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KINGDOM HEARTS:
BLACK BLINDING NIGHTMARE
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Author's Notes: As I have before, and as I'll probably continue to do, I dedicate this Fanfiction to the now Account-Deleted Mirriem, one of the truest friends who a person could hope to have, whose friendship and writing are among the largest reasons I'm the person and the writer I am today.
The title of this story is taken from one of my favorite Track titles from the VALKYRIE PROFILE Original Soundtrack: 'Black Blinding Nightmare.' The piece itself, however, isn't one of my favorite Tracks from the VALKYRIE PROFILE Original Soundtrack. Nor is the title meant to be similar to 'BIRTH BY SLEEP.' I didn't realize the first three letters of the title were one letter away from 'BIRTH BY SLEEP,' or the meaning of the title was similar to the meaning of 'BIRTH BY SLEEP' until, for the realization about the three letters, I'd finished writing the title on the first page of my Microsoft Word program, and, for the realization of the three letters, until I'd been writing that I didn't realize the first three letters of the title were similar to the first three letters of the title 'BIRTH BY SLEEP.'
As with my earlier KINGDOM HEARTS Fanfiction that I've Posted on this Site, in order for you, the readers, to fully experience the mood of each scene, I highly recommend you Download the following three MP3s from KINGDOM HEARTS Insider's MP3 section and listen to them while reading the respective scenes they accompany.
They are, in order of scene: 'Tears of the Stars, Hearts of the People,' from the XENOGEARS Original Soundtrack, Disc Two; 'Grahf, Emperor of Darkness,' from the XENOGEARS Original Soundtrack, Disc One; 'The One Who Is Torn Apart,' from the XENOGEARS Original Soundtrack, Disc Two; and then, 'Depths Of the Night,' from the CHRONO TRIGGER Original Sound Version, Disc Three.
The first three pieces can be found in KINGDOM HEART'S Insider's MP3 section, and the last one on Zophar's Domain.
Aqua could barely register anything as Riku, Donald, and Goofy broke into a sprint towards the toppled paopu tree where Kairi now sat, alone now and with tears spilling from her eyelids down her face, the boy, almost an adult now but still a youth though weighed down with cares far beyond the years most of the countless people in the realm of light put together had lived, who Riku and Kairi had loved so much now gone from reality without the slightest trace remaining to provide evidence he'd once existed.
She could barely feel emotion. She could barely breathe. She could barely see. She could barely hear. She could barely taste. She could barely feel any physical sensation whatsoever. She could barely even think.
It was happening again.
"Aqua, the stars bring me grave news. Master Eraqus' star has blinked out. I am afraid that means he has been struck down."
"The Master? But– Who is responsible?"
"Master Xehanort… and Terra."
"Riku!" Namine cried out in concern and terror, tears beginning to fall down her own face, as she reached out a hand in his direction. She pulled it back and broke into a sprint after him.
"The boy's heart is sleeping."
"When will he wake?"
"I could not say. It is almost as though his heart has left. Should it return, he may very well wake. Should it not, then he may sleep like this for all eternity."
Mickey and Xion, horror in their eyes and tears on their own faces, raced after Namine, shortly followed by Roxas, horror and terror and concern of his own in his tear-streaked eyes and face, though it was most likely much more for Xion and Namine than for Riku, Kairi, Donald, or Goofy.
"Who… am I?"
"Such a terrible… darkness… Fight it. Terra, please!"
"Terra… you say? Terra's heart has been extinguished – smothered by the darkness within him!"
Aqua tried to move her body, her mouth, her hands, her feet, her fingers, her toes, something, anything, but she'd lost all capacity to move the most infinitesimal degree. She couldn't form a single noise with her voice box, much less speak. She didn't know how it was her heart was even still beating.
"Ven, I'm sorry… I might not make it back as soon as I thought."
Every solitary single fiber of Aqua's being screamed with all that she knew to sprint after them, to run as fast as she could to Riku, wrap her arms around him, hold him as close and as protectively and as safely and as tightly as possible, and rock him and brush away the tears she knew beyond any doubt he was shedding himself.
But she knew it was pointless. It wouldn't change anything.
Once again, she could do nothing.
"Aqua, listen. I promise this is me. But I'm not myself."
"What do you mean?"
"You're using the name 'Terra.' That means you're seeing me the way that you remember me. But your heart is just painting the picture that it so wants to see. The real me is lost in shadow."
"Then you're here, trapped in the realm of darkness."
"No. My heart has ties to the dark. That must be why we can talk. But I can't see anything, Aqua. If you say Ven is there, then he's like me – an illusion created by your heart."
"I understand. Then, you and Ven are safe in the outside world?"
"I think."
"That's good. But, how did you find me?"
"I looked here. And heard you in the darkness."
"Right, but why does your heart have… ties to the darkness now? What did you mean 'lost in shadow?'"
"Forget about me. Aqua, Xehanort is trying to locate Ven."
"He'll never find him. I hid Ven well. I think the reason he's not talking to me here, is because he's still there sleeping."
"No, I can't control–"
"This 'place.' Is it the Chamber of Waking?"
"Yes–
"Who are you? Really.
"You don't know? My name–"
"Aqua! Get back!"
"Terra!"
"I messed up. Xehanort is part of me. Now he's using me so you'll tell him where you hid Ven!"
Master Eraqus had been murdered, betrayed by the fellow Keyblade Master he'd once believed was his truest and best friend and the student he'd loved with his deepest heart and the furthest reaches of his soul and raised like his own blood son, and Aqua hadn't been able to protect him, hadn't even known about what was happening until Master Yen Sid had informed her it had occurred. Ven had fallen into a sleep deeper than dreams, deeper than all death and life and the void and incandescence, and she'd been right there but she hadn't been able to protect him or do anything but strike him and bloody him over and over and over and over until his skin was cracked and leaking crimson and his eyes were black and his lips were flaking and his hair was in shredded pieces. Terra had collapsed into a delirious nightmare fever dream of hate and fury and ruthlessness and cruelty, and she'd been right there in front of him but she hadn't had the most miniscule amount of ability to protect him or to do anything but strike him, too, and bloody him, too, over and over and over and over until his flesh, too, was in tatters and awash in red and his hair was tearing into threads and his eyes were swollen thicker than the cataracts that engulfed a blind person's vision and his lips were chapped raw like the cascading scales of the lethally poisonous serpent she'd allowed him to transfigure into because she'd been such a monstrous idiot. Then she'd careened careened careened careened down down down down down down down down into endless nothingness and abandoned Ven forever forever forever forever to attempt to protect Terra one last time even though she should have known better should have known she was powerless to protect or cherish anyone should have known that she was an infinite abyssal anathema abomination demon immeasurably and unfathomably and everlastingly and eternally worse than even Xehanort at his most apathetic and brutal and arrogant and savage indifference and abandoned abandoned abandoned abandoned Terra too forever forever forever forever forever forever forever forever forever to the desolation of total nonexistence nonexistence nonexistence nonexistence nonexistence nonexistence nonexistence nonexistence total nonexistence total nonexistence total nonexistence total nonexistence total noexistence total nonexistence total nonexistence total nonexistence and she hadn't even been able to shield Ansem the Wise from the unending night of complete insanity the unending night of complete insanity the unending night of complete insanity the unending night of complete insanity the unending night of complete insanity the unending night of complete insanity the unending night of complete insanity the unending night of complete insanity
"Aqua?"
Was that Terra's voice?
She wasn't sure.
Yes, it was.
And Terra's hand was on her right shoulder and Ven had taken her left hand, but she couldn't feel any warmth from their hands or grasps, she could still barely perceive anything.
When had Terra put his hand on her shoulder?
When had Ven taken her hand?
Why did it matter?
It didn't matter. She'd begun to believe it did once more after wandering aimlessly so long with so little faith and hope, but she'd been as wrong about that as she'd been about everything else. Once more, she should have known far better.
But she'd been blind. She'd been absolutely and ignorantly blind. She'd been able to protect Riku from the unending night, so an infantile childish part of her had desperately and greedily clutched onto a toddler's whining denial of reality belief that somehow, some way, things weren't what they appeared to be and that some way, somehow, she wasn't that infinite abyssal anathema abomination demon and she could actually, despite all the measureless evidence against it, give others kindness and warmth
"Aqua?" Was that worry in Ven's voice? She must have been imagining it. Why would Ven even begin to worry about her? She'd abandoned him to the unending night. He hated her with everything that comprised him. Why would Ven worry about her? "How are you taking this?"
How was she taking this?
Almost without realizing she was doing so, she let out a harsh, sharp, bitter laugh.
She'd just abandoned Riku to the unending night as well and Ven was asking her how she was taking this, as though they were at a quaint little dinner on the patio and he'd just held out a plastic spoon in his hand for her to retrieve from him?
But that was right. She was taking this.
That was all she did. That was all she could do. That was all she had done since the instant she was born. That was all she would do until the instant she died.
Take from others.
Always, always, always, always, always, forever forever forever forever take. Take take take take take take take take and never never never never never never never never never forever forever forever forever forever forever forever forever forever forever forever forever forever forever forever forever never never never never never never never never give.
She could never give. No matter what. No matter when. No matter where, or no matter the circumstances. She was, always had been, and would never be anything more than the distilled epitome of taking and dragging others down into the infinite abyss where they would asphyxiate in excruciating and hopeless suffering with her.
She was barely aware a giggle had passed her lips.
Terra's and Ven's grasps became tighter and more reassuring, but Terra's voice, when he spoke again, was now very alarmed and very scared.
"Aqua?" he questioned. "You're not… listening to darkness, are you?"
Darkness?
The black muscular colossi with enormous empty gaping cavities in their chests where they should have had vibrant pulsing hearts and pallid, merciless, sickly yellow burning eyes rose and fell and swayed below the mammoth flaming orange and black Sun roasting its beams of black death and despair down upon the wasteland and the twisted lifeless husks of broken, fallen trees surrounding them. They raised their gargantuan palms of everlasting night up to the hideous deathSun and offered up to it smaller flaming spheres of crackling orange and black trailing night like the intertwined twisting wisptails of comets. The comet spheres reached the hideous deathSun and impacted with it to vanish into its surface in waves of fatal violet and spreading infernal orange. A measureless tide of death violet and eternal black washed out from the deathSun over and throughout the forest clearing and the wasteland.
She was falling falling falling falling into quiet eternal night with her Wayfinder grasped weakly in her right hand. She was just so exhausted so utterly and completely exhausted and now she knew she'd abandoned Terra once again and she was too weak to hold onto her Wayfinder anymore and it dropped from her slackening fingers but that was okay. She'd abandoned them both, Ven and Terra, and she was just so exhausted, so she was smiling tiredly and contentedly with the knowledge there was no reason to continue to struggle on any longer. At long last she could let the darkness take her, should let the darkness take her. She'd abandoned Terra, too. She'd abandoned Ven for Terra but all that had done was to cause her to abandon Terra, as well, and she was just so exhausted, so utterly exhausted, so she no longer had any reason not to let the darkness have her. And it was what she should do and the darkness was where she belonged and she was just so exhausted…
Now I can be… one with darkness…
The whirling and cascading and tumbling and spinning sphere of violet and light blue and black erupted from the chest of the dark demon hovering behind and above the grotesque parody of Terra to strike her in the midsection and hurl her back into the calm waters. Black and purple began to wash over her chest like liquid fire and trailed purple and black smoke and spread to flow over her torso and arms and legs and she couldn't breathe, but that was all okay, because she'd just abandoned someone for the fourth time, so she didn't deserve to wait for someone to come to her side and save her from the darkness any more, especially not Mickey and whoever was accompanying him. She didn't even deserve to surrender to the darkness, because she'd been completely powerless to protect a friend who needed her and who was relying on her for the fourth time, but it was either that or continue to grasp onto the gruesome pantomime of what she had once believed was light and life and smiles and laughter, and she was still just so exhausted. And now she'd abandoned a friend who needed her and who was relying on her to protect him for the fourth time. She'd been wrong not to give in and let the darkness have her when she'd discovered she'd abandoned Terra as well and Mickey had come to her side. But now she could rectify that unforgivable atrocity. She could at last sink into the darkness where she belonged and never feel or think anything again, and she'd at last no longer be around to abandon and to let down the people who believed in her and had faith in her and trusted her, and to drag them down to asphyxiate in the everlasting night with her. She was just so exhausted…
What… is this feeling?
The immeasurably vast conflagration of innumerable morphing and writhing shadows twisted and danced through the air above the barren Sunset kissed and caressed wasteland, a distillation of death and obliteration and annihilation and despair in its epitome so pure as to absolutely and completely defy all possible or potential comprehension or incomprehension.
That was correct. That was darkness.
All of that was darkness.
All of that had been darkness.
All of that would be darkness forever and eternally.
But was she listening to darkness again?
Why did she care?
Why did it matter?
"You and I, we stand by the light only to cast shadows and beget darkness; you with Eraqus, me with my sister. And when that light disappears, we lose our purpose and are swallowed by the void."
Aqua started.
Whose voice was that?
"Baldr was especially sensitive to the hearts of others, as are you–"
"When Baldr felt the darkness within – darkness born from your unwavering devotion to light – it grew and grew until it became his own. And now, as light watched over us, as light watched over us, as you face me, he can see what hides in the depths of your heart."
And that was darkness?
Or was it just the voice of this Baldr, whoever he was?
Did she even care who it was?
She didn't.
Because she'd stood by Riku, and then abandoned him, as well. She'd completely idiotically and completely unforgivably believed she'd been able to successfully protect him and not abandon him and cherish him and not drag him into the asphyxiating unending night of complete insanity with her.
And she'd been wrong.
She'd been totally and completely wrong.
Because it had just happened again, and now Riku, too, had collapsed into the suffocating suffering unending night of complete insanity as well.
She couldn't protect anyone. She couldn't save anyone. She couldn't cherish anyone. She couldn't be there for anyone. No matter how hard she tried, no matter how long she tried, no matter how much effort she exerted, no matter how long she exerted that effort, she had always been and would always and forever be totally and completely helpless and powerless to protect and cherish anyone she loved in the most miniscule, most infinitesimal way.
So why was there the tiniest reason to care if she was listening to the darkness again?
Why did it matter the most microscopic amount?
It didn't matter. At all.
And she didn't care. At all.
It didn't matter if she listened to the darkness once again, and she didn't care. She was already and always had been an infinite abyssal anathema abomination demon who did nothing but abandon the people who loved and trusted her and dragged them into the asphyxiating suffering of the everlasting night of total madness, so it didn't matter, and she didn't care.
She should listen to the darkness once again. She belonged in the darkness.
Besides, Ven and Terra and Riku and Ansem didn't need her to stay at their side in the light. She hadn't awoken Ven from his slumber, Sora had, while she lay totally and completely helpless and powerless on the floor of the great hall where her foster father had once raised her and taught her and transfigured her into everything that she had become. She hadn't pulled Terra out of the darkness. Ven had, with his tears, and Sora had, with his Keyblade, while she'd hung suspended in the air totally and completely helpless and powerless entangled in the chains of the very love and very friendship she'd once believed in and had faith in with all her heart and that she herself was partially responsible for creating because she'd been a blindly arrogant baby throwing an infant's temper tantrum denial of reality that reality was a kind place and that had now nearly murdered Ven when it should have kept him safe and warm and close and comforted. She hadn't freed Ansem from the grotesque pantomime of Terra. Pence and Olette and Hayner and Even had.
And Riku didn't need her at all. Her beacon of shining redemption and bright proof that she supposedly could protect and cherish the people that she loved and others had smiled at her after Sora had come to her side and revealed to her that she had returned to the realm of light, but when Sora had welcomed her home and Sora and Mickey and Goofy and Donald had all embraced her and she'd held them back Riku had been the only person not to join in the embrace. He'd stood back silently and put his hand on Sora's shoulder, and then had paid little to no attention to her afterwards as though she was just a thing to be picked up and then discarded once he no longer had any use or purpose for it and had turned most of his concentration on protecting and cherishing Sora, Kairi, Mickey, and Namine.
Riku didn't need her. Terra didn't need her. Ven didn't need her. Ansem didn't need her. Mickey didn't need her. Goofy didn't need her. Donald didn't need her. No one needed her.
It had happened again.
So what did it matter if she listened to the darkness again? Why should she care?
It didn't matter. And she didn't care.
Riku had reached the island the tree Kairi was sitting on was on now, Namine and Donald and Goofy at his side, and Riku glanced back briefly in her direction and Terra's and Ven's, and for a second she was partially, if not fully aware of the reality around her again.
But then she saw the tears streaking his face and his gaze passed over her without acknowledging her, and she was barely aware of anything again.
Namine took Riku's left hand and squeezed it, and then she reached up with her other hand to wipe the tears off his face and then run her hand through his hair comfortingly.
Riku sagged slightly and gave her an exhausted and agonized, but thankful and warm and genuine – though almost certainly because he was forcing himself to be happy to decrease the amount Namine was worrying about him – smile.
But it was a true happy smile nonetheless.
Aqua hadn't been able to do the most microscopic measurement of a thing to cause Eraqus, or Ven, or Terra, or Ansem to smile when they'd needed her the most.
Her body and reality returned fully, but they were now distant, separate from herself, and most if not all emotion was gone.
In its place was an uncaring, perhaps even actively cruel, clear-headedness she'd never known before in her entire life.
No. She wouldn't let it happen again.
The fingers of her right hand flexed to summon her Keyblade.
She might still not be too late. Maybe if she opened the Lanes Between and flew to the Keyblade Graveyard in her Keyblade Armor on her Keyblade Glider right now, as fast as possible, the Kye-Blade might not have been dismissed by Sora long enough to prevent her from summoning it again as effortlessly and as easily as she summoned her own regular Keyblade. She could wield it herself and reopen Kingdom Hearts, and if she did, she might be able to discover a way to bring Sora back to Riku and Kairi.
Opening Kingdom Hearts to abuse the laws of nature as Sora had would almost certainly provoke Kingdom Hearts to send darkness rushing throughout the entire realm of light and condemn the whole realm of light to the same darkness Xehanort had sought to cast the realm of light into, but that didn't matter any more.
The only thing that mattered any more was protecting and cherishing Riku by returning Sora to his and Kairi's side.
Nothing else mattered.
No. That was totally and completely wrong, as well.
That she would almost certainly cast the realm of light into infinite darkness should matter. She should enjoy doing so. She should love consuming the realm of light in infinite darkness. It should be rapture. It should be total and complete absolute ecstasy.
If she condemned the entire realm of light to infinite darkness to restore Sora to Riku's side, maybe then Riku and Terra and Ven and Ansem, and Master Eraqus, in whatever afterlife he existed in now, would lose whatever love they had left for her, and hate her with everything that made them up.
And if she didn't just condemn the entire realm of light to oblivion, if she enjoyed it, if she loved it, if condemning the entire realm of light to vanish into the infinite void was rapture, if it was total and complete absolute ecstasy, maybe then Riku and Terra and Ven and Mickey would murder her with their own Keyblades with their own hands and sadistically love doing so.
Maybe they would murder her with their own Keyblades with their own hands in the slowest, most lingering, most excruciating, most torturously agonizing ways they could so much as begin to imagine the smallest amount, and take the same total and complete absolute ecstasy out of doing so that she'd take out of condemning the entire realm of light to the unending night of complete insanity.
Yes. That was what she should do.
This was what she needed to do.
The darkness was where she belonged.
This was what she wanted to do, with all of her heart.
And maybe, just maybe, there was the tiniest, most miniscule, most microscopic, most infinitesimal chance that if she transfigured herself into the worst infinite abyssal anathema abomination demon that could possibly or potentially exist or not exist, that would cause Riku and Terra and Ven and Mickey to hate her enough that, if they murdered her with their own Keyblades with their own hands in the slowest, most lingering, most excruciating, most torturously agonizing ways they could so much as begin to imagine the smallest amount, after they'd finished murdering her and had shredded her corpse into as many butchered and ruined and blood-drowned and bone chips-dusted tatters they could without obliterating her body fully, and after they'd done all this taking total and complete absolute ecstasy out of it, they'd believe she had suffered enough for what she'd done to them there was the tiniest, most miniscule, most microscopic, most infinitesimal chance that they'd stop hating her for what she'd done to them and that they'd love her and care about her and need her and want her and forgive her and believe in her again and have faith in her again and trust her again and look at her again.
Yes.
This was what she had been created for.
This was what she had been born for.
This was her purpose for being alive.
This was her purpose for having a heart.
This was her destiny.
This was her role in all the realms of the universe.
This was what she wanted to do, with all of her heart.
There was no room for any doubt. There was no room for any hesitation. There was no room for any second guesses. There was no room for thinking twice.
She curled her fingers to summon her Keyblade.
"Aqua!"
That was Terra's voice, engulfed with terror.
"Stop!"
Aqua ignored him and reached into herself to call upon her hatred of herself and her guilt for having abandoned Riku and Terra and Ven and Master Eraqus and Ansem and manifest her Keyblade in her right hand.
"You lit my way back home with the least effort of anyone!" Terra cried.
Aqua froze, and the uncaring, cruel, clear-headedness vanished. But reality and her body didn't depart from her as much as they had before the clear-headedness had separated her from reality and her body.
She didn't want to look over at Terra, to see how much he hated her written as clearly as the most cloudless sky in his face and eyes, but, almost as if moving with a heart and mind of their own, her eyes and face turned in the direction of his face.
There was no hate in his eyes. Just sympathy and understanding.
"I know what you're going through," Terra spoke. "I can feel the darkness building inside you."
At Aqua's other side, Ven's hand spasmed and jolted violently, and she heard him jolt just as violently in the sand at her side.
"I felt that way, too," Terra was going on, "When I believed that I couldn't protect Xehanort from Braig, and then Ven from Master Eraqus, and then when I believed that I couldn't protect you and Ven from Xehanort and Vanitas. The darkness I felt then wasn't anywhere close to as deep as what I'm feeling inside you now, but I know what it is, and I know what's causing it.
"And I can tell you that you were not powerless to protect me or to cherish me, or to protect me or to cherish Ven. Ven needed to cry and to tell me that he'd kept his promise to light my way home, and Sora needed to use his Keyblade to do so, but you lit my way back home simply by being yourself and being there at my side. That was all that you needed to do. Nothing more. And I remember how I felt when I took control of Xehanort's shadow clearly, and so I can tell you for certain that if you hadn't been there, at my side, too, I wouldn't have had the strength to wrest control of that shadow into my own heart and return home. Ven and Sora protected me by directly doing things to be there for me, but you protected me and called me home merely by being yourself at my side."
Aqua felt her mouth open in disbelief, and tears pushed against the backs of her eyes.
"That's right!" Ven added, and he squeezed her hand even more tightly, far more sincerity in his voice than she'd heard from him at almost any time before.
"The same thing happened with me! Sora lit my way home, but the power of waking isn't something you learn just by gaining experience with the Keyblade! I told Sora. It appears when your heart needs it. Sora was able to call to the power of waking because he and I cherished you so much my heart, and his heart, needed him to summon it. If you hadn't been there and been yourself at my side, Sora wouldn't have been able to learn the power of waking. Like with Terra, Sora protected me by directly doing things for me, but you kept me safe and called me home where I belong just by being there with me and being yourself."
Aqua didn't know whether she'd decided to let the tears through or they emerged from her eyes on their own, but suddenly, she couldn't see through the water in front of her vision.
"And you're protecting and cherishing Riku, as well!" Ven went on, squeezing her hand even more tightly once more, with far more welcoming security than the first time.
"So what if he doesn't talk to you or look at you a lot! He doesn't need to! Because he knows just as well as Terra and I do that he doesn't need to talk to you or look at you as much as he talks to or looks at his other friends! All of his other friends save Mickey and Terra don't have the same knowledge of how the heart feels and thinks or the same experience with the Keyblade as you do! Mickey does, but he's known Mickey for a lot longer than you, so that's why he talks to Mickey and looks at Mickey more than at you! But that doesn't mean that you're inept compared to Mickey! It means that Riku believes in you and your greater knowledge and experience as much as he believes in Mickey, and he doesn't talk to you much or look at you much because you're keeping the light on in the home he's in merely by being at his side as yourself!"
Aqua couldn't believe Ven. Nor could she believe Terra. They couldn't be correct. Not after all that she'd done. Not after all that she'd failed to do.
But if Terra and Ven said that they believed in her, then she had to do the same thing.
She wanted to do the same thing in return, with all of her heart, and it had nothing to do with returning their belief in her.
She'd done this, because she'd known they'd needed her to do this to cherish them, and she'd wanted to do this, since as far back as she'd known them. She'd never stopped wanting to believe in Terra and Ven.
So she would believe in them, with all of her heart.
And that meant that she would believe that she genuinely had lit their way home.
She couldn't believe in herself, even the slightest bit, and she wasn't sure she'd be able to believe in herself again even the smallest amount for the rest of her life, but she believed in Terra and Ven and the love and the friendship and the home and the life that they shared, and for now, that would be enough.
She was Master Aqua.
That was a promise, and even though she'd never been able to keep the promises she'd made to Master Eraqus and to Terra and to Ven and to Riku and to Ansem that had mattered the most, it was still a promise, so it would be sufficient.
She forced herself to smile a true smile, though it was exhausted and it took more effort to make it genuine than she would have preferred for Terra's sake and for Ven's sake, and she reached up and pried Terra's hand off of her shoulder and then extricated her other hand from Ven's.
"I believe that you know what you're talking about," she said to them both, and then she took a step forward.
"Your world can change in an instant.
"One step forward is all it takes."
Aqua started violently at the sound of Eraqus' voice in her mind, solidly reassuring and approving.
A smile slightly curled up her lips as she realized, while Eraqus most likely hadn't intended for the memories of what Aqua was now certain was the darkness of a fellow Keyblade trainee he'd known, named Baldr, to accompany them, he must have sent these two tapestries of words of his into her heart during the last warm hearth they'd shared together in the dream of Scala ad Caelum where he himself had learned the teachings she was now the heir to, against this very possibility she'd, sooner or later, need to hear them.
Even now, Eraqus was still watching over Ven.
And over Terra.
And over her.
There was still guarded and uncertain agony in Aqua spoke, but it took no effort for assured and safekeeping light to join them.
"So let's go. Let's go to Riku."
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"Never! I'll never let it happen again!"-Shinn Asuka
GUNDAM SEED DESTINY:
Phase 37: THUNDER IN THE DARK
