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CHAPTER 33:
A HOLLOW RIFT
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Author's Notes: The pieces for this Chapter are, in order of scene: 'Albedo,' from the XENOSAGA Episode One Original Soundtrack, Disc Two; and after this 'Premonition,' from the FINAL FANTASY VIII Original Soundtrack, Disc Two; and afterwards 'Dead Sea – Ruined Tower,' from the CHRONO CROSS Original Soundtrack, Disc Two. The first Track can be found in KINGDOM HEARTS Insider's MP3 section, and the second two in Zophar's Domain's.
Riku reacted without the tiniest fraction of a delay.
He raced as fast as it was possible for him to move, without taking the chance of unbalancing himself or losing coordination; and he spun to place himself between the now tear starkly slack drawn Xion, and the others, with Braveheart residing in safeguarding defense.
"I don't still feel that way."
But even what Kairi and he had just learned about Sora, and what had happened to him, and what they'd learned was happening to Kairi, and what Kairi had said; weren't that important, in uncountable ways, at this time.
What mattered was keeping what Maleficent had just done to Xion and Ven from sending Xion, Roxas, Aqua, Lea, or anyone else any further down the path Maleficent had just strung Xion into beginning to head down once again.
Or Namine, if she used her capability to affect memories to involve herself in this; whether or not they remained in Ven's currently unaltered Station of Awakening.
Or Vanitas from returning into a more profound darkness.
But Riku also couldn't afford to think about Namine now.
Or about what the particular ways Vanitas undeniably felt for her may be.
"There's no reason for me to mince words," Riku spoke, keeping his voice even and resolved.
"Aqua, Terra, if one, or both, of you two don't feel comfortable spending time with Xion, Roxas, Lea, and any of their closer friends for the time being, and they have no issues with one or both of you doing this; I believe it will strain your bonds with them less if you stop spending time with them for the time being."
Aqua was looking out at nothing, tears in her eyes and spilling down to streak her face.
Vanitas' face was clear of any emotion.
But Terra opened his mouth.
Before he could say anything, though, an oblate prominence of blacks and violets burgeoned up from the floor of the Station of Awakening to Xion's left.
Riku clenched his hand around Braveheart so tightly all of his blood drained out of his knuckles, and he shifted to face who he was almost certain was about to walk out of the corridor of darkness while remaining wary of Aqua or Terra, or Vanitas, doing something ill advised.
Sure enough, Maleficent herself strode with calm victory out of the opening in the dimensional planes, the night contracting shut behind her.
Aqua clenched her teeth and snarled in practical hysterical, feral savagery and viciousness; and Rainfall coalesced out of swirling light blues and dark sapphires, her tears now ruined broken desperation despairing even of hopelessness.
"Aqua, take care not to act on how you're feeling," Terra spoke in terrified, disturbed warning.
Too many emotions to identify shifted over Aqua's face for many seconds.
Riku didn't know if it was because Aqua had sacrificed herself for him, or because this was simply the last straw.
But whatever the reason, or reasons, was, or were; for the first time since Sora had vanished into oxygen over a year and a month ago on the fallen trunk of their favored tree on the islet near the play island, the numbness and aching everywhere were back.
"I don't still feel that way."
Then Rainfall vanished even as it had appeared, and she collapsed to her knees inside Xion's yet intact imprisoning Keyblade sphere as though she were a puppet with cut strings, somehow appearing to stare out at measurelessly more nothingness than before as tears continued to cascade down her face.
"I'm so sorry," Aqua whispered, her voice almost empty of its broken ruin itself now.
"I don't trust my judgment if I participate in this.
"Unless you need me to, I'm staying out of it."
Maleficent's mouth curled up in another smug grin, ready to pounce.
"Then I'll need to be sure you do need to participate."
"If it comes to that, I'll make sure she takes it out on me," Xion interjected, sounding as hysterically ruined and broken as Aqua, but in uncountable different ways.
"I'm not leaving with you, so do us all a favor and cut to the chase and try to take Oathkeeper with direct force; or just go back where you came from."
Then she jolted violently.
"No," she partially snarled savagely, partially sighed.
"You're here for Elsa while she's incapacitated, and you can thus neutralize one of the greatest threats against you."
Anna sprinted in front of Elsa, Kristoff, and Olaf and drew her gunblade to position it in an inexperienced neutral location where she could shift from defense to attack, depending on what her sister and the other two people she loved needed her to do.
To Riku's faint surprise, his vision became wet and hot with shocked uncertainty and self hating guilt when Kairi raced to Riku's own right and brought Destiny's Embrace into the same kind of locale.
Goofy took a place at Riku's left, Save the King Plus positioned as Destiny's Embrace was.
Donald raced behind Riku, and Riku knew he was putting Save the Queen Plus in a similar area.
Xion moved almost as swiftly in front of the still unresponsive Roxas, positioning both of her Keyblades in a medium stance of her own.
Terra ran quickly in front of Aqua, Earthshaker coiling into his hand in silver and gray, and did likewise.
Vanitas sighed heavily in exasperation, Void Gear manifested in his hand in crimson and black arcs; and he moved to Anna's side, and a little in front of her.
"I could care less about what you just did to Ven," Vanitas said, but a deeper, starker irritation beneath the rest of it made it clear he was lying; though after what had just happened, perhaps not to himself, "But I still owe you for making a mockery of my own skills with the darkness two times by now.
"So it's on."
Riku wanted to ask Xion to send one of them out of Ven's Station of Awakening to try to return with Lea and Isa, and maybe even Namine.
But he knew that, if Xion had been able to remove the Thundaza Frame, she would have already done so. Maleficent must be so proficient with enchantments now she could even prevent a spell cast by the Keyblade of Hearts from being ended.
And that meant she might even be able to prevent anyone sent out of the Station of Awakening from returning, particularly as she very likely knew a lot more about the current condition it was in than any of them did.
"Now you catch on," Maleficent said in reply to Xion, her tone a mix of mockery and approval.
Xion didn't reply vocally.
She just ran right at Maleficent.
Maleficent raised one eyebrow in amusement and raised her left hand, and light green tongues of fire coiled up around it to disperse and reveal a familiar green sphere crowned stave.
A single massive very wide, partially as tall halo of morphing, discordantly disjointed incandescent pale jade flame about twice Xion's height; ringing with the sound of innumerable clear flutes as though they were countless shrieking and howling and wailing and screaming voices condemned to eternal torment, erupted outwards in an expanding circle around Maleficent.
What was left inside Riku felt his blood drain away as he recognized what spell Maleficent had just cast from Mickey's description of his apprenticeship to Yen Sid.
He held up Braveheart and segued forward as fast as he could move his dark energy, to warp in front of Xion as she held up her Kingdom Key and the Keyblade of Hearts and catapult in a brilliant blue white Dark Aura directly into the Divine Wave; and he ignored the searing excruciations that tore up his head and face and torso as he plowed into it to rocket into it once more and again, and again and once again, as many times as he'd seen his enhanced data replica do when Cid had run his program without taking the time to launch any other kinds of strikes during the combination assault.
Yet, even though ramming into the Divine Wave over and over in front of Xion parted it to surge past her harmlessly on both sides; when he warped the final time to plummet down upon Maleficent from above in the final strike of the combo, his adrenaline faded enough he realized he throbbed with aches everywhere so much he could barely keep Braveheart aimed down as he ended this variation of Dark Aura with his original dive into expanding roads of light blue energy tongues.
Maleficent appeared not to have improved her physical combat skills, for she had just started moving her stave to block when he collided with her head, sending her staggering back and causing the rest of the Divine Wave to dissipate before it impacted with anyone else.
He forced limbs and a body that didn't want to move into a backflip to land at Xion's side.
"I take it we should be even more worried about Maleficent than we'd believed," Kairi said, clearly able to tell how terrified Riku now was; although Riku now knew better than to believe Kairi was saying it because she was concerned, or worried, for him, at least in part.
"That's putting it mildly," Riku replied, but at least he was able to keep his voice neutral.
"Maleficent may or may not have taught herself to store Yen Sid's reserves of magic by now, and not just Elsa's.
"But she hasn't just learned how to cast spells of Elsa's quality, or even Yen Sid's.
"According to Mickey; Yen Sid can cast what Maleficent just did, a Divine Wave."
Donald snarled from behind Riku at the name.
"But while it doesn't drop him into a coma as Zettaflare does Donald, he needs to sleep for days afterwards to recuperate from the fatigue."
Kairi clenched her teeth, looking as though she knew of a way to deal with this kind of dark power, but she currently couldn't utilize it.
Riku would ask her about that later, though.
"You assume I need to use force to address Elsa," Maleficent commented, her words both unconcerned with them as dangerous to her, and amused.
"I'm not that much of a slouch compared to you," Donald put in.
"I've been feeling out the spell you're using to ward Xion from halting the Thundaza Frame; because Xion is the one who is holding us in Ven's Station of Awakening, as feeble as her Keyblade of Hearts is, you still need to divert a lot of attention to that ward.
"Enough that, if we can keep you occupied, I can ward you from warping inside it."
Anna started violently.
"Which we can and will do," Goofy interjected.
"If Donald can ward you, we have a chance at beating you."
Yet, even though Riku could ache with numbness again; he didn't feel at all lighter knowing they had a real chance of protecting Elsa, and living through it.
"Particularly when you aren't trying to trick us into dropping our guards so someone else can skedaddle off with Elsa while we're busy trading blows with you."
Anna jolted violently, this time.
Maleficent frowned slightly.
Riku wished there was something left inside him that was willing to smirk a little at the realization they'd fully been able to anticipate Maleficent this time.
"You're too caught up in how clever you believe you've gotten," Goofy spoke in a pleasant, but firm, challenge.
"You figured out you're not as good at subterfuge as people like the members of the earlier Organization Thirteens and you learned to use your head a lot more, and to advise dark seekers such as Christopher and Prospector to do so.
"But, with how conceited you are, it's way too evident you're overestimating your ability at trickery.
"If anyone besides you tries to grab Elsa from inside the Thundaza Frame, she'll turn that person into a popsicle.
"You were just counting on us forgetting that, and how much it's costin' you to keep the ward against Xion up, as a result of us looking for layers to your current plan that aren't there.
"I advise you to take a hike, and promptly.
"Or you can stay here; and if the Foretellers don't object to it this time, have your latest scheme sent packing in the same direction we sent your earlier three."
"Or are you willing to risk calling for backup when we're inside the Station of Awakening of a ghost," Terra's voice and face were shields, "When the more people who are inside it, the stronger its connection will be with the material realm, with the corresponding risks that will pose to all of you?"
Maleficent's face smoothed out.
But then, after several seconds passed, she spoke with calm but vindictively irritated smugness, "As an alternative, so you can grapple with keeping your guard up while tackling a new set of doubts; whether you want to hear it or not, I shall offer you my own theory about the nature of Xehanort's failsafe contingency."
"Do tell, then," Riku challenged Maleficent himself, keeping his voice even.
"I thought you'd never ask," Maleficent replied, her tone composedly sarcastic.
"From what Ursula and Hans informed me Xehanort said, I have little idea of the methods Young Xehanort intends to use to accomplish this, though I believe I can make a small number of educated guesses.
"But I'm all but certain his goal is a comparatively less harmful version of what I also believe is one of the essential features of Synchronicity Perceptual; a rift in the fabric of space and time that is no more than an absent vacuum, an artificial realm divest of both light and darkness."
Vanitas' eyes went a little wide, and genuine, legitimate terror and horror appeared on his face.
However, even though this, and what Maleficent had just unveiled to them could be achieved, caused a weak chill to crawl up Riku's spine; his aching numbness was still enough to keep most feeling away.
Terra shifted slightly.
Goofy frowned, his lips pressed together tightly.
But no one else showed a visible reaction; either too upset about everything else that had happened earlier today, or on guard for whatever new fears Maleficent wanted to try to harm them with, or both.
"Okay, apparently I do still have a lot left to learn about how far Xehanort is willing to overreach himself.
"And if my original self is willing to go that far, I'm not sure I want all of his memories back.
"I can do without recollecting a wish as lunatic as that.
"What evidence do you have even Yozora and Xehanort are willing to resort to that measure?"
"He said it himself," Maleficent responded, her voice totally calm and unruffled, now that she'd distressed at least one of them.
"He offered to exchange Sora for twenty prisoners, and two of them were Joshua and Alma Beoulve."
Riku suppressed the urge to cringe at the memory of Shiki calling him a knight.
But, while he'd felt sick to his stomach, and been consumed fully with horror and terror, when she'd first believed he could possibly be a knight; even oblivious praise like hers had been couldn't do more than cause him to feel a small bit ill now.
Vanitas scowled with vicious blackness, but much of it appeared directed at himself.
"In that case, I cannot believe I didn't see this coming."
"How so?" Terra queried, whatever he was feeling concealed.
"Because I've spent a lot of time in the Sleeping Traverse Town, and I know all about Joshua's small sojourn there during the time Sora and Riku took their Mark of Mastery Exams.
"That must have been another secondary goal of Xehanort's experiments in creating Heartless.
"He wanted them to cause the creation of a world like Traverse Town; so he could lure Joshua there, and thus gain the ability to trace his connection to Alma at the same time."
"Then, it's safe to assume you know what Joshua is?" Terra asked.
Vanitas looked up at the blackness around them and rolled his eyes.
"There shouldn't be a Keyblade wielder in the realm of light who doesn't know what Joshua is."
Terra's face lost all of its expression again.
"You, and the rest of this merry gathering, know all about what the hearts of people, and the hearts of worlds, are.
"But it looks like none of you know why genuine stars have hearts, even though I know Xehanort's Heartless wrote they do in one of his Reports.
"Or what function the hearts of stars serve in the astral tapestry."
Maleficent raised one eyebrow in interest herself.
"The heart is a vessel with three core chambers," Vanitas elaborated.
"And the three kinds of hearts represent each of these three chambers, and fulfill their function in the cosmic tapestry vitalized by the beating heart of Kingdom Hearts.
"Two of these chambers, and functions, you know well; sentiment and the physical body.
"People can feel and think, so the hearts of people provide the cosmic tapestry with sentiment; emotion and thought. Every other thread weaving the tapestry of the cosmos, astral or material, springs from the font of feeling.
"But people need a place to reside in order to bond with each other, and one another; so Kingdom Hearts created world hearts in order to give them locations where they can spend time together, and form ties. The worlds born of the world hearts created bodies for people in order to do this, so their hearts would have places to dwell in that would give them this capacity.
"However, if the realms were but limited to the material planes, hearts would be trapped inside matter, and have no medium through which to extend their ties.
"In order to provide the realms with a medium for hearts to connect their bonds, Kingdom Hearts created a third entity; different from the hearts of people, and the hearts of worlds.
"These entities are stellar hearts, and stars were brought into being to forge this bridge.
"All of the dimensions outside of the four dimensional material realm and virtual space; such as phase space, the astral tapestry, imaginary space, ethereal space, and imaginary time; emanate from the stellar hearts, and the stars that came forth from them.
"However, unlike the world hearts, which were originally one, and then became many; and the hearts of people, which were many in the beginning, and remain many; stellar hearts were designed as one and many at the same time.
"As Kingdom Hearts is the sum composite of all the assorted hearts of worlds, or the countless hearts of people; stellar hearts are each and every one single blood vessels in an intricate labyrinthine crystalline latticework stretching throughout the totality of the cosmic ocean, yet none of them are a true single stellar heart, and all of them are merely faces of one single genuine heart of a star.
"Due to its nature, the true stellar heart was thus spared the worst of the damage Kingdom Hearts, the world hearts, and the hearts of people, were inflicted during the First Keyblade War.
"But it was still severely crippled; and this caused a small but sizeable portion of the lattice of faces to become reborn as people themselves, entities that are known as Archons.
"Joshua is one of these Archons.
"He is the pure light severed from the heart of one of the worst of the dark Archons, whose own heart now rests in slumber inside Alma Beoulve's."
"And because stellar hearts are mediums that enable the hearts of people, and the hearts of worlds, and different matter, and different essences, and the astral and the material, to remain tied together; if harnessed properly, they can be used to drag all of the light and darkness out of a given area, as long as there are no hearts there?" Xion asked both Vanitas and Maleficent.
"Does that in and of itself cause that location to fade into The Final World?"
"I don't feel like engaging in a snipping contest like Young Xehanort and Ursula did, so I'll just bow out of this now," Vanitas replied, but he gave Maleficent a look that told her if she didn't succeed in worrying him enough, she'd sooner or later regret it.
Maleficent just curled one corner of her lips down at Vanitas in a slight sneer.
"If the darkness and light are properly removed from the targeted place, yes," she answered.
"But there are other, well more torturous things one can do with a rip in the fabric of existence where neither light nor darkness washes.
"For, akin to how a whirlpool descends to fill in a hole among the waters of a sea, the tides of darkness and light will incessantly seek to return to the tear in the realm, and imbibe it with darkness and light anew.
"If that darkness and light are kept out of the rift effectively enough; eventually, in a short or longer period of time, the currents of darkness and light that flood the realms can be altered so severely that they will coalesce about the rip. In time they will become as concentrated as they can drift within a greater heart, such as a stellar heart, a world heart, or even an artificial or honest Kingdom Hearts.
"But, without a greater heart to contain them, they will whorl in a much more unstable condition.
"If this energy is then contained by an actual Kingdom Hearts, when that Kingdom Hearts sets it free, it will torrent throughout all of the realm of light with such barbarically unrestrained wrath that; unlike when all of the worlds of the realm of light were taken into darkness during the First Keyblade War, or many were when the Xehanorts built their first two artificial Kingdom Hearts; people past counting upon the worlds of the realm of light will not fall into suspended slumber against the potentiality the worlds will be restored, while another immense number will be morphed into Heartless.
"Nor will many, or all, disappear into near death; though it is very likely they will be hurled to The Final World, as world hearts have nowhere to rest asleep themselves when a Door to Darkness isn't present.
"Rather, an essential requirement for Yozora's New World of Synchronicity Perceptual, and Xehanort's failsafe New World; is for almost every single heart within the realm of light to be molded into a Heartless."
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"Seek you the Sun-Cryst, slumb'ring star.
In tower on distant shore it dreams.
The mother of all Nethicite,
the source of its unending power.
The Dynast-King, his fallow shards,
coarse trinkets cut from Sun-Cryst light."-Gerun-King
"Such power exists?"-Princess Ashelia B'nargin Dalmasca
"In times that are long passed away,
we thought to save this Ivalice…
And chose Raithwall the Dynast-King.
He took the sword and cut the Cryst.
Three shards he took from its gilt grasp.
His words and deeds run through your veins."-Gerun-King
FINAL FANTASY XII