AN: Here we have an extremely large, extremely CONSEQUENTIAL chapter! xD I put a loooot into this one. In fact, in all my bullet points and outlines of events to happen for this story, for Hearts of Children, THIS is the one whole big scene I started working on FIRST for it. I've been tweaking it and writing it for legit a couple of weeks now! :D And I am soooo excited and happy and proud of it. To finally release it! :D So buckle up, get your popcorn lol. Cause shit gets insane, and it will never be the same again!
Also - WARNING: Shit gets waaay more intense. Got some language, and we have violence against the child protagonist (which I obviously do not condone or excuse! And neither will the characters, going forward!).
END OF AN!
Luxu left the castle, going straight to the most obvious world she'd choose to run off to: Twilight Town.
He had to find her. He just had to see her. He had to talk to her. If she'd listen. If not...he'd respect her and never bother her again. He could do it; after all, he'd walked out of so many other people's lives before, already. Disappeared without a trace. Except he'd never once done it for their sakes.
As he walked the streets, passed people by, he kept his eye and ears open.
He made his way to her favorite place in this favorite world of hers: the east side shopping mall.
Unfortunately, he wouldn't find her there.
Well, that only meant he'd have to widen the scope of his search.
He had the feeling...she was somewhere on this world.
He knew it in his Heart.
He decided to dip into the alleys, narrow and winding as they all were.
Didn't find her there, either.
He went back into the streets, made his way over into Tram Common.
He paused as he saw a hole in the wall. The trees beyond it, thick and shadowed...
He remembered what she'd said before, and her drawings. A mansion in the woods...
Luxu gave a casual glance around, and then he quickly ducked through that hole, into the dark forest.
After traversing the woods, going up a sloping path, he found it.
Emerged into a clearing, with a great big mansion.
Old, crumbling.
A gate of broken metal in front of it leading to the courtyard.
And there was Xikira, sitting there with her back to the overgrown, stone wall.
She stood immediately on sight of him in the grassy clearing.
"Xigbar? Or...should I call you-"
"Don't," he said sharply. He sighed, raising his hands. "Please. You can't go saying that out loud. You just can't...alright?"
"Why?"
"I...listen, I want to talk. I just- want to talk with you. I want to...explain things. As much as I can, anyways. And I want to apologize. I lost my head, I was afraid, I was panicking, and I was way, way too far over the line. And if you just want to tell me to fuck off, right here and now, and never see me again - then okay. I'll do that."
"You almost shot me in the head...you almost- executed me."
"I know..."
"Would you really have done it, or was it just to scare me?"
"I should have done it - but I couldn't. That's the truth, princess."
"Because you care. Because you love me too?"
"Because I care, yeah. I care too much for my own good, apparently."
Xikira looked down at her feet, frowning deeply. Then she met his gaze again, squared her shoulders, and adopted a hard look on her face. "Across all these thousands of years, I don't think anyone's ever actually stood in front of you and really asked you this - so I'm going to: Why, Luxu?"
"I told you not to-"
"Have you ever even stopped to think about it?" She went on, her eyes narrowing. "About why you keep going with it - with his plans?"
"You think I haven't? Every single day, for all this time, I've thought about it," he replied harshly. "What I'm doing, why I'm even doing it."
"Have you ever thought about just stopping?"
"Of course I have."
"Then do it! You wanted to be a traitor, didn't you? So be a traitor with me!"
"What?"
"I'll be a traitor to my 'Master', and you can be a traitor to yours! We don't have to live for them: we should be living for ourselves!" Xikira went on passionately. "If the Master of Masters wants what he wants so badly, he can get off his lazy ass and do it himself! But you don't have to keep slaving away for him at it! Just like I'm not going to keep slaving away for Xemnas anymore! I'm done, Luxu, okay?! And you can be done too!"
"It's not that simple-"
"Why? Why can't you just walk away, why can't you just ignore it?! Why?! What's really keeping you going, what is it?! Are you scared of him, or what?!"
"Did you ever think I'm invested in it myself?"
"There have to be better ways to get rid of these Darkness people than...all of this convoluted, century-spanning - bullshit!" Xikira insisted. "Not that they even matter! They're not even a threat! I haven't seen them, have you? But Xemnas is a real threat, Ansem was a real threat! Did you ever think your Master just was using it as a convenient way to- advance his own stupid evil plans too?! Really, they can't be anything compared to the people actually, actively ruining millions of worlds right now! To the millions of millions of Heartless out there! So why bother, what does it matter?! You're chasing ghosts, Luxu! You're fighting some stupid conspiracy! He's making you waste your life for him! And I hate seeing it!"
"Good speech - nice arguments...but you're- you're not seeing it the right way."
"Maybe I'm seeing it right and you're the one who's not! You're the one with only one eye!"
"Xikira..."
"If you're scared it was all for nothing or something if you let it go-"
"That's not it, either!"
"Then why can't you just get up the balls to say enough is enough and START LIVING YOUR OWN LIFE?!"
"BECAUSE I OWE HIM MY LIFE!" Luxu snarled. He caught himself, calming. "After- I lost my parents, after the Darkness came to my home, to my town, and took them from me, I- I ran and I had nowhere to go and I would have died if he hadn't found me out there!"
"So WHAT? I think you've repaid any of that a thousand times over by now! It doesn't mean eternal service! You're not a slave to him! So stop acting like one! It's pathetic!"
"Pathetic?!"
"Yeah! I thought you were smart, and cool, and strong, and all of that stuff - but you're just a weak, pathetic man who's too cowardly to step out of line! The rest of it is just a big act you hide behind! Like everything else!"
"You don't know what the hell you're talking about!"
"Yes I do! I might be only a month old, but I'm already stronger and smarter than you! I'm better than you! Because I can actually say enough is enough, and break my chains! You can't! But you didn't used to be like this! You walked out on him, you stood up to him before! You can do it again, you just got too weak and frail to try again now! You think it's been too long, but it hasn't! You can still just walk away, forget it all, and come with me! Because- because you were right! You said it was too much - the sacrifices were too great - and you were RIGHT! You were always right! You knew in your Heart it was wrong, and you couldn't stand for it!"
Luxu averted his gaze from her. He drew a sharp breath, his hands shaking at his sides.
"But what I still can't figure out is why," Xikira said quietly. "Why are you so weak now? Why are you so scared to even try something?"
"Because it's impossible," Luxu said flatly, relaxing his body. "Everything was written before it started - the stage was set, and it was going to happen, no matter what. It was fated, unavoidable. It still is. Everything that was, everything happening now, and everything that's going to happen...it's etched. And it's pointless to try fighting it. Changing it. Maybe you get away with a little nudge, a step to the side, but ultimately you're going to walk forward down the path you're meant to be on. You're still on that road, and your destination will never be altered. It can't be."
"You really believe that...?" Xikira breathed, her face scrunching up. "You...don't even want to try? You just- you throw up your hands and say it's impossible?"
"Because it is impossible," Luxu replied. "No matter what anyone did, no matter how hard they fought...it all ended as it was meant to. As the Master wrote that it would. The ending's been written, and we're just walking our way to it."
"No!" Xikira said loudly, passionately. "I don't believe that! That's dumb, and you're dumb for thinking it!"
Luxu laughed, hearty and real, a hand to his chest. "You think I haven't heard similar words from so many people before you? You know what happened to them all? They acted exactly as they were meant to, despite their brave words and defiant acts. It was all futile, it's inevitable. No amount of shouting, crying, or struggling will change it. Stop it."
"Really?" Xikira tilted her head at him.
"Yep. And you can trust the word of the man who has thousands of years of proof to back it up."
Xikira's face hardened, and she fell into a combat stance, her weapon flashing into her hand. "Well if that's true, then stand there and let me ram this through your chest! If it's really fated, if you really believe that, then I won't be able to do it, will I?"
Luxu narrowed his eye, then he smirked and set his hands on his hips. "That's a misunderstanding of the principle of the thing, princess-"
"No, no - you're actually afraid of that, aren't you!" Xikira cut him off, with glee in her voice. "If you really, a hundred percent believed in what you're saying, you wouldn't have anything at all to be scared of..."
"It doesn't work like that, is what I'm saying," Luxu responded forcefully. "What it means is that you won't manage to do it because it's written that you won't. Because if we fight, you're going to lose."
"That's still dumb," Xikira laughed at him. "And I still don't believe that, either. I think we can do anything, if we believe hard enough! If we keep hoping! Kairi and Sora have taught me that much, through all their memories. They've done impossible things, amazing things! And I can too!"
Her body surged with magical energy, and she flew forward in the blink of an eye, leaving a trail of shredded grass and kicked up dirt behind her.
Luxu waited for her in that instant. Then he stepped in, blocked her strike by grabbing her weapon with both hands, and he drove his knee into her stomach. He held her there as her body curled inward, as the air left her, as pain wracked her tiny form. Then he stepped away and let her fall.
He stood over her, gazing down at her. "Tell me..." he said quietly. "Tell me again how believing and hoping is going to do anything for you here. Against the inevitable. Against an impossible, insurmountable future. Against the man...who's destined to carry it out."
Xikira gasped, wretched, and clutched her stomach as she curled into a ball at his feet. Then she sucked in a breath, straightened and rolled over, and she pushed herself up to her knees. She stared down at the ground, her long blonde hair hiding her face. Her fingers curled tighter around her weapon handle. Then she lashed out with it, aiming for his legs.
Luxu raised his foot and slammed it down in an instant, pinning her weapon to the ground. Then he lashed out and kicked her across the face, sending her sprawling. He stepped forward, after her, and put his boot on her chest. "Tell me," he said flatly. "Tell me."
"You...fucking...prick..." she gasped out, glaring up at him.
"You know how many kids...thought exactly like you do...back in my day?" Luxu went on, growling the words to her. "Hundreds. Thousands. You know what happened to nearly all of them: they all died. They killed each other. The only ones who lived, just over two hundred kids, only survived because it was written that they would. Otherwise-"
Xikira's hand let go of her weapon; it vanished, reappearing in her free hand, which she then swung for the foot on her chest.
Luxu raised his boot and angled it, catching her blade with the sole of his foot. He drew his leg back and kicked it away, then took a step back from her. "WHERE DO YOU THINK THIS IS GOING TO GET YOU?!" he roared down at her, spreading his arms to her. "DO YOU THINK YOU'RE ANY DIFFERENT FROM ANY OF THOSE KIDS?! YOU THINK YOU'RE ANY DIFFERENT FROM THE TRILLIONS OF PEOPLE WHO HAVE COME AND GONE IN THE COURSE OF MY LIFETIMES?! THE SPAN OF HISTORY ITSELF?! DO YOU THINK YOU'RE GOING TO BE THE ONE TO STOP WHAT'S MEANT TO HAPPEN?!"
Xikira once again pushed herself up off the ground - and she stood again, fully, facing him. "Maybe not," she said softly, her blue eyes boring into him. "But I'm still going to try - with everything I have."
"It's pointless."
"Maybe. But I'm still going to try," she repeated.
"Why? Why bother?" Luxu growled out.
"Because I won't be able to walk away from this today, and live with myself after, if I didn't try...for you...with everything I have!" She ran at him again, swinging her blade for him. At the last second she pulled back and flashed out a hand, sending out a blast of flames.
Luxu snarled, raising a hand to catch the flames - stopping them in their tracks with a miniscule exertion of his own magical powers. It exploded there. He held her gaze as he lowered his undamaged hand to his side.
Xikira jumped up into the air, then she began to outright fly - soaring over him and swooping down around him. Angling to attack from behind.
Luxu simply stood there, waiting for her.
She threw a Blizzard projectile at him, then flew in with a burst of speed, her blade held in front of her, swirling with energy.
Luxu turned and swiped his arm, destroying the projectile. When she came into his range, he stepped aside, seized her wrist, then spun her around and slammed her down on the ground, flat on her back. Again. This time, he put his boot to her throat.
"You can't win. You can't even come close," he told her, frustrated.
She...smiled up at him, letting out a strangled breath. "I'm not trying...to actually...beat you. I'm just trying..."
Luxu gritted his teeth. He lifted his boot free - and slammed it down next to her head. "Trying...is fucking useless! It's pointless!" he shouted down at her.
"If you really believe that..." she choked out. "then why did you try for Brain and the other Union Leaders? Why did you try for Skuld? You should have listened to your Master. Look but don't touch, isn't that right...? I think you're full of shit-"
Luxu kicked her in the head and whirled away, stalking off across the clearing, breathing ragged. His hands trembled at his sides.
"I t-think...some part of you...still hasn't lost hope..." Xikira said, her little voice pained. "I think a part of you...still wants to believe...that this doesn't have to be it. That you don't have to keep...walking this path. And I'm telling you...that you're right. You can stop at any time. You can walk away. And that's it. It's broken, it's changed. It's not unavoidable, it's not impossible. You're just too...scared to even try anything. Because you've been...at this for so long-"
Luxu teleported in front of her. He seized her wrist and yanked her arm up; he tore her weapon from her grasp and put it to her neck. She froze, her blue eyes jittering in their sockets. "There is no changing it. There's no beating it. The Master won before it began."
"Maybe not by me, or other people - but you? You're the one pushing it all along. All it would take is for you to say enough is enough. You're the one keeping the Master's grand plan alive. And you're the one with the power to end it."
"You can't...change...where it's all headed," Luxu gritted. "You can make minor course alterations, sure, but where it all ends? That's always going to be the same."
"So now we're moving the goalposts," Xikira giggled. "That just proves it's not all as set and locked as you want to think it is. Or...as the Master wanted all of you to think it was."
Luxu let her weapon fall to the ground, and then he swung his fist up into her gut with magical force. Xikira flew back across the clearing, slamming into the stone gate wall and slumping to the ground. He turned his head aside, looking off into the trees. He clenched his trembling fist at his side.
He heard a deep, pained gasp, and he looked back at her again.
She was climbing to her feet again, bracing herself on the wall with quivering little arms. She met his gaze, then raised an arm and reached out; her weapon vanished from the ground, reappearing in her hand. She pushed off from the wall, stumbling forward, drawing in shallow, agonized breaths.
Luxu watched her come. He let out a deep noise of exasperation, throwing up his hands. "When are you going to give up?!" he yelled at her.
"Never!" she gasped out, clutching her stomach as she wobbled her way forward.
"This is pointless," Luxu reiterated, toneless.
"Not for me," Xikira said, flashing a quavering smile.
"YES IT IS - for you, for me, for everyone in this goddamn World!" Luxu retorted.
"That's your Master talking, not you, Luxu."
Luxu raised his arm and blocked her weapon strike on a small barrier panel. A single hexagon, precise. Then he kicked her in the chest, sending her flying back through the air. Sailing high...until she came down hard on her side in the grass.
"O-okay...oookaaay..." Xikira wheezed, sitting up and putting a hand to her chest. She looked over at him. She sucked in a long breath, and let it go. Then she stood up. "Time for the coat to come off!"
"What?! No, don't-" Luxu sputtered, eye widening.
Xikira yanked the zipper down and threw her coat aside - revealing her long blue dress underneath. She rolled her bare shoulders, adjusted the thin straps. She worked her weapon arm like a windmill. She breathed again, in and out. "The only nice thing about these coats is they're some kind of magic - because they hide whatever you have on beneath them really well. Like you don't even have anything on under them..."
"Yeah - they're enchanted..." Luxu said slowly, automatic.
"That's neat," Xikira beamed. She bent down low, pulling off her boots and kicking them away. She hopped up and down, bouncing on her bare feet now. "Okay - let's do this, Luxu. I'm ready."
He pressed his lips together. "Do you think this is a game?"
"No. Does the Master?"
Luxu teleported over to her, lashing out with a fist.
She dropped straight down, avoiding the blow, and lashing out with a quick fist of her own - catching him right between his legs. "YES! I hit you!" she exclaimed with pure excitement.
Luxu drove his knee into her face, sending her flipping and rolling backwards across the clearing. He shifted on his feet, letting out a low groan. "One hit. One tiny, pitiful little hit. Great going," he said, sarcastic. "It changes nothing, Xikira."
Xikira remained hunched over on the ground for a moment. But then she sprang up to her feet, with all the springiness of youth. She began smoothing out her dress - then her hair. "We'll see about that," she answered him finally.
"We will; you'll see how you have no chance in hell of affecting any kind of change," Luxu told her. "You'll accept it - like I have."
"You mean like you want to think you have so badly," Xikira replied. "Like the 'Master of Masters' wanted you to be brainwashed into believing. He must have a huge ego, to name himself a 'Master of Masters', to tell you the truth-"
Luxu bared his teeth at her, flying forward with speed - not teleporting. He roundhouse kicked her across the head, sending her stumbling aside. Then he jabbed her in the ribs with a fist. He caught her in the stomach with a knee again, then slammed his fists down on her back, smacking her to the ground, flat on her face. He kicked her in the side, sending her airborne again. He pursued her, darting behind her as she got to her hands and knees. He seized her hair and yanked her head back, reaching his free hand around her frail little body to grasp her throat.
He felt her swallow, felt the shiver go through her body.
He let her hair and neck go, then kicked straight out, hitting her in the back to fell her again.
He waited for her to rise - and then he flashed out his palm, striking her with a casual blast of ice magic.
The ice spread instantly, thick and unyielding - binding her from the neck down. Trapping her.
Luxu circled around her, moving to stand in front of her.
He raised his hand again, shrouding it in powerful flames. The pressure and force of the winds themselves blasted out from his hand to sway and bend the trees of the forest around them. The old, cracked windows of the mansion shattered, glass falling to litter the courtyard.
He saw the realization in her eyes. The fear. The shock. But then he saw...her eyes narrowed again, and her mouth closed. She began to struggle within the ice, tossing her head this way and that.
Luxu simply watched her.
"Just accept it," he said lowly. "Just give up."
"NO!" she shouted at him, struggling harder than ever.
Luxu sighed, lowering his arm and letting the fire magic extinguish. He set his hands on his hips and leaned backwards. He gazed up at the sky, tapping his fingers idly.
She had spirit, she was stubborn as hell itself - but it didn't matter how stubborn or spirited anyone was. Eventually, everyone surrendered. Everyone would break. Everyone would give in. All it took...was time. Luxu knew that better than anyone.
And time was something Luxu had in infinite supply.
His thoughts ended abruptly as a burning orange glow caught his eye. It was coming from within the ice surrounding Xikira. "Trying to burn yourself free?" he remarked. He shrugged. "Don't burn too bright, princess - or you'll end up burning out."
Xikira glowered at him with full force, and that light grew brighter and brighter still. The ice was beginning to melt, falling apart around her.
Concern wormed its way into his Heart. "Seriously - stop it. Put too much into any one, magical attack, and you could end up losing consciousness. Or worse: you could kill yourself outright."
"I- don't- care..." Xikira gritted out. "I'm...immortal..."
"No, that would be me," Luxu said bitterly, scowling at her. "You, on the other hand, kiddo-"
The orange glow suddenly exploded, blasting away the ice, sending fragments at Luxu. He raised an arm, then lowered it again to see Xikira standing with weapon in hand. She took gasping breaths, dark purple tendrils wafting from her tiny body. The air itself swirled around her, translucent. Telltale signs of a Nobody on the edge...
"Xikira, what did I just warn you about-!" he began to shout.
She flew forward in the blink of an eye, swinging her weapon for him with a yell!
Luxu cut himself short with a snarl, leaping back out of her reach easily. She came at him still, swinging furiously, again and again! He leaned back, leaped to the side - raised a magic-shrouded arm to bat away her weapon at just the right moment. He ducked under a swing for his neck, then whirled and kicked her in the stomach. He uppercutted her, sending her shooting up a dozen - fifty feet into the air. She slowed and stabilized, and hovered there in the air above him. He could see her glaring at him. He rolled his eye at her, spreading his arms up at her.
Xikira raised her hand and began sending down a hailstorm of fireballs, forming them in the air around herself and letting them loose.
"You're going to hurt yourself, I'm serious!" Luxu shouted up at her, even as he stepped aside, stepped back, dodging her raining fires with minimal effort. "Get down here and just stop it, for fuck's sake! You're never going to win, this is just an exercise in-"
Xikira let her weapon vanish, raising her hands over her head. Fire burgeoned there, a single fireball - which then began to swirl and grow, larger and larger...until it was as big as her own body. She let out a scream and hurled her arms down - sending that giant fireball down at him.
Luxu narrowed his eye, conjuring a magical dome barrier around himself.
Her fireball struck it and exploded - leaving only a few minor scratches on the panes of magical crystal.
Xikira wobbled in the air, and then she suddenly began to fall.
"Goddammit, Xikira!" Luxu leapt up and flew through the air to intercept her, catching her in his arms.
He landed with her and held her still, gazing into her eyes, up close now.
She clung to him, to his arms, to his shoulders, grasping. All with that smile on her face!
"You reckless-" Luxu started.
He gasped as thick ice spread up and down his arms, originating from her palms. Then she threw herself backwards and flung her little legs up, backflip kicking him and flipping backwards out of his grasp! She landed on her rear in the grass, even as her body threatened to fade out of existence itself...and then she started laughing!
Luxu flexed his arms and a miniscule amount of his magical power to free himself of the ice, and he stalked forward, glaring down at the girl. "What do you think that even accomplished? What is this even-"
"Oh, this? Nothing, I guess!" Xikira giggled, standing up tall. "But, it is fun, getting to have a fight like this with you..."
"It's nothing but a distraction. You are nothing but a distraction!" Even as he said the words, he knew they were wrong. His Heart protested that they even escaped his lips. He sighed, raising his hand to her slowly. He cast healing magic on her, shrouding her form; her injuries vanished, her unstable state stabilized again. Back to new. He saw the way she drew herself up, the relieved breath she let loose in full. Deep in her chest. "How long is it going to take...for you to accept it?"
She gazed at him with strong, clear blue eyes. "How long is it going to take for you to reject it?"
"You can't rejects fact - you can't just reject reality," Luxu said harshly. "But you can accept it. You will - no matter how long this takes."
"I won't," she refuted. "I don't care how long we do this, I don't care what you do to me, I don't care what you say. Because I know, in your Heart, you don't really believe it. Not completely."
Luxu spread his arms away from his body, his face twisting. Blue energy swirled in his hands, and solidified into twin, metal swords of black, with red highlights running up and down their lengths that pulsed in neon glow.
Xikira stared. "I didn't know you had swords."
Luxu held his new weapons at his sides, gazing back at her coolly. "You live thousands of years, you pick up on a few things. Master some different weapons - different styles. As a matter of course."
"So which life are those from?" Xikira asked curiously.
And it was like...again...nothing was wrong between them. Like they weren't out here fighting each other. Fighting...a battle of philosophy, of ideals. Even if her views were so simplistic and plain. Her heels dug in against the truth of the World, like the child she was...
Luxu held up a blade, giving it absent, intricate twirls and flourishes in his hand, muscle memory coming back to him slowly. He frowned at it, at his own reflection in the glossy black blade. "It must've been about two or three hundred years ago, now. A world called Eos - I was a royal guard in the kingdom of Lucis. Back then, I was a chick called Safestia."
"A...chick called Safestia...?"
"That's right. Back then, this other kingdom called Niflheim had just begun a war of conquest. Uncovered some nasty old darkness, locked up in the ruins of an even older nation than themselves. It was locked away for a good reason. But they didn't give a damn. Just saw a weapon to harness." Luxu dropped his arm, shaking his head.
"That's how you know so much about girl's fashion!" Xikira exclaimed, beaming at him. Like she'd just solved the answer to life itself. The origin of the damn universe. "Some of those lives before, you were-"
"Yeah. A few times," Luxu confirmed, shrugging. "When you're moving across worlds and down through history, you can't afford to be picky. When life gives you a perfectly good lemon, and whatnot." He paused, looking down at his blades again. "She was more than happy to agree, you know...the real Safestia. All she ever wanted was to become a hero for her people - the best of the best. Join the ranks, climb them, and be remembered after for her great deeds. When I told her what I wanted to do, how old I really was, and what I could do for her...she was all for it. Said she'd be glad to let me take the reigns for a few years, put all my skills and power to use...and she wouldn't have to do a thing."
Luxu chuckled to himself at the old memory, continuing on. "Of course, at the time, I wasn't focused too much on creating any kind of legend for myself - or for her. I was there to investigate that ancient darkness the Niflheim had uncovered. Thought it might be...my brand of ancient Darkness. The kind I've always kept my eyes and ears open for signs of..."
"So it wasn't a Darkness."
"No." Luxu gave his blades another flourish. "Now enough with the nostalgia." He ran at her, blades held at the ready. He slashed for her viciously - but not as viciously as he really could have. Not nearly. He wasn't actually trying to kill her, after all. He had a point to make. He needed to make her see it, make her understand this - make her submit to it, accept it.
The kid tried to block him, but his fierce strike sent her skidding backwards. He pursued her and slashed for her from the side - she barely even got her weapon up in time. She rolled with the blow and came up clumsily. He leapt up and came down swinging both blades for her, putting more of his power behind it. She suddenly erupted with magic, creating a pink, domed barrier around herself. Exactly the same as the one her Somebody was so fond of using, from Luxu's encounter with her. Luxu's blades struck the barrier and shattered it with minimal resistance. Xikira threw herself backwards to avoid his blades, going into a flip.
Luxu closed their gap and slashed at her again and again. She blocked one, took the other across her bare arm with a cry of pain. Luxu teleported behind her and slashed her across the back, expertly and shallow, and he kicked her to send her back to the ground.
Xikira hit and rolled, turning and coming up with weapon ready, wincing in pain. She reached under her arm, feeling for her back. "You ruined my dress!" she shouted furiously.
Luxu blinked. "Well, if that's really what you value...what you cherish in life...you'll lose it, yeah," he told her. "You'll lose everything...to this pointless defiance, this meaningless struggle."
Xikira narrowed her eyes at him with cold anger. Calculation in those blue eyes of hers.
Luxu watched her without much concern.
Suddenly she flew at him, slashing for him.
Luxu blocked her, then sent her flying backwards.
He suddenly felt a great, searing pain across his backside, the burning of a magical blade!
He whirled - but saw nothing at all but the empty clearing.
"WHAT?!" he screamed out.
A blade, metal and cold, slammed against the side of his head, sending him stumbling, his ear ringing. He turned and lashed out in a flash with his own weapon - but there was nothing!
Luxu breathed, turning this way and that, extending all his senses. Body and magical alike.
"What the HELL are you doing?" he shouted out, his voice echoing in isolation. "Invisibility, illusion magic? Were you hanging with Zexion more than I realized, too?!"
Luxu suddenly felt a fresh agony burst as heat slashed across his left wrist, and he gasped and dropped his weapon! He swung out with that injured arm - but found nothing there again.
He turned wildly, raising his sole weapon, snarling at the clearing. "XIKIRA!" he yelled.
"It's all pointless...it's inevitable...it's unavoidable...right? It's meaningless..." Xikira's voice came to him suddenly - from everywhere and nowhere. "So why are you trying, Luxu? Stand there and die. Stand there and lose. Maybe you're meant to die to me here today...maybe you're meant to lose...maybe it's written that on this day your long life ends..."
"AS...IF!" Luxu clenched his jaw, then swung his weapon out to create a ring of burning flames around himself. The flaming circle flew outward, burning away the grass, scorching the stone wall and causing it to explode in fragments, and turning the trees of the forest to ashes on the wind.
"Now that was cool!" Xikira's voice rang out. "But I was over here the whole time!"
Luxu looked up at the mansion, to find her standing on the rooftop - over the front entrance.
He teleported straight to her, right behind her, and slashed at her.
His blade connected, causing her to cry out and fall to the courtyard below.
He raised a boot to step off the edge-
And a sharp pain burst in his back - a blade piercing him!
He gasped and his back arched, agony spasming in him.
"Oh, I guess I lied," Xikira's voice came from behind him. "I wasn't exactly right there..."
"How...the fuck...are you doing this?" Luxu gasped.
She tore her blade free, and he felt a tiny foot hit his back, sending him off the edge.
He fell down to the courtyard - the empty courtyard. He landed on his feet, stumbling as pain shot through his back. He turned and raised his blade, stepping back. He let out a snarl and shrouded himself in healing magic, sealing the wound she'd given him. Her fucking shank wound she'd given him!
But Xikira wasn't there. She wasn't on the roof anymore, either. She was nowhere to be found...
"What's my power, Luxu?" her voice came from his right. He turned to see her peeking out from behind the lone, unbroken pillar in the courtyard.
Luxu stepped forward-
And he felt a boot strike him in the back.
He turned with a growl, slashing his weapon.
Nothing!
"Your power...?" Luxu struggled to think. And he realized. "Memories..."
"That's right," Xikira said, suddenly stepping out from behind a broken pillar on his left. "I'm rewriting your memories as we speak - in real time. Making you see, feel, and hear what I want you to. I could even make you think you were a fish, or a dog...or a harmless old man on vacation, who doesn't know anything about ancient wars or anything like that...whose lived in Twilight Town his whole life, happy and peaceful. And you know what the funny thing is? I'm sure I can only do something like this to people I have a really special bond with - so, lucky you and I are so close, right?"
Luxu felt an indescribably powerful rage rise in his Heart. "STOP FUCKING WITH MY HEAD!" he screamed out, raising a hand of pure magical energy. The left half of the courtyard was obliterated in a massive explosion. "GET OUT, RIGHT NOW, IF YOU KNOW WHAT'S GOOD FOR YOU!"
"That's not going to do you any good," Xikira's voice rang out behind him.
He turned, seeing her standing there in front of the mansion entrance.
"My powers don't have a range limit, Luxu," she went on casually. "I could already have used a dark corridor to go to some other world. I could be doing this from a million worlds away, safe and hidden from you. You wouldn't know if I had..."
Luxu ran at her and thrust out his blade, blasting out with magical power that blew through the front of the mansion - and on through it, into the garden behind it with its statues. The energy beam warbled and burst, blowing the mansion apart in its entirety, raining massive chunks of debris down on the forest.
He stood among it all, using his space powers to cause the debris to spontaneously bypass him, to jump aside to avoid him.
He heaved a deep breath, letting his sword dematerialize. The one in his hand, and the one he'd dropped out in the clearing.
"Did you know that wasn't actually me when you did that?" Xikira said from behind him, sounding worried now.
Luxu turned to look over his shoulder. Then he slumped on the spot, letting his head fall. "Fuck off..." he muttered.
Soft, small footsteps. A soft, warm hand on his arm. "Luxu-"
He tore his arm free of her, whirling to her and lashing out with an arm.
She cried out and fell back onto the ground.
He glared down at her, fury in every fiber of his being. Then, he let it all go, and his body gave out. He dropped to his knees before her, head falling again. When he glanced up again, Xikira was gone.
"Stop..." he said breathlessly. "Just stop this..."
"Only you can stop this," her voice whispered in his ear. "All of it."
Luxu raised his head - and saw her bending down there, hands on her knees. Her face was right in his, startlingly. He gazed into her eyes, then turned his head and dropped it. "I- I t-tried...for Brain, for those kids, for...Skuld...I've tried. Ava tried. Everyone tried. They all fought, they all died, they all did what they were meant to do. What the Master...wanted us to do..."
Xikira got down on her knees with him, and she put her arms around him.
He didn't have the energy to even push her away.
He didn't care...he was tired, he was tired...
"Then do nothing. Don't do a thing that would help him. Work toward his goal. How can doing nothing be what he wants you to do?" Xikira whispered. "Just sit down and do absolutely nothing...and that has to change things completely."
"One way or another, it'd work out for him..."
"Maybe. Or maybe not. But it's worth trying. Just try, Luxu. With everything you have! You might be surprised. You might get a miracle, like my mom did."
"Do you think everything that even your- that Kairi and her friends have done, isn't written in that Book too? That it wasn't seen by me, by Xehanort, and recorded? As long as the keyblade war hasn't happened again, you're all a part of the plan...to get us to that point."
"I don't believe that. But even if I did, I'd still never stop fighting it."
"There is no fighting it. It just is."
"Well then...I guess I'll have to prove it to you."
"How?" Luxu responded.
"I'm going to change all of this. I'm going to stop it. Your Master's 'inevitable, unavoidable future' - his perfect plans written in that Book," Xikira spoke, rising to her feet and stepping back from him. "His script - I'll throw it all out, so he can't use it."
Luxu scoffed as he stood again, too. He looked at her. "Let's hear it, then. What's your brilliant, unforeseen idea that the man who planned everything thousands of years in advance...can't see coming?"
"Well...I'll tell Xemnas all about you. How's that sound?"
Luxu gasped, staring at her. "WHAT...did you just say?"
"I'll tell him," Xikira said casually. "I'll tell him all about your past, about your name, about the Master, about you hijacking his plans for your own. And then what are you going to do? There's no way to continue the Master's plans if someone throws a wrench in them, is there? If that's what it takes, fine, I'll force you to abandon it all!"
"Don't really make me have to kill you, Xikira..."
"I thought you couldn't?"
"There's a lot of shit I thought I couldn't do in this world, but I did it anyways - and I lived with it," Luxu said, emotionless. "I can live with this, too...if you force me to."
"Or you can just take some personal responsibility and choose not to kill me over it. I can't force you to do anything. It's all you! Just like it's all you choosing to keep following your Master's dumb plans!"
"Xikira...enough already." He was tired. Tired of this...all of this...tired of her...tired of arguing, tired of standing, tired, tired, tired...
"No! Enough, yourself! Everything with you is so fucking convenient, isn't it?! 'Oh no, the BOOK has everything written in it - anything that ever happens was already written, so I don't have to do a goddamn thing! I don't have to take any responsibility for my actions! Or my inaction!'"
"Enough..." Luxu murmured, his head falling.
She suddenly sighed, bowing her head and shutting her eyes. Her hands rose to her chest.
"Xikira...listen to me...I am not going to- Xikira? HEY!"
After a minute, she opened her eyes again, and looked at him. "I just told Xemnas all about you. I gave him a full dump, copies of all those memories of yours - right into his mind."
Luxu shook his head at her. "Nice bluff, but we both know you can't do that, Xikira. Your powers are about seeing memories, maybe altering the memory of physical objects too, and yeah, maybe also completely fucking with people's perception of reality, but you can't do anything like that. You can't put memories from one person's head into someone else's."
Xikira gazed at him, unflinching. "Can't I? You're not the only one who's been keeping secrets, Luxu. I think there's a lot about what I can do that you'd be shocked about."
Luxu summoned an arrowgun, raising it to her. "If that's true, then you're dead, Xikira. Right here, right now."
"No I'm not," she said simply. "I already did it - killing me won't change a thing now. Too late, Luxu. And you know that. Just like your Master's plans...my plan is really unavoidable. Immutable - I like that word. It's been set into motion, and nothing can change it now!" She tilted her head at him, smiling a sweet smile as she added, "Besides, your threats mean nothing to me - because I'm immortal, remember? Kill me, fine: I'll just go back to be with my mom! I'm unkillable, Luxu!"
"You- fucking little- you- that's not- that..." His gun trembled. "ARGH! You have no idea what you've done!" he screamed, lowering his weapon and letting it vanish.
"Oh, don't get so worked up - if your Master's plan is really so foolproof and unalterable, then there's nothing to worry about...unless you don't think that's true?"
"Go to hell!" he barked at her. He spun away and strode out of the ruined courtyard, maneuvering around flaming, huge chunks of what was once the mansion. He stopped, a good fifty feet from her, in the hazy, smoke-covered clearing in the middle of a flaming forest now. He breathed, and breathed. He trembled. Then he turned back furiously. Xikira was standing there in front of the ruined stone wall, the twisted metal gate on its side. "You have no idea what you just-!"
"I know exactly what I did...don't I - Xemnas?"
A dark portal appeared behind Xikira, and Xemnas strode out of it. His eyes were locked to Luxu as he stood there, right behind her.
"Indeed. You've proven far more valuable to me than I ever could have imagined, Xikira." Xemnas's eyes bore into Luxu, narrowing to slits of amber. "Your betrayal of me, on the other hand - Luxu, did she say? - has no redeeming value whatsoever. Suffice it to say, there can be only one response...to either of your betrayals: death."
Xemnas's arm flashed up, and a red energy blade burst out of Xikira's chest, exactly where her heart was.
The girl's eyes widened, her lips parted - that blade withdrew from her body - and she fell straight down to the ground, her limbs and hair splayed out from her. Her chest heaved, and then dark particles began to rise from her body. Her body itself beginning to break apart rapidly.
One life...
One little girl...
One blonde bobblehead...
One annoying, chatterbox, naive, stupid little...overly attached leech of a girl...who was completely insane, bereft of a sense of privacy, morality, or restraint...
A girl who had only even been alive for a month now.
In the grand scheme of all of this World, all these millions of worlds, and the previous one...in all of history and life itself...she meant nothing. She was nothing.
She wasn't even a blip. She wasn't even a period on a page. Her presence was brief, chaotic...and now it was gone.
And in a year, five, ten - who was even going to really remember her?
Who was even going to care?
What mark...would she have even left on this or any world?
Nothing but the marks...she had left...on the people she'd touched. On their Hearts. The memories she'd restored, the time she'd spent bonding with them, getting to know them - trying to wheedle her way into their Hearts, goddamn her - and...
And the way she had affected those Hearts...
That...would stay. For as long as they lived, for as long as the remembered and treasured those times, those moments...
No, her existence mattered! Her life, short as it was, had been one of consequence. Full of life itself, of emotion and a chaos storm wherever she went. Because that was who she was, what she was, who she'd chosen to be...and what she'd chosen to do with her time in this World.
Just like she'd chosen to spend her time with Luxu...
Like he...had come to choose to spend his time with her in turn...
This mophead of a blonde girl who...who stupidly called herself his 'daughter,' who...thought of him as some kind of damn parental figure, despite everything!
This kid who had just wanted to try, with all her little Heart, to...
Because she cared. Because she loved.
But it was only then, in that moment in which he stared down at her fading body...that Luxu realized the true depths of the amount of care for her that existed in his own Heart.
Built up over these weeks, taken hold of him, more and more...
Far more than he could have ever imagined.
Across history and worlds, he didn't think he had ever felt this deeply for anyone.
He hadn't cared for anyone this much.
Of course not - how could he have? Even when he was working alongside others, interacting with them, he had always kept himself apart, mentally and physically - stood off to the side, let himself fade into the background. And nobody ever knew the true him. Nobody had ever actually tried to get close to the real him. The man he was under the act (if they could even recognize it as an act at all).
Except...for the dying little girl laying there on the grpund in front of him.
The one who'd been too stubborn, too stupid, too delusional to not try! To not push, and needle, and press and delve until she found him, until she'd dragged him up out of it all...exposing him to the air, raw and agonizing, like a nerve...
That kid...
The only one who knew him, who really knew him - and hadn't...rejected him...? Who had in fact been adamant and outrageously persistent about trying to drag him back to her side...to keep ties, from his Heart to hers...
The girl...who had hoped and persisted and tried and tried- like an insane little, a delusional little-
Luxu suddenly gasped as her head turned, her eyes made contact with his, and something burst in his head. The world flashed white, warping around him. When it faded back in again...he wasn't in that clearing. He was standing...on a familiar hill, overlooking a city of purple roofed buildings, with a giant, twin clocktower looming over it all.
His gaze was immediately drawn by two figures standing on the hill, facing one another.
One, a young woman in pink robes and a fox mask, and a young man in a black cloak.
This was...the day the bell rang out. The day the war began. This was Ava...and himself.
This was his...memory. Xikira's doing...? Fucking with him again, in her final moments. She just couldn't resist, could she...? Goddammit...
But, seeing it in such sharpness, vibrance, after so long with only a distant, vague memory in his own mind of events of long ago...
It was striking. Shocking. A jolt through his Heart...
"But that's..." she gasped, her hands going to her mouth.
"Yes, that is the truth about the traitor," the black coated young man spoke - in an easy, calm tone of voice. "Is this reality something that can be stopped by you, I wonder?" Luxu's younger self went on, raising a hand to gesture to Ava.
"I can't believe that this is reality," Ava said firmly.
Luxu's younger self gazed at her in silence. That Keyblade held at his side. "That's why, as fated, the battle is unavoidable." The young man turned away from her, gazing out over the town. "Even if there is another answer, it must come after the battle."
The world changed again, melting into something new...
The Master's study room, with those books, and that desk, and the gears moving in the room.
"Is it really necessary for the Unions to betray each other? Is the war the only way?" Luxu's younger self said, desperate, anxious as could be.
"It is," the Master stated, simple and calm.
Luxu turned away from the sight, staring at the opposite wall, his fists shaking at his sides. Disgust rising in him. But at who? Why?
"You can't do this! The sacrifice is too great!" Luxu's past self erupted, spreading his arms desperately to the man. To his mentor, his teacher...
"This is what you forgot..." a quiet, high little voice spoke. "What you believed, but stopped. Because he convinced you..."
Luxu startled, whirling back to the scene - to find Xikira standing there in the room.
Her eyes moved between the arguing figures, and the Luxu standing before her, tall and true.
"Xikira...? What the hell is this...?" he choked out. "Why're you...doing this to me now?"
Xikira remained unfazed. She put her hands together at her waist, twisting at her hips to look over at the two black coats.
The world flashed white again, and the scene changed once more.
When it faded in again, they were in a different room - but Xikira was still right there, in that same pose.
It was the control room for the whole data version of Daybreak Town. All those computer screens showing the digital versions of worlds...showing the digital Daybreak Town itself...
Two cloaked figures stood facing each other. One, taller than the other.
The Master, of course - and Luxu's past self, once again...
"If anything happens to them..." Luxu's younger self spoke, holding hand to his Heart.
"Look, anyone who faces Darkness is gonna have a bad time," the Master said, nonchalant.
"So they ARE in danger!" Luxu exclaimed.
The Master spoke on, the conversation continuing.
But Luxu remained anxiously standing where he was. "I'm really worried about the Dandelions..."
"You're not gonna let this go, are you?" the Master said, exasperated. "Tell you what. It's your role to keep watch, so why not watch over them while you're at it? But nothing more than that - don't go getting your hands dirty," he warned. "Look but don't touch."
"O-okay..."
Watching that boy, watching himself, all that earnestness and anxiety in him, even bundled in a little black coat...the energy, the persistence, the...expression and animation...
Luxu's Heart seized, overflowing. His hand went to his chest, fingers clawing, digging in furiously!
"Alright, ENOUGH! You've made your GODDAMN POINT!" Luxu shouted at Xikira, his whole body shaking now. "ENOUGH, END THIS, RIGHT NOW! I GET IT, OKAY?! YOU THINK I WAS RIGHT, AVA WAS RIGHT, AND YOU THINK I FORGOT WHAT I STOOD FOR - THAT I FELL TO THE SAME NIHILISTIC VIEWS AND ENDS JUSTIFY THE MEANS ATTITUDE AS MY MASTER - YOU THINK I SHOULD HAVE TRIED TO DO SOMETHING! THAT I SHOULD HAVE TRIED TO WARN THEM AND CHANGE THINGS, BECAUSE I ALWAYS KNEW MORE THAN THEM! AT LEAST THEY TRIED TO STOP IT! CLEVER, WHATEVER, GOOD FOR YOU! NOW STOP IT, X-XIKIRA! I DIDN'T NEED THE HOME MOVIE EXPERIENCE, THANK YOU SO MUCH!"
Xikira wasn't even paying attention. Her gaze was on his past self. A look of such sweet sadness, of empathy, of pity and connection and whatever the hell...she thought this was... She walked forward, toward the memory of his past self, and she leaned in and pecked a kiss at the air to the oblivious little idiot. Then, finally, she turned to Luxu...and she smiled at him, tilting her head.
"E-enough...please..." Luxu pleaded. "I g-get it, I get it: he had me so thoroughly convinced, years before it even started, that it was such a hopeless, impossible, pointless future to fight, such an unavoidable fate, that when it actually came to pass I barely even tried to make an effort to change things. I didn't t-try, not really, not like Ava, not like Brain, not like all those kids...not like you, right now! You're trying so damn hard, I get that, Xikira! And maybe- maybe all of it, maybe even this right now is part of his plan - or maybe it isn't - but I should have tried so much harder. Maybe if I had...I'd have been able to live with m-myself all this time... So I get your point, I get it so please stop it...I don't need this, I don't need to see any of this..."
"Yes you do," Xikira stated. "And what you're about to see..."
The world changed again...
They were in the study room again, watching the five Union Leaders together. Those kids. Watching them talk, and plan, and hope. And then Darkness came, and the other four, and they fought it with all they had...
Luxu gasped, turning to Xikira. "Whose- memories are these? They're not mine..."
"A bit of Lauriam's, and a bit of Skuld's," Xikira said simply, nodding to the pink haired youth fighting alongside the others, against the dark entity. And the dark haired teenage girl there, as well.
Luxu bowed his head, trembling. But he watched those kids again, up close now - not glances taken on some computer monitor.
And he saw things...he hadn't ever before, in reality, at the time.
He saw one of those kids, a dark skinned girl with curly hair (Amaya)...turn to Darkness? Possessed? She fought the other two - Ephemer and Skuld. And then Ephemer fired off a Key-beam, opening a portal...sucking in the four Darknesses and Amaya with them. And then Ephemer locked it, apologizing tearfully to his friend...
"They...that was a good damn effort, but it can't contain them..." Luxu whispered, shaking his head. "They didn't. Hope can't- kids can't- that's not...look at what happened!"
"Okay. Let's see what happened, Luxu." Xikira smiled.
"Huh?" Luxu looked at her.
"I found another thread," she said simply.
The world changed again...
They were standing inside a long cable-like hallway, simple, digital. That Keyblade wielding girl, Amaya, lay on the floor, surrounded by the other four Darknesses.
"It's time to rid yourself of that brittle human vessel. Unless you wish to waste away along with it," spoke a Darkness.
That keykid, Amaya, with her Keyblade in her hand, flat on her back, surrounded by four ancient, sapient beings of pure Darkness itself...began to laugh. Her light, rich voice rang out in the digital tunnel!
"Why are you laughing?" one of the Darknesses spoke.
"I didn't think tricking you guys would be so easy. Are all of you this gullible?" the girl's high, mirthful voice responded.
"What-?" a Darkness gasped.
Amaya raised her Keyblade straight up, pointing to the ceiling. "You don't have a physical form, but you need a key to unlock doors for you. Seems real inconvenient." She groaned and sat up, pushed herself up to her feet again. Then she turned, aimed her Keyblade out down one end of the tunnel, and cast out with a key-beam. It struck the far wall, and burst with blue light and swirling energy...and then it faded. The tunnel was plunged into a dim darkness itself, suddenly. A haze. "Ephemer locked the gate on that side. And I locked it on this side," she spoke again, with nothing but relief and satisfaction. "Looks to me like you have no way out."
"You...it was all an act?" a darkness said.
"Took you long enough," the girl laughed, raising an arm to point. "How does it feel to be outsmarted?"
"Why youuuuu-!"
The Darknesses flew up into the air, swirling madly around the cable tunnel - but there was no escape, no way out!
Just like the kid had said - planned! In that place between places, between a digital world about to fall into sleep, and another digital world that was in a place and time it should never be yet still was. And the kids knew that, and this kid had figured it out, and had planned all on her own...to trap the Darknesses in that between-space! She'd planned to...sacrifice herself, not just literally, but the memory of her in her friend's minds - letting them believe she had been possessed, and locked away forever...
Luxu's jaw worked, his lips quivering, staring at the kid as she sat on the floor and called her Chirithy. As they exchanged quiet words, and embraced...and then...
The world changed.
They were back on that hill, looking over the city.
But all that was there this time...was Luxu's younger self.
Just sitting there casually, legs out in front of him, braced on his hands.
Just looking out onto the town.
Doing...absolutely nothing...to change what was about to come, on that day...
Because he'd already given it up as a bad job, something he couldn't fight or alter, long before it had even happened. Because for years and years, the Master had pushed the idea into his head, until he'd succumbed to it. Believing it. Accepting that only the Master was right, that only in the future ahead there might lay an answer. Never even bothering to try to find an answer in the present! In the moment it actually might have...made the difference. It wasn't fated...it was a script. And the Master had made sure that Luxu and the others didn't do anything before the War...because he couldn't let them. So he'd trapped them in their own Hearts, trapped them in war and chaos and infighting, and Luxu, he'd trapped him in the idea of inevitability. The idea that there was no other way - so don't bother searching for it.
"I get it..." Luxu said softly. "I had hope, faith, in defiance. But I still fell to apathy and resignation. I never even made a proper effort. Even after, with the Union Leader kids, I barely tried anything that might have really...I never looked for another way, then and THERE. I made a half-assed attempt with Brain, but I could have done so much more. But my friends, and those kids - they never lost faith, they never stopped trying to find a way, with everything they had. They never just laid down and accepted it like I did."
He struggled to breathe, to talk on. To give voice to...what was now in his Heart. What he knew. "And because of that...because of her...they trapped four Darknesses forever. They only lost one person. A girl who chose to sacrifice herself, she wasn't manipulated into it without knowing. And it paid off...in a way that all of the Master's scheming and thinking hadn't. It didn't need a World wiped out, it didn't need thousands of children to die in an orchestrated war, it didn't need a big reset button just to get a- a reprieve. It didn't need thousands of years of time travel bullshit. It just needed one...clever...kid. Because she...dared to step out and change things - to go off script. Even in the eyes of her own friends..."
Luxu gazed at Xikira, turning his back on his past self on that hill. "Even if it was all part of his plan, even if I couldn't have saved everyone...what would have mattered would've been that I tried at all - with all my Heart. And who knows? It might have even paid off. It might've changed...everything...if I'd just tried and tried at it, myself. No excuses, no half-assed attempts, no lame gestures. If I'd thrown away the whole script..."
Xikira nodded, her smile growing, and the scene changed again...
A lone, cloaked figure walked through an endless rocky landscape, an unceasing dust storm billowing around him. A black, intricate Keyblade in one hand - and a big black box being dragged along behind him in his other hand. The first steps in the exhausting, never-ending road ahead...a march that would never end, even if his feet were sore and bleeding and scraped to the bone. Even if he wanted nothing more than to lay down and die...
"Hey!" Luxu called out to the boy, to his own past self of memory. He reached out a hand, desperate, to that retreating back... "That's hell you're walking into! It's eternal damnation, and you're never getting out of it!"
His past self suddenly stopped. And turned back to look over his shoulder.
Luxu froze. He turned to Xikira. "What the hell?"
Xikira giggled. Giggled.
"W-what...?" he said weakly. "What's...even going on anymore?"
"I just tweaked your memory a little, that's all. Just this one moment. Just for this!" she said quickly.
Luxu found himself laughing, hand to his chest. "Alright, very metaphorical - good job. I get it. Now can we step off of memory lane here? If I'm not mistaken, we have a serious situation on our hands."
"Do we?"
"In reality, you're on the ground dying! Of course we do!" Luxu exclaimed. He swore to god, if she made one more crack about being "immortal"...
Xikira gazed up at him, stepping in close. She put her hands together at chest height, touching her fingers. "Then...you're going to try?"
Luxu hesitated, surprised. Then, he looked to his past self. His past self, who was standing there now, facing them...with a hand over his Heart. Luxu nodded. "Yeah. I'm going to try for you. With all I've got."
"I hope you really do." Xikira closed her eyes, and the world changed once more.
But this time, the world faded back out of memory and into reality.
The flaming ruins of the mansion, the smoke-covered clearing - Xemnas...and Xikira, laying there on the ground, her eyes still staring right at him.
A smile on her lips, even as her body continued to fade out of existence!
Nothing more than a moment had even passed, in reality, it seemed like.
Luxu stood there, quivering for a moment more...and then he realized he was just standing there staring at her as particles rose from her body, and then, on sheer instinct of Heart, he raised his arrowguns and took aim, firing off a dozen bolts from each in a giant scatterblast for Xemnas.
Xemnas raised a hand and conjuring a checkerboard panel of a mystic barrier to block the shots.
Xemnas then teleported, reappearing behind Luxu.
Luxu took aim and created a space-time fold between here and a point to Xemnas's right, and he fired a slew of bullets with a tight squeeze of the trigger. His bullets flew for Xemnas from the side, even as he remained at his position, his arm raised before him - his wrist buried in a small portal.
Xemnas whipped around, blades slashing, blocking the bullets so fast his arms were a blur.
Luxu whipped around and fired for the man, point blank.
Xemnas ducked and twirled, swinging for him now.
Luxu blinked out of existence, reappearing several feet back from Xemnas.
Xemnas flew up into the air, bringing hands together and then spreading his arms.
Darkness enveloped Luxu, surrounding him.
And then dozens of ethereal blades appeared in a dome around him.
Luxu warped reality around himself, such that he remained standing perfectly still - but every single blade somehow managed to miss him.
The darkness faded, and Xemnas stared at him in shock. Then, with anger. Xemnas flew at him with blades thrust out to stab him.
Luxu warped space again, swapping their positions.
He turned and tapped Xemnas on the shoulder, cocking a grin. Pressing an arrowgun to the back of his head.
Xemnas froze.
Luxu pulled the trigger-
A blast of blue energy suddenly flew in from the side, slamming into Luxu, and carrying him to the edge of the clearing. He raised his head to see who he expected to see.
Saix.
Of course - the lunatic was all Norted up too, same as Luxu.
Except Saix didn't even have a clue that he was being twisted, in mind and in...well, if he'd had a Heart still. Luxu doubted it, honestly...
Xemnas rose up into the air again, crossing his arms as thorns of nothingness surrounded him. Simply watching Luxu now - content to let Saix handle things...or was it to gauge Luxu's strength?
Saix turned his cold gaze on Xikira's fading form. He stepped over to her, raising his weapon with a sneer.
"DON'T YOU FUCKING TOUCH HER!" Luxu roared, pushing himself to his feet.
Saix became shrouded in a purple glow, his eyes burning pure yellow themselves. He gazed at Luxu, and then he swung his weapon down for Xikira's chest, spikes on its end, and blue flames rippling across it.
Xikira's hand twitched at her side, her eyes fluttering, as if she wanted to defend herself, or fight back, with her Keyblade.
She wasn't gone yet, she wasn't dead yet - but Saix was going to make her gone and dead, he was going to kill the kid. He was going to kill his...
Luxu teleported straight between Saix and Xikira, his arm outstretched even before he moved, his finger pulling the trigger a millisecond after rematerializing. A massive blue blast struck Saix in the chest, sending him stumbling backwards, his fatal strike aborted. Averted.
Luxu stepped forward, further putting himself between Saix and Xikira's still fading body.
No way...are you getting to my kid! As if! Even if I fail today, I can say I gave everything I had...and tried! For her!
Saix lifted his weapon high, running at Luxu and bringing it swinging down for him with a yell of fury.
Luxu raised his arms to bring his weapons up to block - but he felt one vanish, and then he felt something shift in the other. He saw a flash of light, a crackling of purple lightning, and then there was the resounding noise of metal clanging against metal. He blinked at the very familiar weapon in his own hand that was holding back Saix's claymore, sparks flying between them. It was the Keyblade he'd long, long, long ago inherited from the Master - and just as long ago, given up. A Keyblade meant to belong to Xehanort right now. Yet it had come back to Luxu - right before Xemnas's eyes.
Of course, the expression on Xemnas's face was beyond shock - beyond words; Saix had reverted back from his berserker mode out of sheer astonishment.
Luxu took a breath, and then he shoved out at Saix with all the force he could muster, sending the man flying backwards across the clearing; Saix crashed straight through multiple huge chunks of stone debris, on through the ruined courtyard, and then through a wall of flaming trees in a raging wildfire. Luxu lowered his arm slowly, holding the keyblade at his side. His keyblade: No Name.
Unbelievable! Xikira, his own Heart, and now the fucking Keyblade were all ganging up on him to obliterate thousands of years worth of effort? Conspiring together, to make Luxu throw it all away?!
No...to throw away that script. Alright then...Fine: consider it thrown in the garbage. If this is how you really want it to be...I'm too fucking tired to keep fighting you all on it.
Xemnas lowered himself to the ground again, his arms shaking at his sides. His red blades bursting to life, vibrating.
Luxu rotated his free hand at his side and held it out behind him, pouring every ounce of healing magic he had into Xikira - didn't care if he ran his mana dry, if he passed the hell out from this, or even faded himself.
Just as long as she didn't.