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CHAPTER 5:
MARIONETTE OF MISERY
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Author's Notes: Happy, first over two, day of the week, Thirteenth Anniversary of the United States release of KINGDOM HEARTS: THREE HUNDRED FIFTY-EIGHT DAYS OVER TWO!
The compositions for this Chapter are, in order of scene: 'Another Side – Battle Version,' from the KINGDOM HEARTS: BIRTH BY SLEEP AND THREE HUNDRED FIFTY-EIGHT DAYS OVER TWO Original Soundtrack, Disc Three; and after it, 'Lost… Broken Shards,' from the XENOGEARS Original Soundtrack, Disc One; and after this, 'Roxas,' from the KINGDOM HEARTS II Original Soundtrack, Disc One. All three compositions can be found in KINGDOM HEARTS Insider's MP3 section.
Sora started, as he realized he was standing on the pavement of a familiar square with a towering spire fronted with television screens of various sizes before him, two staircases leading up to a balcony in front of glass doors leading into the minaret to his left.
The surface beneath his feet was shifting back and forth between the pavement, and the familiar inscriptions of his Station of Awakening.
The rising terror inside Sora quieted slightly, and relief flowed out to mix with it, at the knowledge of why he may have woken up here.
Then he blinked.
The pavement could have been faintly flickering back and forth between cement, and the tiles of the circular roof of a different building, while the towers around him were perhaps fuzzing as though they were attempting to become different forms themselves.
After everything he'd been through by now, Sora knew better than to believe he was just imagining this.
The next second, a statue of Roxas was standing in front of him in his Organization Thirteen coat, his hood up, the traces of green fire in the heart shape of a charging Black Hole he was no doubt about to unleash on a throng of Neoshadow statues surrounding him, poised to spring, painting pale shades in puddles on the pavement as a pallid shower of what appeared to be Gummi block meteors were mirrored in the sky above.
Based on what Mickey, Riku, and he had put together before Mickey had left Destiny Islands after they'd defeated Xemnas, Sora assumed they must be the hearts of a minor heartshower caused by hearts liberated from Heartless in the City That Never Was by weapons other than the Keyblade unsuccessfully attempting to merge with Kingdom Hearts.
At the front of the roof of Memory's Skyscraper, someone who appeared to be Riku was standing, but the shape of his hair also could have been shifting, and while it was harder to tell whether anything was happening to the illusion of Riku from this distance and angle, the blindfold this memory phantom was wearing could have been dancing with the crimson patterns of Blox, too.
The familiar figure of the red swathed Ansem the Wise was standing below the center of the balcony, roughly equidistantly between the staircases, and the balcony itself and the locations where the staircases met the pavement.
However, this time, Sora could clearly see the blonde hair and beard and features of Ansem the Wise's visage morph to swirl in shades of peach and tan and then congeal into the unfamiliar face of a male around his age with black hair lined with gray and tied back in a topknot, a small number of large scars on his face, including over his left eye.
"I'm not the last true–"
Namine appeared, hovering just above the pavement, and unlike the other figures, tears of desperate terror and denial were in her face as her mouth was contorted in an almost hysterical shriek.
Without warning, she fell towards the pavement so motionlessly it was as though someone had cut strings she'd been attached to, and Sora pushed the last tides of terror and worry for Wakka, Kairi, Tidus, Selphie, and Roxas away, and even about whether Namine was now about to totally fade back into Kairi's heart, he broke into a sprint, in the event he needed to catch her if she didn't land stably.
However, as soon as she saw him rushing in her direction, she brought her feet below her and threw her arms and hands forwards to ward him back with a desperation Sora hadn't even seen in the memories of Roxas that had been accompanied by the most sorrowful and agonizing fright and pain, so unrestrainedly what was a stagger on the pavement she'd most likely intended to correct turned into a stumble that sent her falling forwards.
A different kind of terror consumed Sora now, turning his surroundings and insides to shocked and astonished molten ice as his insides contorted with such sick violence he wasn't sure he could have retched if his body attempted to.
Sora opened his arms to catch her.
"No!" she cried, and this time, there was so much desperate terrified force in it her voice barely rose above an ordinary volume, she was straining her vocal cords so much; and she actually twisted to throw herself to the side to ensure she landed on her side at an angle that must have been jarring even for someone with the combat experience and enhanced athleticism of a Keyblade wielder, her face barely even shifting as she crashed onto the pavement, her eyes sightless.
Sora fell to his knees and skidded up to her, everything that was him shriekingsearing for him to at least grip one of her hands, or shoulder.
Tears of his own came to his eyes as he ignored those impulses.
He said the sole thing he could think of to say quickly.
"It doesn't matter who you are or aren't, we still miss you all the same."
Something shifted over Namine's face.
She let out a quiet, broken laugh, and there was an empty and fissured bitter self hate in it Sora had never even heard in Roxas' voice.
Sora's insides contorted violently once more.
"Why should I even bother hiding the truth this time?" she part asked, part wailed, something very small and young in her voice.
"That may be the only thing that can convince you there's no way anybody can miss anyone but Roxas.
"Because, you see, whatever Xehanort and Maleficent believed they were accomplishing with the Princesses and the first Organization Thirteen, I was the one the seekers of pure light wanted, from the beginning."
Sora remained kneeling, and he opened both of his hands and placed them in front of her face, not too close, but close enough she could reach out and grip them any time she wanted.
He pushed everything else as far away as he could justify, and he hoped his tone was as reassuring and welcoming and soothing and understanding as he wanted it to be.
Sora ignored the part of him telling him that, just like the first time he'd been in a facsimile of this place, he was completely and entirely out of his league.
It wasn't even just Roxas, Ven, and whoever the third heart was, who needed him to carry their hurt now.
He could not fall into darkness this time.
Not even a little.
Was the person akin to who the genuine Ansem had used to be among these hypocritical seekers of light?
"I take it you just remembered Ansem the Wise isn't the only judgmental person who has it out for you, then?" he questioned.
"So what?
"Like I said, there's more than one person who misses you, too."
The corner's of Namine's lips twisted slightly, and Sora felt a small amount lighter.
He hadn't been able to reach Aqua himself, any time.
And, even after all this time, Ven had needed to tell him the power of waking had been at his side the whole time as much as all the other lights he'd searched for during his journeys had been.
He'd been thrown down a precipice a total of three times before he'd been able to bring Anna, and Elsa, home; and even then, he'd been so much of a danger to them he hadn't even been able to risk saying a word to them after he'd beaten Skoll.
But maybe he really could light the way for someone as hurt as Roxas, and Anna, and Elsa, and Namine, out of the darkness.
"The people I just remembered about have it out for me, such as you can call me that,"
there was something far emptier and more ruined in Namine's voice when she specifically referred to herself than Sora had heard in it at any time before, so much even what he could discern, and the knowledge of how little he could begin to brush the surface of it measures, caused his stomach to shift as though it wanted to heave this time
"yes," Namine answered.
Sora suppressed the urge to clench his teeth.
"You just saw it.
"The crossroads at the fated place where Xehanort intends to summon the true Kingdom Hearts into the realm of light; the same as the one here, at Memory's Skyscraper, in the realm in between before where Xemnas was fashioning his own artificial Kingdom Hearts; and the Dark Depths just inside the Final Keyhole where the artificial Kingdom Hearts of Xehanort's Heartless was being combined at End of the World in the realm of darkness.
"Those television screens above are the detritus of a Final Keyhole Xemnas' Kingdom Hearts didn't need, with a limited ability to glimpse the hearts of people that were tied to it.
"That's part of the reason Xemnas attempted to pick you off at a recreation of Memory's Skyscraper at the Altar of Naught. I'm sure, as soon as he did it, you realized he brought you there to attempt to do the same thing Demyx did, and drench your heart in enough darkness he'd get Roxas back, who he'd then attempt to compel to gather more hearts in place of the three of you."
At that memory, this time, something shifted inside Sora.
For whatever good protecting Roxas then had done.
All Sora had accomplished was to put him through not just losing Axel a second time, but getting him back beforehand.
Perhaps Sora should have just let Xemnas do it.
Then, however things had unfolded with Sora in no condition to safeguard a Roxas still grieving what he'd been sure was a dead Axel at that time, and Riku and Mickey very likely in far less of a condition to do so, maybe, at the least, Riku and he would have gotten home at the same time as Kairi, and not made the mistakes they had with Wakka, Tidus, and Selphie.
"Sora, you don't believe that. I know you don't."
No.
If Xemnas had reclaimed Roxas then, even with as much as Sora had attempted to carry his hurt at the real Memory's Skyscraper, forcing Roxas to choose between Xemnas and Riku at that time, with him not just still tormented by Axel's assumed total death, but also aware he'd just lost Namine to Kairi's heart even before Sora had discovered that, might have undone anything Sora had accomplished during his visit to the true version of the locale around him.
This was even more true because Sora still had no idea who the third heart inside him was, or how she was tied to Roxas, Axel, and Namine.
He blinked.
Was she who Vanitas had been referring to, and not Namine?
Sora pushed that terror away, as well.
Namine was the person who needed him now.
Dragging Roxas back out of Sora by recreating one of Roxas' worst nightmares, right in front of Riku with Ansem the Wise only recently having atoned for his wrongs, at the cost of the last two people who were carrying Roxas' hurt about Axel's presumed genuine death, could have caused Xehanort's second attempt at smelting the Kye-Blade to succeed.
Most of the first Organization Thirteen had been beaten by that point, but all Xemnas would have needed was for Roxas to complete his Kingdom Hearts; and then just replace their missing members by creating eleven Heartless from people with strong wills whose Nobodies he could then bind to his Kingdom Hearts as soon as they manifested, recapture Kairi, and acquire the six New Seven Hearts.
And who knew what would have happened to Anna, Elsa, and Rapunzel if the Xehanorts had gone after them then.
Why?
Why can I never stop finding people; just to lose even more, whether I was aware I had to begin with, or not?
"That wasn't just a recreation, though."
Sora became aware Namine was still talking.
"Just as the Dark Depths were able to tie the Final Keyhole to Radiant Garden's world heart Keyhole, those television screens were tied to the pieces of what passed for his Kingdom Hearts' Final Keyhole at Memory's Skyscraper. Xemnas wasn't just attempting to drown you in Roxas' hurt to drag you into the darkness, and Roxas back out of it in your place; that location was the Dark Depths of his own Kingdom Hearts, the Fissure of Nothing."
Something passed over Namine's face.
"There was something else going on then I'm still not sure about.
"Roxas still has memories that are out of reach,"
Sora suppressed the urge to clench his teeth.
Was this, too, tied to whoever Vanitas was talking about?
Or, at least, the third heart?
"and when Xemnas brought you there, and attempted to recreate Riku's duel with Roxas, the Fissure of Nothing flooded your heart with so much darkness Xemnas was at risk of dragging Roxas back out of you, and turning you into a Heartless, with nothing more than minor wounds.
"But, whatever the reason is I can't access those memories, that was when they themselves finished returning to you the same way Roxas did afterwards.
"It wasn't Roxas' talents you called on during that duel, at times such as when you outmaneuvered Xemnas when he attempted to strike from the roof as Roxas did Riku at the genuine Memory's Skyscraper.
"That's why you weren't able to actually harness the Keyblade enough to jump distances longer than blocks, or cut apart more than one skyscraper at once, until Xemnas bound the remnants of his Kingdom Hearts to him.
"That was Roxas, before, and after, he returned the rest of the way to you.
"Whatever you harnessed during the first duel, it was the memories I can't reach, striving with anything they themselves had remaining to keep Xemnas from reactivating Roxas to replace the hearts his Kingdom Hearts had been deprived of."
Namine's face shifted.
"What I do know is that those are the memories that wound me to what resides at the intersection of the highest tier of all those crossroads in the crust of the World.
"This tier, in the realm of light, is where the black box of hope is."
Sora suppressed the urge to start.
He had had no idea what Namine was going to say, and he knew better than to believe he could anticipate it after all he'd witnessed, and been through, by now.
However, even so, that was still one of the very last things he'd seen coming.
"It's another artificial heart, one constructed to do nothing but store the reflections of other hearts without developing any sentiment or recollections of its own, and into it I was meant to feed your memories through the ones I can't access from the instant I was first given this form, along with the memories of every heart you're connected to, every world heart whose surface you trod upon, and both artificial Kingdom Hearts you connected with.
"For the purpose of ensuring those melodies of memory enabled the person akin to Ansem the Wise Anti-Aqua referred to, who himself is known as Quadratum, from, by now, coming far closer to accomplishing what Xehanort's Heartless and Nobody both didn't, and not claiming your body to travel to another world, but as the final stepping stone to becoming the artificial Kingdom Hearts of a new world he himself has compiled."
It took no effort at all to keep from reacting to this.
Sora needed to suppress the opal night that cleared at him to take Namine's hands and squeeze them, however.
And this Quadratum, whoever, and whatever, he now was, might be a lot closer to completion than the two previous fabricated Kingdom Hearts he'd taken apart.
But close to incomplete still meant incomplete, and whatever it was, and whatever Quadratum needed to put the finishing touches on it, as long as it wasn't totally done yet, Sora still had a chance to stop it from coming into being any more than the ones of the two most posturing of all the Ansems had.
Roxas was home now.
And he'd just pulled Kairi, and himself, through an attempt by a legion of Shadows to sell a lame knock off of his, Donald's, and Goofy's literal stand up and pratfall acts.
If he could do that, whatever Quadratum and his Kingdom Hearts were, and this third artificial Kingdom Hearts was meant to do; and however close to being finished it was, and whatever was needed to complete it, Sora could stop that from happening at the same time as he prevented the Kye-Blade of the true Kingdom Hearts from being recomposed.
Sora opened his mouth to assure Namine he was no more upset with her for putting him in danger of becoming the means to carry Quadratum through his own Final Keyhole than for anything else.
But Namine opened her mouth first.
And her voice had now become so absent it was as though her words were the inverted reverberations of an empty whisper, echoing from the foundation of an abyss of innumerable layers of infinite gulfs at such a boundless distance measurement and far off had no concepts he could even begin to attempt to comprehend, not perceive, guess, be uncertain of, encompass, or even imagine.
That made it even easier to react.
"That in itself is bad enough.
"After everything I've done to Roxas at DiZ behest, and you, and others, all this time, I was the instrument of success for someone willing to go much farther than DiZ to attain pure light.
"And I don't even know what Quadratum intends to do, now that he's become a Kingdom Hearts.
"Or even what kind of artificial Kingdom Hearts he, and the new world he himself has successfully become, are; all I know is that the all but done Quadratum is something a lot different than what The World That Never Was, and End of the World, could have been.
"But perhaps the worst part of all is the reason how Xehanort and Maleficent could be fronts to set me up to feed your memories into this container from the start, and give me this body."
Sora's insides did warp a little at how, this time, Namine's voice became totally bereft of all emotion when she referred to herself.
Hold on
She can't mean
Not her too
Not even Namine
Not once again
Not Namine
"Jiminy's journal holds memories of the book Anti-Aqua told you about, but it itself is inscribed on the last wills of a datascape testified to before history itself had surged into record, into which those memories were once Downloaded.
"It's not this actual book, and it really is a journal about you.
"Jiminy was able to write such a good one Mickey could even turn it into a datascape with memories contributed from the hearts of the worlds themselves, such as Pluto entering the corridor of darkness in Traverse Town, because this book itself, whatever it is, was also crafted from the memories of you I sent into the box, and they were then routed to the past with waypoints I have no knowledge of.
"However, I didn't erase the memories of one of Jiminy's datascapes, and Journals, or program a data version of myself into the former.
"Even though I wasn't the detritus of not even a heart, but a Heartless as well, I have my talents over memories because I'm one of the most essential parts of it."
Sora relaxed back into an open toothed grin almost before he was aware he'd decided to.
"I'm not sure what the purpose for adding these kinds of components themselves to the datascape was, just that they're not intrinsic to it.
"However, I'm a partition of it without physical form, nothing more than photons that are still wavelengths capable of carrying electrical currents, that fled its confines when the Nobody you know as Xigbar removed the heart of someone known as Strelitzia from where he'd stored it there to keep it alive, thus giving her a new body in the process before afterward suspending her in a lifeboat and casting it away onto the currents of the Lanes and Oceans Between and interspace where it drifted to this day, after dubbing her someone known as the True Dandelion.
"This is why, while Roxas remained within your heart, I didn't stay with Kairi in the Keyblade Graveyard, and my heart traveled to The Final World.
"My body is a Nobody body of Strelitzia's.
"And I am a partition of a realm known as the second Daybreak Town given the name true darkness."
Sora moved his hands right up to Namine's and placed them with both palms upwards right in front of them, not close enough to touch her, but close enough she could take them if she wanted to without even needing to turn her hands over.
"How does your birth from a different darkness than you'd believed cause any of us to remember you differently any less?" he queried.
A number of emotions Sora couldn't identify passed over Namine's face, but whatever they were, they appeared to be specifically directed at him, so he assumed they were tied to whatever had happened in the Land of Departure when he'd lost his memories during its time as Castle Oblivion.
"Because, no matter how much I feel them now, the chain of memories I used to believe was mine is itself preventing me from being who I am.
"This isn't an issue of an ability to be myself as long as there are people who I can share my heart with, or choosing between light and darkness.
"All of the memories I believed were mine are as…"
For an unknown reason, Namine trailed off.
Then her lips curled up slightly, this time in a bitter grimace.
Her eyes slid closed, but tears brimmed as they did and spilled down her face, and an amalgamated smile of broken, yet a desperate, full and utter any engulfing, almost euphoric relief spread on her face.
"You really do need to stop worrying about me this time.
"This is precisely what I deserve, for everything I've done.
"And when the rest of my real chain of memories completes interlinking itself, the me in front of you will have been taken apart the same way I took apart your own memories, but there will be nothing to recover.
"This time, it really is goodbye.
"But if you wait for that to happen, unlike with even the Xehanorts, in order for me to follow the guidance of my heart, my heart genuinely will need to return to the darkness whence it came.
"Recovering links of my true memories has slowed down my return to Kairi, but I'm almost out of time.
"I beg of you, as my first friend.
"Before I'm beyond your reach, please.
"Put an end to me."
Reality separated from Sora himself.
Or maybe his tears had become transparent walls of ice, each as impassable as the giant snowflake Elsa had compressed her eternal winter into.
But this was far worse than anything Riku, or Elsa, had done to attempt to push people away.
"You just said you used to be data for a journal, though, and Mickey told me in his letter he learned journals are collections of the memories in our hearts.
"And even if the only memories inside you you had before are ones of darkness, you have memories of light now.
"You didn't ask to be born neatly sifted into a record of darkness, and you know what the light is now, so just choose it the same way Elsa chose light over darkness."
A desperate thankful joy manifested on Namine's face.
But then her visage contorted in ruined and fissured despair and self hate, and she squeezed her eyes shut.
When she spoke once more, her voice was a keening begging plea, shrunken and young.
"That's such a good point.
"But I can't.
"The only choice remaining for me to make is to forsake the journal of this history.
"You can't see.
"After everything I did to Roxas, and you, and all the others, I couldn't ask for a better way to atone.
"The more Riku, and Roxas, and Kairi, and you, and the rest miss me, the better off you are this way."
Silvery pain tore through all of existing and not present substantials and selves.
Sora realized he was looking up at the dusk colored sky of the Keyblade Graveyard.
"Sora!"
Kairi's voice was flooded with desperate terror of a different kind.
Sora shifted, and scrambled to his feet.
Before his eyes could process his surroundings, he was standing on the wrought stained glass of his Station of Awakening once more, and this time that was all.
Standing in front of him was the black haired girl, nothing but resignation decipherable on her expression.
Namine was nowhere to be seen.
Horror sundered through Sora, and he cast his gaze around quickly, yet carefully, searching for her.
"The last words she said returned her the rest of the way to Kairi, and the face you saw at the reminiscence of Memory's Skyscraper is the heart inside Terra."
There was a numb, exhausted weariness in her voice that was similar to Namine's, but with something new and freshly raw stabbing into the farthest reaches of her own depths.
So much for not being out of his league.
"Sora, you don't believe that. I know you don't."
No.
He'd seen the face.
Kairi and Roxas and the rest of them could put their heads together, identify him, and then they'd be back on their feet.
They'd worry about Namine, and Wakka, after that.
"While I myself can't even call myself a puppet any longer."
More lightness returned to Sora.
"Does that mean you're the third heart?"
The mysterious girl's face didn't alter.
"I used to be, yes.
"But now I'm just the Lingering Sentiment of someone whose new heart wasn't even synthesized, and wouldn't even have learned how to talk yet if Xehanort hadn't turned it into his last spare."
Sora kept in mind not to let anything show on his face, not wanting to discourage whoever this was from letting him use the power of waking on her, and also worried, since he had no idea precisely what state the figure before him was in, if he let what Namine had said, and what this person was saying, get to him, he might not be able to call to the power of waking correctly with all his heart.
Though, the confirmation the Real Organization Thirteen had, at last, totally filled out its ranks caused his stomach to warp.
"My first heart should have rejoined my new one just now, so I should have already left; but it hasn't, and I have no idea why.
"Maybe it's a result of what my Xehanort self just went through, combined with Namine reminding me of our confrontation with Xemnas at his reconstitution of Memory's Skyscraper; yes, that was me.
"Whatever the reason, Namine was wrong.
"Neither of the two of us, Roxas, or I myself, were assisting you during your second battle with Xemnas."
At last, a deep and thrusting self hating guilt Sora hadn't even seen in Namine's face passed over the mysterious girl's.
"Namine is in no condition to remember precisely what I did to Roxas, but he wasn't in any shape at all to assist you after what Xemnas put him through during your first duel.
"While, due to how much more darkness I needed to work around to assist you then than Namine believed, I wasn't in any better condition.
"This was partially because I'm a Nobody of my own, at least in a sense," Sora suppressed the impulse to begin tracing the currents of the power of waking until he was done hearing this person out, "And, although Xemnas didn't know it, and Roxas did prove he was the better of the two of us even in his weakened state, I still had more memories.
"If he'd attempted to wrench Roxas out, he might have located me, and then there was as much of a chance I'd have been the one he dragged out to repair the damage to his Kingdom Hearts," Sora once more suppressed the impulse to trace the tapestry of the power of waking at the revelation this third heart could also wield a Keyblade, "And with either fate for Roxas just as horrific, I'd been attempting to block a path to Roxas from the instant Demyx made it clear the Organization was still attempting to get him back, so if any of them were able to send you back into the darkness, I'd be the one they reclaimed.
"Due to the particular kind of Nobody I am, it most likely would have taken more than you becoming a Heartless to pull me back out, and if I couldn't have exchanged myself for Roxas while locking him in your second Heartless with your own heart, Roxas would have returned anyway.
"However, there was at least a chance I could ensure he reappeared somewhere so far away, if my presence was identified, I would have been seen as the better option, and Roxas would have been left be, at least temporarily.
"Once Roxas, and I, believed Axel dead in all ways, I was determined to do that for certain, even if that meant the sole way I could get Roxas out of there was to complete Xemnas' Kingdom Hearts myself.
"I'm not sure whether I'd have attempted to block Axel from reclaiming Roxas if he was the one who turned you into a Heartless, or if I'd have made my best effort to ensure he identified me, and if I wasn't capable of regaining a new body that way, Roxas remained in your Heartless or reappeared somewhere far away.
"However, while Roxas felt a meaningful amount better after you at last truly met at Memory's Skyscraper, even knowing what my abilities do to Roxas, with Axel presumably dead," for the first time, life appeared in the woman's voice, an undiluted determination Sora couldn't recall hearing anyone else he'd met in his life talk in before, "there was no way, at all," and then there was nothing but resignation, and even more of the new pain, "I was going to take the chance he'd be successfully set up to complete Kingdom Hearts.
"From the instant it became clear just how much Axel had strained himself until I saw the result of the heart shower, I was calling on every single ounce of energy in my heart to ensure, if you fell into darkness, I mitigated the damage that would be done to Roxas as much as possible.
"After I backed you up at the second Memory's Skyscraper, I actually didn't complete my own fusion with you; I refused to until I saw how far Roxas was willing to take his, and until I saw if he made it back to Destiny Islands with you.
"I hoped I'd at be able to rest and recuperate fast enough I could create one last corridor of darkness for you to get you out of the realm in between, or the realm of darkness, but I couldn't even do that.
"I couldn't even wait to ensure Roxas was happy, in at least some sense, in his new home.
"I'm the reason Ursula was able to grow to giant size during your third battle with her, even without Triton's trident.
"She attempted to follow you through the Door to Light, and while denizens of darkness can't pass through those doors, they can close them, if they're talented or skilled or strong enough with the darkness.
"When Ursula wasn't able to follow you, she tried to close the door while you were passing through it, and that would have thrown you both into the Lanes Between without any protection from the darkness drenching those corridors in different, but no less dangerous, ways than they drench corridors of darkness themselves.
"I had no choice but to complete my own return to you then, so I could gain the necessary boost to use my own Keyblade in what very limited ways I could inside your heart to keep the door open long enough for you two to pass safely through.
"Ursula thus picked up on my presence and connected them with how, when Maleficent had given Oogie Boogie a path back to Halloween Town, she'd perceived the remnants of a device Xemnas created to enhance my own talents in altering chains of memories.
"Oogie Boogie had found it, too, and had been attempting to figure out if he could use it to boost his own darkness, but when Sora beat him the second time it fell into the realm of darkness, and after identifying me, Ursula figured out how to use it in limited ways herself.
"While, even though Roxas was right by your side all throughout the last battle with Xemnas, all I could do, in the end, was lessen your momentum a little before you landed in the waves, to thus ensure, when Roxas at last landed, sound and safe in a true home, I was the one who caught him with my own arms and hands.
"And now I can't even alter the state of your heart, or feed you memories and ideas of things to do with the Keyblade, while, even though I know I have a heart, my overall new heart itself is an empty husk that has barely even regained the ability to understand how to talk, far less do so.
"Of this, however, I can be sure.
"The hearts of the other guardians are still intact, but they've all been claimed by a Heartless known as a Lich, and it's brought them with it into the lowest depths of the great abyss, somewhere near the margins of the true Kingdom Hearts where you once glimpsed its light.
"You may still be able to successfully make a dive with the power of waking to pull them out; but they're still seven hearts of light almost as pure as those of the Princesses of Heart that are currently drenched in among the most profound kinds of darkness possible that now reside in the vicinity of the Door to Darkness; and, as you know, one of those hearts is Ven's, with the memories of an incomplete Kye-Blade still etched in it."
All breath departed Sora.
He wasn't ice.
The pitch silent void was so cold, while light could shine into it, the wavering starlight was so remote and faint it couldn't even reach far enough into the vacant night for there to be differences in temperature.
The tears in his eyes were just as opaque, and impenetrable, as the wall of the Shadows of the Demon Tide had been.
"This is the last haven you'll find here. Beyond, there is no light to protect you. But don't be afraid."
"Sora, you don't believe that. I know you don't."
"Giving up already? Come on, Sora. I thought you were stronger than that."
"Don't worry. There will always be a door to the light."
"Now, Sora! Let's close this door for good!"
Nono
No way
As long as he didn't lose trust and hope, it wasn't over.
"You have to believe."
"Believe? Oh, you mean know in my heart he will return? Without any proof?"
"Exactly, believe. I thought it was all over for me, but a friend of mine looked me in the eye and said, 'You don't believe that.'"
"This is the last haven you'll find here. Beyond, there is no light to protect you. But don't be afraid."
"Don't worry. There will always be a door to the light."
"Giving up already? Come on, Sora. I thought you were stronger than that."
"Sora, you don't believe that. I know you don't."
"I saw that light. I think that's what saved me. No matter how deep the darkness, a light shines within. A guess it's more than just a fairy tale."
"Look for the light in the darkness! May your heart be your guiding key."
No.
He could be a whole pint by himself.
He could find the light himself, without Kairi or Riku or Donald or Goofy or anyone else needing to do it, and light people's way back home himself.
There was always a way, if he just believed.
It wasn't over!
"Giving up already? Come on, Sora. I thought you were stronger than that."
"Sora, you don't believe that. I know you don't."
"Don't worry. There will always be a door to the light."
"Now, Sora! Let's close this door for good!"
Pleasenonononononononononononodon'tgopleasedon't
Pleaseno
Pleasedon'tgo
The girl's voice cracked into ruined breaks.
Tears brimmed in her own eyes to spill down her face.
"I'm so sorry, Sora.
"It's all my fault.
"If not for me, Ursula might not have been able to put up enough of a fight in your third confrontation with you to give the Xehanorts enough time to hijack your path through the Sleeping Worlds.
"And now Axel, and Riku, and Ven, and the others, are beyond our reach.
"Because of me, we have no other course left but to retreat.
"If you attempt to bring them back with a Keyblade at all, even the faintest tapestry of a connection between them may reopen the Door to Darkness."
"As if," a familiar voice broke in.
The black haired girl, and the Station of Awakening, were now silhouettes superimposed in Sora's vision over the Keyblade Graveyard, with a rough shifting oval of violets and blacks facing him, Xigbar standing before it with his hood down, the Riku from the past standing on his left with his skin charred to sanguine ash in countless visible places, many beneath rends and tatters in his bodysuit as he favored his right leg while clearly refusing to lean on Xigbar.
"We didn't go to all the trouble to have that door constructed and then locked nice and tight just for us to lose our own chance to harness it.
"Even the journey of the red light has now ended, Poppet.
"The rehearsal is over, and the production is about to commence."
"That's as you say," Young Xehanort's own voice put in from behind them.
Sora whipped around to see five more corridors of darkness burgeon.
"Checkmate, Braig."
From the center corridor of the five, Xehanort himself strode out, No Name already in his hand and ready in a neutral position, a deep and drawn contortion of so much unrestrainedly directed hate and fury in his expression Sora hadn't even seen it on the face of Xehanort's Heartless in any of his guises, Terra-Xehanort, Maleficent, Pete, or Saix at his most Berserk.
"Or should I say," Xehanort remarked, his voice dripping with not just hate, but the satisfaction of having at long last cornered prey at the end of a very long, very debilitating hunt, "Bragi."
.
"To think that time is not absolute, but elastic… Relative and subjective… That there can be individual differences caused by changes in time… Perhaps the same people and life-forms can even exist in several different space-times. An independent time that flows with a will of its own…? Hah… What nonsense…"-Anonymous Chronopolis Researcher
CHRONO CROSS