Enamis09: Well, the new Keyblade is based off of her friendship with Zephyr, so the name of it will be related to that, but will also have a lot to do with the plot of the next book. I'm not giving anything away yet, though!
Yes, you're right, KH3 is about to end, and therefore the next book is going to be about events that the games haven't gotten to yet. Which is why it's taking me such a long time to write it! It's really really hard to come up with where the games might be headed, though I don't plan on trying to make it exactly correct. I'll be using the opportunity to work my own AU plotlines in as much as possible. I'm hoping that ReMind will help give me some inspiration!
A/N: Where all my reviewers at this week? Haha
So this chapter is what was originally the first half of the final chapter, until I divided it. I actually reworked part of this a few times, trying to get it to work how I wanted it to, so I hope you all like how it turned out.
"Twelve keys we have now."
I had almost forgotten about Xehanort's presence until his voice rang out. Turning, I saw that Sora, Riku, and King Mickey were already looking up at him with their Keyblades at the ready, angry expressions on their faces.
The floating keys circled the bald man slowly as he grinned maniacally. "Leaving just one more!" With a flash, he summoned his own Keyblade, identical to the rest. A purple streak of lightning shot out from the tip up into the swirling clouds above, creating a tiny hole which began to grow. Bright light streamed out of it, illuminating Xehanort like a spotlight.
"Now, Sora. Darkness and light's final clash." He tore his gaze away from the light to smile down at us.
We all just glared up at him. As much as I was sure we all wanted to get rid of the guy that had caused so much chaos and devastation in our lives, there was too big of a risk in attacking him and creating that final key. What the plan was from here, I didn't know, but maybe now that the rest of his cohorts were no more, we could leave him for now and come back for him when Kingdom Hearts wasn't about to be summoned.
"You require motivation," he noted, never losing his smirk. "My first plan to that end was to take your most precious light from you."
"Kairi," Sora whispered, his head swiveling around to stare wide-eyed at her. Instinctively, I took a protective step closer to her, as if some other unaccounted-for Nobody was going to pop up and steal her.
Xehanort's attention was pulled to me as I moved. "Ah, yes...the portal-maker." The title sent a furious shiver down my spine. "In all of my visions of what was to come, somehow you have always eluded my sight. A wild card. I never seem to be able to pinpoint when and where you're going to show up and attempt to meddle with my plans."
"Good," I shot back, my voice quaking only slightly. "Guess you're all out of motivation, then."
He chuckled. "Perhaps I have nothing more I can take from the Keyblade hero. But I believe I have taken plenty from you already."
With a casual wave of his hand, an image appeared in the air by his head. It only took me a moment to realize that it was me, in the dungeon cell of The Castle That Never Was. "First, your freedom...then your sanity..." Another image, this one of Saix, and my heartbeat picked up even more.
Don't listen to him. Don't listen to him. He's trying to bait you, don't listen to him.
"Your happiness..." Now it changed to me laying face down on my desk in school. "Your light..." The next scene I almost didn't recognize, but my stomach did a flip when I realized it was my earlier fight with Saix. "And finally...your best friend."
The depiction of Zephyr's last moments did me in. Something inside of me snapped, and I raced forward and up the face of the cliff, not even knowing how I was doing so. The rocks flew by underneath my feet, up and up and up, until I was face to face with the man who had ruined my life by every means possible.
Our Keyblades clashed with a ringing of metal. His crooked grin widened, and with a strength that shouldn't have come from such an old man's body, he shoved me sideways, off balance. Then, somehow, his hand was gripping the back of my head. My eyes went wide and I held in a scream as he lifted my feet up off of the ground, displaying me for everyone below to see. I could hear both Riku and Kairi crying my name. Dropping my Keyblade, I fumbled desperately at his hand, trying to free myself, but his fingers were like nails digging down into my skull.
Sora appeared in front of us, already swinging his Keyblade as he ran up over the lip of the cliff. Xehanort practically cackled as he parried the blow with one hand, and Sora was sent tumbling back over the side. I barely had time to grunt in shock before I was flying, too, flailing my arms uselessly, trying to twist myself around in the air but still landing on my back and rolling violently to a stop.
Through the ringing in my ears I heard someone call my name. Bones popped back into place all over my body, forcing a pitiful cry out of my throat, but soon the pain subsided to a manageable level and my vision faded back in. Sora was sitting nearby, and Kairi was rushing over to me. It appeared that she had healed him from his fall, then one of them had healed me. My attention was yanked upward, to where both Riku and King Mickey were racing up the side of the cliff toward Xehanort, and I pushed myself up in a hurry.
"I'm sorry," I rasped. "I shouldn't have...they shouldn't..." I buried my face in my hands. This is exactly what he wanted. He knew I would attack him, but that didn't even matter because I'm not a guardian of light. He knew that they would fight for me. He used me.
"Shh, it's okay." Kairi rubbed circles on my back. "It'll all be okay."
Riku was thrown back, too, and I jumped to my feet as though there was something I could do to cushion his fall. When King Mickey reached the top, he tried casting some kind of spell, but whatever it was exploded in blinding light and wind. When I could open my eyes again, Riku and the King were both frozen in midair.
Sora gasped. "Your Majesty! Riku!"
Another Keyblade just like all the rest blinked into existence in front of us, then went spiraling upwards to meet Xehanort. He turned his back and raised one hand up to the sky. "Now...the Keyblade War will finally meet its conclusion!" As the thirteenth Keyblade joined the others, he lifted up off the ground.
Increased light from above caught my attention, and I snapped my head back to gape at the fully-revealed heart, blazing brightly in the evening sky. My heart leapt into my throat. "Kingdom Hearts."
Still surrounded by the thirteen keys, Xehanort pointed his own Keyblade at the moon, and with a flare of light it changed to something new. Details were hard to determine from such a distance, but it looked almost like two smaller Keyblades crossing to create one large weapon.
"The X-blade is complete. Kingdom Hearts! I call upon your true form. Open now and show me the world to come." A beam of blue shot out from the X-blade into the heart above, and immediately it began to be overtaken by darkness, the black and blue creeping over the white surface until it was completely filled. Blue lights like comets fell in every direction out into the world below. Sora, Kairi, Kaj, and I could only watch in horror and growing worry.
"Hey, don't give up." The familiar, gravelly voice made me look over to Sora in surprise. Donald and Goofy had appeared, and were pulling Sora up off the ground.
"We thought ya might be able to use a couple a more half-pints," said Goofy.
I got up, too, giving Kairi a half-smile as she made sure I was steady, and walked over to join the three of them.
"Yeah...but...he controls Kingdom Hearts now," Sora was saying.
"You, worried?" another familiar voice interrupted. We turned to see not only Roxas, but also Axel, Xion, Aqua, Ven, and a brunet guy I didn't recognize strolling up. I assumed he must be Terra.
"Guys." Sora sounded more than relieved to see them.
"Sorry we took so long. Had a couple of plot points that needed ironing out," Axel shrugged.
"Well, no big deal, you only missed a fight with Ansem, Xemnas, and Young Xehanort, me and Sora getting thrown off a cliff, plus that guy forging the X-blade and opening Kingdom Hearts," I retorted.
Axel smirked and cocked an eyebrow. "Good to see you're...back to your old self, I take it?"
Embarrassment washed over me, though not as much about having tried to kill him, as about giving Roxas and Xion a horrible welcome back. "You guys..." I briefly made eye contact with the two of them, then stared down at my shoes. "I'm really sorry about what happened. Thanks for, you know...keeping me from doing anything too stupid."
"I think you'd have done the same for us," Roxas replied.
"What are friends for, right?" Xion smiled.
Tears sprang to my eyes, and I felt the uncharacteristic need for a hug. Stumbling forward, I threw my arms around both their necks and pulled them into me. "You have no idea how glad I am to see you two again."
Xion giggled. "I think we have a little bit of an idea. We're happy to see you, too."
"Yeah, especially now that you're not trying to kill everybody," Roxas quipped in my other ear.
"Roxas!" Xion scolded.
A male voice spoke from my right. "Master Xehanort..." I turned to see Aqua, Ven and Presumably Terra staring up at the man.
"He did it. He opened Kingdom Hearts," Aqua breathed.
Ven looked up at her. "So, what now?" Seeing him right here next to Roxas was even freakier than I had imagined. Somebody is gonna have to explain this to me sooner or later.
There was a flash of light, and King Mickey and Riku flipped down to the ground in front of us, having broken free of Xehanort's Stop spell. "We've still got one hope!" the King announced.
"Your Majesty, Riku, are you okay?" Sora asked.
"You guys really shouldn't have gone up there and attacked him just for me," I blurted, the guilt still eating at me. "None of this would be happening right now if–"
"Aw, this isn't your fault," King Mickey interrupted.
"Yeah, we don't blame you for attacking him. And we weren't just gonna let him have you," Sora agreed.
Riku nodded. "Besides, it's not like he was going to just let us walk away from here without fighting him, not when he was already this close. He would have found a way."
I nodded, too, chewing on my lip. He was right, of course, but it only barely made me feel any better.
"So...what hope?" Ven questioned.
"It's Xehanort," Riku explained. "During the Mark of Mastery exam, we learned that he can transcend space and time. He's a portal. And we can use that to trap him."
King Mickey nodded. "But it won't be easy. Aqua, Riku, I'll need both your help if we're gonna push Xehanort out of this world."
"Understood," Aqua stated. She started to walk to join them, but Sora ran out in front of her.
"Wait. I'll do it."
"What?" Riku asked.
Sora turned to face the rest of us. "Kingdom Hearts is a much bigger threat. Let me handle Xehanort...while you guys keep it shut."
King Mickey's expression turned sad, and I knew he must be worried about Sora taking on Xehanort alone, like I was. But everyone else nodded their agreement to the plan, and the King eventually did, too. "Okay, Sora."
"I got this!" Sora declared, setting out toward the cliff.
I watched him go with a heaviness in my chest. I almost wanted to call out to him, unable to shake the feeling that something was going to go wrong, but had no idea what I would say. Kairi didn't have that problem, though, and she rushed past me while shouting his name, nearly knocking him over with a hug as soon as he turned. Overcoming his shock, or maybe embarrassment, Sora placed his hands gently on her back and squeezed before stepping back and smiling at her.
"I'll see you soon, okay?"
Kairi sniffed and nodded, dashing the back of her hand across her face. "Be careful."
Sora merely smiled in reply, then resumed his march. Donald and Goofy broke away from the group and joined him on either side. "You can't forget about us," Donald remarked.
"Without Keyblades, it's not like we'll be much help here," Goofy added.
Wonder if I'll be any help here, either, without any magic. Maybe I should just go with them.
Presumably Terra strode to the front of the group. "Let's move. The darkness is spreading."
Who put him in charge? No one else seemed to mind, summoning their Keyblades for the next leg of the battle. Sora raised his above his head, and one by one the other guardians of light followed, their weapons lighting up as they were directed at Kingdom Hearts. With a dramatic spin, Sora lit his up, as well.
"Do it!" he shouted.
On his command, ten beams of light shot up into the sky. Sora's pierced straight through Xehanort's center, opening a pink spiked orb similar to the one Riku had used to dive into Sora's sleep. The rest hit the surface of Kingdom Hearts, making tiny pinpricks of light in the swirling blue darkness.
If we've got to turn the whole thing back to light, this is gonna take a while. Not that there was really any "we" about it. My presence was pointless in this situation. I was on the verge of calling out to Sora that I would go, too, when he and the other two turned into a sphere of light and flew up to the pink portal, disappearing in a flash of light and taking Xehanort with them.
A/N: Fun fact – the "who put him in charge" line was inspired by the face that Riku was making at Terra when I paused the cutscene video on YouTube right at that moment. It only lasts a split second, and overall Riku seems perfectly fine with Terra taking charge, but that facial expression made me laugh and I had to include a reference to it.
Another fun fact – this chapter is a good example of "oh wait Kairi is here now, too". Last chapter was actually probably the worst, because I was watching a YouTube video of the fight and basing what I was writing off of what I saw, and of course, Kairi wasn't there. I kept accidentally leaving her out and having to go back and rewrite things to include her. Same with Kaj, though that started way back at the beginning of the labyrinth and continues to this day as I'm writing the third book. Poor guy.
Okay, I'll see you guys Saturday for the very last chapter!