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[nick / name]: Reina
[personal LJ name]: nyantan
[other characters currently played]: Ruca Milda :: Tales of Innocence :: dreamsofhorns
[e-mail]: luminomancy [at] gmail [dot] com
[AIM / messenger]: rozeluxe
[series]: Tales of Hearts
[character]: Kohaku Hearts
[character history / background]: Before I start, I used a mix of unofficial and official translations for names since there's no official English translation as of yet. Blame Namco. >:
Our story starts with the Hearts siblings, younger sister Kohaku and older brother Hisui, fleeing from the magician Incarose. To avoid being captured, Kohaku shoves her brother and herself off a cliff into the ocean, despite her being bad with heights and him being an anchor.
And since they're both protagonists, of course they don't die from that! Instead, they get themselves washed up on the beach of the fishing village Seable, which just so happens to be the hometown of Shing Meteoryte, the main protagonist of this story. Said Shing also happens to be the one who finds them...and tries to give Kohaku CPR. Unluckily for him, she wakes up while he's just about to perform it and beats him up.
After that, Kohaku tries to look for Zex. Shing stops her, telling her that Zex is his grandfather. To prove this, he finds one of Zex's Soma, Asteria, and tells them about the other Soma they have hidden at the shrine on the coast. With this, Kohaku is sure that Shing isn't a creep and apologizes for doubting him. But being the overprotective big brother he is, still is suspicious of the kid who is definitely not Yuki Juudai.
And so the three make their way to the shrine where the Soma is supposed to be at. There they find the Soma Elrond, an anklet that can turn into a baton, which belonged to Shing's mother. Kohaku and Shing bond a little over their deceased mothers. But suddenly Incarose shows up and puts Kohaku to sleep! Shing starts to try to fight Incarose, but Zex shows up and takes a hit meant for him. Suddenly Shing gets really pissed, to the point where this evil, purple aura surrounds him, something which Incarose recognizes. Zex manages to stay conscious enough to make Shing snap back to his usual self though, so Shing and Hisui take Kohaku and Zex and flee the scene.
Back at the Meteoryte house, Hisui tries healing Zex and tells Shing that a spell has been put on Kohaku's Spiria (basically heart), which means his healing artes can't help her. So Shing, ignoring Hisui's protests, decides to Link with her Spiria using his Soma, which is basically the only way to cure such damage to a Spiria.
In Kohaku's Spirmaze (inside her heart), he fights some monsters that look like they could be part of the Sleeping Princess fairytale and finally meets a girl who looks like the said fairytale's princess. She introduces herself as Lithia, a friend of Zex, and tells Shing that she needs his power to run away from Incarose, a magician planning to revive Zerom, monster who devour dreams. But Shing doesn't run away from her, he wants to fight! This makes that evil, purple aura appear around him again. And then he starts seeing Lithia as an enemy... To escape this, Lithia ends up basically breaking Kohaku's Spirune, the core of a person's Spiria and where emotions are born, into pieces and scattering it across the world.
Of course, this really, really pisses of Hisui, but Kohaku stops him from fighting. Apparently she still has her Kindness Spirune. Zex regains consciousness and tells her that since one of her Spirunes stayed intact, they can gather the rest of the pieces and make it whole again. He also makes Shing promise him not to let his emotions get the better of him and to raise a strong Spiria...before dying.
After Hisui and Shing make Zex's grave, they leave the town to look for Kohaku's Spirune fragments using the light she emits as a guide. First off, they go south to Cunos, where help out a traveling shopkeeper named Innes Lorenz and learn about Uran, a girl often seen with the astronomer Eucles who apparently has Despir Sickness (a disease that affected the Spiria). They visit her, only to find that she was only faking sickness to get Eucles to pay more attention to her than the stars for once. But Eucles didn't come visit until a light exploded with the shooting stores, saying “Let’s get out of here! The moon is going to crumble!”. She got angry and chased him away, but then he went missing...
Shing and Hisui deduce from this that Eucles could have been influenced by Kohaku's strong Spirune, so they look for him at the Lagos Cavern, where he told Uran that they'd be safe there if the moon fell. Before they leave though, Hisui begs Innes to lend him a Soma. She agrees to give it to them after Hisui and Shing show their resolve by offering to pay with their lives. And that's how Hisui receives the forearm Soma that can transform into a double bow-gun, Gale Arc.
Anyway, they find Eucles at the Lagos Cavern and recover one of Kohaku's Spirune. But the one they end up giving back is her Fear Spirune...you can guess how that turned out. But they can't do anything but move on, so they follow Kohaku's guiding light south to the next place, Henzella, known for being a flourishing trade town. On the way, they meet the knight Chalcedony Arkham, who helps them out against monsters using his Soma, but acts so high and mighty that Shing and Hisui dislike him even though he does try to help Kohaku upon seeing she's suffering from a “sickness”.
So they arrive at Henzella and are promptly almost swindled by two men before a lady who works for this guy named Chen helps them out. They decide to go see Chen if they can help them out with information about Despir Sickness, but it turns out he wants them to be his bodyguards in return for the info. Bodyguards for who? Well, the person who's breaking into his office now, Beryl Benito! But Shing and Hisui don't really know what to believe, as both Beryl and Chen are affected by what appears to be Kohaku's Doubt Spirune. They decide to chase after Beryl first.
After some searching, they finally catch up to Beryl and Link to her Spiria, where they hear more of why she's so angry at Chen. Turns out Beryl's pissed at Chen for tricking her, ruining her chances at becoming an imperial panter. How? Well during one of her jobs transporting goods, Beryl wasn't able to stop the goods from being stolen, and it turned out afterwards that she was supposed to give up her Soma as compensation... And plus, he was supposed to be her model for her entry (the theme was heroism) into a contest that would allow her to join the imperial painters. So now she can't trust him anymore.
Once Shing makes one of his empathizing speeches and defeats the monsters in Beryl's Spiria with Hisui, they take back Kohaku's Doubt Spirune. Afterwards, Beryl, Shing and company find out that Innes got rid of the thieves and returned all the stolen goods, so Chen takes her failure off her record. Unfortunately, Innes wants her Soma as payment, so now she's in the same predicament as Shing and Hisui.
Now that that's done, they go back to the inn. Hisui and Shing discuss whether or not to give the Doubt Spirune back to Kohaku, considering how the townspeople were acting when they were affected by it. They decide to continue their conversation in a room, so Hisui asks the innkeeper to keep an eye on Kohaku.
Unfortunately, the innkeeper wasn't able to stop Kohaku from being kidnapped by Peridot Hamilton, one of the Crystal Knights from the Church of Velleia (the same as Chalcedony). She tells them in a note to head for Mount Grim with Kohaku's Spirune if they don't want anything to happen to her. Beryl joins the party to help them out being the tsundere she is since they helped her when she needed it.
Next destination: Mount Grim! They find Kohaku near the top with Peridot, unable to run away due to her fear of heights. Remember she has her Fear Spirune back? ...Yeah, that's not helping either. So Shing, Hisui, and Beryl try to fight off Peridot and take Kohaku back...except she takes them down really quickly. She then demands that they give her the Doubt Spirune. To avoid giving it to Peridot, Beryl pretends to trip and...let Kohaku have it back.
While this would normally be a very good idea, this is the Doubt Spirune we're talking about, so now Kohaku is doubtful of pretty much everyone. Coupled with the Fear Spirune, this is very bad. So Kohaku ends up thinking everyone is lying and takes out her Soma to make Peridot step away from her so she can run, which she successfully does. Taking advantage of this, Shing, Hisui and Beryl fight Peridot and win. She realizes she'll get demoted if her captain finds out she lost to them, so she asks them to forget about this and runs away.
Now that that's done they go to get Kohaku...but the rock bridge leading to where she is crumbles! ...Which is bad because of she can only feel Kindness, Fear and Doubt. But where Kohaku is starts to crumble, so Shing decides to jump over to where she is, trying to get her to believe in him through his actions (since by jumping over there, his life is in as much danger as hers is). After this and taking to her, Kohaku finally believes him. They jump together to the other side, where they realize Kohaku has her Trust Spirune back. Finally a positive emotion! Hopefully that and Kindness balances out Fear and Doubt. Anyway, Kohaku's hungry now so it's time to go back to the inn and eat!
Anyway, back at town, they figure out their next destination with the help of Chen and Kohaku's guiding light: the central continent, Auldomaine, where Capital Estrega of the Max Empire that controls the entire world is located. They can take a boat to there from the port south of the town they're in, so they do that. Beryl rejoins the party there (she left while they were in town), saying that she's going to use Shing and the others in her painting since she changed the theme from heroism to adventure, and they seem like they'll be on one.
When the boat ride is done, they arrive at a town with hot springs. After a while of questioning by Shing and Hisui, they find out that the Shyness Spirune was here...but the Knights took it. And said Knights are in the hot springs where Kohaku and Beryl are! So Shing runs over there and rushes in without thinking, whoops. But yes, the Knights were there. And by Knights, I mean Chalcedony and Peridot. Unfortunately, they still can't take Chalcedony, so they (plus newcomer Byrocks) end up leaving with Kohaku's Shyness Spirune to go to the Capital.
But before that, they end up hurting Hisui, so they get him to a cold spring to cool his head off. There they see Fruelle, spirits that respond to a person's Spiria and Innes, who wants them to deliver a letter to the handyman Garnet. Since she's willing to them to tell them a shortcut to the Capital, where they need to stop Chalcedony and the others from reaching, they agree to deliver the letter. This shortcut turns out to be the Andale Tunnel, which is dangerous but a shortcut nonetheless. (Also, this is around where a weird talking raccoon thing called Windam gives them a Sorcerer's Ring, a staple in Tales games.)
So they managed to get through the tunnel and catch up to Chalcedony and his group. Shing wants him to give Kohaku's Spirune back, saying that “If a man can’t give a smile back to the girl in front of him, then there’s no way he should be able to save the world!”. Unfortunately, this triggers Chalcedony's anger button, so he ends up fighting them. Assuming they lost, Chalcedony and the others leave so they'll make it in time for the meeting. Shing picks up a scarlet pendant on the ground after the battle. Then the party chases after them to the Imperial Capital, Estrega.
At Estrega, they meet up with Chalcedony again, but when Shing stops Cal (writing out Chalcedony all the time is hard okay) from attacking some annoying Imperial Soldiers, Cal knocks him down with his aura and captures him with the help of other Knights. He is brought to Pastor Labrado Arkham, who recognizes Shing's Soma as Zex's and therefore possibly one of his relatives. They talk for a while, but are interrupted by Major Grossular and General Cornelvin.
Listening to their conversation regarding politics and how to deal with Despir Sickness, Shing speaks out his mind, saying that he can't leave Kohaku and Despir Sickness in the hands of these people who are so disconnected from the people. He gets punched for it. Later on, Chalcedony calls him a child for it, but says that he'll show him that he'll be the one to stop Despir. But enough about that. Shing gives Chalcedony back the scarlet pendant once he finds out it's his, saying that he's not childish enough to keep it as revenge since losing something precious is sad for everyone.
While this is happening, Kohaku, Hisui and Beryl find Garnet and give him the letter from Innes. He agrees to take them inside the church if they can bring him the two Soma being used for rituals in the church. To do this, he pretends to be donating Beryl and Hisui's Soma and tells them that Kohaku, Hisui and Beryl are his nieces and nephew. This works, and they successfully recover Shing's Soma, Kohaku's Spirune, and Shing himself. Kohaku gets back her Shyness Spirune. This time however, Kohaku's guiding light causes a lot of trouble, as it makes Arkham realize she's Iola's daughter and so must be captured. And since Arkham wants to capture her, so do Grossular and Cornelvin. They manage to escape with the help of Innes.
At this point, Innes joins the party, citing that they need to pay for the goods they damaged when they escaped from the church. Shing's newfound information and Kohaku's guiding light points them to Shalrowe, a summer resort located northeast from the capital. Turns out that yes, this town has been affected by Kohaku's Spirune. Her Sadness Spirune, to be exact. There they meet the unaffected Marin, who points them to Smithona, a former imperial painter that Beryl admires, when they ask her who the saddest person in town is (since he or she's the most likely to have Kohaku's Spirune). Oh, and Innes delivers her a package. Who knows what's up with that.
Anyway, they Link with Smithona, but it turns out he isn't the person they're looking for. (Poor Beryl also pretty much has her image shattered of him, especially since she really liked his paintings, in the process.) Marin then tells them that maybe they're looking for Cassidy, a maid who closed off her Spiria due to the sadness she felt upon losing her fiancée. They Spirlink her too, but she isn't the one either. They do find out that Marin is her master, and that she thinks of Marin as the loneliest person in the world. They put two and two and figure out that Marin's the one with Kohaku's Spirune. It also helps that she walks by basically announcing her plan to open the Odette Sluice. If she does this, then the City will sink to the bottom of Marlow Lake. They can't let her do this, so they follow her.
Marin's opened the sluice, gave her “so lonely” speech and jumps into the water. Shing jumps after her, and Innes closes the gate with her superhuman strength. The party finds Shing and Marin washed up nearby. So they Link with her and finally get the Sadness Spirune, which they return to Kohaku. Afterward, they convince Marin that people would be sad that she died and stuff like that. They return to the city together, where Shing finds out Marin has someone she loves and shows just how corny he can be to encourage her to talk to him.
After talking to Innes and hearing about odd things happening in Yuraio, the party decides to make that their new destination.
(Also, if it wasn't obvious already, a scene between her and Chalcedony shows that Marin is Lady Paraiba Marin de Rey, the empress of the powerful Max Empire. And that Cal is now pissed because Shing hit her while trying to snap her out of her sadness.)
At Raio, they find that no one is leaving because they all want to participate in the Raio Grand Prix due to the influence of Kohaku's Spirune. This Grand Prix is a battle to decide the world's greatest hero, with a hundred million gald at stake. And it turns out the trophy has Kohaku's Spirune on it! While Hisui suggests just stealing it while no one's looking, Shing insists on entering and winning it properly. Hisui and Shing then have an argument over this, which ends with Shing hitting Hisui. Because of this, things are...strained between them, so they end up entering as part of different teams. (I'll assume Shing has partnered with Innes for this part.)
Lala, stuff happens, some guy hits on Kohaku, and the party goes to Kings Cross for the finals. There, Hisui and Shing, due to someone's stink bomb, are about to be eaten by some monsters...which fires up Kohaku enough to beat the crap out of the monsters. Return of the Courage Spirune! This makes Shing and Hisui realize they're both being very stubborn and make peace with each other. But this means Kohaku wins the tournament...and Innes is now broke since she bet all her savings on either Hisui or Shing to win, whoops. But wait! Since Kohaku was registered after the deadline, her win is voic and therefore, there is no winner for this tournament! Which is lucky for Beryl, since she bet that would happen.
Anyway, time for some downtime since Kohaku's really tired after using her Soma with an incomplete Spirune. Turns out the hotel is booked except for the most expensive suites, so they use the money Beryl won to pay for it, which pisses her off mostly because Shing keeps going Kohaku this and Kohaku that. So to appease her, he goes with her when she goes out to sketch the arena.
Their visit to the arena turns out not to be peaceful at all with the entrance of Incarose. She definitely knows how to push Shing's anger buttons, and attacks Beryl to try to rile him up enough for...something to happen. Aura appears again, but Beryl wakes up, stopping him from going on a rampage. Stuff happens, they find out that General Cornelvin has one of Kohaku's Spirune's. So they use the airship of the guy who nearly killed Hisui and Shing earlier to reach the Rignatol Garrison, where the general has gone. But they, minus Innes, all get captured and have their Soma taken away.
Blahblah, Cornelvin shows them the remains of a mechanical human from the Stone Age and is called away. Innes manages to get back everyone's Soma and find them so they can have it back. When they find Cornelvin again, they also find machines made to possess humans with Zerom. Cornelvin says this is to make the perfect soldier, goes nuts, etc.
After fighting him and getting Kohaku's Anger Spirune, but violent stuff happens which prevents them from giving it back to Kohaku. When a soldier attacks Kohaku, the mechanical human, a Quartzite relic, awakens and defeats the enemies around. The party minus Kohaku and Innes takes this chance to flee to the capital. Unbeknownst to them, the robo-- mechanical doll is trying to track them down too for some reason. He catches up to them and introduces himself as Kunzite, and since he saves someone who they're travelling with and can use Soma, Shing decides to accept him as a comrade. But after Kunzite gets all the information he leaves, he insults everyone and leaves the party to go to the capital by himself. Ouch.
Insert scene showing that Paraiba is a puppet of the Church and military.
Anyway, Innes and Kohaku arrive at the spot where the party planned to meet (where they delivered Innes' letter to Garnet). Innes her Kohaku's Spirune, but she didn't give it back to her yet. Cal and his squad find them, but Shing and the rest of the party make it on time to get between them and Innes and Kohaku. And then Marin, I mean Paraiba, shows up! Cal has a bit of a breakdown since he wants to protect Paraiba but she's rejecting what he's becoming. Byrock Spirlinks with him, and the party follows.
Enter Kunzite, who has followed them since he sensed Lithia's artes. Turns out that he didn't know Kohaku, Lithia's vessel, had her Spirune broken. Hisui lies to him about Shing's involvement to get him to help out against Byrocks, who fighs them so they can't take Kohaku's Dream Spirune from Cal.
Battle times happen, but Dream Spirune Cal kicks them out of his Spirmaze. Kunzite then returns Kohaku's Anger Spirune to her. Oh, and since Cal hurt Paraiba during his rage earlier, he's being arrested by the military, but Byrocks refuses to let this happen and runs off with him. But because of Cal's high position, a war starts brewing even more between the church and military. It doesn't help that Cal and Byrocks has escaped the city. With the help of Garnet, the party escapes the city too through the sewers. (By the way, there's warrants out for all them now. Nice.)
Oh, and we learn Garnet is in cahoots with Incarose and Grossular. Not good.
In the sewers, Kunzite hears from Shing that he was the one who broke Kohaku's Spirune where Lithia was sleeping in. So he tries to kill him. To stop him, Kohaku finally tells all about what exactly her relationship with Lithia is. What does she say? Well, this: “Lithia has a special power that’s separate from mine. She was the one who asked me to stop Despir Disease-the Zerom contamination, so I went on a journey. But she had a terrible enemy, the sorceress Incarose… If it looked like I was going to be caught by her… I promised that I’d hide my Spirune inside her and scatter the pieces so she could escape.”
Why is Lithia so important? It's because she's one who can seal away the Zerom by controlling them at will, and the Spiria of the ancient being who invented Zerom. And why didn't Kohaku tell us this before? Well, before she couldn't really talk due to her broken Spirune, but when she started getting them back, she couldn't help but wonder if Shing hated her for all this...which really scared her to the point where she couldn't being herself to say.
Because of this explanation, Kunzite decides this means he needs to prioritize recovering Lady Lithia's vessel Kohaku's Spirune and eliminating her enemies. Robot party member get (again)! Time to continue on with their journey.
To reach Pransule, they decide to pass through the dangerous Shahera Desert. Sandworms happen, and the party is separated. While separated from the others, Kohaku tells Shing more about Lithia, and how she's been with her since she was born. In fact, Lithia has been hiding in people's Spirmazes for over two thousand years to avoid those who want her power. According to Kohaku when asked if they can seal off the Zerom upon collecting all of the Spirunes, “No… As she’s hiding, the power to seal off Zerom is… already at its limit. When we wake up Lithia’s real body which is sleeping somewhere, then for the first time, Zerom would be completely sealed away… For that, we started our journey… It was my promise to her to take her “there”. So yes, they need to revive Lithia's real body to be able to seal away the Zerom. Shing then makes a promise with Kohaku to revive her and Lithia and seal away the Zerom.
Anyway, Kohaku and Shing make it out of the sandstorm, but they find out that Kohaku's Spirune is inside the sandworm! So they get it back and Kohaku starts crying...tears of joy because she's happy everyone's safe. Turns out it was the Happiness Spirune! ...No, seriously. More positive emotions get!
Next up is the Lazine Cave! They meet up with the people the were traveling with to the capital after the Garrison incident and rescue them from soldiers and church believers With the help of these people, they manage to sneak into the Holy City Pransule by pretending to be their employees. There, Peridot plays dirty again and then challenges the party to a battle. If they win, they get one of Kohaku's Spirunes back. But if she (well, she, Cal and Byrocks) wins, they have to make the secret of the Spirune public. So Shing accepts and the party ends up fighting Cal's squad.
They win, and Cal returns the Dream Spirune, except Byrocks takes it from him before he can give it. And then Pastor Labrado Arkham appears yet again...to drop the party into a pit. Seriously. But they make it back up anyway. None of this was part of Cal's plan. Arkham just wants Lithia's power and Byrocks cooperated so he can prove Cal's innocence.
--But suddenly, the war against the military and the church starts! Cal gets Byrocks to return Kohaku her Dream Spirune. And since they can't just ignore the military attacking the city (some vengeful heretic opened the gate), the party helps out Cal and his squad evacuate the civilians. Four of the children haven't returned to the orphanage though, so the party plus Cal goes to look for them, leaving Byrocks and Peridot to guard the gate.
They manage to find the children (one is at the clinic and another at a beach to pray for the one at the clinic), but things aren't going well for Arkham, so he tries to surrender. The soldiers suddenly calcified for some reason. But enough about that, they need to escape the city! Before that, they go to warn Cal so he can run away too. Except Cal's willing to give himself up to the army to make up for hurting Paraiba, and no one can convince him otherwise.
Afterward, the party learns from Kunzite that calcification happens to people who have their entire Spiria eaten by Zerom. To stop this, they need to look for Lithia's real body in the Forest of Thorns. If she returns to her body, then her real power can be resurrected, allowing her to seal away the Zerom. So now they're off to find the last Spirune fragment and revive Lithia...except it's in the southwest sea!?
The orphanage helps the party escape the city and make their way to the Western Marquis Harbor. Garnet offers to take them to their destination on boat, so they go off to look for the goods he wants and leave Innes and Kohaku to tell him where they need to go. But turns out that was only to get them out of the way! The party hurries back once they realize Kohaku's really scared through their Soma Link.
Turns out that Garnet's the Imperial Army Special Corps Soma Platoon Commander, Isaac Silver...and Innes is his major! To get Kohaku to cooperate with them, they decide to take the party as prisoners, but after Shing refuses to work with them when asked, Silver orders Innes and Strigau (another member of his group) to kill Shing, but Beryl teleports them away, minus Kohaku who was captured. Innes chases after them, but after Shing shows her the POWEEEER OF FRIIIIIENDSHIIIIP and tells her that he doesn't think she's a bad person and etc., she relents and stops trying to kill him. Innes wanted Lithia's power for Silver's sake since she's in love with him and wants to help him and all, but with Shing's speech, she decides to tell him her feelings.
Now that everyone's Soma Links have been strengthened by getting over this ordeal, they go to get Kohaku back. Innes tells them that Kohaku’s being taken to the Special Corps Base on an isolated island called Nibelg. So first off, they get the captain that ferried them across the sea last time, Sango, to see Chen in Henzella so they can negotiate with him to get him, a supplier to the Special Corps, to get into Nibelg some other way. Their negotiation is successful, so they use one of his supply ships to reach the island. They fake being dead so they don't sense their presence, so the soldiers don't notice them and inadvertently allow them to infiltrate the base. In the meantime, Strigau tortures Kohaku in an attempt to get her to tell them the location of the last Spirune.
Shing and the others manage to make their way to where Kohaku is and find Strigau beating her, which makes Shing's aura of purple rage show up again. Kunzite hits Strigau though, which makes Shing's aura disappear. But Shing's acting weirder than usual, wanting to crush all the soldiers. Anyway, Kohaku tells them that Silver has her Spirune, so they go after him. And yes, Kohaku's still able to fight after that. She has an extremely strong will, remember?
Anyway, they made their way to a room that has a Mother Zerom, which gives birth to other Zerom, along with the entrance to the Forest of Thorns. Silver confirms this, and tells them that the Quartz are people of another world with crystal bodies that ruled this world in the Stone Age, and that the Quartz Lithia can control Zerom, Soma, and mechanical humans with her power. He also attacks Incarose, not trusting her. And then he fuses with Mother Zerom and attacks the party after reminiscing about the past with Innes.
The party defeats him, and he starts calcifying, which he thought only happened to people with weak Spiria. Kunzite corrects him though, saying that Zerom are made to eat any Spiria, strong or weak. Incarose then takes this time to attack, but Silver protects Innes with his body, saying how he wasn't able to protect his wife and daughter and how he regrets his existence. Soon enough, Kohaku's last Spirune manifests and Silver apologizes for his actions. When he does this, suddenly the Zerom fusion and calcification stop. He then returns the Spirune to Kohaku.
...And then Incarose stabs him in the back. He dies after telling Innes to take care of Lapis, his daughter, for him. Shing's aura of rage shows up again and blows everyone away. He then fights Incarose, who keeps taunting him and making his aura larger and larger... He manages to land a critical blow to Incarose in this state, after which they learn from Kunzite that Incarose is a mechanoid.
Kohaku has her Love Spirune returned, and now her Spirune is whole! But now Kohaku is scared of Shing after something Lithia has told her...Shing is Creed Graphite! Shing, or rather Creed, then takes out the entire party. Incarose wakes up and reports to him, her master. Kohaku then tells the party who Creed is, the Scarlet-Haired Devil who captured Lithia and tried to destroy the world.
Creed demands that Lithia show herself, which she does by possessing Kohaku after he starts hurting the rest of the party. He then orders her to open the door to the Forest of Thorns. She refuses and goes away, but to avoid having Hisui hurt more too, Kohaku panics and opens the gate. Since Kohaku can use Lithia's power though, Creed doesn't need Lithia. So he takes Kohaku with him to the Forest of Thorns, which is actually the Crystal Palace Cendrillion. There, he wakes up the irritating mechanoid Corundum and decides to “settle things” with Lithia while Croaseraph is revived.
Back to where Hisui, Beryl, Innes, and Kunzite are. Hisui manages to heal everyone and they follow Creed and Kohaku through the portal they used to go to Cendrillion. Kunzite says they need to hurry or else something will be released that can destroy the world. Unfortunately, they get captured.
In another room, Creed returns Lithia to her original body. He then tries to get her to cooperate by threatening to hurt Kohaku, but Shing manages to wrest away some control away from him temporarily, telling Kohaku to run and that he'll protect her. This makes Creed decide to stab himself right before he returns to his original body, leaving Shing to bleed. This is when the other members of the party arrive. Creed orders Incarose to attack them.
Afterward, Creed starts to attack the already injured Shing with one of his beams, which makes Kohaku panic and Soma Link with Lithia so she can activate Cendrillion. The rest of the team escape using an arte, but Kunzite stays behind so he can use his self-destruct mechanism...only to be stopped by another mechanoid, Croaseraph.
Time for party control again! Innes leaves to take care of Lapis, Lithia's freaking over the activation of the Cendrillion, and Kohaku's freaking out over Shing. Hisui manages to get Kohaku and Lithia moving though.
At the Nibelg Docks, they see the rebirth of the Great Winged Whale. Yup, that's Cendrillion. The island's shattered as it takes off, and the party is sent into the sea. Shing, Hisui, and Lithia get washed up on shore somewhere, Lithia having rescued the other two. They make their way back to Henzella (and fight an actual Zerom in the process), where they find Innes.
When they get there, Lithia finally explains a little about what's going on. Lithia herself is the last of the of the Quartz race of the planet Quartzia (which can be found in their world's, Celirand's, sky as the white moon), a highly technologically advanced planet with access to mind artes. Unfortunately, they also warred a lot, which was what led to the creation of Zerom as weapons. But not everyone liked the wars, like Lithia, her sister Flora, and (surprise!) Creed. Flora created the Soma as part of their idealist view that they can stop the war. With that same train of thought, Creed created the Queen Zerom, otherwise knows as Gardenia, the black moon that they can see in the sky. Gardenia was made to suck out only the Spiria of the warring Quartz, but it ended up sucking pretty much everyone up except for Lithia. Since losing your Spiria for any reason means the body undergoes calcification, that's why Quartzia now appears white. Also, Cendrillion didn't create the Zerom, it was what sealed Creed, Lithia and Gardenia. But even with their bodies sealed away, they fought over Gardenia's seal in the Spiria of their vessels. Lithia wants to prevent Gardenia's seal from being broken, but Creed wants to restart Gardenia since he thinks it would revive Flora and Quartzia. Lithia tells them that they must stop this!
Buuut Shing and Hisui don't want to get involved, since she and Creed are basically behind all the reasons why their lives are so crappy right now. It doesn't help that she tried to kill Kohaku, reasoning that she can't let Creed get his way. The only reason she didn't was because Kunzite stopped her. And yet she still wants their help to stop Creed.
So then they leave Innes and Lithia in Henzella and go to find Kohaku using the Soma Link. They head south on ship and end up in a village named Riev. There they find Beryl, who leads them to Kohaku and the doctor, Tecta, who was taking care of her. Hisui and Shing then take this time to tell them what Lithia told them earlier, and how they decided it's not their problem. Kohaku is definitely not happy about this since she wants to help Lithia and keep the world from calcifying, which puts her at odds with Shing, who doesn't want to have anything to do with Quartzia anymore. Anyway, Tecta releases Kohaku from the clinic, but with a catch: he wants them to check on the Spiria of an old man living in this village named Zirconia. He's been muttering “Creed Graphite” for the past seventeen years. Interesting...
By Spirlinking with him, they find out Zirconia was the previous Emperor and Creed's former vessel. He's also related to Tecta (son) and Paraiba (grandniece). They learn that Zex, Dona (Shing's mother), Iola (Kohaku and Hisui's mother, also Lithia's vessel), Labrado (Cal's father) and Tecta were present with the fight with Creed that time. Dona and Iola were pregnant with Shing and Kohaku at the time, and due to the damage Iola and Zirconia sustained, Lithia and Creed ended up being transferred to Kohaku and Shing. Because of this, Zirconia's Spiria broke, rendering him unable to much of anything except repeat “Creed Graphite” over and over.
After hearing this, Shing is very, very angry because Zex and Dona never ever told him about this. In fact, he's wondering why they didn't just kill him so none of this would have ever happened. He then runs off, still hotheaded, so Kohaku runs after him. When she finds him, he's beating himself up for being weak and not keeping his promise to Zex to raise a strong Spiria. As he angsts, his power starts raging out of control, but Kohaku tells him that it's good that he's alive, thanking Dona and Zex for letting him live so they can meet, and him for returning all her Spirunes. Thankfully, Kohaku's talk with him gives Shing the will to stop Creed. Which is good, because Creed just announced to the world that he's dumped a million and a half Zerom on them.
So now the party eventually reunites with a new mission: find their way to Cendrillion and stop Creed's ambitions. Which is going to be kind of hard since Cendrillion's now a giant flying whale. They try to see Ahmeth since he has access to an airship (on the way Croaseraph injures Kohaku which delays them since they need to regroup in Brange, Beryl's hometown), but it turns out his airship was confiscated by the military. They go to the nearest base and take it. Off to Cendrillion they go! ...Except Creed sends the airship flying when he sees them. They're only saved due to Lithia and her artes.
Time for another plan! They can try to Spirlink with Cendrillion's pseudo Spiria and try to get it to land, but due to the artes she used earlier, Lithia's too weak and needs the help of more Soma users. Since the only Soma users around now are Crystal Knights, they go to the Imperial Capital to seek assistance. There they find an injured Peridot. Turns out that Cal and Byrocks are in prison. So they sneak in, but Chal's not leaving because his fellow Knights are here too. So the party ends up breaking Byrocks and the rest out! But it turns out Cal's going to be executed! But they save Cal, lala insert typical uplifting protagonist speech here, and manage to convince him to join their cause.
But even with them on their side, the party is short around ten Soma users. Lithia suggests going to Norquin, the Hearts siblings' hometown, which they're not happy about. Why? Because it is protected by a special barrier generated by a psistone that has power equal to ten Soma users. So they go there, but Hisui and Kohaku's Aunt Sheila doesn't approve of their adventure, so they toss everyone except Kohaku and Hisui in jail. But the siblings break them out and the party leaves for Cendrillion, leaving Cal, Byrocks and Peridot behind so they can power the psistone.
Soon enough they manage to reach the Cendrillion's Spiria, where they find Flora's dying message, where she asks whoever sees it to stop Gardenia. With it, she also leaves a data psistone containing information about how Soma and Gardenia are created. But then crazy guy Strigau attacks! However, defeating him takes enough time for the Soma Link road to start shrinking, so they run out of there. Unfortunately, Lithia, Cal, Byrocks and Peridot are exhausted along with all the power of the psistone. Zeroms then end up invading the village, which they then fight off. This wins them the trust of Sheila, which is always good.
Unfortunately, Creed just activated Gardenia and they're still not on Cendrillion. Fortunately, Kunzite thinks of using Cal's Soma Warheit and make it evolve into a bigger flying machine using a monster's flare horn and a Zerom stone. And Cal just so happens to have a Zerom stone. You see, it's in a pendant that Paraiba gave him...except he tried to give it back to her during his execution. Whoops. Time to head back to the capital!
...Except it's been calcified. And it turns out Paraiba has been merged with a Zerom and that Grossular and Arkham have been trasnformed into...something. Cal's able to free Paraiba with the power of looooove and gets the pendant back from her. She then announces to the world that it's time to unite and protect the world from Gardenia.
Now that that's done, they go to Bamel Volcano for the other item on their list. Shing's party and Cal's squad get separated, but Shing and the others are able to get the fire arm. Cal reunites with them alone though... Peridot and Byrocks sacrificed themselves to stop Incarose from chasing them. But with the pendant and the horn (and a hug from Kohaku everyone's bonds), they evolve Cal's Soma and drop him off at a town named Guse before flying off to Cendrillion.
They reach the observation point Rapunzel, but Corundum, Creed's last mechanoid, blocks the way. But they manage to talk her into helping them out instead of Creed though, so she goes to get the teleport to Gardenia up in running. While she sets it up, Kohaku, Shing and Beryl have an adorable moment of friendship and what is totally a love triangle before Beryl leaves them be so they can have a cute moment together alone (that everyone totally spies on).
Final battle time! After a while of puzzle solving and reminiscing and battling, the party manages to reach Gardenia's core. Looks like Creed's trying to revive Gardenia and Flora's trying to stop him! On top of that, the party tries to tell him that awakening Gardenia is a Very Bad Idea, but well, he's the last boss for a reason. It doesn't help that Flora calcifies mid-conversation. So an angry Creed polymerizes fuses with Gardenia so he can hack the system and return Flora's Spiria to her. But then he decides this isn't enough and tries to steal Lithia's Spiria. This fails due to the party using their Soma Link's lasers as a barrier. This triggers the boss battle between them and Creed, who wants to consume their power and use it to revive Quartzia to its former glory.
Unsurprisingly, the party wins the battle. Unfortunately, the still-alive Creed has pretty much lost control of Gardenia, which consumes Flora's Spirune again. He...doesn't take this well, and starts breaking down, saying that he can't stop Gardenia anymore. Being a Tales hero in the vein of Lloyd (ANIIIIKIIII), Shing tells Creed that basically, anything's possible with the power of *~FRIENDSHIP AND SPIRIT~*. You can gag now. Which makes him laugh and mock him. Because really, what can he connect to?
...His Spirmaze of course! So they Link with him, see stars that are actually all the consumed souls of the Quartz. Creed decides to show his incredibly questionable fashion face again, saying that hey, time's stopped inside Gardenia so she can still restore Quartzia. Yup, he'll never give them up. Unfortunately for him and everyone, Gardenia doesn't stop and tries to omnomnom on them because Spiria is a delicious part of any good meal. We can't have that, so the party lays the beatdown on Gardenia.
After that's done, everyone -including Creed-- manages to escape Gardenia's Spirmaze, but that doesn't stop it from trying to absorb everything again. To prevent this froom happening, Kohaku and Shing overload Gardenia with light awesome lasers made from their Soma Links, causing to collapse. Shing, being a...well, you know, tries to get Creed to escape with them, but he decides to stay with Flora, saying farewell to him and Lithia.
Back on Cendrillion, Gardenia's destroyed and all, but alas, poor villain. But at least Quartzia will slowly recover since Spirune fragments are returning to it. Who knows how long it takes though. Now that all this is done, Lithia can finally rest in peace. Her final request is for Kunzute to live on as a person. Hisui will have none of that though, so he suggests that she continue to live on by sleeping in Kunzite's Spirmaze, where time would be stopped. However, this means that Kunzite would have to go into hibernation as well. He doesn't mind though, since his own wish is to protect Lithia until he breaks down, awwwww. Since everyone likes this plan, Lithia decides to go along with it, and after all the farewells, Lithia and Kunzite go to sleep...
[character abilities]: To keep this sort, Kohaku uses a Soma called Elrond to fight. Normally it's an anklet she wears on her left leg, but when it's time for battle, it can transform into a baton. Her main way of physically attacking enemies is by kicking them very hard and whacking them with Elrond. When magic is needed, she uses Elrond as a catacyst to cast a variety of spells, mostly fire and healing (though her healing artes pale in comparison to her dear brother's). A list of all artes and spells she's able to use can be found here.
Also, when she has her Soma with her, she's basically Linked to anyone whose Soma she's Linked to before, which means she can feel how they're feeling and have a slight idea of where they're at.
[character personality]:In Tales of Hearts, Kohaku has a particularly powerful Spiria, which you can compare to a heart. Basically, she's strong willed with a weak heart. Sure, anyone might forget this upon seeing her lose all her emotions aside from kindness in the beginning, or even when she regained her feelings of Fear, Doubt and Trust, but once she gets back her Courage Spirune (think something like a heart shard), her tendency to dive into situations to help people just becomes more and more apparent. Just look at when she forced herself to regain her Courage Spirune and consequently kick the ass of any monster trying to eat her brother and boyfriend. She honestly wants to help everyone she can and will never turn down someone who asks for her help or just outright needs it.
Because of this, she tends to be disappointed with people who are apathetic to those who need help, citing that it's not their problem or something like that. No one can ever just be disconnected from the world, especially when something huge is going down. Even when she doesn't completely know what's happening, she just knows she has to do whatever she can to help, which is why it bothers her to see people indifferent to what's happening around them.
While she does have a lot of courage, there's fear there too. She's scared of heights, but she's definitely more afraid of seeing people she cares about get hurt. That's why Creed can so easily get her to use Lithia's power just by threatening to hurt her friends, especially Hisui and Shing. Her panic overrode her common sense, which Creed gleefully took advantage of. And there are times when she'll fear that what they're doing is impossible, but that can be easily remedied by someone who genuinely believes they will succeed against all odds.
Overall, Kohaku's a friend and outgoing person that has no problem with going up to people and just talking to them. She can still be a derp socially though, just not nearly to the same degree as Shing, who's pretty clueless when it comes to slang and how to not be a moment killer. After all, she was raised in an isolated village for many years before she had the chance to leave and travel the world. This is why she says that after the business with Creed, she'll continue to travel the world. There's still many things for her to see, and her curiosity drives her to take in the sights of as much of the world as she can find.
Also, she can be kind of violent at times. Mostly towards her brother when she's being an idiot, but anyone doing something that can be considered pervy towards her can and will mostly likely get hit by one of Kohaku's deadly kicks. And maybe her brother's fists, if he ever comes. She's a kind girl, but she's not about to let that sort of thing fly.
[point in timeline you're picking your character from]: Post-game, but before the actual epilogue.
[journal post]:
I've never really used something like this before, so I apologize beforehand if I do something wrong? I wonder Lithia knows what exactly this does? I can feel that Shing's around, but not exactly where he is... And I haven't noticed Brother, Beryl or Innes around either! That's really rather alarming you know. Really? I thought I would have at least heard Brother's voice by now, since he's not exactly the quiet type when he's worried.
Well, first off, I better find Shing! So, if anyone has happened to see anyone by any of those names, could you please tell me? I'd really appreciate it, thanks!
Oh, and if any of you see this: don't worry! I'm just fine. Nothing's happened, aside from...getting a little sidetracked. I'll get back as soon as I can, okay?
[third person / log sample]:
It was all over now. Using the power of all the bonds they created during their journey, they managed to destroy Gardenia and free the Spiria fragments of the Quartz within. Slowly (maybe even slow enough to take more than a hundred years), but surely, Quartzia would be restored back to normal. And finally, Lithia can rest easy with Kunzite.
Lithia Spodune... She may have been a major cause of this entire mess, but Kohaku Hearts still cared for her. Even something like the threat of Gardenia couldn't erase all the years Lithia has spent with her inside her Spiria. Sure, she hid a lot of information from her, but she had always been there since she was born to talk and listen to her when she had things on her mind. In a way, Lithia was basically her older sister. Or as she should say, she really was. You don't need to be blood related to be siblings, really. All she had to do was remember Chalcedony, Peridot and Byrocks and how they bantered with each other much like how she and Hisui argue. If they weren't siblings in spirit, then who knows what exactly siblings are.
Maybe that means she can consider Innes and Beryl older sisters, too. Shing...well, he's certainly part of their family. Even Hisui admits that now, and he used to be so cross at him when he tried to call him Brother. At least he finally warmed up to him, even if it did take a while. After that rocky first meeting, Kohaku recognized that Shing was definitely someone she could trust, and traveling together only proved that all the more. No normal person would travel around the world and go through all he did just to find and return all the Spirunes of someone he barely knows, even if he did think it was his fault her Spirune shattered. And well, they're friends now, so he's definitely someone she can trust, along with the rest of the party!
...And suddenly she realized that something was off. Blinking, she shook herself out of her reverie and took a good look around her.
A few seconds later, she concluded that she had somehow gotten herself lost in...a city? And a rather odd one at that. The surroundings clearly were not that of Celirand, but really, there was no reason for her to not be there. They've left the Cendrillion quite some time ago, so unless she accidentally got back on the whale and got whisked off somewhere far away, this sudden change in scenery shouldn't even be possible. It's like Beryl used her teleporting arte on her, but she wouldn't use something like that for no reason, and Kohaku would have noticed if there was trouble afoot. That's just something you can't miss. Then again, she didn't notice she was suddenly in another place without knowing how she got there.
Oh dear, her brother was going to freak out once he realizes she wasn't back in Yuraio anymore. Hopefully he didn't cause a scene when he eventually showed up too.
Sighing lightly, she closed her eyes and focused. She felt the weight of her Soma on her left ankle, but what piqued her attention was that someone she knew quite well was around somewhere fairly nearby. And not only that, the feelings she felt through the Link were genuine, definitely not some sort of cheap mimicry. She could even sense the latent power in the warm, earnest feelings she associated with the younger boy and their other friends, the exact kind that allowed all of them to use their Links with each other and the people they've met through their journey to overload Gardenia and free the Quartz Spiria inside. No one, not even geniuses like the Spodune sisters and Creed could do such a thing, that she was sure of. Sure, they could amplify it of course, but not completely mimic it. What worried her was that she could only feel one Link...
--Well, that's still a good start! She opened her eyes and nodded to herself, telling herself to stay calm and just see if anyone can tell her where she or others might be. Better to start looking for her friends now than later!
[personal LJ name]: nyantan
[other characters currently played]: Ruca Milda :: Tales of Innocence :: dreamsofhorns
[e-mail]: luminomancy [at] gmail [dot] com
[AIM / messenger]: rozeluxe
[series]: Tales of Hearts
[character]: Kohaku Hearts
[character history / background]: Before I start, I used a mix of unofficial and official translations for names since there's no official English translation as of yet. Blame Namco. >:
Our story starts with the Hearts siblings, younger sister Kohaku and older brother Hisui, fleeing from the magician Incarose. To avoid being captured, Kohaku shoves her brother and herself off a cliff into the ocean, despite her being bad with heights and him being an anchor.
And since they're both protagonists, of course they don't die from that! Instead, they get themselves washed up on the beach of the fishing village Seable, which just so happens to be the hometown of Shing Meteoryte, the main protagonist of this story. Said Shing also happens to be the one who finds them...and tries to give Kohaku CPR. Unluckily for him, she wakes up while he's just about to perform it and beats him up.
After that, Kohaku tries to look for Zex. Shing stops her, telling her that Zex is his grandfather. To prove this, he finds one of Zex's Soma, Asteria, and tells them about the other Soma they have hidden at the shrine on the coast. With this, Kohaku is sure that Shing isn't a creep and apologizes for doubting him. But being the overprotective big brother he is, still is suspicious of the kid who is definitely not Yuki Juudai.
And so the three make their way to the shrine where the Soma is supposed to be at. There they find the Soma Elrond, an anklet that can turn into a baton, which belonged to Shing's mother. Kohaku and Shing bond a little over their deceased mothers. But suddenly Incarose shows up and puts Kohaku to sleep! Shing starts to try to fight Incarose, but Zex shows up and takes a hit meant for him. Suddenly Shing gets really pissed, to the point where this evil, purple aura surrounds him, something which Incarose recognizes. Zex manages to stay conscious enough to make Shing snap back to his usual self though, so Shing and Hisui take Kohaku and Zex and flee the scene.
Back at the Meteoryte house, Hisui tries healing Zex and tells Shing that a spell has been put on Kohaku's Spiria (basically heart), which means his healing artes can't help her. So Shing, ignoring Hisui's protests, decides to Link with her Spiria using his Soma, which is basically the only way to cure such damage to a Spiria.
In Kohaku's Spirmaze (inside her heart), he fights some monsters that look like they could be part of the Sleeping Princess fairytale and finally meets a girl who looks like the said fairytale's princess. She introduces herself as Lithia, a friend of Zex, and tells Shing that she needs his power to run away from Incarose, a magician planning to revive Zerom, monster who devour dreams. But Shing doesn't run away from her, he wants to fight! This makes that evil, purple aura appear around him again. And then he starts seeing Lithia as an enemy... To escape this, Lithia ends up basically breaking Kohaku's Spirune, the core of a person's Spiria and where emotions are born, into pieces and scattering it across the world.
Of course, this really, really pisses of Hisui, but Kohaku stops him from fighting. Apparently she still has her Kindness Spirune. Zex regains consciousness and tells her that since one of her Spirunes stayed intact, they can gather the rest of the pieces and make it whole again. He also makes Shing promise him not to let his emotions get the better of him and to raise a strong Spiria...before dying.
After Hisui and Shing make Zex's grave, they leave the town to look for Kohaku's Spirune fragments using the light she emits as a guide. First off, they go south to Cunos, where help out a traveling shopkeeper named Innes Lorenz and learn about Uran, a girl often seen with the astronomer Eucles who apparently has Despir Sickness (a disease that affected the Spiria). They visit her, only to find that she was only faking sickness to get Eucles to pay more attention to her than the stars for once. But Eucles didn't come visit until a light exploded with the shooting stores, saying “Let’s get out of here! The moon is going to crumble!”. She got angry and chased him away, but then he went missing...
Shing and Hisui deduce from this that Eucles could have been influenced by Kohaku's strong Spirune, so they look for him at the Lagos Cavern, where he told Uran that they'd be safe there if the moon fell. Before they leave though, Hisui begs Innes to lend him a Soma. She agrees to give it to them after Hisui and Shing show their resolve by offering to pay with their lives. And that's how Hisui receives the forearm Soma that can transform into a double bow-gun, Gale Arc.
Anyway, they find Eucles at the Lagos Cavern and recover one of Kohaku's Spirune. But the one they end up giving back is her Fear Spirune...you can guess how that turned out. But they can't do anything but move on, so they follow Kohaku's guiding light south to the next place, Henzella, known for being a flourishing trade town. On the way, they meet the knight Chalcedony Arkham, who helps them out against monsters using his Soma, but acts so high and mighty that Shing and Hisui dislike him even though he does try to help Kohaku upon seeing she's suffering from a “sickness”.
So they arrive at Henzella and are promptly almost swindled by two men before a lady who works for this guy named Chen helps them out. They decide to go see Chen if they can help them out with information about Despir Sickness, but it turns out he wants them to be his bodyguards in return for the info. Bodyguards for who? Well, the person who's breaking into his office now, Beryl Benito! But Shing and Hisui don't really know what to believe, as both Beryl and Chen are affected by what appears to be Kohaku's Doubt Spirune. They decide to chase after Beryl first.
After some searching, they finally catch up to Beryl and Link to her Spiria, where they hear more of why she's so angry at Chen. Turns out Beryl's pissed at Chen for tricking her, ruining her chances at becoming an imperial panter. How? Well during one of her jobs transporting goods, Beryl wasn't able to stop the goods from being stolen, and it turned out afterwards that she was supposed to give up her Soma as compensation... And plus, he was supposed to be her model for her entry (the theme was heroism) into a contest that would allow her to join the imperial painters. So now she can't trust him anymore.
Once Shing makes one of his empathizing speeches and defeats the monsters in Beryl's Spiria with Hisui, they take back Kohaku's Doubt Spirune. Afterwards, Beryl, Shing and company find out that Innes got rid of the thieves and returned all the stolen goods, so Chen takes her failure off her record. Unfortunately, Innes wants her Soma as payment, so now she's in the same predicament as Shing and Hisui.
Now that that's done, they go back to the inn. Hisui and Shing discuss whether or not to give the Doubt Spirune back to Kohaku, considering how the townspeople were acting when they were affected by it. They decide to continue their conversation in a room, so Hisui asks the innkeeper to keep an eye on Kohaku.
Unfortunately, the innkeeper wasn't able to stop Kohaku from being kidnapped by Peridot Hamilton, one of the Crystal Knights from the Church of Velleia (the same as Chalcedony). She tells them in a note to head for Mount Grim with Kohaku's Spirune if they don't want anything to happen to her. Beryl joins the party to help them out being the tsundere she is since they helped her when she needed it.
Next destination: Mount Grim! They find Kohaku near the top with Peridot, unable to run away due to her fear of heights. Remember she has her Fear Spirune back? ...Yeah, that's not helping either. So Shing, Hisui, and Beryl try to fight off Peridot and take Kohaku back...except she takes them down really quickly. She then demands that they give her the Doubt Spirune. To avoid giving it to Peridot, Beryl pretends to trip and...let Kohaku have it back.
While this would normally be a very good idea, this is the Doubt Spirune we're talking about, so now Kohaku is doubtful of pretty much everyone. Coupled with the Fear Spirune, this is very bad. So Kohaku ends up thinking everyone is lying and takes out her Soma to make Peridot step away from her so she can run, which she successfully does. Taking advantage of this, Shing, Hisui and Beryl fight Peridot and win. She realizes she'll get demoted if her captain finds out she lost to them, so she asks them to forget about this and runs away.
Now that that's done they go to get Kohaku...but the rock bridge leading to where she is crumbles! ...Which is bad because of she can only feel Kindness, Fear and Doubt. But where Kohaku is starts to crumble, so Shing decides to jump over to where she is, trying to get her to believe in him through his actions (since by jumping over there, his life is in as much danger as hers is). After this and taking to her, Kohaku finally believes him. They jump together to the other side, where they realize Kohaku has her Trust Spirune back. Finally a positive emotion! Hopefully that and Kindness balances out Fear and Doubt. Anyway, Kohaku's hungry now so it's time to go back to the inn and eat!
Anyway, back at town, they figure out their next destination with the help of Chen and Kohaku's guiding light: the central continent, Auldomaine, where Capital Estrega of the Max Empire that controls the entire world is located. They can take a boat to there from the port south of the town they're in, so they do that. Beryl rejoins the party there (she left while they were in town), saying that she's going to use Shing and the others in her painting since she changed the theme from heroism to adventure, and they seem like they'll be on one.
When the boat ride is done, they arrive at a town with hot springs. After a while of questioning by Shing and Hisui, they find out that the Shyness Spirune was here...but the Knights took it. And said Knights are in the hot springs where Kohaku and Beryl are! So Shing runs over there and rushes in without thinking, whoops. But yes, the Knights were there. And by Knights, I mean Chalcedony and Peridot. Unfortunately, they still can't take Chalcedony, so they (plus newcomer Byrocks) end up leaving with Kohaku's Shyness Spirune to go to the Capital.
But before that, they end up hurting Hisui, so they get him to a cold spring to cool his head off. There they see Fruelle, spirits that respond to a person's Spiria and Innes, who wants them to deliver a letter to the handyman Garnet. Since she's willing to them to tell them a shortcut to the Capital, where they need to stop Chalcedony and the others from reaching, they agree to deliver the letter. This shortcut turns out to be the Andale Tunnel, which is dangerous but a shortcut nonetheless. (Also, this is around where a weird talking raccoon thing called Windam gives them a Sorcerer's Ring, a staple in Tales games.)
So they managed to get through the tunnel and catch up to Chalcedony and his group. Shing wants him to give Kohaku's Spirune back, saying that “If a man can’t give a smile back to the girl in front of him, then there’s no way he should be able to save the world!”. Unfortunately, this triggers Chalcedony's anger button, so he ends up fighting them. Assuming they lost, Chalcedony and the others leave so they'll make it in time for the meeting. Shing picks up a scarlet pendant on the ground after the battle. Then the party chases after them to the Imperial Capital, Estrega.
At Estrega, they meet up with Chalcedony again, but when Shing stops Cal (writing out Chalcedony all the time is hard okay) from attacking some annoying Imperial Soldiers, Cal knocks him down with his aura and captures him with the help of other Knights. He is brought to Pastor Labrado Arkham, who recognizes Shing's Soma as Zex's and therefore possibly one of his relatives. They talk for a while, but are interrupted by Major Grossular and General Cornelvin.
Listening to their conversation regarding politics and how to deal with Despir Sickness, Shing speaks out his mind, saying that he can't leave Kohaku and Despir Sickness in the hands of these people who are so disconnected from the people. He gets punched for it. Later on, Chalcedony calls him a child for it, but says that he'll show him that he'll be the one to stop Despir. But enough about that. Shing gives Chalcedony back the scarlet pendant once he finds out it's his, saying that he's not childish enough to keep it as revenge since losing something precious is sad for everyone.
While this is happening, Kohaku, Hisui and Beryl find Garnet and give him the letter from Innes. He agrees to take them inside the church if they can bring him the two Soma being used for rituals in the church. To do this, he pretends to be donating Beryl and Hisui's Soma and tells them that Kohaku, Hisui and Beryl are his nieces and nephew. This works, and they successfully recover Shing's Soma, Kohaku's Spirune, and Shing himself. Kohaku gets back her Shyness Spirune. This time however, Kohaku's guiding light causes a lot of trouble, as it makes Arkham realize she's Iola's daughter and so must be captured. And since Arkham wants to capture her, so do Grossular and Cornelvin. They manage to escape with the help of Innes.
At this point, Innes joins the party, citing that they need to pay for the goods they damaged when they escaped from the church. Shing's newfound information and Kohaku's guiding light points them to Shalrowe, a summer resort located northeast from the capital. Turns out that yes, this town has been affected by Kohaku's Spirune. Her Sadness Spirune, to be exact. There they meet the unaffected Marin, who points them to Smithona, a former imperial painter that Beryl admires, when they ask her who the saddest person in town is (since he or she's the most likely to have Kohaku's Spirune). Oh, and Innes delivers her a package. Who knows what's up with that.
Anyway, they Link with Smithona, but it turns out he isn't the person they're looking for. (Poor Beryl also pretty much has her image shattered of him, especially since she really liked his paintings, in the process.) Marin then tells them that maybe they're looking for Cassidy, a maid who closed off her Spiria due to the sadness she felt upon losing her fiancée. They Spirlink her too, but she isn't the one either. They do find out that Marin is her master, and that she thinks of Marin as the loneliest person in the world. They put two and two and figure out that Marin's the one with Kohaku's Spirune. It also helps that she walks by basically announcing her plan to open the Odette Sluice. If she does this, then the City will sink to the bottom of Marlow Lake. They can't let her do this, so they follow her.
Marin's opened the sluice, gave her “so lonely” speech and jumps into the water. Shing jumps after her, and Innes closes the gate with her superhuman strength. The party finds Shing and Marin washed up nearby. So they Link with her and finally get the Sadness Spirune, which they return to Kohaku. Afterward, they convince Marin that people would be sad that she died and stuff like that. They return to the city together, where Shing finds out Marin has someone she loves and shows just how corny he can be to encourage her to talk to him.
After talking to Innes and hearing about odd things happening in Yuraio, the party decides to make that their new destination.
(Also, if it wasn't obvious already, a scene between her and Chalcedony shows that Marin is Lady Paraiba Marin de Rey, the empress of the powerful Max Empire. And that Cal is now pissed because Shing hit her while trying to snap her out of her sadness.)
At Raio, they find that no one is leaving because they all want to participate in the Raio Grand Prix due to the influence of Kohaku's Spirune. This Grand Prix is a battle to decide the world's greatest hero, with a hundred million gald at stake. And it turns out the trophy has Kohaku's Spirune on it! While Hisui suggests just stealing it while no one's looking, Shing insists on entering and winning it properly. Hisui and Shing then have an argument over this, which ends with Shing hitting Hisui. Because of this, things are...strained between them, so they end up entering as part of different teams. (I'll assume Shing has partnered with Innes for this part.)
Lala, stuff happens, some guy hits on Kohaku, and the party goes to Kings Cross for the finals. There, Hisui and Shing, due to someone's stink bomb, are about to be eaten by some monsters...which fires up Kohaku enough to beat the crap out of the monsters. Return of the Courage Spirune! This makes Shing and Hisui realize they're both being very stubborn and make peace with each other. But this means Kohaku wins the tournament...and Innes is now broke since she bet all her savings on either Hisui or Shing to win, whoops. But wait! Since Kohaku was registered after the deadline, her win is voic and therefore, there is no winner for this tournament! Which is lucky for Beryl, since she bet that would happen.
Anyway, time for some downtime since Kohaku's really tired after using her Soma with an incomplete Spirune. Turns out the hotel is booked except for the most expensive suites, so they use the money Beryl won to pay for it, which pisses her off mostly because Shing keeps going Kohaku this and Kohaku that. So to appease her, he goes with her when she goes out to sketch the arena.
Their visit to the arena turns out not to be peaceful at all with the entrance of Incarose. She definitely knows how to push Shing's anger buttons, and attacks Beryl to try to rile him up enough for...something to happen. Aura appears again, but Beryl wakes up, stopping him from going on a rampage. Stuff happens, they find out that General Cornelvin has one of Kohaku's Spirune's. So they use the airship of the guy who nearly killed Hisui and Shing earlier to reach the Rignatol Garrison, where the general has gone. But they, minus Innes, all get captured and have their Soma taken away.
Blahblah, Cornelvin shows them the remains of a mechanical human from the Stone Age and is called away. Innes manages to get back everyone's Soma and find them so they can have it back. When they find Cornelvin again, they also find machines made to possess humans with Zerom. Cornelvin says this is to make the perfect soldier, goes nuts, etc.
After fighting him and getting Kohaku's Anger Spirune, but violent stuff happens which prevents them from giving it back to Kohaku. When a soldier attacks Kohaku, the mechanical human, a Quartzite relic, awakens and defeats the enemies around. The party minus Kohaku and Innes takes this chance to flee to the capital. Unbeknownst to them, the robo-- mechanical doll is trying to track them down too for some reason. He catches up to them and introduces himself as Kunzite, and since he saves someone who they're travelling with and can use Soma, Shing decides to accept him as a comrade. But after Kunzite gets all the information he leaves, he insults everyone and leaves the party to go to the capital by himself. Ouch.
Insert scene showing that Paraiba is a puppet of the Church and military.
Anyway, Innes and Kohaku arrive at the spot where the party planned to meet (where they delivered Innes' letter to Garnet). Innes her Kohaku's Spirune, but she didn't give it back to her yet. Cal and his squad find them, but Shing and the rest of the party make it on time to get between them and Innes and Kohaku. And then Marin, I mean Paraiba, shows up! Cal has a bit of a breakdown since he wants to protect Paraiba but she's rejecting what he's becoming. Byrock Spirlinks with him, and the party follows.
Enter Kunzite, who has followed them since he sensed Lithia's artes. Turns out that he didn't know Kohaku, Lithia's vessel, had her Spirune broken. Hisui lies to him about Shing's involvement to get him to help out against Byrocks, who fighs them so they can't take Kohaku's Dream Spirune from Cal.
Battle times happen, but Dream Spirune Cal kicks them out of his Spirmaze. Kunzite then returns Kohaku's Anger Spirune to her. Oh, and since Cal hurt Paraiba during his rage earlier, he's being arrested by the military, but Byrocks refuses to let this happen and runs off with him. But because of Cal's high position, a war starts brewing even more between the church and military. It doesn't help that Cal and Byrocks has escaped the city. With the help of Garnet, the party escapes the city too through the sewers. (By the way, there's warrants out for all them now. Nice.)
Oh, and we learn Garnet is in cahoots with Incarose and Grossular. Not good.
In the sewers, Kunzite hears from Shing that he was the one who broke Kohaku's Spirune where Lithia was sleeping in. So he tries to kill him. To stop him, Kohaku finally tells all about what exactly her relationship with Lithia is. What does she say? Well, this: “Lithia has a special power that’s separate from mine. She was the one who asked me to stop Despir Disease-the Zerom contamination, so I went on a journey. But she had a terrible enemy, the sorceress Incarose… If it looked like I was going to be caught by her… I promised that I’d hide my Spirune inside her and scatter the pieces so she could escape.”
Why is Lithia so important? It's because she's one who can seal away the Zerom by controlling them at will, and the Spiria of the ancient being who invented Zerom. And why didn't Kohaku tell us this before? Well, before she couldn't really talk due to her broken Spirune, but when she started getting them back, she couldn't help but wonder if Shing hated her for all this...which really scared her to the point where she couldn't being herself to say.
Because of this explanation, Kunzite decides this means he needs to prioritize recovering Lady Lithia's vessel Kohaku's Spirune and eliminating her enemies. Robot party member get (again)! Time to continue on with their journey.
To reach Pransule, they decide to pass through the dangerous Shahera Desert. Sandworms happen, and the party is separated. While separated from the others, Kohaku tells Shing more about Lithia, and how she's been with her since she was born. In fact, Lithia has been hiding in people's Spirmazes for over two thousand years to avoid those who want her power. According to Kohaku when asked if they can seal off the Zerom upon collecting all of the Spirunes, “No… As she’s hiding, the power to seal off Zerom is… already at its limit. When we wake up Lithia’s real body which is sleeping somewhere, then for the first time, Zerom would be completely sealed away… For that, we started our journey… It was my promise to her to take her “there”. So yes, they need to revive Lithia's real body to be able to seal away the Zerom. Shing then makes a promise with Kohaku to revive her and Lithia and seal away the Zerom.
Anyway, Kohaku and Shing make it out of the sandstorm, but they find out that Kohaku's Spirune is inside the sandworm! So they get it back and Kohaku starts crying...tears of joy because she's happy everyone's safe. Turns out it was the Happiness Spirune! ...No, seriously. More positive emotions get!
Next up is the Lazine Cave! They meet up with the people the were traveling with to the capital after the Garrison incident and rescue them from soldiers and church believers With the help of these people, they manage to sneak into the Holy City Pransule by pretending to be their employees. There, Peridot plays dirty again and then challenges the party to a battle. If they win, they get one of Kohaku's Spirunes back. But if she (well, she, Cal and Byrocks) wins, they have to make the secret of the Spirune public. So Shing accepts and the party ends up fighting Cal's squad.
They win, and Cal returns the Dream Spirune, except Byrocks takes it from him before he can give it. And then Pastor Labrado Arkham appears yet again...to drop the party into a pit. Seriously. But they make it back up anyway. None of this was part of Cal's plan. Arkham just wants Lithia's power and Byrocks cooperated so he can prove Cal's innocence.
--But suddenly, the war against the military and the church starts! Cal gets Byrocks to return Kohaku her Dream Spirune. And since they can't just ignore the military attacking the city (some vengeful heretic opened the gate), the party helps out Cal and his squad evacuate the civilians. Four of the children haven't returned to the orphanage though, so the party plus Cal goes to look for them, leaving Byrocks and Peridot to guard the gate.
They manage to find the children (one is at the clinic and another at a beach to pray for the one at the clinic), but things aren't going well for Arkham, so he tries to surrender. The soldiers suddenly calcified for some reason. But enough about that, they need to escape the city! Before that, they go to warn Cal so he can run away too. Except Cal's willing to give himself up to the army to make up for hurting Paraiba, and no one can convince him otherwise.
Afterward, the party learns from Kunzite that calcification happens to people who have their entire Spiria eaten by Zerom. To stop this, they need to look for Lithia's real body in the Forest of Thorns. If she returns to her body, then her real power can be resurrected, allowing her to seal away the Zerom. So now they're off to find the last Spirune fragment and revive Lithia...except it's in the southwest sea!?
The orphanage helps the party escape the city and make their way to the Western Marquis Harbor. Garnet offers to take them to their destination on boat, so they go off to look for the goods he wants and leave Innes and Kohaku to tell him where they need to go. But turns out that was only to get them out of the way! The party hurries back once they realize Kohaku's really scared through their Soma Link.
Turns out that Garnet's the Imperial Army Special Corps Soma Platoon Commander, Isaac Silver...and Innes is his major! To get Kohaku to cooperate with them, they decide to take the party as prisoners, but after Shing refuses to work with them when asked, Silver orders Innes and Strigau (another member of his group) to kill Shing, but Beryl teleports them away, minus Kohaku who was captured. Innes chases after them, but after Shing shows her the POWEEEER OF FRIIIIIENDSHIIIIP and tells her that he doesn't think she's a bad person and etc., she relents and stops trying to kill him. Innes wanted Lithia's power for Silver's sake since she's in love with him and wants to help him and all, but with Shing's speech, she decides to tell him her feelings.
Now that everyone's Soma Links have been strengthened by getting over this ordeal, they go to get Kohaku back. Innes tells them that Kohaku’s being taken to the Special Corps Base on an isolated island called Nibelg. So first off, they get the captain that ferried them across the sea last time, Sango, to see Chen in Henzella so they can negotiate with him to get him, a supplier to the Special Corps, to get into Nibelg some other way. Their negotiation is successful, so they use one of his supply ships to reach the island. They fake being dead so they don't sense their presence, so the soldiers don't notice them and inadvertently allow them to infiltrate the base. In the meantime, Strigau tortures Kohaku in an attempt to get her to tell them the location of the last Spirune.
Shing and the others manage to make their way to where Kohaku is and find Strigau beating her, which makes Shing's aura of purple rage show up again. Kunzite hits Strigau though, which makes Shing's aura disappear. But Shing's acting weirder than usual, wanting to crush all the soldiers. Anyway, Kohaku tells them that Silver has her Spirune, so they go after him. And yes, Kohaku's still able to fight after that. She has an extremely strong will, remember?
Anyway, they made their way to a room that has a Mother Zerom, which gives birth to other Zerom, along with the entrance to the Forest of Thorns. Silver confirms this, and tells them that the Quartz are people of another world with crystal bodies that ruled this world in the Stone Age, and that the Quartz Lithia can control Zerom, Soma, and mechanical humans with her power. He also attacks Incarose, not trusting her. And then he fuses with Mother Zerom and attacks the party after reminiscing about the past with Innes.
The party defeats him, and he starts calcifying, which he thought only happened to people with weak Spiria. Kunzite corrects him though, saying that Zerom are made to eat any Spiria, strong or weak. Incarose then takes this time to attack, but Silver protects Innes with his body, saying how he wasn't able to protect his wife and daughter and how he regrets his existence. Soon enough, Kohaku's last Spirune manifests and Silver apologizes for his actions. When he does this, suddenly the Zerom fusion and calcification stop. He then returns the Spirune to Kohaku.
...And then Incarose stabs him in the back. He dies after telling Innes to take care of Lapis, his daughter, for him. Shing's aura of rage shows up again and blows everyone away. He then fights Incarose, who keeps taunting him and making his aura larger and larger... He manages to land a critical blow to Incarose in this state, after which they learn from Kunzite that Incarose is a mechanoid.
Kohaku has her Love Spirune returned, and now her Spirune is whole! But now Kohaku is scared of Shing after something Lithia has told her...Shing is Creed Graphite! Shing, or rather Creed, then takes out the entire party. Incarose wakes up and reports to him, her master. Kohaku then tells the party who Creed is, the Scarlet-Haired Devil who captured Lithia and tried to destroy the world.
Creed demands that Lithia show herself, which she does by possessing Kohaku after he starts hurting the rest of the party. He then orders her to open the door to the Forest of Thorns. She refuses and goes away, but to avoid having Hisui hurt more too, Kohaku panics and opens the gate. Since Kohaku can use Lithia's power though, Creed doesn't need Lithia. So he takes Kohaku with him to the Forest of Thorns, which is actually the Crystal Palace Cendrillion. There, he wakes up the irritating mechanoid Corundum and decides to “settle things” with Lithia while Croaseraph is revived.
Back to where Hisui, Beryl, Innes, and Kunzite are. Hisui manages to heal everyone and they follow Creed and Kohaku through the portal they used to go to Cendrillion. Kunzite says they need to hurry or else something will be released that can destroy the world. Unfortunately, they get captured.
In another room, Creed returns Lithia to her original body. He then tries to get her to cooperate by threatening to hurt Kohaku, but Shing manages to wrest away some control away from him temporarily, telling Kohaku to run and that he'll protect her. This makes Creed decide to stab himself right before he returns to his original body, leaving Shing to bleed. This is when the other members of the party arrive. Creed orders Incarose to attack them.
Afterward, Creed starts to attack the already injured Shing with one of his beams, which makes Kohaku panic and Soma Link with Lithia so she can activate Cendrillion. The rest of the team escape using an arte, but Kunzite stays behind so he can use his self-destruct mechanism...only to be stopped by another mechanoid, Croaseraph.
Time for party control again! Innes leaves to take care of Lapis, Lithia's freaking over the activation of the Cendrillion, and Kohaku's freaking out over Shing. Hisui manages to get Kohaku and Lithia moving though.
At the Nibelg Docks, they see the rebirth of the Great Winged Whale. Yup, that's Cendrillion. The island's shattered as it takes off, and the party is sent into the sea. Shing, Hisui, and Lithia get washed up on shore somewhere, Lithia having rescued the other two. They make their way back to Henzella (and fight an actual Zerom in the process), where they find Innes.
When they get there, Lithia finally explains a little about what's going on. Lithia herself is the last of the of the Quartz race of the planet Quartzia (which can be found in their world's, Celirand's, sky as the white moon), a highly technologically advanced planet with access to mind artes. Unfortunately, they also warred a lot, which was what led to the creation of Zerom as weapons. But not everyone liked the wars, like Lithia, her sister Flora, and (surprise!) Creed. Flora created the Soma as part of their idealist view that they can stop the war. With that same train of thought, Creed created the Queen Zerom, otherwise knows as Gardenia, the black moon that they can see in the sky. Gardenia was made to suck out only the Spiria of the warring Quartz, but it ended up sucking pretty much everyone up except for Lithia. Since losing your Spiria for any reason means the body undergoes calcification, that's why Quartzia now appears white. Also, Cendrillion didn't create the Zerom, it was what sealed Creed, Lithia and Gardenia. But even with their bodies sealed away, they fought over Gardenia's seal in the Spiria of their vessels. Lithia wants to prevent Gardenia's seal from being broken, but Creed wants to restart Gardenia since he thinks it would revive Flora and Quartzia. Lithia tells them that they must stop this!
Buuut Shing and Hisui don't want to get involved, since she and Creed are basically behind all the reasons why their lives are so crappy right now. It doesn't help that she tried to kill Kohaku, reasoning that she can't let Creed get his way. The only reason she didn't was because Kunzite stopped her. And yet she still wants their help to stop Creed.
So then they leave Innes and Lithia in Henzella and go to find Kohaku using the Soma Link. They head south on ship and end up in a village named Riev. There they find Beryl, who leads them to Kohaku and the doctor, Tecta, who was taking care of her. Hisui and Shing then take this time to tell them what Lithia told them earlier, and how they decided it's not their problem. Kohaku is definitely not happy about this since she wants to help Lithia and keep the world from calcifying, which puts her at odds with Shing, who doesn't want to have anything to do with Quartzia anymore. Anyway, Tecta releases Kohaku from the clinic, but with a catch: he wants them to check on the Spiria of an old man living in this village named Zirconia. He's been muttering “Creed Graphite” for the past seventeen years. Interesting...
By Spirlinking with him, they find out Zirconia was the previous Emperor and Creed's former vessel. He's also related to Tecta (son) and Paraiba (grandniece). They learn that Zex, Dona (Shing's mother), Iola (Kohaku and Hisui's mother, also Lithia's vessel), Labrado (Cal's father) and Tecta were present with the fight with Creed that time. Dona and Iola were pregnant with Shing and Kohaku at the time, and due to the damage Iola and Zirconia sustained, Lithia and Creed ended up being transferred to Kohaku and Shing. Because of this, Zirconia's Spiria broke, rendering him unable to much of anything except repeat “Creed Graphite” over and over.
After hearing this, Shing is very, very angry because Zex and Dona never ever told him about this. In fact, he's wondering why they didn't just kill him so none of this would have ever happened. He then runs off, still hotheaded, so Kohaku runs after him. When she finds him, he's beating himself up for being weak and not keeping his promise to Zex to raise a strong Spiria. As he angsts, his power starts raging out of control, but Kohaku tells him that it's good that he's alive, thanking Dona and Zex for letting him live so they can meet, and him for returning all her Spirunes. Thankfully, Kohaku's talk with him gives Shing the will to stop Creed. Which is good, because Creed just announced to the world that he's dumped a million and a half Zerom on them.
So now the party eventually reunites with a new mission: find their way to Cendrillion and stop Creed's ambitions. Which is going to be kind of hard since Cendrillion's now a giant flying whale. They try to see Ahmeth since he has access to an airship (on the way Croaseraph injures Kohaku which delays them since they need to regroup in Brange, Beryl's hometown), but it turns out his airship was confiscated by the military. They go to the nearest base and take it. Off to Cendrillion they go! ...Except Creed sends the airship flying when he sees them. They're only saved due to Lithia and her artes.
Time for another plan! They can try to Spirlink with Cendrillion's pseudo Spiria and try to get it to land, but due to the artes she used earlier, Lithia's too weak and needs the help of more Soma users. Since the only Soma users around now are Crystal Knights, they go to the Imperial Capital to seek assistance. There they find an injured Peridot. Turns out that Cal and Byrocks are in prison. So they sneak in, but Chal's not leaving because his fellow Knights are here too. So the party ends up breaking Byrocks and the rest out! But it turns out Cal's going to be executed! But they save Cal, lala insert typical uplifting protagonist speech here, and manage to convince him to join their cause.
But even with them on their side, the party is short around ten Soma users. Lithia suggests going to Norquin, the Hearts siblings' hometown, which they're not happy about. Why? Because it is protected by a special barrier generated by a psistone that has power equal to ten Soma users. So they go there, but Hisui and Kohaku's Aunt Sheila doesn't approve of their adventure, so they toss everyone except Kohaku and Hisui in jail. But the siblings break them out and the party leaves for Cendrillion, leaving Cal, Byrocks and Peridot behind so they can power the psistone.
Soon enough they manage to reach the Cendrillion's Spiria, where they find Flora's dying message, where she asks whoever sees it to stop Gardenia. With it, she also leaves a data psistone containing information about how Soma and Gardenia are created. But then crazy guy Strigau attacks! However, defeating him takes enough time for the Soma Link road to start shrinking, so they run out of there. Unfortunately, Lithia, Cal, Byrocks and Peridot are exhausted along with all the power of the psistone. Zeroms then end up invading the village, which they then fight off. This wins them the trust of Sheila, which is always good.
Unfortunately, Creed just activated Gardenia and they're still not on Cendrillion. Fortunately, Kunzite thinks of using Cal's Soma Warheit and make it evolve into a bigger flying machine using a monster's flare horn and a Zerom stone. And Cal just so happens to have a Zerom stone. You see, it's in a pendant that Paraiba gave him...except he tried to give it back to her during his execution. Whoops. Time to head back to the capital!
...Except it's been calcified. And it turns out Paraiba has been merged with a Zerom and that Grossular and Arkham have been trasnformed into...something. Cal's able to free Paraiba with the power of looooove and gets the pendant back from her. She then announces to the world that it's time to unite and protect the world from Gardenia.
Now that that's done, they go to Bamel Volcano for the other item on their list. Shing's party and Cal's squad get separated, but Shing and the others are able to get the fire arm. Cal reunites with them alone though... Peridot and Byrocks sacrificed themselves to stop Incarose from chasing them. But with the pendant and the horn (and a hug from Kohaku everyone's bonds), they evolve Cal's Soma and drop him off at a town named Guse before flying off to Cendrillion.
They reach the observation point Rapunzel, but Corundum, Creed's last mechanoid, blocks the way. But they manage to talk her into helping them out instead of Creed though, so she goes to get the teleport to Gardenia up in running. While she sets it up, Kohaku, Shing and Beryl have an adorable moment of friendship and what is totally a love triangle before Beryl leaves them be so they can have a cute moment together alone (that everyone totally spies on).
Final battle time! After a while of puzzle solving and reminiscing and battling, the party manages to reach Gardenia's core. Looks like Creed's trying to revive Gardenia and Flora's trying to stop him! On top of that, the party tries to tell him that awakening Gardenia is a Very Bad Idea, but well, he's the last boss for a reason. It doesn't help that Flora calcifies mid-conversation. So an angry Creed polymerizes fuses with Gardenia so he can hack the system and return Flora's Spiria to her. But then he decides this isn't enough and tries to steal Lithia's Spiria. This fails due to the party using their Soma Link's lasers as a barrier. This triggers the boss battle between them and Creed, who wants to consume their power and use it to revive Quartzia to its former glory.
Unsurprisingly, the party wins the battle. Unfortunately, the still-alive Creed has pretty much lost control of Gardenia, which consumes Flora's Spirune again. He...doesn't take this well, and starts breaking down, saying that he can't stop Gardenia anymore. Being a Tales hero in the vein of Lloyd (ANIIIIKIIII), Shing tells Creed that basically, anything's possible with the power of *~FRIENDSHIP AND SPIRIT~*. You can gag now. Which makes him laugh and mock him. Because really, what can he connect to?
...His Spirmaze of course! So they Link with him, see stars that are actually all the consumed souls of the Quartz. Creed decides to show his incredibly questionable fashion face again, saying that hey, time's stopped inside Gardenia so she can still restore Quartzia. Yup, he'll never give them up. Unfortunately for him and everyone, Gardenia doesn't stop and tries to omnomnom on them because Spiria is a delicious part of any good meal. We can't have that, so the party lays the beatdown on Gardenia.
After that's done, everyone -including Creed-- manages to escape Gardenia's Spirmaze, but that doesn't stop it from trying to absorb everything again. To prevent this froom happening, Kohaku and Shing overload Gardenia with light awesome lasers made from their Soma Links, causing to collapse. Shing, being a...well, you know, tries to get Creed to escape with them, but he decides to stay with Flora, saying farewell to him and Lithia.
Back on Cendrillion, Gardenia's destroyed and all, but alas, poor villain. But at least Quartzia will slowly recover since Spirune fragments are returning to it. Who knows how long it takes though. Now that all this is done, Lithia can finally rest in peace. Her final request is for Kunzute to live on as a person. Hisui will have none of that though, so he suggests that she continue to live on by sleeping in Kunzite's Spirmaze, where time would be stopped. However, this means that Kunzite would have to go into hibernation as well. He doesn't mind though, since his own wish is to protect Lithia until he breaks down, awwwww. Since everyone likes this plan, Lithia decides to go along with it, and after all the farewells, Lithia and Kunzite go to sleep...
[character abilities]: To keep this sort, Kohaku uses a Soma called Elrond to fight. Normally it's an anklet she wears on her left leg, but when it's time for battle, it can transform into a baton. Her main way of physically attacking enemies is by kicking them very hard and whacking them with Elrond. When magic is needed, she uses Elrond as a catacyst to cast a variety of spells, mostly fire and healing (though her healing artes pale in comparison to her dear brother's). A list of all artes and spells she's able to use can be found here.
Also, when she has her Soma with her, she's basically Linked to anyone whose Soma she's Linked to before, which means she can feel how they're feeling and have a slight idea of where they're at.
[character personality]:In Tales of Hearts, Kohaku has a particularly powerful Spiria, which you can compare to a heart. Basically, she's strong willed with a weak heart. Sure, anyone might forget this upon seeing her lose all her emotions aside from kindness in the beginning, or even when she regained her feelings of Fear, Doubt and Trust, but once she gets back her Courage Spirune (think something like a heart shard), her tendency to dive into situations to help people just becomes more and more apparent. Just look at when she forced herself to regain her Courage Spirune and consequently kick the ass of any monster trying to eat her brother and boyfriend. She honestly wants to help everyone she can and will never turn down someone who asks for her help or just outright needs it.
Because of this, she tends to be disappointed with people who are apathetic to those who need help, citing that it's not their problem or something like that. No one can ever just be disconnected from the world, especially when something huge is going down. Even when she doesn't completely know what's happening, she just knows she has to do whatever she can to help, which is why it bothers her to see people indifferent to what's happening around them.
While she does have a lot of courage, there's fear there too. She's scared of heights, but she's definitely more afraid of seeing people she cares about get hurt. That's why Creed can so easily get her to use Lithia's power just by threatening to hurt her friends, especially Hisui and Shing. Her panic overrode her common sense, which Creed gleefully took advantage of. And there are times when she'll fear that what they're doing is impossible, but that can be easily remedied by someone who genuinely believes they will succeed against all odds.
Overall, Kohaku's a friend and outgoing person that has no problem with going up to people and just talking to them. She can still be a derp socially though, just not nearly to the same degree as Shing, who's pretty clueless when it comes to slang and how to not be a moment killer. After all, she was raised in an isolated village for many years before she had the chance to leave and travel the world. This is why she says that after the business with Creed, she'll continue to travel the world. There's still many things for her to see, and her curiosity drives her to take in the sights of as much of the world as she can find.
Also, she can be kind of violent at times. Mostly towards her brother when she's being an idiot, but anyone doing something that can be considered pervy towards her can and will mostly likely get hit by one of Kohaku's deadly kicks. And maybe her brother's fists, if he ever comes. She's a kind girl, but she's not about to let that sort of thing fly.
[point in timeline you're picking your character from]: Post-game, but before the actual epilogue.
[journal post]:
I've never really used something like this before, so I apologize beforehand if I do something wrong? I wonder Lithia knows what exactly this does? I can feel that Shing's around, but not exactly where he is... And I haven't noticed Brother, Beryl or Innes around either! That's really rather alarming you know. Really? I thought I would have at least heard Brother's voice by now, since he's not exactly the quiet type when he's worried.
Well, first off, I better find Shing! So, if anyone has happened to see anyone by any of those names, could you please tell me? I'd really appreciate it, thanks!
Oh, and if any of you see this: don't worry! I'm just fine. Nothing's happened, aside from...getting a little sidetracked. I'll get back as soon as I can, okay?
[third person / log sample]:
It was all over now. Using the power of all the bonds they created during their journey, they managed to destroy Gardenia and free the Spiria fragments of the Quartz within. Slowly (maybe even slow enough to take more than a hundred years), but surely, Quartzia would be restored back to normal. And finally, Lithia can rest easy with Kunzite.
Lithia Spodune... She may have been a major cause of this entire mess, but Kohaku Hearts still cared for her. Even something like the threat of Gardenia couldn't erase all the years Lithia has spent with her inside her Spiria. Sure, she hid a lot of information from her, but she had always been there since she was born to talk and listen to her when she had things on her mind. In a way, Lithia was basically her older sister. Or as she should say, she really was. You don't need to be blood related to be siblings, really. All she had to do was remember Chalcedony, Peridot and Byrocks and how they bantered with each other much like how she and Hisui argue. If they weren't siblings in spirit, then who knows what exactly siblings are.
Maybe that means she can consider Innes and Beryl older sisters, too. Shing...well, he's certainly part of their family. Even Hisui admits that now, and he used to be so cross at him when he tried to call him Brother. At least he finally warmed up to him, even if it did take a while. After that rocky first meeting, Kohaku recognized that Shing was definitely someone she could trust, and traveling together only proved that all the more. No normal person would travel around the world and go through all he did just to find and return all the Spirunes of someone he barely knows, even if he did think it was his fault her Spirune shattered. And well, they're friends now, so he's definitely someone she can trust, along with the rest of the party!
...And suddenly she realized that something was off. Blinking, she shook herself out of her reverie and took a good look around her.
A few seconds later, she concluded that she had somehow gotten herself lost in...a city? And a rather odd one at that. The surroundings clearly were not that of Celirand, but really, there was no reason for her to not be there. They've left the Cendrillion quite some time ago, so unless she accidentally got back on the whale and got whisked off somewhere far away, this sudden change in scenery shouldn't even be possible. It's like Beryl used her teleporting arte on her, but she wouldn't use something like that for no reason, and Kohaku would have noticed if there was trouble afoot. That's just something you can't miss. Then again, she didn't notice she was suddenly in another place without knowing how she got there.
Oh dear, her brother was going to freak out once he realizes she wasn't back in Yuraio anymore. Hopefully he didn't cause a scene when he eventually showed up too.
Sighing lightly, she closed her eyes and focused. She felt the weight of her Soma on her left ankle, but what piqued her attention was that someone she knew quite well was around somewhere fairly nearby. And not only that, the feelings she felt through the Link were genuine, definitely not some sort of cheap mimicry. She could even sense the latent power in the warm, earnest feelings she associated with the younger boy and their other friends, the exact kind that allowed all of them to use their Links with each other and the people they've met through their journey to overload Gardenia and free the Quartz Spiria inside. No one, not even geniuses like the Spodune sisters and Creed could do such a thing, that she was sure of. Sure, they could amplify it of course, but not completely mimic it. What worried her was that she could only feel one Link...
--Well, that's still a good start! She opened her eyes and nodded to herself, telling herself to stay calm and just see if anyone can tell her where she or others might be. Better to start looking for her friends now than later!