Kingdom Hearts Anime Mix: Tales of the Final Heart - The Light Arc
Written By Geoffro Madness
Edited by AquaFox
Long ago, our world was united and filled with warm light.
People loved the light and eventually began fighting over it.
Darkness then found its way into people's hearts.
Darkness consumed the hearts and light of the people.
In a flash, darkness spread and the world fell to darkness.
But a glimmer of light remained in the hearts of children.
The children gathered their shimmers of light and recreated the world.
However, the remade world was no longer united.
It was divided into infinitely many smaller worlds like stars in the heavens...
Opening Theme: 'Starry Heavens' from 'Tales of Symphonia'
Yozora o kaeru nagare boshi o ima
Mitsukerare tara nani o inoru darou
Tabitatsu kimi to kawashita yakusoku
Kokoro no naka ni itsumo aru
Nemurenai yoru ni
Kikitai no wa kimi no koe
Asahi ga kuru made
Katari akashita
Tonari de muchuu ni hanasu yokogao wa
Kagayaiteita yone?
Yume o ou kimi to mimamoru boku ni
Onaji hoshi no hikari ga furi sosogu
Furi kaerazu ni aruite hoshii to
Namida koraete miokutta
Yozora o kaeru nagare hoshi o ima
Mitsukerare tara nani o inoru darou
Tabi tatsu kimi to kawashita yakusoku
Kokoro no naka ni itsumo aru
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Prologue: A Beginning to the End of the World
'I've been having these weird thoughts lately...'
'...like, is any of this or real or not?'
These thoughts ran through a young man's head as he continued to fall deeper and deeper into the darkness below.
WORLD: DIVE TO THE HEART
Geoffrey Mac, 17 years old, 5ft 4in tall, short black hair, brown eyes, floated in empty darkness, not knowing what was happening to him.
As he opened his eyes, he noticed that he was floating in midair towards what looked like some sort of platform with a mural-like picture of a girl in a strange pose.
Apparently the girl was dressed in what looked like a Japanese sailor fuku, but with a very short blue skirt with red knee-high boots and long blonde hair tied in twin ponytails that looked like meatballs at first glance. As Geoffrey slowly descended and landed on the platform, he took the time to look around himself.
Apart from the platform that seemed to glow with an unknown source of light, there was nothing but complete darkness everywhere else he looked. It was then Geoffrey heard an unknown female voice speak to him, which made him jump as the voice seemed to come from every direction, but seemed to make him feel relaxed somehow.
"So much to do, so little time..."
Geoffrey jumped in surprise upon hearing the voice that seemed to be coming from every direction. "What the...? Who's there!? Where are you!?" he exclaimed in alarm.
The voice chose to ignore his questioning and continued on with its monologue.
"Take your time, don't be afraid..."
Geoffrey seemed to be losing his patience with his unknown speaker. "Afraid of what?! Care to explain what's going on here?" he demanded in an annoyed yet authorized tone akin to that of a teacher.
And again, he was ignored.
"The door is still shut. Now step forward. Can you do it?"
"Uh, sure..." Geoffrey mumbled to himself as he scratched the back of his head.
As he walked toward the center of the platform, Geoffrey somehow sensed that something seemed to be off here. A voice talking to him. HECK! A voice talking to him in riddles! What else could be weirder than that? Geoffrey soon retracted these thoughts from his mind as soon as he reached the center of the platform, as the soothing female voice called out to him again, and again, it spoke in the same level tone that gave Geoffrey a comforting, yet cold shiver down his spine.
"Power sleeps within you..."
Geoffrey jumped in shock as a short pedestal suddenly appeared to his left, rising out from the platform with what appeared a red shield with a mouse sigil encrested in its center floated above it. This only surprised him for a second as the voice spoke once again immediately afterward.
"If you give it form..."
This time, a short pedestal rose from his right, with what looked like a staff with a blue head that resembled the sigil that the shield had, floating above it. Again, Geoffrey only had a second to take this in as the voice continued its monologue.
"It will give you strength..."
This time a third short pedestal rose from behind Geoffrey, this one bearing a sword with a golden handle that seemed to call out to him, but Geoffrey ignored this as the voice spoke out once more.
"Choose well."
"You want me to choose one of these things? For what?" the raven-haired teen inquired.
"..."
No answer.
Geoffrey sighed in annoyance once more. "Oh, alright, fine. Might as well get this over with. Hmmm... Which to choose... " he pondered as he looked around him at the three objects.
Geoffrey walked over to the shield, which was the closest item, and picked it up. As he did, the voice spoke up and explained the object he now held.
"Power of the guardian. Kindness to aid friends. A shield to repel all. Is this the power you seek?"
Upon hearing the description of possibly giving up an ability to help his friends made the raven-haired teen reconsider his options. " Hm, not sure about this one, maybe that staff over there..."
Geoffrey placed the shield back on its pedestal and walked over the pedestal where the blue-headed staff was. The voice spoke as soon as he picked it up.
"The power of the mystic. Inner strength. A staff of wonder and ruin. Is this the power you seek?"
Now, Geoffrey may be a good all around, but even he can get a bit sadistic upon hearing how much destruction he could cause with this thing. So he answered, "Yup! Now that sounds like me!"
The staff vanished in his hands in a flash of light that gave off a small blue ripple as it disappeared from sight as the voice spoke.
"Your path is set. Now, what will you give up in exchange?"
Now THAT got his attention. "WHAT!? You never said I had to give up something! Just great..."
Geoffrey looked back and forth from the sword and shield thinking hard about what to do. 'The shield protects my friends, so I definitely don't wanna give that up, but what about the sword?' he thought to himself as he walked over to the sword as picked it up in curiosity as the voice spoke again.
"The power of the warrior. Invincible courage. A sword of terrible destruction. You wish to give up this power?"
Now that was a hard one. The staff had been appealing since he heard the 'wonder and ruin' part. But hearing that this sword was capable of 'terrible destruction' was not something he was very keen on. "May be a price to pay to keep the shield around, but yeah, I'll give up this power." 'Geez, now I sound like some bad old poet or something' he then thought to himself as an afterthought.
Just like the staff, the sword vanished in Geoffrey's hands in a flash of light, only this time the ripple of light was a red color instead of blue. As soon as the light vanished the voice spoke.
"You've chosen the power of the mystic. You've given up the power of the warrior. Is this the form you choose?"
If he said no Geoffrey had a feeling he would be forced into a repeat session of choosing the items again, so he quickly made his choice. "Uh, I'm pretty sure I already said that, so yeah, I choose that form." he stated with a slight frown forming on his face as he rolled his eyes.
Upon finishing his statement, all three pedestals collapsed upon themselves and vanished from sight. As Geoffrey looked around himself to see what was happening, the platform began to crumble away at an enormously fast pace. Before he could react, the space beneath his feet disappeared and he fell into the dark abyss below.
As he floated down, Geoffrey took notice of another platform that was rapidly approaching him from the depths of the darkness. This one portrayed a young adult woman in what looked a very old traditional Japanese kimono with waist long bluish black hair holding a wooden sword in both hands. Upon landing on the platform, Geoffrey's right hand flashed in a white light as the blue-headed staff appeared in his right hand as the voice spoke once again.
"You've gained the power to fight."
Geoffrey stared with disbelief at the staff in his right hand. "With a blunt object!?" he couldn't help but blurt out, but decided to take the staff for a test drive anyways. He was amazed at how light the staff was, as he swung it around a few times in an effort to experiment a few katas in which he felt was natural somehow. The voice was apparently impressed, since it soon gave a few words of encouragement.
"Alright! You've got it. Use this power to protect yourself and others."
Geoffrey rolled his eyes again. "One: That's obvious. Two: Why else do you think I chose not to give up the shield? Three: From what?" was his response as he gave an annoyed look (though it was hard to glare at a voice), still trying to figure out where the unknown voice was coming from.
His third inquiry was soon answered when the voice spoke up.
"There will be times when you have to fight. Keep your light burning strong."
As soon as this was being said, several, strange-looking creatures rose up from the platform. They were completely black with big yellow eyes, but they apparently only about a foot and a half tall, so Geoffrey didn't panic.
What made him panic was when the strange creatures began to jump at him different angles.
Reacting on instinct, Geoffrey blocked the oncoming attacks with the staff and countered with a swift left to right horizontal sweep strike right through one of the creatures. As soon as he had struck the creature, it vanished in a puff of black smoke. Geoffrey began to relax as he saw all the other creatures melt away into nothing on the platform. What he didn't notice was that some of the creatures sneaking up from behind him, but the voice seemed to notice as it cried out in warning.
"Watch out!"
Geoffrey spun around just time to see the creatures beginning to attack again.
But then he felt an odd feeling from deep inside himself that seemed to warn him something else from behind. Getting into a defensive sword stance, Geoffrey took a look around him and his jaw dropped upon seeing that he completely surround at all angles by the creatures. It was then that Geoffrey felt another surge of emotion flow through his body, but this one seemed warm and comforting.
The creatures then launched themselves into the air preparing to strike. Geoffrey countered by doing what felt natural and spun on the spot with staff outstretched in front and yelled "FIRE!" As soon as the word left his lips, fire erupted from the staff's head and surrounded Geoffrey in a protective veil for only three seconds, but was enough to repel all the creatures as they were knocked backwards onto the platform.
As soon as they had landed, Geoffrey rushed forward and swiped his staff around in a four hit combo at the closest creature. It vanished in a familiar puff of smoke upon its defeat, but what then surprised Geoffrey was the two different orbs of light that dropped from the creature as soon as it was defeated.
One of the orbs was green and seemed to give him more strength upon touching it. The other orb was yellow and vanished into an invisible pocket that Geoffrey couldn't see as soon as he got close enough to the orb. This lasted only for a brief moment, as Geoffrey then charged at the remaining creatures left and quickly disposed of them with the same moves as before, with the dual orb results.
Upon defeating the last one, the creature, instead of poofing out like the others had, sank into the platform and started to spread a cloak of darkness around itself. This process spread across the whole platform, and Geoffrey panicked upon seeing this and ran for a spot that was unaffected, only to fail as the darkness spread too fast for him to avoid. Soon his feet sank into the darkness, and try as might to crawl back out, Geoffrey was soon enveloped by the darkness.
Upon regaining his senses, Geoffrey found himself lying on his back on another new platform, only this one was different from the previous two. This one had a big sigil engrave upon it in the form of a big heart with some fancy roundabout at the bottom rounding it off.
What got his attention was the brass colored door on the opposite side of the platform. As he walked up to and examined the door, Geoffrey yanked on both handles as hard as he could, but nothing happened.
Upon turning around, he saw a small beam of light shine down onto the platform across from where he stood and saw what looked like a small chest appear where the beam had hit the platform. He approached it cautiously and tapped the staff on its lid twice. The chest then opened up, revealing what looked like a small bottle with a clear green colored liquid inside.
Upon picking it up, the bottle then vanished into the same transparent pocket that the yellow orbs had gone into. Ignoring this, Geoffrey then saw a big brown box appear behind him. He tried to hit it, but only recoiled backwards in confused pain from the impact. Noticing it to be right in front of the door, Geoffrey then decided to push the box into the door, then strike it in an effort to break the door down.
Once he had completed his favorite four-hit combo on the box, it broke apart and vanished. Geoffrey stumbled forward shocked at what just happened and picked up another bottle that had fallen from the box debris, only this one had red liquid inside of it. As soon as this bottle vanished into the pocket, a jar appeared to the right of the door, whose hinges had changed to a golden color upon the box's destruction.
Now this gave Geoffrey an idea to destroy the jar, to see if this would also change the door's color. Upon sending the jar flying into the darkness surrounding the platform, the door then indeed changed color again, to a full complete golden shade. Geoffrey then walked up to it which caused the door to open slowly with a bright light looming from the inside which soon enveloped Geoffrey as he closed his eyes from the brightness.
Geoffrey slowly blinked as his eyes began to adjust to his new surroundings. He noticed that he was a balcony as sorts made of wood that was overlooking an ocean that was built above a beach. He then noticed there were three people standing around the balcony and began to wonder who they were. The voice then spoke out for the first time in a while.
"Hold on. The door won't open just yet. First, tell me more about yourself."
To say Geoffrey was now annoyed was an understatement, and could you blame him?
"Say what?! You make do all those chores and NOW you wanna sit down and talk?!" he exclaimed in both surprise and annoyance, with more of the latter, as he approached the first person he had seen on the balcony. The boy seemed to be around his own age, maybe a year or two younger, and seemed to be quite energetic as he asked a question.
"What are you afraid of?"
Geoffrey thought about it for a minute and said in a confident voice, "I am only afraid of being different from those around me!"
The young boy then responded by saying, "Being different? Is that really so scary?"
This caused Geoffrey to frown and retorted, "Hey! You're the one who asked the question, so don't go and judge me on what I find scary!"'
Upon noticing no response from the boy, Geoffrey then shrugged to himself and walked over to his next conversationist, a girl who looked even younger than the boy and wore a one piece dress that asked a question upon his approach.
"What's most important to you?"
Geoffrey though about this one and responded in the same ego tone as before," I value the friendship I share with my friends above all else!"
The small girl cocked her head slightly to her right responded in the same manner as her friend, "Is friendship such a big deal?"
Now Geoffrey was starting to get really annoyed here, as there two people, KIDS even, that were mocking what he believed in, but shook off the feeling off pounding the girl into next week for he knew it wouldn't be worth the trouble. He then turned around and walked toward the third and last guy of the group, who seemed to be a real beach person as he was fully dressed in beach attire and was crossing a beach ball up and down repeatedly. He too asked a question upon Geoffrey's approach.
"What do you want out of life?"
Geoffrey thought about this one more than the other two for what seemed like an eternity. Not knowing how to answer this one, Geoffrey simply shrugged and responded in an unsure tone, "To broaden my horizons, I guess."
The taller youth responded in the same monotone of his two companions, "To broaden your horizons, huh?"
Geoffrey finally cracked. "YES! That IS what I said! Sheesh, is there an echo around here!? Why are all of you talking like broken robots and radios!?"
It was then that Geoffrey heard the voice speak out once more.
"You are afraid of being different. You want friendship. You want to broaden your horizons. Your adventure begins at midday. Keep a steady pace and you will come through fine."
Geoffrey managed to calm himself down before speaking. "Um, sure... Sounds good to me, I guess..." he said in an unsure tone as he scratched the back of his head again not understanding the significance of what was going on as the voice spoke up again.
"The door you will open the door is both far off and very near."
A bright light obscured his vision once again, and as soon as it had appeared, the light left his eyes and Geoffrey found himself again standing on another platform in the middle of total darkness. This platform had the image of another girl, apparently a teenager with shoulder length blonde hair and welding what looked like a whip with a heart rounding off its end in her right which seemed to have a pink sigil or crest of some kind that looked like a wing.
Upon landing on the platform and not hearing the voice, Geoffrey simply walked around the platform examining it and trying out his new senses to see if the strange creatures would pop out or not.
As soon as he reached the platform's center though, Geoffrey felt his senses tingle and a warning signal flared in his head as he whirled in the direction his senses lead him to in time to see one of the creatures begin to spawn before him. Within seconds, Geoffrey was again surrounded as he pulled out his staff from out of nowhere and got into a defensive stance.
This time though, he made the first move as he made a dive for the nearest creature and swiped at it with a swift LTR strike that he thought he may as well name the move as the Sliding Dash attack. As soon as he had taken out his first target, Geoffrey aimed the staff at the next closest creature and yelled out, "Fire!"
A fireball erupted from the staff's tip and rocketed at the creature, thus causing it to explode upon impact and vanishing in the normal puff of black smoke. Geoffrey then charged at the remaining targets deciding to finish the job the old fashioned way. in the midst of battle, Geoffrey took mental notes as every time he took out one of the creatures, they seemed to always leave behind several orbs of light, both green and yellow, but in different proportions.
He didn't think much of it, but always noticed that he felt better whenever he touched the green orbs and watched in silent amusement as the yellow ones simply vanished into the pocket that he couldn't locate on his person.
Upon defeating the last creature, a bright light shined down from who knows where upon the center of the platform, creating what looked like a ring of white light. Geoffrey walked up to it and slowly stepped inside.
Once inside of the ring, Geoffrey felt his strength being refreshed and increasing back up to its maximum and watched as another beam of light left the ring and headed for the platform's edge, which then caused a string of steps to form, creating a staircase upwards towards yet another platform that slowly appeared forth from the darkness.
Taking a deep breath, Geoffrey ran across the platform and up the staircase, taking care not to look down in case he might see something he didn't want to. Upon arriving on the new platform, Geoffrey noticed it was the same one he had started from, but the light seemed to be even brighter than before. As he turned around, his shadow began to morph, twist and turn, transforming into an easily two or three-story tall black giant monster that was definitely NOT friendly. As the monster took its form, the voice spoke out directing Geoffrey into a battle stance.
"The closer you get to the light, the greater your shadow becomes. But don't be afraid. And don't forget..."
The voice trailed off and he could no longer hear it.
"Forget what?!" was all Geoffrey could ask in an exasperated voice as he dodged a punch the tall monster threw into the ground at him, thus creating a dark vortex that seemed to summon forth the smaller black creatures he had faced earlier.
Noticing the hand to be stuck in the platform while doing this, Geoffrey took the chance to strike several times at the giant's hand while dodging attacks from the smaller creatures. Once the giant had removed its hand out of Geoffrey's striking zone, he quickly turned his attention to quickly dispose of the couple of smaller creatures that had been conjured up.
Once he had dealt with the small fry, Geoffrey turned and saw that the giant had a hand down low that seemed to created a path to the giant's head.
Wasting no time, he jumped on the arm and charged up it to the shoulder and leapt at the monster's head with his staff poised ready for a LTR sweep, he then yelled put, "Take this! Flame Blitz!"
Combining his Sliding Dash with his Fire attack, Geoffrey unleashed a new technique that sent the monster giant roaring in pain as it began to collapse. As it did, the staff vanished from Geoffrey's hand and he had to leap backwards to avoid the monster as it crashed forward onto the platform and caused darkness to spread all over the platform. As Geoffrey panicked and tried to free himself of the darkness that was slowly enveloping him, he heard the voice speak out to him one last time.
"—But don't be afraid. You hold the mightiest weapon of all. So don't forget: You are the one who will open the door."
Just as the darkness had completely enveloped him, Geoffrey finally placed his finger on why the voice sounded so familiar to him.
'...Maia-sensei?'
OOO
OOO===============OOO
OOO
End of Prologue
Author's Note and Disclaimer:
This opening chapter was pretty much ripped straight from the opening sequences of Kingdom Hearts I, but that was pretty much the point. From this point out, the story will mainly follow Geoffrey's journey through my favorite anime worlds, mainly my top 25. Several original Kingdom Hearts characters will be mentioned from time to time, but not for long periods of time until the stories converge at certain crucial points. I don't own the Kingdom Hearts series or any anime/video game/manga/etc that may be mentioned.
Hoped this was enjoyable, and please leave a review! Any comment will be considered no matter how obscure it may be!
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Geoffrey: I have no idea what is goin' on here, but one thing is clear: This is just the beginning! Next time on Kingdom Hearts Anime Mix: Tales of the Final Heart - The Light Arc, Chapter 01: Lasting Eternal Friendships. 'Everything starts here. See ya there!'