The Longest Journey
"Plead with me to stay, and I will stay
And be forever yours and only yours."
-Excerpt from Lord Avon's 'I want to be your Canary'
Chapter Six: The Blade of Hearts
Leon sighed and thrust his hands into his pockets, looking briefly back at where Aerith was nodding seriously to Yuffie, telling her that this was the time they had all been waiting so long for, that the keyblade holder had begun to finally move. She'd suspected it, not that long ago, but those suspicions had been confirmed by a series of omens as well as another letter from the King, explaining that two of his vassals would come to visit them. So for some obscure reason, despite Aerith being of higher rank, she had sent Leon to not only deal with those vassals and bring them to her, but to find the Keyblade holder too.
He sometimes just wondered if she really hated walking around that much that she felt the need to corner him into doing it for her. Either way, it wasn't particularly bracing in the air outside and in his short sleeved jacket he decided to enjoy the weather as best he could, without that blip of a cloud hanging over him.
In fact, both girls had started looking a little pale recently, so he reasoned to go down to the small shop that the trio of nephews ran to try and pick up some oranges, which might help boost their immunity to colds and the like. The last thing Leon wanted was to be stuck with ill people, making his own breakfast. The long yawn of incomprehensibility that was 'waking up' made him shiver without meaning to. Leon was the type of man who would burn down the house without intentionally meaning to, when half asleep.
But then, he reasoned, that Aerith was trying to exert some of her old authority again was a heart warming thing indeed and it brought a small smile to his lips. It had been so long since he had seen her stirred close to this kind of excitement over any sort of event and he figured that as such, it would be for the best.
"I don't see him or these vassals anywhere though," he muttered, slouching down just a little as he stood around the side of Cid's trinket shop, a piece of trash skittering past him on an eager breeze.
"Huh, what's that?"
He nearly jumped out of his skin with fright. Nearly. Leon had long since given up jumping around; it did absolutely nothing for his reputation as a cold type of person. Instead, he turned quietly furious eyes on the girl who hung upside down from the guttering of a house, tossing an apple from hand to hand, her black hair swaying with the breeze of the day.
"Nothing."
"Sure it was nothing, it's always nothing. In fact, if you took everything you said at face value, your life would be pretty damn boring, magnolia, and whitewash, dull."
"I get the picture, Yuffie."
"Oh? Well, that's good for you." The apple paused in mid-toss and with an acrobatic sort of shunt, she let go of the guttering with one leg and with the other, flipped out so she landed perfectly on the balls of her feet before him, her yellow scarf settling down around her. "Apple?"
"Did you steal it?"
"By that, do you mean did it somehow find its way into my outstretched hand as I happened to pass the fruit vendor, then, possibly?"
"Yuffie, you have munny…" He sighed.
"I know I do, I also like saving my munny. 'Sides, food should be free; this is sorta a wartime effort, y'know?"
"No, I don't know."
"Do you ever loosen up for more than a moment? Jeez… hey, I caught you, you know."
Leon stiffened, "What?"
The young ninja straightened up and tapped her nose with a finger lifted from the hand that gripped the juicy globe of fruit, her eyes twinkling as if she held the punch line to the best joke in existence. "You know exactly what; don't think I didn't see you looking."
"L-looking?"
"A-huh… are you seriously this dense?"
"I have no idea what you're blathering on about."
Yuffie grinned, that kind of 'cat has claws' grin that made him shiver. "Riiiight… oh hey, so you're looking for a keyblade wielder right."
"The Keyblade master, yes."
"So, what's the blade look like?" She leaned there next to him, biting into the apple and with deliberate and almost insulting slowness, asked atop it, "Like say, a key?"
"Well…" He frowned, "I guess."
"And it could be held by say… anyone but… one who'd be constantly mobbed by heartless, right?"
"Right."
"Maybe even a kid?"
"Maybe… where are you going with this?"
"Use your eyes, Squall," she said, pointing past his nose and to the courtyard where a kid of about thirteen years of age battled away with heartless, a shock of brown hair drifting around face that was pale and sweaty looking, in clothes better suited for island living and in his hands, was a sword shaped in the mimicry of a key.
"…that's Leon," he scowled, stepping out to where the kid was.
She stood with her hands clasped, watching them wander with aloof green eyes, supposing that they had slipped past Leon. But if her hunch was to be correct, then it would be no surprise they slipped under the radar, so she instead had come out to look down and as she did from the balcony above the back streets, she had been greeted with the sight of the court wizard and his knight companion.
For some reason, looking at them made her heart contract and ache sharply, stabbings of old pain that could not be washed away and lifting her hand, she rubbed at the breastbone, willing the pain to vanish, moving to walk down to the back streets where they were bickering over a map still.
The proud knight errant and his mighty magic user…
…the magic burned into her blood by heritage… and who was her knight in shining armour?
"My heart, what will ever heal it," she murmured, pausing by the door into the alleyway. Then looking back into the kitchen that the door was in, the homely little place where she made pancakes and was filled with the sound of Yuffie's laughter, dominated by the non-verbal presence of Leon as he read the papers. There was love in this house, this home away from home.
Nodding to her self, she opened the backdoor and slipped into the back alley, following the wizard and the knight quietly, yet making no attempt to disguise her presence from them; green eyes almost alight in the gloom. As the shorter, duck-like one stopped to argue with the dog-faced knight, she cleared her throat.
"Yaaaargh!" screamed the wizard, jumping into the arms of the taller, dog-faced one.
"Excuse me," she said, trying to soften her voice, "…did the King send you?"
"Did you have to hit him so hard, Squall?"
"That's Leon."
"A-huh, whatever, you really beat him up! I bet you feel proud of yourself, hitting a kid around."
"I just can't take that kind of frustration with you out on you; you're not supposed to hit girls. Oh wait…"
Yuffie scowled at his mocking tone, then blinked and looked back as the boy sprawled on the bed stirred, "Hey, wake up sleepyhead."
"Kairi?" he groaned.
"Kairi? Who's Kairi? I'm the great ninja, Yuffie!" She put her hands on her hips and stepped back from the bed as the boy bolted upright, fear on his face. A gesture of her hands from her hips indicated the room he was in was calm and free of menace, apart from the lump of unresponsive joy that was Leon, making a nice dent slowly in the wall, scowling at the floor.
"Huh? Where's Riku… Kairi?! My world… what happened, what are those creatures?"
"They're called the Heartless, we found you soon after and managed to separate you and the Keyblade," she pointed at the sword, propped against the chest of drawers. "That being near you, it draws them to you."
"Heartless?" He repeated dumbly.
"People, once like you and me, who have lost their hearts to the darkness. Everything left from the hollow form becomes a Heartless. Separated from their selves, all they do is wander aimlessly, searching for another heart to replace their own lost one."
"…" Leon looked to the side at the boy. "I'm Leon."
"Sora," the boy murmured quietly.
"Sora, your world has gone, and probably those you care about with it too."
"…Riku… Kairi…"
"But the sword," he continued, "Will only come to you."
"Why did it choose me?" Sora cried out and Yuffie felt her heart contract with unexpected sympathy.
Leon came close enough to pick up the sword and as he did, it vanished upon contact to reappear in Sora's hand, to which the boy barked in surprise, nearly dropping the blade. "It will always be with you, but… why, why did it choose a boy like you?"
"You mean," Yuffie teased gently, to try and lighten the mood, "Why didn't you get it." She threw Sora a hooded look with a vague little grin teasing her lips, lowering her voice so it was a whisper that Leon could still make out, "He just wants to be a big action man, gets him the ladies don't you know."
"Kisaragi…"
She couldn't help but smile artfully, sitting on the bed next to Sora. "The Heartless," she continued to explain as the Keyblade Master looked upon his weapon in awe, "they consume worlds, seeking the heart of the world. Once that heart is gone, the world dies. But you've been given the power to defeat them, to bring back light."
"Light…"
Her hands trembled, clasped together and her eyes fixed at some point on the floor of her red furnished room, the soft spray of a pink bedspread bowed under her slight weight as she perched there, looking for the right words to explain herself and what she needed them to understand. In turn, the two who had given their names as Donald and Goofy looked right back at her and she felt her toes curl just a little inside her well worn boots. It had been so long since she had commanded such attention.
In the red and black perfectly structured and clasped robe of the Heartcaster, her arms raised to the crowd, her voice filled with authority, kindness and magic.
Now she was too afraid to even let the magic creep back into her voice.
"The King, he came through here, looking for his way," Aerith said softly.
"His way?" asked Goofy, tilting his head so his rather floppy looking hat tilted with it.
"Our world…" she strained herself, trying to fit the words together, the bitterness of raw grief suddenly there and she was amazed to feel her insides go cold. Simply speaking of her old home, her forever home, made her heart die a little more, filled with faces of people she would never see again. "Our world, where the great and wise King Ansem sat in rule, is where it began. A long time ago, he conducted experiments on the darkness, looking for answers in their heartless nothing, and that brought about the destruction of my world. A hollow bastion remains of what it once was, a shade, a remnant of a remnant."
"Ansem the Wise," Donald said thoughtfully, "King Mickey often spoke about him and his research."
"It's our belief that the King left to try and find his research, to try and figure out a way to stop the Heartless from spreading across the worlds. It might not do him any good though, when our world was devoured the pages were scattered, across many worlds…" She frowned, curling her hands tightly together.
"Oh no, we've got to follow him."
"Wait," Goofy said, "What about the Keyblade?"
"The Keyblade, an artefact of great power born from the strength of a heart, from the purity of dreams and wishes and hope." She smiled a little sadly, "The Keyblade master is moving, and it was your Kings wish that you follow the Keyblade master at all times. He is to be your charge… and he is here, somewhere."
"He's here?!"
"…he will bring back the light we have all forgotten…" she breathed quietly, trying to deny the trembling tears in her luminous eyes.
Donald seemed about to say something as the two stood there, watching her well up helplessly, but as he opened his beak to say so, the door slammed open, thrusting him violently to one side.
Aerith jerked her head up at the intrusion, surprised to see Yuffie standing there, her large fuuma shuriken in hand and her stormy eyes filled with worry. One side of her left leg was splashed with a dark, sticky substance. "Yuffie!"
"The Heartless, come on!"
"But…!?"
There was a moment between her outcry and Yuffie snatching her hand up, dragging her from the red trimmed room. She cast one hurried glance back at the two, Goofy attempting to revive the stricken Donald.
"Look for him!" She called back to them.
Turning back to the driven rush into the open streets and relative safety, she was ambushed from one side by a pair of soldier heartless. Yuffie grabbed one by the neck and with a leg coming about for the middle, the striking blow driving it full force through the open door back into the reception area, where it struck the cash register and with a sputter, fizzled out. The other heartless was unlucky enough to discover that unarmed did not mean any less dangerous, the bolt of lightning fizzling from her fingertips as the essence of the darkness that had been a heartless dissipated from Aerith's leg, the small heart spiralling upwards, freed.
Yuffie slammed the main doors open and without another word, she dived out into the main plaza. Then she slowed, catching a glance at the young ninja to see the same horror etched there as Aerith was suppressing from her own features. The vast plaza and the small fountain with the bell relief over it were covered in heartless.
The ninja swallowed and gripped her shuriken, "Aerith…"
"…" She closed her eyes with a soft sigh. "I can take care of it."
"H-huh?"
"Don't you remember the day we met?"
Yuffie's eyes cleared to a pale violet of twilight, looking at her as memories drifted in. Aerith tried to keep thoughts of Tifa from her mind, but that absence from her side felt even more pronounced as she clambered her way onto a small rising strut of the brick wall by their halfway home.
She tilted her face to the sky and then opened her eyes.
A sea of stars swam overhead, each one blinking. She bit her lip and lifted her hands slowly to the sky, palms flat. There was a silence growing around her. But in that silence, she found the music slowly tinkling, the soft notes of a piano as someone played in intense concentration, a perfect melody that she would hum softly to herself, the quiet company of those she loved, and the voiceless feelings. All these things were contained in that perfect stretch of silence as she centred herself and then, closing her eyes to the smallest of slits, so small that her dark eyelashes brushed on her cheeks.
One by one the brightness of the stars began to intensify and then, swirling, that light seemed to be called down towards her. The trails of light were so bright that beside her, despite her mouth hanging a little open, Yuffie was forced to shade her eyes. Spiralling, they suddenly flared into brilliance as they struck with resounding crashes into the heartless, a merciless, heavenly lightning.
Her hands stretched high to the stars, she heard none of the chaos, none of the heat on her face or her clothes, was unaware of how she presented herself, limned in this wonderful, terrifying power and how her hair flowed about her wildly.
There was just Aerith and the magic.
When many minutes had passed, she knew the moment of her brilliance had faded and she opened her eyes, looking down at the cleared plaza, then to Yuffie's face.
Those eyes which changed colour with her moods were filled with emotion, tears streaming down youthful cheeks and chokingly, the Ninja sobbed out, "Aerith."
Her voice was a little tired and a little wistful, "Yuffie."
"You're amazing, you're amazing," Yuffie wept, "W-why didn't you show me sooner? Why? You're so powerful, you're just… you…"
"…because…" Aerith looked back at the stars and reached up for her string necklace, then smiled, "…because I didn't want to be the Heartcaster, I think."
"But why?"
"Because of him."
"I don't understand?"
"I'll explain it all, when they have moved on, I will explain it all, I promise."
The stars twinkled and Aerith smiled sadly, as the magic burned in her blood again.
It was a few hours later that she drew her arms close to herself, watching the young boy and the two emissaries of King Mickey talk together, getting ready for their long journey through the stars. She found herself fixated on the features of Sora, this tender young Keyblade wielder who would create their future and past again, reconstruct it from shards of a reality, and was reminded of Cloud in his bright blue eyes. The same earnest look he would sometimes give her when they were alone, as if he wanted to say so much to her but was as ever completely unsure of what he should say to her.
So she ignored the gooseflesh rising on her bare skin in the warm evening, looking at where Yuffie was joking with Leon, then back to Sora. Eventually the laughter died out into a solemn kind of quiet between them all.
Aerith realised abruptly after a few more moments of this quiet that Leon was looking at her and their faces were turned towards her, as flowers to the light that gave them life. Her voice died before the words even made their way out to be spoken.
"Aerith…" Leon prompted.
"I know," she breathed, the lump in the pit of her stomach tightening. "Sora, come here."
The young boy approached her without any visible sense of disgruntlement, his blue eyes boring into her, his hair a messy colour of burned sugar that was so close to her own hair colour that it made her heart clench each time it beat fast inside her chest. With slow and deliberate motions, she drew out the small pouch of munny and handed it to him, finally looking him back in the eye squarely.
"We don't have much, but what we do have, we're very happy to share it with you."
"Thanks so much, you really don't have to."
"You're right, we don't have to," Aerith smiled a little, "But we want to."
The pouch was gripped, the fingerless glove that Sora wore creaking gently as he did so. "Thanks," he repeated.
"Sora," she watched him as if trying to decide what to say to him, and then settled on, "Be careful out there. You've beaten many heartless, but there are bound to be others stronger, harder to overcome. And most of all, no matter where you go, remember this." Her finger outstretched and poked him gently in the chest.
"My heart?"
"Your heart is what you fill with both light and darkness. But you must also be aware that one may not live without the other. Fill your heart too much with light, and the shadow will grow larger and larger behind it. Everything in measure."
"…I don't understand."
"You will do. And if you should ever lose your light, then keep looking for it, looking for that one thing that means everything to you, or maybe two things, or more. Look for them, for that happiness." She straightened up, her soft brown bangs hanging about her face, "and please take care?"
"And eat cake!" Yuffie chimed in, Leon's hand buffeting her on the shoulder gently, to which she laughed, "But cake is good!"
Sora smiled up at them, gripping the pouch and blade, "Don't worry, we'll do great."
Never before, with that blade over his shoulder and the cocky tilt of his grin, had Sora ever resembled Cloud so much and to some extent, with that absolute determination, Tifa. Aerith was helpless but to smile in return, "I know you will."
And for the first time in a while, she knew she was right.
The clean up of their home had taken a few hours of industrious scrubbing, the hotel reception and green bedroom had been the worst struck by the heartless. Broken windows were magically pieced back together with Merlin's deft hand and long after the helping hands of the friendly locals had retreated back to their own safe homes, did Aerith make cocoa. Leon built the fire up in the small sitting room, with the large and comfortable chairs, three of them all drawn close to the hearth and the firefly globes they used for lighting.
The cocoa in three large mugs on a heavy tray and comfortable thick nightwear on, Aerith came into the room, to where Leon was sat on the edge of his chair and Yuffie curled up, her eyes bright. Both were in their nightclothes, but their weapons so nervously were not far from hand.
Aerith smiled a little to herself and set the tray down, handing out the cocoa to each person and then taking the last, in a pink painted and enamelled mug, for herself. Conscious of spilling it upon herself for it would surely burn her skin, she settled back on her knees on the floor before the fire.
"Aerith," Leon began, but she shook her head.
"I promised."
"…you don't have to…"
"The truth will out." Aerith looked up at the flames, then at Yuffie and Leon, "All of it. The truth that I've kept hidden for so long, and I wonder, if the truth of this story will change things, will change the world we may yet return to."
Yuffie squirmed upright to listen, as with trembling hands Aerith lowered her cocoa, her green eyes soft and highlighted by the crackling, vibrant flames.
"It all began, with a boy called Sephiroth, when I was a young, young girl…"