Hello, dear visitors, both new and acquainted! This time, after a beginning hurt/comfort story, a couple of humorous slice-of-life, and one quiet little drabble, I have written a fanfic of...ANGST! Yes, sweet, sweet ANGST! From the Kirby universe! ...Ahem, yes.

This story was inspired by a fanart I found on Pinterest, that I could barely resist to make a plot of due to how beautiful it was. This story can be read as either friendship or pairing. I ship them non-romantically, personally. This one is quite experimental, and I'm not sure if I portrayed the characters as faithfully as I - or you, the reader - would have liked. Also, I don't know if I have actually portrayed things like in canon as much as I thought. If you find some things not in alignment with the official material, then please think of it as artistic liberties taken in the making of a fanfic.

Either way, enjoy!

DISCLAIMER : Kirby is not owned by the writer of this story.

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Kirby was falling from the sky.

He didn't know the reason why.

He was falling through the dark, cold expanse of space, entering the atmosphere of a big, star-shaped planet, before his body eased to the speed of a descending meteorite.

He didn't know how.

It might have started when he went up againts the Void Termina, determined to win the final confrontation. He was fighting to save the world from darkness, once again.

When he first entered the heart of the giant beast, he had his friends right behind him. Together, they fought hard againts Void Termina, working together to stay on their feet, until the face of the abominable sphere recoiled from the damage it sustained and glowed a bright, bright white.

When Kirby next opened his eyes after the flash, however, it was not to see the dark beast defeated. He was now in some sort of another world or another dimension, the floors pulsing in twisted kaleidoscope colours, the Void Termina blinking its giant blank eyes upon him.

He proceeded to fight the next round; alone. His companions were nowhere with him for some reason. Kirby did not let it deter his resolve, in any case. The Void Termina grimaced and stared and laughed and grinned, as it threw arrays upon arrays of attacks towards him. Through it all, the Void Termina incessantly whispered things that reached his ears, like a chanted, demented mantra, that only scarcely sounded like some sort of language.

Kirby shrugged off the whispers and kept on, finding them too nonsensical to be made heads or tails of. Yet Void Termina laughed even more, causing Kirby's heart to waver ever so slightly. And, as Kirby landed the finishing blow, it suddenly unfolded the last of its powers, and projected some series of images, memories, records, for Kirby's eyes and mind alone to behold.

What he saw made his heart rendered frozen, and his mind to slow to a minute's crawl, as he processed information of millenias past in the span of a blink of an eye, the whispers coming to a sharp clarity in their meaning - and the dooming conclusion apparent therein...

About Void Termina, and Kirby.

His surroundings then flashed white again. For a moment, he saw his friends back on the ground, safely teleported away from the beast's heart; lost, confused and wondering where he was. He had half a mind to reach over the invisible barrier dividing them and tell them that he was there. But then the revelation that Void Termina forced onto him held him back, hanging ominously overhead in its irrefutability, and Kirby felt a force push him under - or rather, he lost the will to stand upright and fell backward down to the illusory floor, which immediately cracked like glass and gave way to cold empty air.

And so he fell, silent and limp, whizzing through the sky as he plummeted somewhere even he did not know anymore.

The visions that Void Termina revealed to him ran over through his eyes, like the layer of clouds in the sky passing through him over and over. No matter how he saw it, he could not deny that the visions he saw were indeed memories, unblemished and untampered records of the past. ...It was as if they opened a deep, dark and untouched crevise of his own memories, which now flooded his mind, confirming that what Void Termina had shown him was, indeed, real. Yet, no matter how many times he repeated seeing those visions, he could not find it within himself to accept the truth. What they showed was too terrible, what they told was too horrific-

If all of these was true, then he and the dark beast, Kirby and the Void Termina, the connection between them-

Distantly, Kirby watched as the land beneath the skies grew slightly bigger and bigger with each passing second. The whizzing air filled his ears. He felt weightless with nothing holding or anchoring him.

Kirby wished from the bottom of his heart that he hadn't discovered his past. Not if it was like this. He did not know how to live on now that he'd witnessed the ugly truth. He did not want his friends to find out like he had. They would surely avoid him. They would immediately fight him. They would inevitably fear him for what he could actually be. Because, for the hero of light that spread hope all over the world to be connected in such a way with the incarnation of darkness of the galaxy-?!

Kirby wept anguished, bitter tears that flew upwards into the air, convinced that the door of hope was open to him no more. Silently, he waited for the fall to end.

"What is the matter, young one?"

Kirby blinked at that voice. It was Meta Knight. He was right there beside him. He had his wings aflare, but was matching velocity and keeping pace with Kirby's descent. He was falling along with him.

What was Meta Knight doing here? How did he find him? Kirby's first thoughts was to quiet up and hide the truth - as if the similarity of his and Void Termina's face wasn't enough of a dead giveaway, stupid him! - but then he opened his mouth, and soon he spilled it all out.

He told him everything. The visions, the memories of the robed figures, the ritual, the dark wishes, -another being coming alive beside him- ... all of it.

The knight was silent as he listened.

Kirby waited as the knight weighted his next action. The fall stretched on and on, unending. Now he felt horrible, as if he broke a very precious trust. All of their budding friendship, all of their time fighting together, all of the victories they shared- would it all disappear in an instant?

All of these friendships, all of these bonds - ...would they be all broken once they knew?

"I don't believe what you were once define what you are, Kirby," Meta Knight's calm voice suddenly said. Kirby's eyes snapped towards the masked face. Did the knight truly believe what he himself said? Kirby briefly hoped.

No, it must be because the knight hasn't fully realized it yet, nor understood the utterly, condemning circumstances of his connection to the dark beast... his existence. He reiterated again to the knight, going into further details. He had to make him understand...

Meta Knight locked eyes with him, without words. The air whooshed past them in a dizzying speed.

"It is not like you at all to turn your back on hope so swiftly, Kirby," The knight then spoke. "You have always persevered that things will change for the better, as long you fight earnestly for it. Why would you change so much after seeing what that creature showed you?" he asked. His words was steady. Despite it, Kirby still felt the chaos running amuck within his heart and mind. He found it hard to believe in the knight's conviction, even though he knew the darkness would swallow him whole at the rate he was going.

Meta Knight opened his wings a little wider, as if preparing to take flight in the middle of their descent. He took some time in silence before saying his next words.

"I haven't told you how I came to know my point of origin, have I?" he said. Kirby's eyes widened. Was he going to...!? "I never fully learned the truth of how I came to be. But, gathering from what I witnessed and what I collected, I must confess... It is entirely possible that my background was hardly a favourable one, nor an innocent one, being - initially - a pawn of the dark forces." He paused to let it sink in to the younger one, and continued. "I may have been used to commit the same destruction upon this planet as I now commit againts those who would harm it...And I may have enjoyed the carnage that I have made, before some kind of epiphany showed me the errors of my ways." His head was turned to the side, seemingly out of shame, facing away from Kirby. "Of course, it is still a mere possibility; but in an unpredictable world such as this one, who can truly tell?..." Pensively, he closed his admission.

Kirby could only blink his eyes in disbelief, gaping at the the knight before him. Here, the knight who has made himself a name in the history of honorable knights, who protected the world from evildoers with fervour, and who helped uphold peace in Popstar and other corners of the galaxy; and he said he was possibly a part of a great evil himself, sometime long, long ago?

The knight was steadfast and clear as he spoke, and he was sincere. He did not lie. Kirby was fighting over what to believe. On one hand, he was deeply, unbreakably connected to the Void Termina, and to whatever existence that they came from. He would carry that curse without alleviation for all eternity. On the other hand, if Meta Knight, the very one in front of him, was able to become as strong and as justice-serving a knight as he was now after such a beginning... Though, a small part of his mind remarked logically, the scale of magnitude between their background was surely far and wide. Meta Knight was merely a pawn, and what kind of role could Kirby have had in those dark, forgotten days?...

Meta Knight wasn't out of words. "I believe there are already numerous similarities shared between you and I, Kirby, so I shall refrain from pointing out the obvious. But I must also point out the weight of the hope of the entire galaxy that you carry upon your shoulders - that you carry since the very day you first set forth to save your land from Dedede's greed. Out of all the inhabitants residing within your land, only you had the strength, the courage to stand up to his misdeed. And when the shadows of Dark Matter threatened to engulf Dreamland, you did not reject the duty to vanquish his evil." Meta Knight continued, "Your pure-intentioned acts of heroism did not go unnoticed, and now the inhabitants have come to seek for your aid every time an impossibly powerful evil threatens their lives. With that much hope the creatures of this world entrust you with, would you give up so easily over what is now in the past, and not the present?"

Kirby's eyes welled up with more tears, at the same time that his heart welled up with newfound hope. How easily he had forgotten, how foolish he was for a split of a moment! Kirby was still Kirby, a hero of Popstar. What he was in the past didn't matter in the end. Yet...he couldn't tear his mind off the harrowing revelation of his origin, the original desire his existence had stemmed from; and he couldn't take his focus off of earlier, simpler times, when he ran and tumbled in the grass free of care, wondering idly of how he came to be in such a place, before another object caught his interest...

Finding himself in a bout of turmoil, in the midst of confusion, hope and despair, and other diverse overwhelming feelings, Kirby refocused onto the knight facing him. Now placing himself between Kirby and the steadily approaching earth, Meta Knight has both of his hands opened, poised to grab hold of Kirby's hands. His dark wings behind him were spread under the both of them, ready to break their long fall. His warm yellow eyes stayed unwaveringly on the young hero, whose tears flew in the wind and glistened in the gentle setting sun.

Not quite able to form words anymore, Kirby directed wide, conflicted eyes on Meta Knight's calm, temperate gaze, silently pleading, "Please, don't leave me."

His answer was, "I will not leave you, and neither will your friends."

Thus Meta Knight flapped his mighty wings, taking hold of Kirby's two hands, and brought them both swiftly out of the fall. And so they sailed in the air, as the broad lands and wide seas of Popstar rolled across them, basked in the pink and orange glow of the sunset. A flock of birds passed them by, chirping crowdedly and going off into the far distance. They passed many familiar landmarks, both old and new, and some acquaintances saw them overhead and greeted them enthusiastically. Whatever marks of Kirby and his companions' struggles against the latest enemy can be seen a bit here and there on the land, yet there didn't seem to be any traces visible upon the skies. They really must have been so far away in space when the climactic final showdown happened.

Kirby already knew that his friends were safely back upon Popstar, for whatever reasons that Void Termina had passing understanding. Meta Knight told him mid-flight that they were going to reunite with the rest of their companions- as soon as they find where in the whole wide planet has Void Termina teleported them off to. It seemed, to both of them, that the creature wanted to have its final battle alone with the little hero of the stars. About that part, Kirby felt that he already knew the reason why. But he wasn't saddened now. Not as much as before. There were still questions hanging around unanswered, and mysteries unknown yet to be discovered, but they were all not for this momentous day of celebrating another well-earned victory. With friends that continued to look after him and stay by his side like Meta Knight did, Kirby could continue looking forward to see the bright future once again.

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So, what do you think? Did I get it right? I still don't know how to make a perfect angst fic with this type of conflict, setting and tone. If you enjoyed this but felt that it has something missing or has parts that could be done better, then you are not alone - I also have experience reading angst fics that are lovely yet still doesn't satisfy me quite fully. I know your pain. Or if you felt like this is too angsty for this kind of setting...well, I wouldn't know how to go about that. You might have stumbled upon the wrong tag, natch~. But hey, I'm still learning.

The idea of the fic was along the lines of, 'there are strong theories that Void Termina is connected to Kirby. What if this is true, and what if Kirby finds out?'

Thank you for reading up to this point, and please review and maybe give some constructive criticism!