Kurai's footsteps echoed faintly against the broken stone, each one deliberate, sharp, like the ticking of some grim clock. She came to stand over Helios where he lay beaten into the dirt, his blood soaking into the cracks of the ground. His breaths were shallow but defiant, his single open eye burning faintly as it lifted to her.
"I told you," Kurai said coldly, her shadow falling across his broken body, "not to use the connection of our hearts to call me again."
Her tone was sharp as steel, but something lingered beneath it, some faint note she herself didn't recognize. "But…" her eyes shifted toward the other figure across the battlefield, "…this time I'll let it slide. Because I've seen something… interesting."
Helios gave the faintest smirk despite the pain, his lips parting as though to answer, but Kurai had already turned her back to him. Her focus fixed wholly on the man before them—tall, grim, his golden eyes glowing like molten ore beneath the shadow of his hood.
Kurai's voice rang steady, a cold declaration: "I am Kurai. Formally, one of the Thirteen Darknesses."
Baldr tilted his head, his expression unreadable, though the alien weight in his stare pressed on the air like suffocation. His reply was flat, calculated, devoid of any warmth:
"Formally?"
"Yes," Kurai answered. Her lips curled into something almost like a smile, though sharp and empty. "The goals of the other twelve are not mine. Why should I count myself among their ilk?"
Baldr's golden gaze sharpened, his tone edged with disdain, the alien cadence of Darkness speaking through him. "You abandon the ultimate goal—the annihilation of light. For what? A separate path? Do you even comprehend the futility? Light spreads, infects. It must be smothered. That is the only true purpose."
Kurai laughed coldly, her fan snapping open and shut at her side though she had not raised it to fight. "Your doomed mission is a waste of my time. The boy behind me—" she gestured lightly to Helios, still bleeding into the earth, "—belongs to me. If you want to take what is mine…" her silver eyes gleamed with an almost savage amusement, "…then your death is the only way forward."
Baldr's features didn't shift much, but something faint flickered in his gaze, almost… puzzled. "Your process is strange. Almost like these disgusting creatures of light," he murmured. His words carried that alien cadence, thought processes utterly unlike human speech. It was not hatred but an instinctive revulsion, like a predator describing spoiled meat.
But then something happened.
Baldr froze, his golden irises dimming, then flashing silver. His body trembled once, violently, and his expression—once cold, calculating—contorted as though in pain.
And then… humanity broke through.
His hand, shaking, reached out toward her. His eyes—no longer the gold of Darkness, but the human silver he once bore—welled with tears.
"Sister…" His voice cracked, raw, weak, a plea clawing out from beneath the alien will possessing him.
Kurai blinked. For a moment she only stared. And then, to her own shock, her eye stung. A single tear slid down her cheek. She reached up, fingers brushing it away as if bewildered, almost angry at its presence.
'Why? Why would she cry?'
And then she understood.
Her heart—foreign as it was—had belonged to another being. Alira, the Nobody of Pocahontas, was used as her body. Hoder, the sister of Baldr, was used as her heart. And the essence of one of the Thirteen Darknesses that was her, that was Kurai. Alira and Hoder had shaped her into something that could feel… even if she didn't recognize what she felt. Even if Hoder's mind had been wiped and Alira lacked memories and personality, even if the Darkness in her sought to devour all bonds, some echo of Hoder's love still stirred.
It pulled at Baldr's humanity, dragging his true self to the surface for a fleeting instant.
Her lips parted, the faintest whisper escaping, "Baldr…"
But the moment shattered.
His body stiffened, his silver eyes flared gold once more, and the cold, alien will of Darkness snapped the chains tight around him again. The expression vanished, replaced by the dead calm of possession.
Kurai's hand dropped, her lips curling into laughter—sharp, scornful, echoing across the battlefield. "Ahh… now I understand. Why would a member of the 13 darkness would call me 'sister.' It seems rather than me, you are the one infected by your host."
Her tone was cruel, but there was something buried in it, some note of anger she didn't admit even to herself.
Baldr's eyes narrowed. His voice was once again flat, alien, reasonless yet strategic. "I see so you've regained that weakness we once discarded, you've regained your heart. Well, regardless of your heart's response, it is irrelevant. It is a weakness as it has always been. You are the being who was known as Hoder. You are not even this Kurai you ascribe yourself to be. You are only a being of darkness inside a vessel— albeit a contaminated one. That cannot be allowed. You must be destroyed. Consumed. Erased, before you interfere with our goal."
Kurai straightened, her fan glinting as darkness flickered across its blades. She tilted her head, mocking and cold, her voice low and razor-sharp: "You are welcome to try. Although it will be in vain."
Their words cut deeper than any blade—ideologies colliding before the battle could even resume.
Baldr, carrying the will of Darkness, an alien thing that knew nothing but expansion, infection, annihilation of light.
And Kurai, once one of them, now something else. A being with a heart, a body, and echoes of emotions she did not understand. No longer one of the Thirteen. No longer bound by their alien mission but rather to a goal she and Helios shared.
Something more.
The wind cut across the battlefield, carrying the smell of blood and ash. Behind her, Helios groaned faintly, forcing himself to lift his head. He could barely see, but he caught the sight of Kurai standing between him and the man he had sworn to kill.
Her laughter faded, her expression cold as steel, and her voice, low and dangerous, rang out like the toll of a bell.
"Darkness may despise the creatures of light… but I am neither. I have gone beyond both. And I will not be hindered by you or the others."
Baldr raised his keyblade, No Name, the golden light of possession burning in his gaze once more.
"Then you will be erased."
Kurai's smile sharpened into something feral. "Try me."
The clash of wills gave way to the clash of weapons once again, pure darkness exploding across the broken battlefield.