Author's Note: Welcome one and welcome all. Into the land of Illusion's Heart ye be travelin where not everything is as it seems…unless of course you have read the trilogy which precedes this epic tale. However, let it be known travelers that it is not requirement to read said trilogy since after all, this is a prequel and thus I shall be writing it as if you know nothing of the events that follow. As you may note by the summary Sora will not be the focal point of this story as he had been before but he will still have a main role to play through memories as such. To understand what I mean, read ahead. I hope that many of you will deign this story worthy enough to review as it will be crowning. In either case, for those of you who have read the trilogy that succeeds this then you know what will happen but I believe I still have some surprises. So let's go into this world; a world before Lineage, a world before the Unversed and a world before Onyx. Before Terra, before the Fall, before the Final Battle of Radiant Garden…there was a boy named Gentai Tanaka.

DISCLAIMER: I own nothing to do with Kingdom Hearts, any of its characters, plot, or worlds.

Kingdom Hearts

Illusion's Heart

Prequel to The Existence Trilogy

Ode to the songs and tales we sing

The best are heard of which go in a ring

For these are the tales not often heard

In one loud voice but to the dirt

Of the song that shows of one brave boy

Stuck in the middle of two great ploys

The quest and burden he took was great

But 'twas, alas, what drove him to hate

Of sacrifices sung and battles told

The love that was crushed in his heart did take hold

Of fallen knights and risen masters

It is his tale that foretold the greatest disaster

The soul that shattered, the heart that roamed free

His decisions ruled the fate of these worlds indeed

From darkened land to blackest sea

With pillars of lava and tragedy

This boy fought to prove his strength

And in the end, he reached his length

Of the darkness that ripped the light asunder

At last, he freed it, the darkness gone under

And of the tales that tore them all apart

It all began at illusion's heart

Prologue

Out of Hatred

Through all of history, events can be triggered by one point in time. It could be a point in time that seems so trivial and utterly insignificant and yet, those moments are what can cause deep and profound tragedies. Moments. That's all they are and all they will be. But moments can create times and memories of things that are never believed to have existed until their full brunt is experienced. Such is the same of the tale that is about to be told to you. This was a tale that started seventeen years prior to the events detailed here with an old Order and a weapon known as "Keyblade". However, this story is not that story despite all of its connections. Nor is it the story of six or seven years past. Such a story was circumventing a boy who was flung from his island home and thrust into a new world wielding this mystical Keyblade. His quest, while in grave detail it precedes this story, does not make it an incarnation of this story. Rather it can be seen as a mere predecessor. No, this story is perhaps the most important, for it details the fall of both light and darkness and the rise of something much greater. This story tells the ultimate battle for the realm of light and of all its players. But there was one person who was, above all, perhaps the most important player in this epic tale of drama, justice, and betrayal. His story starts before all of the final events, but after the events that created those moments. His story could be said to start in between because it starts at a time of solace and peace. But his story is what must be told to understand what followed. Therefore it must be told…for to understand the past is to understand the present and shape the future. This is the Tale of Gentai Tanaka.

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The waves were silent, even though they crashed along the shore's edge. The shore itself was motionless, only a faint breeze blowing through its cavernous area. Regardless of that breeze however, it was indeed abandoned. Nothing had approached the shore in six years since two teenagers had sat on this dark meridian, receiving a letter that brought them home. The waves and breeze there would almost affirm that this place had not been disturbed for the better part of a decade. And yet…at the same moment it also felt that its silence and motionlessness was about to be disturbed. A small gust of wind once more came through the area and as its squalls died down a hand broke the surface of the water. The hand wore a black glove, however tattered it had been, and seemed rather bruised and swollen despite its state of nonexistence. The hand grasped around, searching for something…anything, onto which it could grab. Its desperation reached a max and soon, the hand dipped below the surface.

The water was once more still and nothing disturbed but for the discord of ripples that the hand had shot through it. For a moment more, there was no more noise until at last a body broke out upon the dark beach, its soul crying for air as the body slumped onto the sand. With a great heaving effort the body began crawling along the sands edge. Its mind was a mess of jumbled figures and facts. Meaningless to the naked eye and to an existence that could no longer remember who they were. The body finally reached the rock that rested on the beach and slumped itself against it, its robe hanging off in tatters. The chest of the figure was heaving and the form that was sitting there tried to pull itself together despite its broken mind. Piece by piece, the black cloak hanging off of its frame fell off from the saturation of dark water that had surrounded it. The man that sat there, forlorn and broken heaved in large amounts of breath as the rest of his robe was ripped away by the gentle wind, leaving him almost naked on the shore, his back against a rock.

His mind was now racing, his eyes closed against the darkness. Part of his mind begged for the darkness to cleave his soul, the very essence of life, from his body. But the other part refused that very notion and started piecing together everything that swirled around, formlessly, inside of his brain. This was most certainly the dominant force. He remembered everything. He had been dead…broken by crushing darkness. Yet, soon after his untimely demise he had broken out…free at last. And yet, the darkness was overwhelming…he could no longer control it as he once had. So he wandered in the darkness, hiding from its starving eyes, wanting revenge on the one who'd done it all to him. He struggled against the darkness, fought against it until he realized that just as he had done once before…he needed to ally himself with the darkness. And so he did, gaining a new sense of strength and purpose. At last he ripped from the confines of his prison and broke into this place; this barren shore with his mind now complete. Revenge. That was what he sought, the complete and utter destruction of all those in the realm of light. After all, though he did not possess a heart he understood their connections and that because of the one man who stole everything from him, all of them should pay. Suddenly his nose caught onto a scent. It was faint and very old…but still there.

His dry lips that had not been used for nearly seven years cracked into a smile. At last, he had caught on. The object of his revenge had been here. Perhaps it had been rather long ago but alas…he had been here. And there was another scent, a much lighter scent on the shore. The man's smile grew even wider. The tool of his revenge…the one thing that could be used to draw the object out of hiding. As the smile faded from his lips his resolve set into place. He would find this "tool" and then exact his revenge on the one who had taken his life from him. Then he would destroy the worlds…all of them. Some might say his years of wandering the darkness had cracked his mind and his sanity but he thought differently. His mind was cleared now; he saw lucidly. Destruction was fulfillment…destruction was revenge. Why rule a world when it would break under pressure? He had always been the thinker and now he would be the destroyer and the schemer of doom.

He stood up slowly and waved his arm around himself. A black cloak of darkness wound itself around his body: the same garb he had appeared on the beach in, but rather not in tatters. Once the cloak had fully dressed him he grabbed the hood of the cloak and concealed his face and his long bangs. He let out a sigh and held his hand in front of him, willing the power of darkness to return to him. What happened next happened slowly, but it happened surely. A small blossoming portal appeared and started to grow bigger before finally enlarging to the size of his body. With one last glance out of his black hood he looked at the dark beach before turning from it, and striding into the portal which, soon after, winked out of sight.

Author's Note: That, I believe is the first chapter I've ever written without any dialogue and it's my special surprise for posting this earlier...instead I'll save a special chapter for the anniversary. I know, it's slow…but as is my mode, the first chapter is also up. For those of you who have read, you know who this figure is…if you haven't…don't go darting to my other stories. Take this one in stride and it may be more enjoyable. I promise that all will be told in the end. Review on this and the tone poem and what it might all possibly mean.