This is the end, everyone.
Okay, so because I'm a pretty narcissistic and overly dramatic person, I put together a sort of playlist for this chapter. The first song is "Dominant" by Emilie Autumn, and you can listen to that at your leisure. It can go pretty much anywhere in this chapter. If you type it on youtube, it's the first one that comes up. The second one is a completely and wonderfully epic version of the Other Promise, which, unless you actually bought it, can only be viewed here - www .youtube watch ?v=sNaVMcKLfJA&feature= I recommend starting that one at "And then he remembered…"
The song happened to come on my itunes when I was typing that part and, shit the feels. I had to take a break. So yeah, I'm a little ridiculous. You can do that if you want. Moving on.
Okay, here we go! This is the part where I personally thank every single one of you little Flames that reviewed for me. Thank you to: P5hng-Me-AW'y, WillCosplayForFood, ReliveTheGreat, CoconutMigration, becca670, BornxThroughxSleep, lovelyhellfire, duchess. farfie, AnimositysDaughter, XionAmmy, xXxAxelxRoxasxXx, Takara Yume, Radiant Waterfalls, Tennciel, Lalebis, Clover-x-Charm, Coenum, Riku's my dark prince, StrangeSisters, loveisover, destructivedoll, Madriddler, satori02, Axel Puppy, blood as soft as silk, mikepd, KatzeSchnee, AnElegantCatastrophe, I. Love. Lollipops., Sayonara7, Axel-Got it Memorized, Tierra the Awesome, RainbowNinjaD, Lazy. Elegance, StevieUnderground, Silver-Haired-Theif, bitterbeauty813, Lele-the-Greek-Geek, Tabbi-18, twilighttimefan, KuroChaos01, Eletigalo, Arcadian Rapture, Ewonsama, and midnight. raven. 15. I LOVE EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU FOREVER.
"Easy Demyx… Just remember what we planned," said Zexion. Regardless of entering the battle in the back row, Demyx was clearly struggling with any sort of offensive strategy. But a group of dusks was heading towards them fast, and the pressure was high.
"O-okay," said Demyx quickly. Despite his shaking, he managed to rise up a thick enough cloud of fog to buy Zexion the time he needed to do his part. The dusks were, essentially, disoriented. At least, as disoriented as a dusk could get. It was easy to hear them clanging into each other. But they still hunted by scent, and as such, they were still relatively organized on their approach. That's where Zexion came in.
It took him a while to muster up enough energy to do it, but he did in the end render every single dusk useless. He blanked their senses completely. As of that moment, no dusk within 50 feet of them could see, hear, or smell. And that time, there was a panic. They flailed amongst themselves frantically, knocking into each other and trampling over one another. They even began attacking one another in search of the source.
But that wasn't the end of Zexion's attack. He conjured up one, tiny little ball of light in the darkness. One of course, that only the dusks could see. The effect was immediate. They all stopped dead in their tracks and were tripping over themselves trying to reach the light.
They charged as one giant group—right over the cliff.
Demyx laughed and jumped up and down triumphantly, ready to move on to the next group.
~o~
"Be ready, gents, I'm takin' 'er down!" Cid shouted over the roar of his aircraft's engine.
He pulled his ship down on the southernmost end of the maw, the end that none of the other King's Men had reached just yet. The dusks, however, seemed endless.
"We're ready!" Aladdin called, getting into position to face the wind, Xaldin standing beside him.
"Steady she goes," Cid murmured, preparing to open the hull.
Xaldin managed to steady most of the gusts that blasted through the hull, but the sound was still deafening. Clutching onto either a railing or each other, the two men performed their dual attack, sweeping close to four hundred dusks clean out of the field. They'd be back, in twenty minutes maybe, but the point of the attack was to buy time, and buy time it did.
~o~
"Get out of here!" Neku called angrily, slashing clean through the nearest dusk with an attack pin. "I don't need you here!"
A blast of heat sounded behind him, though he didn't hear it over his headphones. It was the heat that caused him to whip around and see a team of dusks preparing to attack him from behind. At least, they had been. Currently they were being reduced to an odd mix of molten metal and boiled skin. Joshua hovered above, throwing a high intensity flame from a Class A materia pin attached to his chest.
"Of course you do," said Joshua serenely, lowering himself gracefully to the ground. "At least as much as I need you."
In a sweeping motion Neku lifted three dusks into the air at once, and Joshua, in turn, sent a beam of electricity through them. As it turned out, dusks were excellent conductors of electricity. Set one off, and lovely bright blue arcs could travel through as many as twelve.
Neku's lip quirked irritably, but he at least allowed his Pull to indulge in a fist pound. As much as he hated being wrong, it was clear that without using one another for help, neither of them were going to get very far.
~o~
"Lemme up! Lemme up! Get your hands off me, you stupid fucking geezer! I can still fight!" Phil bellowed, struggling against the medical crew trying effortlessly to restrain him.
"Your ankle is shattered, Phil!" Kairi insisted. "If you don't sit down willingly, I will make you sit down and that might hurt you. Don't make me sedate you."
Still grumbling, Phil finally began to move towards one of the smelly, lumpy stretch cots. It was early yet, but there were already four American soldiers in the tent, three of them unconscious and apparently missing limbs. The last one was being examined by Jasmine for head trauma.
"How about you come over here and see me, doll? I betcha I'm a lot more fun than the Yank over there," Phil suggested.
Jasmine, though showing no signs of accepting his invitation, giggled softly. "Just be patient. They're getting ready to come take care of you."
"I don't need taking care of, goddammit!" he roared. "Don't you get it!? I should be out there!"
"And do what, be a useless hindrance to everyone around you!?" Jasmine snapped, for the first time taking on a very harsh, angry tone. "You're nothing but deadweight now! So stay put and let us fix you up! You've done what you can, but now you're just going to have to sit back and do anything you can over here!"
She stormed away, and Phil realized that as a princess, she'd been forced to stay behind against her will, too. He looked around, ashamed of himself. Neither of the older men were looking at him, but Kairi was observing quietly, albeit disdainfully.
"Put me by the window, please," Phil asked quietly.
~o~
Axel was alone. He'd been alone since the battle first started when he and Roxas had been separated. He hadn't seen anyone, friend or foe, aside from those in the endless collection of dusks. After several long minutes of just fighting, fighting, fighting, Axel was beginning to tire and finding it harder and harder to believe that there was a finite number of dusks on the field.
It must have been an hour before he saw it. A flash of black in a flood of silver. It distracted him enough to be knocked over, but the low-ranking dusk that had done it didn't even put a dent in his armor. He sent a wall of fire between the dusks, going in the direction in which he saw the black, and they parted like the red sea for him.
Between the dancing columns of red, orange and yellow, one splash of blue drew his vision from everything else. By the devilish smirk on his permanently marred face, it became perfectly clear to Axel that Saïx was intending to be found by Axel, and by Axel alone.
"Hello, Knuckles," he sneered. "Come to beg for your life?"
"I'm giving you one chance, Saïx!" Axel bellowed. The dusks might have just been foot soldiers, but the humans, the Nobodies, they were to be considered generals. And those of the resistance were expected to show compassion. "Surrender to us, and we can work things out peacefully. You won't be harmed. But if you refuse to retreat, I will kill you, and that is a promise. Look around you! I don't see any moon. You're useless!"
Saïx bared his teeth. "I hope you got a chance to say goodbye to your precious Pull," he snarled, raising his claymore to a battling position. "Prepare to say hello to your precious parents."
And then they sprang. Axel closed off the area in flames so that Saïx had nowhere to run or hide. The blunette ran towards him, his mutilated face twisted in fury as he raised the claymore over his head in preparation to strike. Axel zeroed in on the opening and he took it. He threw one of his chakrams at the exposed midsection area, which Saïx dodged and let it come zooming back.
Cursing, Axel caught the weapon and used the two of them as shields as Saïx brought his weapon crashing down. One of the blades on it cut Axel's pinky, but he took little notice of it. His knuckles were already bruised and bloodied from the battles and Axel certainly wasn't going to let something so trivial as a pinky slow him down.
He shoved Saïx off, reminding himself that he wasn't sparring anymore. Dirty, cheap hits were allowed, and the rules of a fair fight were gone. He was fighting to kill.
Spinning the chakrams between his fingers, Axel ignited them and sent them both flying into Saïx. Throwing both could be a risky move, since it left him virtually defenseless, but it also doubled his chances of getting a hit. And one of them did hit. It cut shallowly through the side of Saïx's gut; he could see the blood spurting out. It also burned. The black fabric melted and became fused to Saïx's flesh. He yelled out harshly but shortly in pain, and he swung at Axel before he could get his wheels back. It cut deeply into his thigh, and it hit a nerve. Axel sunk to the ground.
"How easy your family was to kill," said Saïx, his voice betraying none of the pain he was feeling, if the bastard could feel at all. "Your parents didn't even know what hit him, but your brother," he tsked. "Why, he went down so easily. All I had to do was knock out his Pull, and he practically killed himself. You're weak. All of you. So weak. What have you to live for now?
"When you're dead, I'll welcome death with open arms!" Axel shouted. If what Saïx said was true, and Reno was gone too, Axel was pissed. Hardened with a new thirst for revenge, not a cell in Axel's body stood in favor of showing mercy. A slow, painful death he deserved, and a slow, painful death he would get. "Goodbye."
He snapped his fingers and a giant, blue white flame erupted from the ground, engulfing Saïx in flames. He screamed and screamed and flailed viciously as the flesh melted off his face. Axel sat and watched from the ground, a hard, unchanging expression on his face. If anything was getting to him, it was the smell. But nothing to worry about. When Saïx became ash, the stench would pass.
When Saïx lay unmoving, only then did Axel lift his hand and withdraw the flames. What he left behind was a lumpy mass of black, atop which lie a featureless, lumpy face composed of nothing but blackened muscle, veins, and bubbled, boiled skin. It was nothing like how they showed it in the movies, looking like burning was the equivalent of skinning. They didn't understand that bits of skin would still be there, didn't show that burned flesh could still bleed. Teeth lined what was left of the jaw, blackened and almost reduced to dust.
At last Axel tore his eyes from the remains and covered his leg wound with his palm. It was bleeding. A lot. The cut went through all the layers of his skin, and even the fat layer was exposed. He didn't know much about anatomy, but Axel knew enough to realize that when a wound was that deep, he could die. He would have to step out, at least for a little while, to get his leg bound. He just hoped that Kairi would let him out to fight again.
Keeping the protective ring of fire around him, Axel limped away, leaving Saïx to be buried among the rest of the lost souls.
~o~
Closer to the center of the army, where Xemnas was, the dusks began to get more powerful. Some carried weapons, some were made of weapons. Some could burrow into the ground and ambush from below or even detonate. Some had mechanical wings, and some few were even artificially infused with Jenova cells, aside from the fundamental cell-based core they were made with.
So far, only Cloud had broken through the lower ranking wave of dusks, and he and Leon had lost each other somewhere along the way. It didn't affect Cloud in battle. His Jenova cells were so powerful, he could take down most dusks in only a few hits. The newer dusks, of course, were not so easy to kill, but they still weren't much of a match for Cloud. He swung his colossal sword effortlessly, crunching metal beneath it.
Now there was this one dusk, right, and it was majorly pimped out. It carried six giant lances to be thrown like javelins, and, unbeknownst to Cloud, it would self-destruct on high impact. So, like any good soldier, when his eyes landed on it, he went after it immediately. His buster sword went through all the dusks surrounding it, and though he had to do quite a bit of maneuvering to avoid the lances, he managed to land a deadly blow.
It landed on the ground, and where its "eyes" had been before, the holes were instead emitting a blinking red glow. It hadn't shattered into thousands of pieces and that had Cloud concerned.
Zack knew better. He was well-versed in every class of dusk, and he knew that any second, it would explode. It had its javelin pointed right at Cloud. Vincent saw it too. He shook his head warningly at Zack, but Zack promptly ignored it.
"I'm going in! Bring us out!" he called, already sprinting towards the spikey blonde.
"Cloud! Run!" he shouted, waving his arms like a lunatic. Cloud looked, and Zack could tell he'd immediately figured out what was happening. His eyes went wide, and he began sprinting towards Zack as Zack was him. When they were in close enough vicinity of one another, Vincent's red cloak surrounded them. Or at least, that's how it looked to any normal human being.
As a teleporter, Vincent had to be in many places at once to retrieve any number of other people. The span of his cloak allowed him to pull them into the vortex in much less time than it would take otherwise. This technique had saved Zack's life dozens if not hundreds of times. They whipped away and out of sight, staying just long enough to see the dusk explode and the spears fly everywhere.
The process of moving from one spot to another was much like travelling from Hollow Bastion into the World That Never Was. That was Cloud's first impression, anyway. He couldn't breathe, as though someone had compressed his lungs by means of a very tight corset. Like somebody was shoving him feet first through a wringer. When his feet hit the hard ground, he was in no way prepared. His knees jerked the wrong way slightly, and as a result he crumpled into a heap onto the earth, concerned with nothing more than filling his lungs and clearing his fuzzy, oxygen deprived head.
Vincent had taken them to an area that had already been cleared of dusks, courtesy of Demyx and Zexion. Cloud, however, had no way of knowing that, and being all alone on the edge of a cliff was very confusing and frightening to him.
Zack was not so lucky as to get away with confusion and fear as his only ailments. Out of the four lances the dusk still had on it when it self-destructed, two of them managed to wriggle between Vincent's defenses and hitch a ride into the vortex. They clattered to the ground the second they finished materializing, but it didn't matter. They'd already done their damage.
Vincent had passed out, seemingly. At least, he was on the ground and not moving, but he was breathing and showed no signs of external damage. Cloud took that to be a good sign. His heart plummeted when he spotted Zack, who was also on the ground.
Cloud had never been squeamish about anything in his whole life, but when he saw what had happened to his new companion, his blood ran cold, his palms started shaking, and he thought he might barf up his entire stomach.
Zack lay on the ground, his chest rising and falling rapidly. One of his temples looked like they'd been slashed with a knife—there the spear only grazed him. Blood poured out the wound and down the side of his face, but in reality, it wasn't nearly as bad as it looked. Not bad enough to draw any attention to it anyway. No, not when there was a gaping hole in his chest, the javelin having gone clean through it. It wasn't even poking out. It had actually gone through his chest and out the other side.
As if this were not bad enough, Zack was still conscious. His eyes, which Cloud noticed were precisely the same blue as his own, were wide open and looking all around for someone, or something, that could help. When they fell on Cloud, he closed them briefly, turning them back towards the sky.
"I-it hurts to breathe," he coughed.
Cloud, realizing immediately the urgency of the situation, forced his head to stop spinning long enough to crawl over and get a better look. It was hard to see anything past the pool of deep crimson that'd spread over Zack's chest and onto the ground.
"Then don't talk," Cloud urged. Without thinking, he applied as much pressure to the wound as he could. "What do I do? How do I fix it?"
To his shock and horror, Zack smiled at him. "Can't. Lungs'll start—" a shallow cough, "—fillin up any second. You're gonna… gonna… live. For both of us. My honor… my dreams… they're yours now. S'the least you can do for me—"
"How can you say that?!" Cloud choked, shaking uncontrollably, "When it's all my-my fault?"
With an impressive show of dying strength, Zack hooked his arm around Cloud's neck. It may have been that he was trying to pull him down to whisper in his ear, but simply didn't have the precision. The result was Cloud's forehead falling limply against his chest.
"Not your fault… not… was my choice…" Zack muttered. His eyes were impossibly wide open now, as though keeping them from closing would keep him from dying.
"How are you so okay with this?" Cloud demanded, lifting his head up but not bothering to try and clean the blood off his face and hair.
Zack smiled again. "Easy. I know I picked the right person… to be… my living legacy."
And then he died. Just like that. It didn't help that he was holding his eyes open; his consciousness just melted away whether he was on board with it or not. He stopped blinking. He stopped breathing. His heart stopped beating.
Cloud was panicking. He'd never actually seen someone die before. He'd lost people, sure, and he might have slain Sephiroth like an animal, but that was basically what Sephiroth was anyway. He'd never been forced to literally watch the light leave somebody's eyes as he'd watched the life leave Zack's. He couldn't come to grips with it.
With an angry and frustrated scream, he began to cry. And then he began to fruitlessly yell for help. But nobody was coming, nobody was even within eyesight, not with all this fog. His heart sped up, and his body began acting on autopilot. He hyperventilated until he made himself dizzier than he already was. The smell of blood filled his nose, his eyes clouded up. Was he dying? The thought only made him panic more. He was dying, when Zack had just entrusted him with his own life. He was dying, and nobody was coming to save him, just as he couldn't save Zack. The arms enclosing him could only belong to death…
By the time Leon had pulled Cloud onto his lap, the blonde had passed out from lack of oxygen, or too much oxygen, however the case may have it. Once he verified that Cloud was physically unharmed, Leon help the man close to his body, hopeful that this would be the last time he'd have to comfort a boyfriend over the loss of somebody important. First it was Reno, with Ariel and Eric, then Naminé for Cloud. Zack… they hardly even knew Zack. Leon couldn't stay strong forever. He hoped, for both their sakes, that Roxas would make it out okay.
~o~
The majority of the battle centered around Roxas. Many kinds of dusk, enemies, and friends alike surrounded him. Despite their attempts to flee from him, Roxas had not yet lost sight of the battalion that had first marched out onto the field: Xigbar, Luxord, and the boy in the mask. They all stayed mostly out of battle to protect Xemnas. Saïx was nowhere to be found.
The more Roxas fought to get to them, the farther back they seemed to retreat, but the maw didn't go on forever. A cliff face was approaching, and Roxas wasn't relenting. He was backing them into a corner, heart rate rising, vision clouding at the edges, his body prepared to strike.
That was when they sent out the ranks. The highest class of dusk hung back, protecting Xemnas, while the other three joined the fray, battling people of the King's Men in order to draw them further back. Once out of sight, Roxas didn't see Xigbar or Luxord again.
The one wearing the mask had skin like the Riku Replica's—nonexistent, with the Nobodies' insignia stamped over his chest. It had a Keyblade, like Roxas, so Roxas could only assume that was Vanitas, coming to get him. He feared to see what was under that mask. Did it have a face at all? Or were they identical, it and Roxas, like the Rikus? What if it went for Axel after finishing him off? What if it took his armor? Would Axel be able to figure it out? Sora couldn't. The only solution was to live, for Axel's sake.
Obviously that was easier said than done. The Vanitas hadn't even reached him yet and he could tell that he was outdone in speed and agility. Vanitas zipped between the dusks like they were wooden posts in an obstacle course. Maybe it was because it was on their side and they'd been ordered not to harm it, but they weren't moving out of its way, either. However the case would have it, it was clear that Roxas would have to take it down quickly, before it learned too much about him.
One blade clanged loudly against two as Vanitas launched itself into the air to attempt a downward blow. Roxas blocked it by crossing his Keyblades together. Vanitas was wicked fast, though. It'd lifted its blade and swung it around to the side so quickly that Roxas barely had enough time to duck. Because of his sloppiness, Roxas ended up on the ground. Vanitas was going for another downward blow already. Roxas took the second and a half he had after dodging it to get up and counter the attack. But by the time he'd done so, Vanitas had already turned around and attacked. Their blades clashed again. Roxas would have to change his strategy, and quickly.
The thing about Vanitas was that it didn't bother trying to break Roxas' strength. As soon as Roxas blocked it, it moved on to another strike, giving Roxas no time to do more than dodge or block it again. It was trying to outsmart him, so he, in turn, needed to outsmart it
When Vanitas attacked again, he was ready. Rather than using his regular X, Roxas blocked only with his left blade, and made a strike with his right. The Keyblade cut through its side, but its face betrayed no pain. Roxas didn't take even a second to smile at his victory, he didn't have time to. Vanitas was changing its strategy now, too. Now it was dancing around to try and get behind him. With a sickening smack, its bulky Keyblade struck Roxas in the shoulder. It was his good shoulder, thankfully, and the armor was holding up pretty well, but Vanitas would figure that out before long.
With a kicksweep from the ground, Roxas knocked Vanitas down and started wailing on him. The masked one had its Keyblade up to block him, but after so many blows, eventually its knee gave out, and Roxas could knock the blade away from it. With his Keyblades crossed over its throat, he had Vanitas trapped.
"Surrender," he said darkly. "And I won't kill you."
What a mistake that had been. Roxas had forgotten something, something so very obvious and vital, he wanted to kick himself. Key bearers could summon their blades. Vanitas, newly summoned blade in its hand, stood up and slashed the armor over Roxas' chest. It didn't cut through to the skin, but it did knock the wind clean out of him. He choked on his own breath, his head going foggy.
"Roxas! You must run! A Vanitas is impossible to fight alone!"
Squelch.
Roxas blinked back the spots in his vision just in time to see a thin, simple gunblade go straight through Vanitas. But the attacker had given himself away. Whoever his savior was had put themselves in mortal peril. Roxas could only wait, wide eyed, to see who it was and whether or not they were safe.
Vanitas, upon being skewered, let out a gurgled, furious cry of pain and frustration before sinking to the ground. His blade stayed behind, the first six inches sunken into a time worn, but powerful old man. Said old man didn't seem too fazed. He angrily kicked off Vanitas' mask to reveal a disturbing sight. With a hysterical, maniacal expression of laughter on its face, a golden-eyed, black-haired version of Roxas stared up at them. Its complexion was synthetic and flawless looking, and its hair was much too long and unruly, but it was most certainly Roxas. The blonde cursed at his own naivety. There was no way the organization could have created that thing and not recognized him.
But he couldn't linger on the past now, not with the dire situation of the present. The old man sunk to his knees, grunting quietly in pain and clutching his skin near the sword.
"Ansem!" Roxas called, hurrying over to help him. "God dammit! You stupid old man, why did you do that!?"
"Because," Ansem coughed, "Some things are worth dying for."
Panicking, Roxas shook his head frantically, snarling, "Don't talk like that. You're not going to die. You're not dying on me today, gramps."
"I will if it is my time," said Ansem. "Leave me. There are more important things than my life at stake."
Roxas didn't know that those were the last words he'd ever speak. He didn't know for sure when Ansem lost consciousness, that he'd never get it back. The old man shut his eyes and became still. Maybe Roxas didn't know for sure, but he had a pretty damn good guess.
"Son of a bitch!" he shouted, pounding his fists on the ground, "You're all fucking dead!"
The blonde stood up and charged. He was unstoppable. No one, no dusk, no other Nobody could get in his way. His ears were filled with that clattering sound of his Keyblades against the metallic flesh. Dusks were shattering everywhere, littering the ground with their crumpling remains. Moments ago, Roxas conflicted greatly about killing dusks. But no more. They would all die, if it meant getting to Xemnas.
Xemnas was within reach now, guarded only by his pet dusk. The same class of dusk, as a matter of fact, that had taken Zack's life. Naturally, being Xemnas' guard dog made it look a lot sketchier to Roxas than it had to Cloud. That being said, he was hesitant and unsure how to kill it strategically.
"Hey Roxas!"
Roxas turned his head slightly to see Joshua running to him, Neku at his flank. "Wait a sec, and definitely don't go charging at it. We can take the big ugly freak."
"Which one?" Roxas muttered bitterly. He glanced quickly at the giant dusk. "Be careful of the lances."
"Good luck," said Joshua pleasantly.
"And you."
Roxas busied himself by retreating back into the crowd, which now included U.S. Soldiers, so as to not make himself too visually noticeable. The couple, on the other hand, were making themselves as loud and noticeable as possible, trying to lure the dusk away from Xemnas. Roxas couldn't see his face, not when it was covered so, but the psyche signature he carried was unmistakable. Why did he not do anything? With all the power of the cosmos on his side, surely he could make himself a little more useful to his army, rather than just hanging back and being protected like a king on his throne? Roxas observed him with a constant vigilance, not allowing escape from his vision even for a second.
His eyes darted away only for a second, seeking out Joshua and Neku. The dusk was a good distance away now, thoroughly distracted by the decoys. If Roxas was ever going to strike, the time to do it had come.
Steathily, he wove between the soldiers until he was back with the dusks. The army was doing a pretty good job of backing him up, and Roxas could weave through them and the enemies alike easily enough. -Xemnas was almost within reach now. With a well-aimed jump and a blinding enough light, Roxas just might be able to land an incapacitating hit.
Focusing all his psychic energy only on his light, Roxas' forehead exploded with white heat. He saw nothing but bright light, but he sprang anyway, using Xemnas' signature aura as a guide. He put both of his Keyblades together and clasped them with two hands, his arms raised high and ready to strike with as much force as was capable of him.
But them his powers were cut off completely. He was out, literally like a light, and it was no longer his own will that held him in place, it was Xemnas.' A ball of energy, fledged from Roxas' original ball of light, began to swell, forming a constantly moving, celestial, incandescent vortex of omnipotence.
~o~
A young woman of twenty-two—whom had not set foot outside Hollow Bastion General since the eve of the mine explosions—rose from her bed to see what the bright light outside was. She was very fortunate; her bed was provided for her at no charge, given her current medical condition. Luckier still, she had already been an admitted patient when the demand for care suddenly rose. If she hadn't been, there would have been nothing the hospital could have done for her.
The light which drew her from her bed in the first place was growing brighter. It was so bright, in fact, that even from a great distance it illuminated her green eyes to their brightest natural color.
Trying to keep her heart rate down, the young woman cradled her rounded midsection tenderly, instinctively creating an illusion of safety for both herself and her unborn child.
~o~
A few miles away, another young woman was hustling about a large warehouse, serving meager food to the needy unfortunate, when too small children came sprinting directly for her. When they reached her, the eldest one stayed arm's reach away, but the toddler clung fearfully to her legs, quivering and out of breath.
Even though they were only children, their behavior alarmed her immediately. Handing off the soup pot to somebody else, she swept her long bangs out of her face, kneeled, and gave the girls her undivided attention. She had enough tact and experience to treat the situation with the delicacy it deserved. The children had probably seen a dead body. Somebody frozen to death, or starved. This was almost typical nowadays.
"Sister Aerith!" the older cried, her chest heaving, "Just came… from the west end. You need to come… with us… right away!"
"Why? What's happening?" Aerith demanded, though gently. With any other children, she might have been a bit skeptical, but she knew this girl and what she'd been through. There was more wisdom in those little brown eyes than that which most women twice her age possessed.
The girl paused, filling her lungs with gulps of air. "They told me… the army… marching. We need to go to… to the mansion in the woods. Please! It's gotta be now! There's gonna be another invasion! I came over here to get you… because I don't want you to get hurt… and we're going to need a mother when the city's gone…"
She started crying, though she didn't cry like a child. She didn't wail or sob or pound her little fists on the floor. She cried like an adult, with quiet, broken tears of fear. Her cheeks and her eyes were red, and she swallowed often enough. She and her sister both began to pull the woman towards the exit, but Aerith held back. "But wait, now. If what you're saying is true, than we need to get everyone out of here. We can all walk across the city together."
"It's too late! Please, please Aerith! For once, forget everyone else and save yourself! You've done all you can but the city is as good as gone!" the child thundered. "It's already started!"
Shocked into silence by the girl's persistence, Aerith allowed herself to be dragged outside, where she saw the light for herself. Her eyes widened to dinner plates and her pupils shrunk to poppy seeds, because this could only be the work of the devil.
"I'm scared…" said the smaller girl, burying her head into Aerith's legs.
Aerith secretly agreed with the girl, so she lifted her up. Aerith needed to hide with the children just as much as the children needed to hide with Aerith. In a moment they'd be running, but at the time, she could hardly do any more than grasp each of them and say a silent prayer.
~o~
Marluxia was a considerably busy guy. His wardrobe had been seriously downsized as of late, he was always fixing clothes for other people, he'd finally broken into the piles and piles of spare fabric in his storage bins, and, all of his services were pretty much free. It wasn't an ideal situation for him, but as long as the food suppliers were still willing to trade with him and he was allowed to keep his penthouse, he considered himself very lucky.
Well, at the moment, he'd just about had enough for the day. He'd sewn four shirts from scratch, mended six winter jackets, and peddled his favorite H&M scarf for a chicken. His fingers were sore and he absolutely had to fix the faulty button on his business jacket pronto.
Tossing his perfect pink hair over his shoulders, the man sat down at his desk and readied his sewing machine. Just as he was through winding his bobbin, however, he was startled out of his seat by a loud noise and a blinding flash of white light. Hoping to whoever that nobody had heard him squeal, he jumped from the floor to observe and possibly film the first winter thunderstorm he'd ever seen.
Unfortunately for him, reality had no plans of meeting his expectations today. What he saw instead was not a storm at all, but what he could only describe as a supernova growing from the center of the great maw. He was stunted. There was no police force left to call, the government was basically shattered, and everyone that Marluxia had once known were either gone or unreachable.
So, frightened and alone, he sank down beneath the window onto his plush rug, hugging himself and thinking that whatever happened now, that the pain of death wouldn't last too long.
~o~
There was nothing Roxas could do. He was held in place, powerless to stop the vortex from enveloping himself and everything around him. The light obscured his vision completely; he was cut off from the world, limited, to himself and Xemnas. Xemnas looked like he wasn't even breaking a sweat. He just stood there, arm outstretched. The wind blew his hood down, and Roxas, after all this time, could finally see the bone chilling truth of what he'd been hiding underneath.
Xemnas resembled Terra greatly, was Terra, for all intents and purposes. His facial bone structure was almost exactly the same, bearing only a few features from who Roxas assumed was the real Xehanort. He had that same strong chin, the same angled nose. The only difference was the eyes. They were not Terra's, gentle and good. No, they were evil. The color had changed to a fiery orange hue, framed by untamed, overgrown white hair. The eyes, they began to draw him in, the pupils getting larger and larger until Roxas fell into them completely.
And then he remembered everything.
He remembered the dreams, and all the memories he had seen, and all the emotions that came with them. Then, more things came to him. Things he hadn't witnessed before. All of Ven's memories were filling his skull, from the first to the last breath, and all the things in between. He remembered Ventus' childhood, growing up and being trained. He remembered the bittersweet twinge of happiness Ven experienced when he found out that Aqua was with child, and especially the ecstasy he had when he found out Vanille was with child. And he could also remember a month prior to that, when no such happy things existed. He remembered the terrible, sinking feeling of marching out to battle so soon after his honeymoon, the guilt of mutiny; betraying the evil man he knew only to be his master.
He saw Aqua's face, lined with horror and misery as they did the unthinkable. Joining their Keyblades together, the two were forced to seal the temple underground, with Xehanort—and Terra—trapped inside. He felt Ven's pain and despair, the crushing sensation of losing his best friend, forever.
"Ventus!"
Ven opened his eyes. There was no Roxas, Roxas wasn't there anymore. Perhaps he'd been lingering still, somewhere deep inside, but when Terra called, it was Ven who responded. Even his Keyblade was different. One of Roxas' lie on the ground forgotten, and the other had transformed into the custom backhand blade that carried Ventus through all those years.
He looked around fearfully, but there was nothing to see. No bright light, no gale force winds, no supernova, nothing but the stained glass room with the door. Xemnas was kneeled on the ground, panting. When he lifted his head and opened his eyes, orange they were not. They were Terra's, a warm shade of chocolate brown* with golden flecks. But the reunion was not a peaceful one. A second later, blades clashed and they were fighting again. Old memories of those stolen moments in the woods came to Ventus' mind. It felt just like he was sparring again, but something in him knew there'd be more than his pride hurt if he lost this battle.
"Terra…" he said, confused and hurt, "What's going on!?"
He got a hit on Terra, causing him to stagger back. "I don't want to hurt you. I'm not… exactly in control of my body. I lost, Ven. I've been in here the whole time, sleeping for almost as long as I can remember. Master Xehanort… he beat me, but he couldn't get rid of me." Ventus parried his attack and followed up with a series of offensive blows, trying only to disarm him. Terra must have freed himself completely from Xehanort's hold now, because he allowed the blade to be forced from his grip, and he didn't pick it back up. "I was gone for so long… even when the light found me, by then, I couldn't even find myself. And then I heard your voice. You came for me. You came to wake me up. It was you, Ven."
"Not Ven," said the blonde, shaking his head. "It's Roxas now. He's here somewhere. It's him that'll be doing the rescuing. Not me."
Terra's features melted into a fond smile. "Roxas, then… how's the world? What's it like? How long has it been, really?"
He started to walk, gesturing for Ventus to do the same. They walked arm in arm like old friends. Ventus wasn't sure how long the cathedral-like area went on for, but it didn't matter. It had been so long since he'd seen Terra, there had been so many tears. "I'm not really sure," Ven admitted. "Like I said, this is Roxas' mind now. I've only caught little snippets. They've got this great, iron boxes with wheels on them that they use for transportation, and powderless bombs. And polyester! You really should see it."
Terra smiled sadly at him. He knew as well as Ventus that he would never be able to see those things. "Tell me more," he said quietly.
"Hmm… I don't even know where to start. Everything is so different. It's like taking a creature from the sea and asking him to talk about life on land. Roxas is especially fond of these doohickeys that they have… I think it's called a camera. With the push of a knob, it can make exact drawings of anything you point it at! Anything at all! And in perfect color too. The colors are really limitless, you know, they have dyes for everything you can imagine, even purple!"
It was like they'd never been separated at all. Ventus chatted gaily about the things he'd seen for several minutes, Terra nodding and smiling and listening intently. But it wasn't to last. Terra kept glancing toward the door, as if he were afraid that at any moment, Xehanort would stop through and destroy them.
"I wish we had more time," he said finally, effectively cutting off Ventus' happy rambling. "But we don't. The world needs you back, and you need to hurry. I can hold him off, but only for a little while. When I have him paralyzed, you cannot hesitate. You must kill him. Because if he breaks from my hold, I won't be able to stop him again. Nobody will."
So it wasn't Roxas after all… Ventus mused. After all this time, it's been Terra who would be the fall of Xehanort. Because Roxas was there to wake him up.
"But if I kill him…" fat tears welled up shamelessly in Ventus' eyes, spilling over onto his cheeks. "No! I can't do it! You'll be killed too! We have to get you out first! There has to be another way!"
He threw his Keyblade angrily on the floor and dropped with it, angry tears running free. He kneeled onto the ground and put his arms around Ventus. Warmth. Real, living, human warmth. Terra was still here.
"But there isn't," he responded. "Xehanort's original body is long gone. Buried, or burned I'd imagine. There's no host body he could go into without taking it over, becoming a parasite. Like he did mine." He said this a little bitterly. "This is the way it has to be. He'll take everything. He'll start putting mother's cells in the people again. He'll destroy everything. You, your Vanille… everyone…"
"I can't, I can't kill you," the blonde wailed miserably.
"You can, and you will," said Terra. "I don't belong here anymore, you know that. I'm behind an entire cycle. A thousand years out of my time. I'd never make it. Xehanort is a part of me now. We aren't Terra and Xehanort anymore. We are Xemnas. The last living place of evil. And Xemnas… it must be allowed to die."
He stood up, extending his hand for Ventus to take. With reluctance, Ventus accepted the help and stood back up. A moment passed in which the two simply looked at each other, knowing it would be the last time. Terra looked away first, turning away to face the door and stretch out his hand. The door opened, and light poured out, flooding the scene with that same bright light. The world, calling Ventus back to it.
"It's time to go, Ven. If you stay any longer he'll notice I'm here. I know that you'll do the right thing…"
White flooded Ven's vision, and soon he could no longer see Terra. Roxas, overwhelmed by memories, experiences, and the parting words of Terra to Ventus, was disoriented, to say the least, when he was tossed back into the world. The world where all of his friends were still in danger, where Axel was still fighting, where everything would incontrovertibly be lost if he didn't do as Terra said.
He hit the ground hard, but, heeding Terra's instruction, was back on his feet in a second. It pained him greatly to look at Xemnas, now that he had seen Terra with his own eyes. The gentle, loving face that Ven was familiar with was simply not meant to be contorted the way it was. The malice etched into his features, the darkness behind his eyes, the curve of his lips as the corner raised into a frustrated sneer, they didn't belong there. His hair whipped incessantly in the wind created by the supernova, yet it never touched his face or got in the way. In fact, he appeared to have not changed at all in the time that Terra had drawn Roxas in. It had seemed like several minutes, maybe hours even that they'd talked, but could it really have been only a fraction of a second?
For the first time, Xemnas made full eye contact with Roxas and, as though just noticing his presence, opened his mouth to shout in an alarmingly amplified volume: "Behold, feeble mortal, the power of Jenova!" Clearly he was confident in his victory. Had it not been for Terra's promise, Roxas might have been too. "Your little tricks and elements, they are nothing to me. I could kill you with a thought!"
"Then—why haven't you?" Roxas coughed. His physical condition was reaching critical again, something that he'd temporarily forgotten. The pain wasn't too bad, he just couldn't seem to get a good breath in.
His taunt did what it was meant to. The anger broke Xemnas' concentration, and Roxas was at last free from his hold. But that didn't make approaching him easy. He wasn't more than fifteen feet away, but running to him was like running against a heavy wind. Very heavy winds. As if for every pace Roxas took, an invisible hand pushed him back, like the tide pushing back the shore.
Infuriated, Xemnas lifted Roxas into the air and chucked him effortlessly into the cliff wall. The material was very hard, made up of a similar stone to that of the Rising Falls. Roxas' skull cracked hard against it, forcing his vision to spin uncontrollably. He collapsed in a heap, but, knowing that even though it really fucking hurt, and even though it looked like he was seeing through a kaleidoscope, he couldn't give up yet. He had to keep trying, until Terra could come and help. Terra promised.
"Why won't you quit?!" Roxas yelled. He threw his Keyblade with as much force as he could muster, but the level of disorientation he'd been caused rendered his aim useless. He missed, by a lot. At this point, he knew that he was only baiting himself to buy time. But there was only so much he could do. If he didn't attack soon, Xemnas would tire of games and flat out kill him. And then all of his friends would die, and Axel would die.
All of Roxas' telepathic shields went up, blocking Xemnas' next mental strike and also concealing his thoughts of Axel from the enemy. The last thing he needed were illusions. His prime objective for now was to get as close to the godlike being as possible without dying.
"Wh-what's happening? What is this black magic!?"
Xemnas' powers were slowing down; is limbs were curling in on themselves. "EoЖ lif dominaχict Terra!" he began screaming. Roxas, though having never learned Pre Colonial Bastonian himself, understood him through Ventus' knowledge. He was suspicious of Terra, but he did not yet know how to reassert his dominance over his sentient possessor. Roxas would have to move fast.
Roxas didn't have time to strike physically; he was too far away. So instead, he resorted to the taboo. The one thing he vowed, the second he found out about his cells, that he would never do to another person: leech to kill. Xemnas' shields were down, courtesy of Terra, so it was exceedingly simple to tap into his lifestream. In fact it was almost as though his aura was calling out to Roxas. The connection overwhelmed him with pain. The power was more than his mind could bear.
He felt all the evil, the energy, the goddess Jenova herself. But beyond all that, he felt Terra there, in all of his warmth and goodness, holding the darkness back. Taking a deep breath to slow the quakes of his failing body, Roxas absorbed all the power. The energy filled him utterly, every single artery from his heart to his little toe. The heat spread so thoroughly, and he was shocked and sickened to feel no longer pain, but euphoria. The power, the ecstasy, it was all his!
Roxas rose high into the air, taking Xemnas with him. Jubilant laughter coursed through him, the vibrations buzzing through even the innermost places that Roxas had either never felt before or had been feeling for so long he didn't realize he could feel them. Tingling sensations pricked the core of his stomach, his kidneys, his lungs, even. All flooded with the most pleasurable toxins. He laughed maniacally, uncontrollably. His voice boomed, in the same, unnaturally inhuman way that Xemnas' had.
But the power was too much. The pressure in his body had reached breaking point. If he did not give it an outlet, and soon, he would be torn apart from the inside. Already he could feel it working on the weakened parts of himself, particularly the head. The lofty, dreamlike state was ebbing away, and Roxas came back to himself. He focused on channeling it through to his forehead, like he had done a hundred times before. It took everything he had not to release it all indiscriminately, to remember his task. He had his target fixed—Xemnas' heart—and all of the pieces were in place. It was only after blue eyes met orange one last time, after Roxas uttered a last, tearful goodbye to Terra, that he released.
There was a blast of heat and light, a shockwave that traveled all the way across the maw, through the city, and even out to the countryside beyond. Every man woman, and dusk alike stopped in their embattlements to watch the spiraling wave of galvanism elevate Xemnas higher up as Roxas sank lower down, and destroy him. Nothing of him remained, no sparkling dust from which his powers could be taken and harnessed. No body to bury, no ashes to spread, not even a follicle of hair. He was gone. Vanished—into the world, maybe. Or perhaps finally, after many a lifetime of waiting, Jenova had returned to take back what was hers.
Silence tolled heavily through the maw. The dusks fell to the ground, lifeless and useless, empty puppets. They'd given back the magic stolen and used to animate them. The winds stopped, the fogs dropped, and the fires began to kindle. All signs of the darkness were gone, but the same could be said for the light. As for Roxas, he felt nothing. No more nagging presence probing within his mind, no burning powers beating through his heart. His Keyblades fell to the floor and vanished, for the last time.
For several long moments, Roxas sat, his back leaned up against the wall. He was torn. On one hand, he needed to find Axel, make sure he was okay. He had to find the others too, get home, find the kids in the woods and tell them things were okay.
On the other hand… his head really fucking hurt. He was almost certain that his skull was cracked. The skin was indisputably broken, at any rate. He still couldn't breathe right from Vanitas' blow and he couldn't fell past the elbow of his left arm.
Roxas crawled forward a little, but the effort caused shooting pain wherever he moved; the effort was simply too great. With a resigned sigh of "fuck it," Roxas decided that, given the circumstances, he deserved at least a little stupid break. So he keeled over and waited to be found. He knew that it wouldn't take too long, everyone in the city knew where he was. He could hear the approaching footsteps even then.
He watched, almost contentedly, as the purplish clouds rolled across the sky, parting in some places to reveal patches of an irreplicable blue. Somewhere nearby, a mourning dove had just returned to its nest, seated in one of the many niches in the cliff side. It called out to the valley, in hopes of someday soon, hearing a reply.
There will be an epilogue.