Disclaimer: I own nothing.
So sorry about the incredibly long wait, you guys, I've been trying to punch through some writer's block, as well as dealing with life in general.
As always, thanks for your patience and encouragement! This wouldn't be possible without all of you!
On with the show!
Chapter XXXVII: Another Side, Another Story
Yuffie
Xion hasn't said a word since we got back.
She hasn't moved either.
As soon as we walked in the door, she curled up on the couch and stared at the television—which wouldn't be at all out of the ordinary for someone her age, if the TV had been on.
Poor kid.
I don't even want to imagine what it must've been like for her to have to live with Vanitas and Kairi...
I sit down next to heron the couch, gently, slowly, to avoid frightening her more. I reach over and stroke her hair tentatively. "Xion, sweetheart, are you okay?"
In a flash, she reaches out and seizes my right ring finger—a basic self-defense technique, and gives it a sharp twist.
My finger dislocates with a soft pop, and the pain is instantaneous, but not unbearable. I work my finger back into it's socket.
"S-sorry." Xion murmurs, lacing her trembling fingers together.
"It's alright. Don't worry about it; you must be pretty shaken up after everything that happened back there." I tell her softly, massaging the injured joint.
Xion nods slowly. "I..." she pauses to take a breath. "Vanitas always told me that it wasn't safe for me to come along with him, no matter how much I begged or pleaded—now, I guess I understand why..." her face goes ashen, and I worry that she's going to pass out.
"That...that was awful. All that blood, all the bodies..." Xion raises her hands to cover her mouth, still shaking, still keyed-up on adrenaline.
"It's okay." I rub her back soothingly—thankfully, she doesn't try anything else. "It's over now. You're safe."
Xion shakes her head, suddenly free of the fear that gripped her, and serious as a heart attack to boot. "Do you have the slightest idea what you're doing?" her voice turns cynical and bitter. "Safe . You have no idea what you're doing...Vanitas—he doesn't think rationally when it comes to me...If he has to literally set the world on fire to get me back, he'll do it. It's probably better to just let me go."
I sigh.
"I can't do that." I tell her slowly, not wanting to upset her already unstable emotional state.
Xion's watery smile flashes conniving for a fraction of a second, and then, before I can even be sure it was there in the first place, she's back to smiling at me sadly.
"I get it; I'm your bargaining chip." she guesses.
I shake my head. "No, you're not a bargaining chip. We just want you to be safe—living like that...with him, that can't have been easy."
"It isn't. But he's my brother, and he's been watching out for me since I can remember. You'll have to forgive me if I'm not as trusting of two complete strangers with absolutely no fucking business whatsoever decided to intervene, supposedly on my behalf, to take me away from one of the only people to ever love me." Xion's voice is a low snarl, and I'm almost as shocked at her sudden change of demeanor as I am at her language.
"Look, I know it's hard to understand, but we're only trying to do what's best for you." I'm floundering for something, any kind of explanation at all to calm her down.
"And just how the fuck do you think you know what's best for me? You don't know me from Eve!" Xion's standing now, eyes drilling into me.
"I'm sorry things turned out the way they did—but what were we supposed to think when we turned up to save the mayor of Destiny Islands, only to find out that your brother was the cause of all the trouble? Can you honestly blame me, or Riku for thinking that you might've been in danger?"
Xion pauses for a moment, and a little of her fury subsides.
"And, on top of all that, one of my very good friends has not only tried to kill me and my other friends more than once, but she was also helping your brother. What would you have done in that situation?"
"Just because you disagree with the way he does things, doesn't make him a monster. Besides, how are you all so different? You all want to run around and play hero—but you don't give a shit about the laws and regulations that govern the rest of us mere mortals, and why should you—you have the Keyblade, the most badass get-out-of-jail-free card in the universe." Xion counters, folding her arms.
"It doesn't exactly work like that..."
"Oh really? Why don't you explain it to me then." Xion interrupts before I have a chance to explain, and part of me is grateful, because I'm not entirely sure how to explain things without further offending her.
Riku, however, can always be counted upon to come to my rescue.
"We don't owe you an explanation, little brat. And I suggest you watch your tone around here, because I can turn you out just as easily as I took you in. You think Vanitas cares about you? You think he gives two shits about anything that doesn't benefit him in some way?" Riku's voice is still terse and dangerous.
"You don't know him." Xion's voice is low and dangerous, her eyes pulsing with tempered violence and rage. She heaves a heavy sigh. "Fuck this. You guys can find another way to go after Vanitas. I won't let you use me for this."
Riku's hand shoots out to stop her. "I'm sorry, I can't let you leave." his voice is grave.
Xion puts her head down and charges.
Riku numbly sidesteps, reaching out to pinch the sides of her neck, cutting off blood flow to her brain.
She slumps to the floor, unconscious.
I eye him critically. "Was that really necessary?"
Riku shrugs. "We can't risk her getting away, Yuffie. This is our chance to draw Vanitas out and end this thing."
"So we're hurting kids now? She hasn't done anything! Remember how Sora went off the rails after that business with Ansem?"
Riku nods slowly.
I stoop down to pick Xion up off the floor—she hardly weighs anything at all. "Keep this up and you'll be just like him."
Riku blinks and then nods. "You're right. I'm sorry, I don't know what I was thinking."
"I'm not the one you should be apologizing to."
As I move to put Xion back on the couch, I can just barely hear him, but Riku mutters:
"Sorry, kid."
***DMS***
Itami
"Fuck!" Vanitas' enraged explanation jerks me back to consciousness.
Consciousness is not pleasant.
My head hurts, pulsating with a dull, throbbing ache. The coppery taste on my tongue tells me that my mouth is bleeding, though it's nothing serious—but it still hurts like a bitch.
I sit up, rubbing the knot at the back of my head—it throbs sharply when my fingers brush over it.
"Sorry," Vanitas says in a tone that would be sheepish coming from anyone else. "I didn't mean to wake you."
"It's alright."
"I can't believe they took her. I'll fucking kill them!" There's rage and malice and despair in his eyes but there's something else there too—a profound sense of failure.
"We'll get her back." I tell him. "Let's just brainstorm for a minute, try and figure out the best way to do this."
"The best way? The best way is to follow them and get her back!" Vanitas raves. There are tears in his eyes, and my heart absolutely aches for him—this unprecedented display of emotion is like a punch to the gut, and I realize that losing Xion is eating him alive.
I also know that I can't do this alone, and Vanitas isn't going to be much help if he's catatonic.
I seize him by the front of his jacket. "Vanitas, I need you to focus. I want Xion back with us just as much as you do, but right now we need to figure out how we're going to do that."
Vanitas nods and takes a step back, hobbling and pressing a hand to the stab wound on his hip.
"Come on babe, think. Does Xion have anything with her that could help us?"
Vanitas nods. "Yeah. Yeah, she's got an emergency GPS beacon that will tell us where she is, and she should have a burner phone on her too."
"Good, good. We can work with that. Can you activate the beacon remotely, or does she have to do it?"
Vanitas fumbles for his phone, and taps the screen a few times. "Okay I have the signal."
Almost as soon as he says this, his phone rings.
"Hello?" he sounds surprised "Thank gods. Xion, are you okay? I'm gonna put you on speaker."
"No! The fuckers knocked me out!"
"Calm down, kiddo," From the tone of Vanitas' voice, I can tell he's struggling to control his own emotions. "Did they hurt you at all?"
Xion huffs indignantly. "No...I'm okay," she says after a moment.
"I'm so, so, sorry baby girl. I'm coming to get you, okay? It's going to be alright." I'm fighting not to sound completely hysterical, but I'm not sure that it's working.
"No," Xion's voice is serious. "I always wanted to help. And now I can. I'm literally your inside man—girl—whatever. There isn't a thing these guys are going to do that I won't know about."
Vanitas sighs. "Alright. Is there anything we can do for you in the meantime?"
"A weapon would be nice. These guys are nice people, despite the fact that they're our enemies, but Riku knocked me out pretty easily earlier—Vanitas calm down, I'm fine—and I know I don't have much chance against either of them if it comes down to a fight, but I would prefer to have a little insurance in case I need to make a quick exit..."
The fact that Xion knows Vanitas will be upset by this news just reinforces my understanding of the bond they share.
Vanitas takes a breath, presumably to calm himself—the news of Xion being knocked out has no doubt upset him—and then he nods. "Okay, I'll think of something. Keep your phone close by, I'll let you know when I have something. Be safe."
"I will. I love you guys."
"I love you too, sweetheart." I chime in, before Vanitas cuts the connection.
I look at him quizzically; hearing from Xion was definitely a morale booster, but we still don't have a definite plan for how we're going to go from here.
"Now what?" I ask.
"Let's get a move on," Vanitas says, pressing a hand to his still-bleeding hip as he hobbles to the door. "I have an idea."
***DMS***
Sora
Dying is easy. Living is hard.
Never before have I understood the deep, profound truth behind those words.
I've been floating in this darkness for...
I'm not sure how long.
It might be eons, or nanoseconds—time is irrelevant here.
In the beginning, there were flashes, snippets of conversation, memory impressions of Riku, Yuffie, and Roxas.
And then...nothing.
I'm brought back from the edge of eternity by the supernova of agony surges though me, like my entire body has been shoved into a metal smelting forge.
I had thought I was dead; my epoch though the endless night was given meaning only by the images flash-burned into my retinas, and the pain tethering me to reality.
The only thing that hurts worse than the physical agony, is the knowledge that the woman I love is the one who did this to me...
And no matter how much I wish I could just, excise that part of my memory, burn it to ash so it cannot haunt me for the rest of my life, I can't.
***DMS***
My jealousy in this moment is a tangible thing.
I can literally taste it, a sour, bitter coil in the back of my throat.
Kairi shakes her head. Her amber eyes are sad, and clouded, and a defining trait of the choice she's made.
She's siding with the enemy.
She's violating the deepest, and most fundamental part of the Wielder's Oath: To combat tyranny in all its forms.
"I'm not coming back," Kairi says, and the finality in her voice is unmistakeable. "My decision is my own, there's no trickery involved, Sora"
My body reacts, conditioned by years of training, a slave to the cause, chained to the pursuit of peace and justice, as much as my heart and soul are utterly, irrevocably torn at this impossible crossroads.
The gun is in my hand before I have the chance to stop myself, already cocked and aimed precisely between her eyes.
I steel myself—all I have to do is pull the trigger.
It is that simple, and that unfathomably complex.
"Sora," Vanitas intones, his voice commanding and conniving and vile. "Put the gun down, no one has to get hurt."
"To combat tyranny in all its forms," I recite, as much in response to Vanitas as to remind myself how things have come to this.
"Put the gun down, Sora." Kairi's voice is infinitely, impossibly sad, and moisture pools in her eyes. "I don't want to have to hurt you."
And, just like that, my mind is made up.
"Goodbye, Kairi." My voice is not my own, but that's alright.
If I have to hear myself say it, then it'd be too easy to turn the gun on myself, rather than shoot her.
Steady.
Aim.
Fire.
The gun jerks in my hand, smoke curling up into my face, but it's Vanitas crumpling to the floor, not Kairi, his body contorting around the bloody perforation in his abdomen, his teeth clenched in a rictus of agony.
Kairi stares down at him, her feature running the gamut of emotions.
It's all clear to me now.
She's in love with him, not me.
The surge of jealousy, the explosion of shock and anger and an intense welling of betrayal, is so visceral and violent that, in this moment, I'm actually okay with the fact that she's completely forsaken me.
It makes the dirty work so much easier.
"Traitor!" I snarl, and mean it.
"Tyrant," Kairi's response is immediate and full of spite and venom?
My emotions take me over, and my mouth is moving before I can stop myself. "What the fuck is wrong with you Kairi? You're siding with him?"
Kairi folds her arms and glares at me. "Give me one reason why I shouldn't."
Her retort catches me off-guard, and for a beat, I can't think of anything to say. "You love him," realization is like being stabbed.
Kairi shakes her head ruefully. "He's nice. He treats me with respect and dignity, and I really like him. But, I wouldn't say that I love him; not yet."
"Love is blind." My raging emotions have taken my tongue hostage.
"And justice is irresolute." Kairi's keeping pace with me now; in another lifetime, her confidence and refusal to back down would have made me proud.
"Look at you," she continues. "You're like a gun: a useful tool in the right situation, but a danger to someone inexperienced. You never stop to consider all the facts, you just jump in with both feet and start swinging, praying that you'll hit the right target. You're pathetic."
That's it.
The kid-gloves are off now.
"I'm pathetic? I'm pathetic? You're the one siding with the enemy, ditching me, after all our years of friendship for some sycophantic fuck-up with a couple smooth one-liners." My Keyblade is in my hand before I have time to actually think about drawing it.
"Bullshit!" Kairi snaps, her eyes pulsing with fury. "What friendship? You've been nothing but a self-righteous, pompous, arrogant dictator since we met again. You refuse to be honest with me about anything, and yet you expect me to be at your beck-and-call, and obey your every order with no question and no hesitation. So I ask you again: What friendship?"
"I'll ask you once, for old times' sake. Come quietly. We can sort this out. No one has to get hurt." I put a hand out toward her, token resistance really—there's no stopping this now. And, as long as we're being honest, after everything she's put me though...I almost want to kill her.
Vanitas gasps, pressing his hands tighter to the hole in his guts.
Good.
I hope he suffers.
Kairi just shakes her head sadly. "Clearly that isn't the case."
My grip tightens on my weapon."Fine, have it your way."
I hurl myself across the room, putting every erg of strength I can muster into a dead sprint, bringing my blade around in a blow that is sure to crack her skull like and eggshell.
My weapon sparks off of hers, and as surprised as I am that she actually managed to block me, I drive my elbow toward her throat, unwilling to concede victory so easily.
Kairi's hand just barely turns my blow aside in time, and she retaliates by clobbering me in the side of the head.
There's considerably more force than I was expecting behind the blow, but her inexperience shows—I can feel her knuckles break against my skull.
Serves her right.
Out of nowhere, her foot plants itself into my gut, sending me cannonading into the wall—the plaster gives a little as I slam into it.
"You've gotten stronger," I admit, dabbing at the blood at the corner of my mouth; I must've bitten my lip. "Too bad it won't be enough to save him." I can't resist the jibe.
Clearly, I've struck a nerve, because she says:
"Try it, Sora," and charges at me.
She plows me through the weakened plasterboard, and I snatch a cheap lamp from the nightstand as we barrel past, slamming it into her head before she can gain too much momentum.
I bring my Keyblade around again, angling to sever her spine, but her blade flashes between us, and despite my frustration at not being able to end this, I have to admire the progress she's made since I last saw her fight.
And that's really all the admiration I can afford, because her skull-rattling counterblow knocks a tooth loose.
Damn it, she's better than I gave her credit for.
Kairi doesn't waste any time driving me back into the bed, but I manage to get my knee between us before she can slit my throat.
I jam my palm into her face and she stumbles back into the table.
I take advantage of the opening, seizing her head and slamming it into the thick wooden furniture repeatedly. Her entire body reverberates with the force of the impacts.
She finally goes limp and I reach for my combat knife.
"I'm sorry it had to be this way, Kairi." I tell her, surprising myself when I discover that I actually mean it. "But, I have no tolerance for traitors. I can't allow you to compromise our order."
I jam the knife downward, but she shifts at the last second, and the knife lodges in her shoulder instead of her heart.
Kairi's scream is absolutely bloodcurdling as she crumples to the floor, bleeding everywhere, but she's still coherent enough to slip my attempt at crushing her windpipe—as much to silence her as to put her out of her misery.
She slams the pommel of her Keyblade into the side of my knee.
The pain is excruciating, and I can feel the bones grinding together immediately. I bite back a scream of my own as my ruined joint buckles under my weight. I stumble forward, gritting my teeth against the agony and the bile rising in my throat, wondering if perhaps I've underestimated her.
I can hear her moving behind me, I turn and leap after her, adrenaline spiking in my blood, dulling the pain, at least for the time being.
Kairi's elbow drives into my broken ribs; the impact registers as a starburst of white across my retinas, and, suddenly, my body refuses to support me, dumping me onto the floor in a heap.
I fight back another surge of pain-induced vomit and force myself to my knees.
I'm not sure whether to be impressed or terrified when Kairi jerks my knife free of her shoulder, but she doesn't really give me a whole lot of time to decide.
For a moment, I'm too shocked to move.
Her teeth are bared in a feral snarl, and she's in obvious pain but still, she staggers forward.
With that wound, she's coming after me, advancing like some kind of vengeful goddess, hellbent on my complete and utter decimation.
I just barely manage to slap aside the knife, but she's already countering, driving an elbow into my chest and the swinging one of the chairs up to crack into my head.
Despite the dizzy haze that threatens my consciousness, I manage to catch the underside of her jaw with a solid blow that snaps her head back and gives me some much-needed breathing room.
I throw myself forward, hoping to tackle her to the ground and end this, but she's already moving—I crash into the door hard enough that the impact resonates through my entire body, hard enough to knock it off its hinges; that's when I realize that she's used my momentum against me.
I'm angry at myself for allowing her to catch me so off guard, and I channel the rage burning inside me into a vicious hack, one that will lop her head cleanly from her shoulders.
I'm so intent in this moment, so focused on the killing blow, on victory, that I don't notice that she's ducked until she buries the knife she dropped up to its hilt in my left calf.
In that moment, I exist only to experience the all-consuming, though-obliterating, white-hot explosion that is yet another burst of agony.
And, it is in this moment that I realize just how completely I've underestimated her—and in this situation, that oversight could very well be the death of me.
My leg buckles and my Keyblade tumbles from my grip.
Come on, Sora, snap the fuck out of it! I berate myself as Kairi lunges for my weapon.
No, no, no, no,no!
"Thunder!" The command leaps unbidden to my lips, born of pure desperation, and a bright arc of lightning surges into Kairi's body before her fingers can close around the handgrip.
It hurts like hell, but I pull myself up, propping myself upright against the wall as Kairi convulses on the floor. I drag myself forward,pausing only to retrieve my weapon.
Blood wells suddenly in my mouth, and I spit a thick stream of the stuff onto the floor.
Kairi scrambles away from me awkwardly, scuttling backward over the floor.
"How..." I wonder. "How could you do this?"
My body refuses to carry on.
I am exhausted beyond thought.
Beyond reason.
Beyond...anything.
"Do what?" Kairi sneers. "Refuse to be your fucking puppet?"
"I love you Kairi!" I'm surprised at myself—despite my willingness to end her for the greater good, I find that this too, is true and real and tangible
"Bullshit!" Kairi's voice is nothing but venom. "You love me? What could you possibly have done to prove that to me, other than try to control me when I don't do what you want? That isn't love, Sora. That's obsession."
I can taste the fury now, clawing at the back of my throat. I'm pouring my heart and soul out to her, and she's still too blind, too naïve, too short-sighted and narrow-minded to see that everything I have done has been for her.
"How dare you!"
Kairi puts a hand to her chest like I've offended her somehow. "Me? You're the one who's out of line here. Look at you; you come here and try to murder my friend because you're jealous that I won't hang out with you? If that's not obsessive and controlling, I don't know what is."
I can't believe what I'm hearing.
I don't want to believe it.
But, given the resolve in her eyes, and the definitive, unwavering determination in her stance, I know she won't be swayed.
"Friends...You really have betrayed us, Kairi."
Kairi looks wounded at this. "I never betrayed you Sora. I never told Vanitas anything he doesn't already know. I never compromised any of you. I just wanted to see his side of the story."
"Save it," I snap, unwilling to listen to anymore of her lies. "You've made it clear where you stand. I'm sorry it has to be this way." I settle into an awkward ready stance as blood weeps down my calf and fills my boot with ichor, soaking into my sock in a wet, sticky mire.
Kairi looks me squarely in the eye, and then explodes into motion, kicking off the wall to drive her stiffened forearm into my throat.
I'm gasping for breath, choking on my own blood and spit, but I still have enough awareness to realize that I'm completely vulnerable now; I force myself to follow her—there's no doubt in my mind that she can outlast me now. Darkness is already chewing at the edges of my vision, the floor pitches and heaves under my feet.
I have to end this before it escalates even further...or before she kills me, which is becoming a more vividly real possibility with each passing moment...
Kairi's already managed to retrieve her Keyblade.
I squint through the smoke, bringing my blade around in a violent hack, following up with a gravity spell to crush her as the building burns around us.
Kairi springs out of the way, clearing the gaping hole that appears in the floor as the gravity-manipulating magic takes effect.
She pauses for a moment to look at me over the gaping, smoke-filled expanse, and then leaps over the gap, blade angling for a killing blow.
I might be exhausted and in too much agony to contemplate, but that doesn't mean I'm just going to roll over and die.
We trade blows in a furious, heated, vengeful exchange that circles the pit, each of us trying to beat down the others defense through sheer brute force; we're both too tired for anything else.
I take advantage of an opening, unleashing a vicious backhand to Kairi's face, only to have her immediately counter with a knee to my already demolished ribs.
I don't even feel it, short of a sickening shifting sensation under the skin.
Our blades whirl and tangle and spark and bind as we circle the pit exhaustively, each of us at the absolute limit of our endurance.
The end comes more quickly and brutally than I would've imagined.
I land a clean headbutt, hoping to follow up with a lethal blow, but Kairi's already spinning out of the way.
No sooner have I realized that I'm completely exposed, then there's a horrendous pain in my abdomen; the tip of Kairi's Keyblade prtotrudes from my gut, slick with gore, and twists of something red and stringy coil between the flowers.
Oh, gods...
She's killed me...
And, I don't feel despair, just a primal desire to see her end too.
My body is already slackening, my vision fading, but I still have the energy to take her with me.
My stomach heaves, and I can taste blood in my mouth, spilling over my lips. "If I die," I tell her, raising my Keyblade for one last strike. "You're coming with them."
Kairi steps out of range, and it looks like she's crying, but my vision is too blurry to be sure. "I'm sorry it had to be this way." Kairi's voice is broken and strangled. "I didn't want this..."
I already know she isn't sorry—she's just offering empty consolation to a dying person.
"Fuck you," I snarl, and then I'm toppling backward into the hole.
Falling.
Falling.
Falling.
The impact is a dull thump, from another universe entirely.
I can't feel my body.
I can't feel...
Can't feel...
Can't feel anything.
And then, after an eternity in the emptiness, A high, commanding voice from another life, another time, another place, calls out to me.
"Sora, It's time to wake up."
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See you next chapter!
~Script