Cosmic Hearts
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Disclaimer: I do not own Kingdom Hearts
As I was sitting on the floor with Aerith staring at me with that motherly concern in her eyes, I realized how I must have looked to her. A frightened little girl with shaking arms and hair matted to her face with cold sweat, eyes frozen open as if the empty room we were in held the most terrifying thing in the world.
I must have looked positively insane.
But perhaps it was a fitting look, for how I felt inside was just as bad. Thunderclouds stormed inside my head, pouring out thoughts in the form of tears. My heart was beating wildly, working doubletime trying to try and keep my body from shutting down completely. Of course I was ecstatic with what I had just done- I finally knew how to use the power I needed to rescue Ciro!- but it was buried beneath other emotions like anxiety and hatred. Hatred because I had never been so fed up with anything in my life. I could finally put an end to this stupid game that the man in black has been forcing me to play, and I was just now becoming aware of how much I truly detested it, and him.
Two thoughts in particular simultaneously crossed my mind just then: He will pay for what he has put my family through and I need to tell the others.
The latter sent a burst of energy through me that suddenly had me on my feet, surprising Aerith.
In a strangely monotone, yet desperate, voice, I asked, "Where do they live?"
Maybe it was that she didn't understand the question, but she was silent for a moment too long, which aggravated me. "Oh, never mind," I spat out. "I'll just find them myself." As I turned to leave, a hand reached up and pulled me back.
"Luna, wait!"
I didn't need to look at her to know what she was going to ask. I had yet to explain to her what the phenomenon she had witnessed was all about. And I didn't need to look to answer either. My arm went slack as I sighed as closed my eyes. "It was the Starlite's power, all right?"
She released my wrist and just sat there for a minute before saying, "You're sure?"
Would I have said it if I wasn't sure? She got the message. "Okay. What are you going to do now?"
"I have to tell them. They need to hear this, and we need to leave as soon as possible."
"Luna," she began patiently. "It's nearly two in the morning; they're all sleeping right now. I understand that this is urgent, but you need your rest too. You've had a long day."
"But I…" I could do it now! I didn't need to wait or cry or rest anymore! And the deal that kept my brother alive was supposed to end tomorrow. Or today, actually, if it was as late as she said it was. My chest tightened. "I can't stay here any longer. Not when I can finally save Ciro," I whispered. I heard Aerith shift to stand up and then wrap her arms around me, pulling me around into a hug.
"You still have time. Don't worry, everything will be okay."
One last tear rolled down my cheek before I made the decision that there wasn't any point in arguing with her. She was right, after all. Even if we left now, I certainly didn't have the strength to fight anyone, which I had to face was probably going to be the case. At the same time I knew that sitting around here, unable to fall asleep, would do me no good either. But the least I could do was try, for Aerith's sake.
If I had fallen asleep at all during the hours I sat there in bed, staring out
the window at the sky, I had no memory of it. Yet, I somehow found I felt a little better when the sun peeked up over the horizon. I smiled in relief and jumped up, bolting straight for the door. When I opened it up, I wasn't surprised to find Aerith there waiting, hand raised to knock. She, however, probably wasn't expecting me to be awake so early.
"Come on," I said grimly. She didn't seem to have any more objections and just nodded at me. I continued forward until we were outside, where I had to stop for a second. The cold morning air startled my overly warm body just a tad. But I pushed myself to ignore it and kept going. The entire way there I could feel Aerith's eyes darting towards me every few minutes, as if something would happen if she didn't keep a close watch. I didn't bother saying anything to her about it, though; if she wanted to needlessly fret, she could.
When we turned the final corner that brought us face to face with our destination, I picked up a faster pace. It occurred to me that it might be too early and everyone else might not even be there, which made me inwardly groan. The anticipation would kill me before anything else could at this rate. Then when I opened the door, I was so happy to find them all standing around the house I almost cried out.
…Almost. This wasn't the time to be emotional.
"Morning," Sora started carefully. Probably worried I'd melt down again, not that I could blame him.
Merlin, however, wasn't so concerned with being careful. "I hope you're able to keep the damage done to my house to a minimum today," he said, walking past me towards the tea table. I lowered my head ashamedly. I really was sorry about that. But I kept my mouth shut as the next person spoke up.
"Oh, forget about him," Yuffie declared, waving him off with a hand. "He's always trying to make me feel guilty for silly things, too." If that was supposed to make me feel better, it didn't work.
"Hey, kid, you okay?" Cid suddenly asked. "You look like you got something to say." It kind of surprised me that he was the first one to take notice of it.
I nodded to him, then faced my friends. "Guys, listen." My throat was dry. "Something happened to me last night, and… well, I guess I'll just show you." They were all silent and waiting. It wasn't until I had prepared to start the process again that I remembered the pain that came with it. Was I really ready to put myself through that again? Guess I'd find out…
I drew in a breath and closed my eyes to begin looking for that strange light. I didn't know any other way to go about doing this. I needed to be able to do it without using the Starlite's help, right? It wouldn't count for much otherwise.
I gritted my teeth against the sharp pain that shot through my head. But I wouldn't let my weakness hold me back. Not this time. The following second filled my heart with the same pain, but I felt the light set ablaze within it almost instantly. It brought a sense of comfort that willed me to push through the pain to reach out for it. But it was like one of those endless hallways from a dream that you could never reach the end of no matter how far you run. Finally I had to just take what felt like would be a dangerous leap towards it, metaphorically speaking.
It worked. Just barely, but it worked. I gasped on the outside as I felt that inward light flare up around me. Everyone took a step back, confused as to what was happening. I wasn't too sure myself, though I let it thrash about, building in strength and intensity. My hair flew up around me as if it were a visible wind. It made for a pretty lightshow, but there was something missing. I still had a firm grip on the power inside me, and I realized it grew brighter the more I focused and the harder I pushed its limits- that must have been how I controlled it.
A line from the journal suddenly flashed in the front of my mind. "…memories must be what elicit this ultimate power of destruction." It wasn't so much the fact that an unknown memory was allowing me to be able to use the Starlite's power, but that my parents thought destruction would result from it. What would happen if I continued? I… I couldn't risk hurting anybody.
I consciously let go of the light and felt it slip away until an empty feeling was all that was left. All was quiet now.
"So…what was that exactly?" Riku asked after a while.
"It's the power I've been looking for," I answered quietly, but resolutely.
"The Starlite's power?" Kairi inquired quickly. I nodded once. There was a pause before she also said, "How did you finally do it?" It was a fair enough question.
I couldn't hold back a scoff at the irony of what I was about to say. "It was the Starlite. Can you believe it? All this time we were running in circles and the answer was right in front of me. All I did was ask and it took care of the rest."
"Hey now, don't sell yourself short. It's still just a object; you did it," Leon assured from his corner.
Yuffie nodded enthusiastically. "Yeah, what he said. Besides, it doesn't matter how you got it. All that matters is you got it! And you can go get your brother now, right?"
"Right," I told her with a small smile. Then I looked back to Riku. "Are you guys ready to leave?"
"Whenever you are. You're the one with the magic necklace," he said with his signature smirk. Kairi giggled. And Sora…hadn't said anything in a while. I turned to him.
"Sora?" He looked like he was deep in thought, which was something I didn't see often. "You okay?"
"Yeah," he said, replacing the serious look with a casual one. "I'm just thinking about what happened. You're sure that's what that weird guy wanted; the one that took your brother?"
I sighed. Then, for the second time today I answered, "Yes, I'm sure. Why?"
He scratched the back of his head. "Well… it just didn't look like much, is all."
I furrowed my eyebrows. "What do you mean?"
"You started flashing like neon sign. That's what he kidnapped Ciro for?"
I almost gave this thought consideration, but I remembered the journal again. "That was only a glimpse of it. According to my parents, it can be very dangerous. That's probably why it's so important to him."
"And you still think we should just hand it over to him?"
My expression turned hard. "If it means getting my brother back, yes."
He let the subject drop after that, although it didn't look like he was really finished. Whatever. Why would he bring this up now? We all knew, whether we wanted to admit it or not, that whatever that man needed the Starlite for couldn't be good. But we could deal with that after we solved this problem.
Merlin reappeared with a bag in his hand, oblivious to the argument we were having. "Here, you seem to the responsible one, I want you to take some of my magic. Use it wisely now," he told Riku.
"If you're comparing me to Sora, then you're right," he said back, knowing full well the brunette was nearby.
"Hey!" Sora complained in a childish voice. "I'm responsible!"
Kairi took this as her chance to enter the conversation. "Just not very mature," she said, giggling some more.
Riku said something after that, but I had tuned them out by then. I was debating whether or not we should take the journal with us. If for some reason I did happen to fail this task, I might be able to bribe my way out with Ciro. The man could have both it and the Starlite for all I cared.
"Hey, Kairi," I started. This trio quit their fussing and she looked at me. "Can you fit this in your bag?" I handed her the book.
"I think so." She opened the flap and shifted some stuff around inside, then carefully eased it in. "Just barely, but yeah." She smiled at me.
"Great, then…can we go now?"
"Not before you give me a hug!" Yuffie exclaimed, rushing over and grabbing me up in a bone-crushing embrace. I let out a small yelp of surprise. "Be sure to visit sometime!" And then she set me down.
"Uh, we will," I told her, rubbing my arm. I watched as she made her way around the rest of our group and did the same thing.
Cid, Leon, and Merlin were standing off by the computer. None of them looked like they were much for hugs. Aerith, however, pushed them into saying some sort of farewell. Merlin declined anyway, but I heard him say something along the lines of "Good luck" under his breath as he walked away. Although I could have imagined that.
Then Aerith herself hugged everyone, told us to be careful, and once again reminded me of a mother. When she came to me she did something rather unexpected. "Here, your hair's a bit of a mess now," she whispered with a wink, and pulled the pink ribbon out of her own hair, handing it over to me. I was mildly shocked as I took it from her, not knowing how to respond. She laughed softly. "It's fine. I have plenty more of them at home."
"A-all right. Thank you." Before she could say anything I continued, because it had to be said. "No, really, thank you so much. I can't tell you how grateful I am to you guys for helping me. It means a lot." I made sure I looked at each and every one of them in the room with a grateful smile, then pulled my hair back and tied it up with the strip of shiny fabric. I already felt better without the mass of white suffocating me.
And to ruin the moment, I asked, "So, now can we leave?" again. Everyone finally gave me their agreement. It had been a while since we had stood together in a circle, holding hands, ready to begin our journey again. Or rather, we would be ending it.
I gave one last caution while we began to glow. "You…might want to step back." They did as I instructed and waved us off as we slowly ascended into the air. I felt the urge to wave back, but that would have defeated the purpose, wouldn't it?
Seconds later we were disappearing through the pointed roof of Merlin's house, watching the others through the strange gaping hole we left in it. Whether or not they could see us through it as well, I didn't know. The higher up we went, the smaller everything became, until it was all a blur of people and buildings, the giant castle being the only exception. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Kairi staring intently at the scene, and I knew exactly what she was thinking about. I gave her hand a short squeeze, but she didn't acknowledge it.
A bluish-black color overtook our surroundings as we left the world behind. And when we broke apart in the safety of space, suddenly a new problem arose: where did we go now? This seemed to occur to everyone else about the same time.
I bit my lip. Surely there was a way to find him; the man wouldn't have left me with nothing. I just had to think.
Then the answer hit me smack in the face. The Starlite. It has to be the compass that will point me in the right direction. It made sense.
I took hold of the charm and mentally whispered a single, desperate line to it.
Take me to my brother.
It took a minute for anything to happen. And then a small opening appeared in front of me, growing wider while I just gawked at it. The others barely had time to gather around before something else strange happened: the little charm of my necklace floated up before my eyes.
"Huh?" I gasped. Now what? I felt a slight tugging at my neck, which quickly turned insistent, and then all of a sudden I was being sucked into the odd hole in the middle of space. Kairi bumped into me just then, and I realized we were all being pulled towards it. It wasn't like there was anything to hold onto, so I settled for screaming instead.
What in the world is happening?
We were dumped into a pitch black area. Except that wasn't even accurate; it was a much, much darker, empty void of a black completely lacking in any sort of life.
"What is this place?" Kairi's voice echoed off the walls that didn't appear to exist.
"Don't know," Riku said, glancing around. Then he turned back to me. "Luna, what did you do?"
"I-I didn't do anything!" I shouted, panicked.
"How do we get out?" Sora asked, looking at the direction from which we had come, but the opening was gone. Meaning we were trapped.
And as if that thought had triggered it, we were all jerked forward again, flying blindly through the abyss by some unknown force. I had no idea how long things stayed like that, but after a while I noticed something different. Up ahead was a light, and we were closing in on it fast. I finally made it out to be another hole. We came to a heart-stopping halt just before it.
"Well, I guess that's your answer," Riku said to Sora, who didn't respond.
I cautiously approached the bizarre, window-like opening and peered through it. It was definitely a way out. I took a gulp and flew through to the other side, the others following close behind. It wasn't long before I saw the single world directly ahead, but a good distance away. And that was when it dawned on me.
"Guys, I don't think we came here by mistake," I murmured barely above a whisper, fingering the Starlite. No, there was only one reasonable explanation for where we were now, and I had a good idea of what it was.
I took off towards the monochrome world in a rush. I heard the faint shouts for me to wait, but they could catch up later. I couldn't have stayed still even if I had wanted to at this point.
I hadn't had a need to use my Zenith since Never Land, which seemed forever ago now, but I fell into its distinct focus easily enough. The rest of the universe blurred so that only my target was the only thing I could make out, and I felt my body begin to move considerably faster.
The minutes it probably took to get there felt like maybe three or four seconds, as if time itself had actually sped up as well. I pulled myself out of the trance when I was close enough to see the lone building set on the colorless landscape, empty like the hollow portal that brought us here. Like a wasteland…
I must have been floating there longer than I thought, studying the world until my eyes hurt, because my friends were suddenly right behind me.
"Hey, how many times do we have to tell you not to go off on your own?" Sora complained, although he was probably just teasing.
When it was apparent I wasn't going to give some sort of reply, Riku turned the conversation back to the situation at hand. "You really think this is where they're keeping him?" I never did figure out where his ability to read minds came from.
"Yeah, I do."
"Well then come on! I've been dying to meet this brother of yours!" Kairi declared. She had obviously spent too much time with Yuffie. But it reminded me that along with saving him came the fact that I could see Ciro again! That detail had been pushed to the back of my mind somewhere along the way, and I had forgotten to think about it like that. We wasted no more time in landing. Little clouds of dust rose up around the others as they dropped to the ground. From down here, the place looked even more eerie. The sky, or what should have been the sky, was a dark, ominous color that did nothing to raise my spirits. And then there was the two-story, cement edifice jutting up out of the earth. It looked utterly abandoned.
But it was definitely the right place.
I continued towards the door, hand shaking as I pushed it open. The room, though large and cluttered appeared to be empty, so I stepped inside. There were computers of all kinds everywhere, tables were covered in huge blueprints, but again, no one.
I gathered all the courage I could, pushed it up my throat, and called out, "Ciro?"
I had been sitting in dead silence for an hour or so now. I usually heard some sort of noise from up above, be it the shuffling of feet or a door slamming. But even my own heavy breathing had been reduced to a boring quietude as well. And I had to admit, I hated this even more than listening to the endless arguments that assured me that I at least wasn't completely alone.
I rested my head against a wall and shut my eyes. I'd always taken pride in my independence; I didn't need to rely on anyone but myself to get things done. And yet here I was reverting back to childish mannerisms because I had no one to talk to or listen to, and it was driving me crazy. Because of this, I found myself thinking about the last time I had heard Luna's voice- such a long time ago, and wondered if I'd ever get the chance to talk to her one last time, even if it was just to say goodbye.
But my thoughts were short-lived as the quiet was suddenly disrupted.
"Ciro?" It echoed off the walls and down the stairwell, straight into my ears. My head back shot up instantly. My first assumption was that I was hearing things, but after the strange scream the day before, I couldn't just ignore it. Especially when it sounded so much like her. I climbed to my feet slowly and gripped the prison bars. I could only see part the way up the stairs, but I vainly persisted to look anyway. I opened my mouth to answer the call, to find out if she was really here, but I realized I didn't want to know. I felt sick as another thought unwittingly entered my mind:
Could Nero's predictions at last be coming true?
Chapter Twenty-Nine complete. Please review, and I'll try to have the next chapter out as soon as possible. Thank you for reading :)
