant tornado of Heartless, which would them ram itself against the barrier again and again.
"Do you see now, puppet?" the Maestro asked Xion, turning her gaze back to the battle in front of her. "The ponies can stem the tide of the Heartless, but they cannot keep them down for good. Only your keyblade can dispel the threat for good, but instead of ending this fight and going to help your friends, you are trying to save someone who is not here. So when they die and their hearts are taken, along with this entire world, know that it is your fault."
Xion gritted her teeth as she tried to think of some kind of reply, but the truth that rung in the Maestro's words was too great to ignore. She cast another glance at her friends, who were still struggling to fight back against the horde of darkness with little success. She then lowered her head and remembered what she had promised the princesses. Should she fail to save Roxas, she would strike him down herself to save the world.
Xion then opened her eyes and glared across the clearing at the boy in the cloak, tears forming in her eyes as she made peace with what she was about to do. She tightened her grip and channeled the best memories of Roxas she could think of, creating an aura of light around her. She then put her feelings into her memories and the light around her wrapped itself around her body, forming what looked to be a suit of armor made of light except for around her face. A sword of rainbow light wrapped itself around her keyblade, while pillars of light erupted from the ground around the edge of the battlefield, sealing the two in.
"Roxas...please, give me some signal to let me know that you're still in there," Xion begged with the cloaked boy one last time, praying that her words would get through to him. "Because if you don't...I will do what I must to save this world and protect my friends, no matter how badly it will tear me up inside. Because I promised them. I owe it to them...and I owe it to you, to free you from the Maestro. Please, just say something."
The boy's response was to plant his boots into the ground and point his keyblade at Xion, summoning hundreds of beams of light into a sphere of purple light that appeared at the end of his keyblade. Xion shook her head bitterly before she closed her eyes and held her keyblade to the side. The boy then let out a roar as he fired the hundreds of ray of light towards Xion, bringing down ragnarok upon her.
Yet the moment that the beams were about to be upon her, Xion dashed forward in a flash of light so fast that neither the cloaked boy nor Maestro could keep up with her. When she was visible to them again she was standing behind the cloaked boy with her back towards him, keyblade held out like she had just sliced through the world. The cloaked boy turned around to see Xion there, before a massive slash erupted across his body. Light poured from the wound on his chest and he slowly looked down at his injury, before he collapsed to his knees. Xion lowered her blade and turned around to face him.
Dozens of other slashes them emerged across his body, all of them bearing the same light that was shining from Xion's keyblade. Xion then walked forward towards the boy, who tried to lift his keyblade to stop Xion, yet he didn't have the strength. When she reached where he knelt she placed the Perfect Harmony on the ground beside her, before gently lifting her hands and grabbing the edge of the boy's hood.
"I am sorry, Roxas. I wish there had been another way," she said before she pulled the hood down. The moment the hood was down, however, Xion's eyes widened with disbelief and she stepped back away from the boy like he had tried to bite her. The moment the boy saw Xion's reaction a pink flower appeared over his head and cured his wounds. Xion realized what was about to happen and she reached out for her blade, which barely appeared in her hands in time to block the next strike. As the two keyblade locked up, Xion was able to look fully into the face of her foe.
He had blue eyes the same color as the sea, the same eyes that Xion had remembered staring into on the top of the tower. But there was something wrong with them. Instead of bright and full of life, they were dull and devoid. The face was also one she remembered well, yet it was different all the same. But what was truly different was the hair. The hair was spikey just like Roxas's had been, but instead of a dirty blonde this boy's hair was straight brown. And there was only one person she knew like that.
"It...it can't be," Xion said in disbelief while she struggled to push him back, before the sound of Maestro laughing reached her ears.
"Oh yes. Let me tell you, it took a lot of effort to get him under my control. But now does it make sense why your words couldn't reach him? After all, you were calling him by his Nobody's name."