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CHAPTER 1:

DUAL EDGE OF THE BITTER END

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Author's Notes: The music for this Chapter is, in order of scene: 'Enter the Darkness,' from the KINGDOM HEARTS: BIRTH BY SLEEP AND THREE HUNDRED FIFTY-EIGHT DAYS OVER TWO Original Soundtrack, Disc One. This piece can be found in KINGDOM HEARTS Insider's MP3 section.


"Donald… Goofy…"

Sora strove with all of the exertion he could summon to remain on his knees as an agony he'd solely felt two other times grabbed and clawed at his heart with a molten grip of icy lava.

In front of him, the morphing streams of night prominences were forcing Goofy and Donald back, and what was within Sora seared at him to rise and protect them, but just as during the first two times this had happened, agony cutting serrated fissures out from his chest in all directions caused his entire body to feel at once weightless and heavier than lead.

No.

Not again.

As much as he loathed it with every chamber of his heart, he still had the increased talents with the Keyblade his fusion with Roxas had granted him, and far more honed practice than when he'd first thrust Xehanort's Heartless' Keyblade into his chest, ready for the worst but still holding out hope as soon as he returned Kairi her heart and completed the Final Keyhole, he could lock it right away, and then the danger to the realm of light would be over and they could return home as soon as he found Riku.

The second time, in the Sleeping World That Never Was, he'd known the folly of letting the darkness claim him, and it had been refusing to give up that had almost sent him into the darkness.

"Uh-oh! Now it's all four of them."

"So what? There are four of us too."

"Actually, I think I can make it five."

But this time, there was no one to back them up if they didn't risk throwing their hearts, or even their lives, away.

And while the opponent they now faced was far more dangerous than Hades, and all four of his Titans, combined, he was still solely one person.

Goofy's voice was a strained partial howl of effort to hold back the whiplashing protuberances.

"The King told us about this. Ventus wasn't able to defeat Vanitas. They struck each other down, and then the King said that Ventus' heart never returned to him!"

Then it was too risky.

If he fought back, as Ventus had, it might be all five of them who fell into darkness, or who died.

Or, even in his current condition, Ven himself might descend into darkness.

Or Ven might die himself.

As long as Ven remained in his heart, Sora couldn't battle Vanitas himself unless there was totally and wholly no way to avoid it.

Sora continued to attempt to rise, to extricate himself from the cloying and choking darkness beginning to close his vision around him, but if Kairi, or Riku, or both, once more needed to pull him out of the darkness, then he'd just need to let it happen again.

His friends were his power, and they hadn't yet let him down.

Kairi or Riku, or both, could pull him out of the darkness once more, if it came to that.

"Still so blind.

"A Nobody is what's left behind when one gives his heart to darkness. There is only one way to bring Roxas back, which is for you to give your heart up as well. Sora, have you finally decided to call upon the darkness?"

"It's not darkness. Not if it helps him!"

At the least, maybe this would free Roxas.

"You're not gonna' do that to Sora! No way!" Donald's quacked caw sounded as though his voice was close to breaking.

But Vanitas was unperturbed.

"Stay out of this," he commented, and the unconcerned dismissal in his voice made it clear his heart was drenched in so much darkness he didn't even believe Donald and Goofy even had the fated role to play in this the Xehanorts did.

He made a single slice with his black and crimson Keyblade, and a single whiplashing current of blacks impacted into both of them so hard it easily overpowered their blocks and sent them flying away to land in the vicinity of a fragment of a door that had been jostled loose in one of the battles with Unversed here, one with a gray color that reminded Sora of the stones of the tower Rapunzel had lived in, and a shape that partially reminded him of a number of the ones that had been ruined during the battle with the Grim Guardianess.

"Sora!" both Goofy cried in terror for Sora and pain.

"Sora!" Donald shouted from injury and fright for Sora almost simultaneously.

And now it was Donald and Goofy who could just rot to death.

No!

Sora cast about desperately for something, anything he could use to get them out of this that would enable them to escape with repeating Ventus' mistake in confronting Vanitas.

Donald and Goofy were a part of something much greater

Sora's eyes flew wide.

Rapunzel, crying tears of desperation and denial, ruined and broken with little more than thread string fragments of hope in the light residing in the deepest darkness remaining in her tear drowned voice even as Sora cast about for something they might be able to call upon to light both Rapunzel and Flynn's ways back home themselves, refusing to give up all hope himself until he saw Flynn's breaths totally still, and they'd been silent long enough for Flynn's brain to have been irreparably damaged by the loss of blood.

"Heal what has been hurt.

"Change the Fates' design.

"Save what has been lost.

"Bring back what once was mine."

And, even knowing Rapunzel's hair lost its power if it was cut, against the small possibility it would work, they'd still asked Rapunzel to cry tears into a small beaker where the stains could be preserved on the otherwise sterile insides.

While Vanitas was part of Ven!

While if the dry tears wouldn't make any difference, this couldn't be too risky!

An essential cantrip in the incantation was to alter the course of prophecy, but while Sora had no way of knowing if that part was meant literally, even if it was, attempting to force Ven's heart into Vanitas' body should deprive Xehanort of one of his seekers of darkness, so what he was going to attempt wouldn't apply the incantation in a way it wasn't meant to be harnessed.

Moreover, it was this or nothing.

Furthermore, if he had even the most frayed string of a chance to bring Ven back out of the darkness to the warmth of a fireplace at home, he needed to take it.

Adrenaline cleared the lead and emptiness from Sora just enough.

He reached into his offhand pocket with his left hand, took the beaker out, popped the lid off, and hurled it directly at Vanitas' chest, above his heart.

The gold of a Sunflower spread out over it, and thinner streamers of glowing yellow fountained out from where it had impacted.

Sora felt a victorious grin come to his face as lightness and triumph surged through him, washing away the empty lead.

"It looks like we're up one, and you're one down!"

Then a different agony tore out of Sora's heart, and it felt as though his entire self had become liquid molten anguish that was attempting to wrench itself in every direction at once.

Vanitas spasmed violently.

Then he smirked.

"You can have Roxas back, the gift of my darkness once more returning to Venty-Wenty's heart and leaving a body that had no form to begin with behind."

Sora couldn't breathe for too many reasons to count.

"But since I myself am not part of my brother, and Princesses of Heart resonate with Keyblade wielders as much as Marluxia does with Castle Oblivion, you just gave me a direct pathway by corridor of darkness to the Chamber of Sleep, and his body!"

Shocked icy horror and terrified worry, along with searing guilty self hate, erupted to course through all of Sora and consume him, and once more the leaden emptiness was there.

Vanitas smirked.

"You really are Marluxia's hound," he commented.

And Sora couldn't even remember what Vanitas was talking about.

"You've fulfilled your duty as the true butler he was tasked into convincing you to be, so you can now go back to your kennel.

"While I, on the other hand, am at long last the worthy one!

"Thanks for the detour, cur!

"Your addled pate can't have the foggiest how long we've been attempting to find a way through this labyrinth.

"Couldn't have done it without you, puppy, so you can now wag your tail until we have another biscuit for you to fetch."

Sora had no more reason to believe he could reason with Vanitas than he'd been able to with Xemnas.

But Ven needed him to make the attempt.

"You don't need Ven to be worthy!" he cried.

"Whether you're Ven's darkness or someone else's, your life is still yours to live as you choose! You're no more a butler than I am; no one is supposedly born different, with his, her, or its life determined by dint of birth!

"Just as Aladdin, and all people, are capable, and have the freedom, to love whoever they choose, whenever they choose, and to understand how to, you've been a Sultan from the get go! You're not required to be our enemy any more than Aladdin is incapable of, and lacks the freedom to choose, who to date, or marry, as he, she, or it so chooses!

"The same thing is true of all people! Anyone can understand how to, and give, or return to, the home of whatever family he, she, or it so chooses, no matter how you come into being; anyone can understand how to, and court, or marry, whoever he, she, or it chooses, no matter how you're born; and anyone can understand how to, and cry, or laugh, at the side of any friend he, she, or it so chooses, no matter how you're created!

"The ability to decide to love and safeguard, or inflict hurt and murder, is something we all possess, each and every one of us!

"The concept of caste systems, where who people are is determined by how they're born, is a lie, in every solitary last single sole way!

"You can stop living as onyx and become a diamond any time you choose!

"You've always been worthy!"

Vanitas' face shifted, and he opened his mouth.

Vanitas' eyes went slightly wide.

"Why is there a heart directly connected to chains of memories–

"Xehanort, you butterfingered buffoon!"

A giant, thick column of darkness roared out and up from Vanitas to expand like a volcano and strike Sora with enough force to send him flying back at the farthest wall, and the last thing Sora saw before his head impacted with the stone behind him, and deeper night pulled him into its chasm, was Vanitas' featureless mask crack, and a face with indiscernible features and black hair in a similarly unidentifiable composition fall and lengthen into the style Kairi had used to wear hers in before the first time she'd returned home to Destiny Islands.

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"How terrible… There's little I can do for you, but let me honor him with a song. I call it… 'Memories of Crono.'"-Gasper

"Only the Guru of Time can help us now."-Janus 'Magus' Zeal

"That face… Have I not seen you before? Ah, indeed… You've grown strong. Tainted of soul, to be sure, but formidable all the same."-Gasper

"Hmm?"-Janus 'Magus' Zeal

"The Guru of Time, you say? I know of him. But what business have you with the Guru of Time?"-Gasper

"We think he can tell us a way to bring Crono back to life."-Lucca Ashtear

"Ah, yes… to break death's hold over one you hold dearer still. You are not the first to wish such a thing, nor will you be the last. Crono must be happy indeed, knowing such dear friends as you."-Gasper

"Hey!"-Gasper

"Here. Take this with you."-Gasper

"This is… an egg, is it not?"-Robo

"That is the Chrono Trigger – a Time Egg. Should you wish to try and hatch it, the one who crafted your Wings of Time can tell you the way. But know that it may not necessarily hatch the results which you desire. The Chrono Trigger represents potential. Results require action. As long as you keep Crono in your heart and pursue what you seek, the results should follow. But I can make no guarantees."-Gasper

"I see it now. It's you, isn't it?"-Janus 'Magus' Zeal

"It's you, isn't it? You're Gasper, the Guru of Time!"-Lucca Ashtear

CHRONO TRIGGER [Nintendo Double Screen Version]