Chapter 40: Mother's End
Author's Note: I have a general backstory that I share between all my stories that involve Jenova's Origins. If you've read Calamity's Reign you already know it. I doubt we will go more into that backstory than maybe this or a few references in Book Two.
Kairi was falling.
She felt ripples across her skin, like waves of the sea.
She slowly opened her eyes, finding herself sinking down and down and down...
Bubbles escaped her lips, and yet she could breath?
She looked down, and far below was... a mural?
She saw herself in her uniform, eyes closed, wing curled protectively around her, and in her hand was that key-weapon she had briefly held when defending Sora back in her home realm. Lines connected to her, stretching out to a few big circles with faces on them: Genesis, Angeal, Sephiroth, Elena, a few of the children she was closest with. The circles grew smaller, but so much more numerous, fading into clusters. It was her family, save for two they all were those who bore her cells.
Her infecton.
Encircling the edges of the mural are heart shapes that have vines twisted around and piercing through them. She's not sure what its supposed to mean. The backdrop of the mural, its hard to tell, but its a reddish hue, a sunset, a beach... her islands. Yet all throughout the mural are twisting black vines, taints, and not just painted, but physically burrowed into and through it.
Then comes what she instinctively knows shouldn't be there. Across from her on the mural is a blue-skinned woman in olden posh looking clothes. Elegant, yet faded coloring. Golds and reds being predominant in their dullness. Black veins course through the woman's body, and stretch out from her, the origins of the vines tainting the rest of the mural. In the woman's right hand is a red and black scythe with a rusted-gold blade. Her left isn't a hand or an arm at all, a cluster of tentacles instead. Upon the woman's forehead is a cracked circlet, keeping her silvery hair somewhat pulled back and out of her slumbering face. Curling around her, just like Kairi, is a wing, black as night. Kairi knows who this is, and yet...
Kairi flips herself as she comes close, touching down gently. She stares at the other end of the mural, frowning. "This doesn't look like the body Jenova had been in within the mako tank..."
"Because its not," comes a smooth and oddly cultured voice, familiar, and yet different.
Kairi tenses, looking up to see the woman depicted on the mural descending from the skies, the only difference being her eyes are open, red irises with black staining through the whites of them. Jenova holds the scythe loosely in her right hand as she touches down, examining herself for a long moment. "I had never thought I would really see this form again. I could recreate it of course, but... I never bothered. I left behind what I had been so long ago and accepted what I had become even if I had never wanted it. Yet here I am, the past shoved in my face."
Kairi frowns. "The past?"
"I wasn't always this," muses Jenova, "Once, I was divine, now..."
The black veins under her skins twist and stretch, briefly distorting her flesh before settling. "Now, I am Calamity. A pestilence sailing through the stars consuming all in my wake."
She swings her scythe to the side. "This place exists within ourselves; a manifestation of our souls and minds, and perhaps something more. This is something you brought with you of your home Realm, of this I can feel."
Jenova levels her dark gaze upon Kairi, her black wing extending behind her. "Here, we exist alone. There are none of your children. There are none of those I have consumed over countless years. Just you and I, stripped down to the cores of Who. We. Are."
"A fallen goddess," muses Jenova mockingly, pointing her scythe at Kairi, "And a foolish little girl that will become my vessel."
A flash of light, and the Mother's Key appears in Kairi's hand, an exact replica of the mural. Kairi flexes her grip on the weapon, noting how -right- it feels in her hands. It feels like a part of her that has always been missing. "I'd pity you Jenova, but you are responsible for your own actions. Maybe you never had a choice in being infected, becoming a Calamity, but you had a choice in everything that happened after! Every life that you stole! Every soul you consumed! Those were YOUR choices!"
"Were they?" mused Jenova.
"I never had a choice in becoming this," said Kairi, briefly flexing her loose hand and stretching it in inhuman ways before settling it, "But I have made a choice. I will never be like you. I will NEVER consume like you do, I'd sooner send myself into a star to be incinerated than allow myself to become that kind of genocidal planet killing monster!"
"So young," muses Jenova, "So larval. You have only begun to discover what you are, my daughter. I wonder how long you would be able to hold those vows as you lose your humanity day by day, hmm?"
"I have my family," said Kairi softly, raising Mother's Key, "Genesis, my children, Angeal, Sephiroth, Zack, Aerith, and more. They will keep me true to who I am."
"And if they fail?"
"Then I trust them to put an end to me."
Jenova smiled mockingly. "Such faith. I suppose, one way or the other, we shall have to see."
For a moment, Jenova glows white and gold, and Kairi has the sudden urge to kneel and bow her head in reverence. She grits her teeth and steels her feet instead, hands twitching on her weapon...
Then Jenova's aura turns sickly black and she thrusts out her tentacle arm, each appendix surging out to lash at Kairi. She falls to a knee and swings her blade up, severing into the tentacles as they pass over her, key-weapon severing through them easily, the severed parts disintegrating into ash as light burns them to a crisp. Jenova withdraws her arm, regenerating the damage and hums.
"Keyblade," she muses, "Such a marvelous creation, yet something else you know little of how to use, let alone properly call."
Kairi frowns. "Keyblade?"
"The answer lurks within the other side of your soul, your heart," said Jenova mockingly, "I am ready child, more ready than you can possibly imagine. When I take you, I will inherit the ability to use that blade, and with it, no doors will remain locked to me. Combined with my power, my knowledge, I will be able to cross over into any reality at will, all of existence will be open to me to consume. But first? Oh yes, the first thing we will do after I take this world? We will see your Sora again, daughter, and we will feed on his soul as we did the rest."
Kairi snarled and surged forward, Keyblade going for Jenova's throat. The Crisis deflects the blow off her scythe's shaft and kicks her back, spinning as she does, wing going overhead as she wings the scythe around. Kairi ducks under it and swings her blade while Jenova's weapon is out of the way, clipping Jenova's side with a burst of white sparks. Jenova steps backwards, weapon twirling overhead. Kairi pauses, body held loose, waiting for her to bring it down.
"We're you a goddess of farming?" mocked Kairi, "That's about all that's good for, though about as outdated as YOU."
Jenova sneers and brings it down, a wave of dark energy surging from the end of it that splashes over Kairi's Keyblade when she blocks the physical attack, blasting her across the mural. Jenova swings her scythe in wide arcs, and waves of energy pour out from it, surging across the mural at Kairi. She grits her teeth, pours light down her blade, and swings, each attack meeting each energy wave and obliterating them in brief bright bangs of light. She matches and drives off the attacks, sneering right back at Jenova.
"Where's all that overwhelming power, Jenova? All on your own without the lives you stole you're WEAK!"
Jenova's tentacle arm twists and writhes, green energy pooling around it. "Ultima."
Kairi yelped and thrust out a hand reflexively, willing her light into a shield as green death washes over the area, etching deep cracks into her barrier, but it holds...
At least until Jenova splits it open with her scythe, blade coming down and digging clean through Kairi's shoulder, down into her torso at an angle. Kairi screams in pain, thrusting out her empty hand and blasting Jenova away with light. She falls to a knee, gasping in pain, hand going to keep the near severed chunk of her body attached. She pours her light into the wound, sealing it closed and healing herself. She stands quickly, blade swinging upward incase, but no attack was coming. Jenova slowly circled her on the outer edge of the mural, strands of silver hair swaying as she moved...
Then Jenova suddenly stops, eyebrows furrowing.
Kairi steps sideways, circling her a bit, but its like... she just suddenly stopped? Staring ahead vacantly?
Jenova threw back her head and laughed. "What am I doing?"
A ripple of unease flickered through Kairi.
Jenova looks down at her scythe with distaste. "I am not an Avatar anymore, yet I see the trappings of it still linger at the core of my soul. How... pitiful. You called me weak? Perhaps I am, that I still have anything left of who I was."
Kairi scowled. "And you have no desire to reclaim that?"
"I doubt its even possible," said Jenova, turning slightly, head tilting, eyes shifting in Kairi's direction, "But the answer either way is: No. I am who and what I am, so let me show you."
Jenova flings the scythe off the edge of the mural, and watches it disappear into the darkness with satisfaction, and on the mural, it disappears as well. A sinking feeling starts to pool in Kairi's stomach.
"Its time," whispered Jenova, shaking uncontrollably, a wild look in her eyes, chuckling darkly, "Let the Goddess finally fall all the way into decay."
She throws back her head and laughs hysterically, and the dark veins under her skin begin to throb and shift. Her normal arm explodes into a tentacle mass. Her clothing rips away, revealing flesh underneath that begins to rot before Kairi's very eyes. The Crisis's legs combine into one fleshy mass. The circlet cracks and falls off, revealing a third eye underneath it. Cysts and eyeballs and teeth begin to form all along Jenova's skin. Her form grows in size, easily three times in size. The bones within Jenova's face begin to split her face open as they push out in a spray of blood and black ichor, rearranging themselves into the mask Kairi had seen on Jenova's other forms. Her black feathering wing turns into a fleshy one, and a second one sprouts out the other side. Two more arms burst out of its body, one on each side, and rather than a writhing mass of tentacles, its a muscular mass ending in claws. In less than a minute, Jenova had destroyed almost everything humanoid about her body, twisting herself truly and utterly into a monster.
"Let me show you true divinity," rasped Jenova.
As much as Kairi hated her, as much as she loathed Jenova, she still felt a pang of loss. "There's nothing divine about what you are, Jenova. If you had tried to turn away from it, if you had asked me for help, as much as you don't deserve it I would have tried."
Jenova's twisted form swayed too and fro, slithering to the middle point of the mural. "Such a noble, forgiving child. But I am not the one who needs help, you are. So allow me to help you... become a part of ME!"
Jenova thrusts the two tentacle arms down into the mural, piercing it and sending cracks all throughout the image, pumping black ichor down into it. Its like Kairi's head has split open. She screams in agony, clutching herself as she falls to a knee. She feels sickly, her skin starting to pale, almost like rotting flesh... just like...
Her head snaps up, eyes going wide. "NO!"
Kairi surges to her feet and rushes forward, fueling and coating herself with light. She swings her Keyblade with heavy blows, tearing into Jenova. The Crisis merely laughs as she does, swiping at her with its claw arms, driving her back briefly. Kairi grits her teeth, aims her Keyblade, and chuks it. It spins through the air and severes through one of the tentacle arms burrowed into the mural. Jenova screeches, rearing up a bit and glaring at Kairi. The Keyblade reappears in her hand, and she rushes forward, ducking one swipe, rolling under another, and leaping up as she comes to her feet, giving a war cry before she lands and brings her Keyblade down on the other tentacle arm.
Jenova screeches again, slithering backwards and hissing at her. "Too late child! Too late too late too late!"
The tentacle arms that had been severed slither down into the mural, and the holes fill with black ichor. Her vision swims; a tint of green to everything. Wrong wrong wrong wrong, eVeRyThInG IS WRONG!
"We were already so joined," mocked Jenova, "I had already burrowed into your mind and body before you and your children ripped me out. It was easy to refill those places, and now? Now dear child? I'M IN YOUR SOUL! Weaving all that is me into all that is you. Mind, body, soul, heart, you cannot escape me! Before long, there will not be a difference between you and I! You never should have brought me down here!"
Kairi snarled, aimed her Keyblade, and screamed. "LIGHT!"
An explosion blew a giant chunk off its body, an arm flopping down onto the mural. Jenova screeched and lashed out, a claw slicing into Kairi and throwing her back towards the edge. She doesn't bother focusing her healing, she can't stop, she doesn't have the time. She can see the veins in her body blackening. She feels so cold. The mural is twisting, tentacles exploding out of its side and wrapping around itself. Her heart beats in desperation, her emotions and thoughts spiraling in denial. She's going to fail, everyone is going to die.
The mural glows.
An orange glow of a limit break resonating with it.
Kairi reaches into herself, as deeply and desperately as she can.
She feels something unlock.
She leaps, planting herself right in front of her right infront of Jenova. She crouches, grasps her keyblade two-handed, pivits, and spins, thrusting her Keyblade into the sky and screaming at the top of her lungs, "SALVATION!"
Five pillars of light exploded upwards into the heavens. One directly from Kairi, four others spinning along the ground around her, a gold and white runic circle meeting and connection before erupting in a shockwave of light that turned the skies divine and bleached the mural temporarily white. Jenova screamed in agony, its body being blows away, burning into ash. Kairi feels warmth re-enter her body, and takes a step back as the limit break fades.
"Holy shit," she whispers, "That..."
All that is left of Jenova is a smoldering pile of goop...
...that begins to twist and turn and churn. Kairi grits her teeth and yells, "Why wont you die?!"
Then her worst nightmare forms out of the cells.
Jenova takes on Kairi's own appearance, rising out of the mass. The only difference being silvery hair, red eyes, and very pale skin. With a flash of light, a replica of the Mother's Key forms in her hand. "We exist together now, dear child."
Kairi is horrified by more than just the Crisis's appearance. She can FEEL IT, she can feel the body Jenova has just made! Has the urge to move it as her own, and her own flesh involuntarily moves, likely by Jenova's prodding. Kairi's panic builds, everything is going so fast, spinning so badly out of control. Then Jenova is upon her in her moment of distraction, swinging her replica Keyblade and smacking Kairi's out of her hands. She trips Kairi to the ground and throws herself ontop, straddling her stomach, letting go of her Keyblade to pin Kairi's arms down. Jenova leans down, face so close to her own, eyes wide in delight.
"You reached deep for that power, my foolish child, and opened the last barrier between us that I needed to get through. Now, just the two of us exist in one soul, and I am going to devour everything that is you until all that's left is all that is me."
Jenova rears her head back, opens her mouth wide, brings it down, and bites a chunk out of Kairi's shoulder, tearing her head back and forth as she does. Kairi screams, in more than just pain. She feels it, a sudden tear in her memory. A blotch in her time as a child she can no longer remember. She stares at Jenova in horror as the Crisis swallows the piece of flesh that turns into light in her mouth, licking her lips.
"Your soul is exquisite."
She rears back for another bite, bringing her head back up. Kairi snarls and slams her own head forward, cracking her head against Jenova's chin. Jenova grunts, rearing back, losing her grip. Kairi lurches upward and forward, shoving Jenova off, reaching for her (or is it Jenova's?) Keyblade, and tearing open Jenova's chest with a deep gash from the blade. She sees it then, a glowing light that had been a part of her soul and she yearns for it. Her eyes narrow into slit, and she lunges forward, tackling Jenova down to the mural, buries her face into Jenova's cut open stomach, and snaps it back, biting in deep. She rips her head back, taking some of Jenova with her, and swallows...
Alone, isolated on a meteor for countless years.
A planet? New life to consume?
Lands and waits, patience patience patience.
Foolish, curious mortals approach.
The hunger takes her.
The feast awaits...
Kairi slow blinks at the memories that flash before her eyes.
Jenova stares at her, stunned.
It only takes Kairi a moment to recognize what just happened.
What she just did.
That she took a chunk out of Jenova's soul just as the Crisis had done to her.
She slowly licks her lips, uneasy with how hungry she suddenly feels, and how delicious those memories had tasted...
But she she nods to herself.
Kairi knows what she has to do.
She can't drive Jenova out anymore.
Jenova had infested her very soul.
Its down to a contest of wills.
A contest of Calamity.
Consume or be consumed.
Damn the vow, she can't let Jenova win.
For once, Kairi sees and feels actual true fear from Jenova. Kairi surges forward, swinging her Keyblade. Jenova rolls out of the way, scrambling for her (Kairi's?) discarded Keyblade, picking it up and barely turning in time to block. They dance a desperate dance, sparks of light bursting off each clash of their Keyblades. But the damage she takes doesn't matter, it doesn't matter if Jenova carves her body, her soul into bloody bits. So long as she wins.
She lets Jenova's Keyblade piece into her side and then drops her own Keyblade, hand clamping down on Jenova's arm to pin it in place, other hand reaching forward to grab Jenova's neck. She lashes out with a foot to trip her, the pair tumbling to the ground. Kairi opens her mouth, berries her face into Jenova's shoulder, and bites a chunk out of it, more memories, and more horrors, entering her as she does. Jenova screeches, writhing on the ground. Kairi takes another bite, and another, and another, face coated with blood and black ichor as she swallows down sickly flesh that makes her want to puke, swallows countless memories of genocide. So much death... so... much... death... so many souls... screaming... within Jenova... within her...
"ULTIMA!"
Kairi is blown off Jenova with a green explosion. She lands on the far side with a grunt, but its doesn't hurt nearly as much as she thought it did. In fact...
Kairi clenches and releases her fists.
As sickly and disgusting as she feels...
She also feels stronger.
She feels powerful.
And if she gained strength... then Jenova lost it.
Kairi stares at Jenova, toying with a memory not her own, knowledge not her own, an spell not her own, and slowly smiles a cruel smile. She's tired of this being used against her and those she cares and fights for, how about she use it for a change? "Five."
Jenova freezes.
"Four."
The Crisis's eyes go wide.
"Three."
Jenova blitzes forward.
"Two."
Jenova closes the half way mark.
"One."
Jenova leaps, angling her Keyblade as she comes down to try and spear right through Kairi's chest.
Jenova wanted to show her divinity? Perhaps Kairi should return the favor and then some. She funnels her light into her magic and mixes them together. "Divine Ultima."
White light rather than green erupts out of Kairi in a powerful burst of energy, a hymn filling the air rather than ultima's normal destructive roar. Jenova barely has time to scream before the light hits her, front on disintegrating part of her body before she's blown away. The mural, the very air around them, is bleached white by this ultimate spell. Jenova flies through the air, and slams into a transparent barrier on the far side that briefly flashes, sliding down and landing with a thud, her front half gone, leaving half a scorched body behind. Kairi slowly stalks forward, eyes gleaming with predatory focus, as Jenova begins to regenerate.
Kairi smirks as eyes reform and stare at her in terror. "What is it you said Jenova? That I never should have brought you down into my soul? Well, perhaps you should never have come. But you're such a greedy little glutton, aren't you?"
Jenova bares her bloody reforming teeth, her voice desperate and angry. "Even if you win here, you still lose!"
"Is that so?"
"Could you possibly handle it?" whispers Jenova, "All that is ME?"
Kairi's eyebrows furrow.
"Could you hold onto Kairi as you struggle with Jenova?" mocked the Crisis, "Your existence spans nineteen years, mine is in the billions. Can you prevent yourself from being overwhelmed by it? Hmm? Even if you consume me, how will you not become me?"
Kairi regards her for a long moment. "I don't have a choice either way."
Tentacles burst out of the mural, rising high into the air before swinging down for her. Kairi turns, holds out a hand, and wills them to stop inches from her. Jenova makes a choking sound. "You forget mother, we exist together now, isn't that what you said? My soul is your soul, but that goes in reverse to, your soul, your power, is mine as well. It all comes down to who is stronger than..."
She freezes as she feels pressure in her mind, a brutal all out assault attack that has blood running out of her eyes. Jenova's will presses down upon her with everything she has. Kairi fights back, and for a moment she struggles, darkness creeping in. She thinks of her family. She thinks her friends, both in this realm and her home. She thinks of Jenova's countless victims that she's barely scratched the surface of, screaming voices that were never to find release. She thinks of the countless innocents, in all realms, that Jenova would devour.
She shakes with effort, gritting out, "...and there is to much at stake. No matter the cost to myself, I have to end you right here, right now, and... and even if I lose some of myself..."
Her gaze hardens, "It'll still be better than you."
With a final roar of effort she breaks Jenova's hold, overpowers her will, and pushes back, constricting Jenova's presence. With a mental command, the tentacles now under her will surge past her and spear into Jenova's body, then back down into the mural, pinning her in place. With both her body and her will bound, Jenova begins to laugh hysterically. Kairi drops her keyblade and approaches, moving to sit and straddle Jenova's half reformed stomach with a splotch. She reaches out, grasping both of Jenova's shoulders. She leans in, places her mouth against Jenova's neck. She has one, last, fleeting desperate prayer, that she can survives this. Then, she opens her mouth, bits down, and begins to consume...