A/N:
Sorry for the very extended wait for this chapter -.-;;. The last couple of weeks of school weren't good to me, and then I suffered through a severe case of writer's block in which nothing I turned out sounded right or good.
In consolation, at least this is an extra long chapter. My longest chapter ever actually for this fanfic. I spent many an hour on this one and here it is (finally)! I intend to finish ItL eventually. Especially now that it's summer, hopefully I'll have a lot more time to work on it.
This is probably the first ever Ansem (Sei)/Kairi pairing on the net. I don't know whether or not to be proud of that fact or to hide under a rock (the rock can shield me from the disturbed KH fans and their tomatoes). Actually, at this point in the fic I think I'm more inclined towards the Sora/Kairi pairing, but you never know...
Anyway. Thank you to everyone who has been reviewing, and hope you enjoy this new chapter!
###
A darkness rouses, then peers from the recesses of the heart to which has been tied once again. Tendrils of its power reach out, and the light recoils at the touch though there is very little it can do in opposition. The darkness sneers at what it finds.
~Emotions of the heart...the surest path to pain and sorrow...yet you hang onto them
A brief pause.
~And all for the sake of that girl-/child/
The darkness makes a point of emphasizing child, and then continues to speak scathingly.
~How foolish and weak is the light of my heart
The light glowers.
~...
Awake, are you?
The darkness laughs, a rich sound that echoes in the emptiness yet causes only feelings of disgust in the light.
~You do not sound too happy about that
The light is very flat with its answer.
~I'm /not/
The darkness is amused.
~You cannot reject that which is a part of yourself
The lights shrugs.
~Probably not...but I can certainly try
Cool disdain rolls from the darkness like a heavy mist.
~A meaningless effort
The light snorts. However, in reality, it too is wondering.
A conflict of darkness and light with a physical shell...with the two parts bound so closely together, surely to destroy one was to destroy the other.
The light wondered if such a struggle would ever have a hope of coming to close.
###
A stack of golden pancakes lay on the plate. Honey dripped down its sides in sticky globules and pooled on the shiny surface of the plate in amber pools, glistening over piles of strawberries, blueberries, and several chunks of other colorful fruits native to Hollow Bastion's world. Sora surveyed the mound carefully before spearing the topmost layer with his fork and tucking into the meal with much relish.
Kairi, a body of his own, delicious hot food, and not a Heartless for miles. Sora was in heaven.
"You're eating like you haven't had food in years," Kairi remarked in wry amusement from her considerably lighter plate of toast and fruit jam.
Sora paused to flash her a grin.
"I haven't."
His words were only slightly garbled from a mouth full of pancake, and Kairi giggled as she realized the truth in his words.
"But all of that is so unbelievable," Yuffie said from across the table.
Aerith, Yuffie, and Leon had dropped by the Dining Hall when word had reached them that the long-vanished keyblade master was up. They had insisted on staying to hear Sora's story.
"I mean, Sora's been with you guys this entire time, and no one had even realized it."
"It isn't /that/ weird," Kairi said. "I had shared a body with Sora for quite a while when hiding from the Heartless, and no one had been the wiser."
"Too true, too true," Yuffie agreed amiably.
"But what do you suppose Ansem had to do with this?" Aerith asked. "After all, he did show up the very night Kairi rescued Sora. Perhaps it was he that sealed up his heart those five years ago."
"That's a possibility," Sora conceded.
"But I wonder why he disappeared after fighting Sei," Aerith continued. "And why he singled him out to fight when it could have just as easily been Riku or Leon or even Kairi..."
Leon snorted, somehow feeling the last two unlikely. He took another sip from his mug of dark coffee and regarded the younger keyblade master as he stuffed his face with food.
"Do you have any ideas about Sei then, Sora?" The older man asked. He rather disliked the fact that most of the gaping holes in the story seemed to have a lot to do with the enigmatic Sei.
Sora considered the question over a slice of melon. "Ideas, yes, but I'd rather we wait on Sei before I begin to discuss anything."
Yuffie tapped a finger thoughtfully on the tabletop. "So I guess all this means that Sei isn't a keyblade master after all."
Sora stirred his fork among the rivulets of honey and sticky fruit syrup. "Not as far as I can tell."
He licked his fork clean, savoring the sweet taste with a contented smile. Yum.
Something seemed to catch at Leon's line of vision, and Sora tilted his head to look over his shoulder.
"What is it Sora?" Kairi inquired.
She turned in her chair to look too and caught sight of Riku and Sei at the front of the Dining Hall. They had just gotten their breakfast trays. She waved to catch their attention, grinning as they turned their way.
"Looks like they've already been here for a while." Riku murmured as he caught sight of Kairi. Sei glanced at where Riku indicated, then abruptly looked away to plunk silverware next to his plate with an ease that was obviously false.
Riku frowned slightly, unsure of what he should do. Their relationship may have been strained in the beginning, but in many ways he found that he could relate to Sei. Riku no longer had a crush on Kairi (having grown out of that years ago) but he could understand what it was like to love someone who only had eyes for another (ironically his best friend). And he understood what it was like to have a darkness slowly clawing away at one's heart, consuming until there nothing left but void--always fighting, always struggling inside. Most of all, he knew what it felt like to expect to become the focus of the hate of those most important to him because of something terrible he had done before.
That's why Riku was almost afraid of walking to that table, of looking once more upon the friend that light had called forth as champion. But such meetings couldn't be put off forever and together Riku and Sei wove past the tables and groups of people towards the front of the room.
Riku looked past Kairi at Sora's beaming face, and everything simply /stopped/.
Sora was at a complete loss when he saw the way that Riku had paled and stiffened when he set eyes on his face. Shock, the slowly confusion and hurt crept into his mind when it dawned upon him that perhaps his friend may not have been so happy to see him. He might not have felt this way had he known what it was that Riku was seeing.
Perhaps for Kairi Sora's eyes had glowed somewhat. At the most, they had definitely changed to a sort of blue and gold glass mix. For Riku, Sora's eyes /blazed/. Riku didn't know what to do, what to think. Had the Heartless gotten to him too? No, that was ridiculous for although Sora's eyes were different, they weren't /Heartless/ different. Debatably a reason for him to feel better. So what did this mean? Did it /mean/ anything at all?!? Riku cursed violently to himself.
~Gods damn, gods damn, gods DAMN!
He wasn't sure if the others noticed the difference and he didn't want to cause any unnecessary stir. He'd just have to speak to Sora privately about this later.
"Sora! It's great to see you after all this time," Riku said, forcing on a collected smile.
He really was happy to see his old friend and he didn't want Sora to think otherwise. He reached over and ruffled the younger man's hair.
"You really worried us, you know that Sora?"
Sora smiled back as he pulled himself back together, wondering what exactly was going on. Surely he hadn't imagined the look on Riku's face? But, he didn't want to think that Riku didn't /want/ to see him. No one seemed to notice the taut, almost imperceptible line of tension in the air-or if they did, not one made any mention of it.
"Sora, why don't you tell Riku what you told us-about what happened to you?" Aerith suggested.
Riku waved off the offer as he took a sip from his glass of juice.
"I already know," he said. "Sei told me before we came down here for breakfast."
Five pairs of turned towards Sei. Sei, now the center of attention, sat stoic and unmoving. He was very aware of what they were waiting for. And now...now was a good a time as ever, he supposed warily. It wasn't like he could keep on hiding his secret forever. Unfortunately.
"Fourteen years ago, you knew me as the man called Ansem," Sei began. He sensed reactions of shock and disbelief from Kairi Leon, Yuffie, and Aerith. Sora, however, took this all in step, having suspected that much of it anyway.
"This... is my story."
Kairi had thought that she had been ready for any kind of surprise after the discovery of Sora's heart within Sei. But this...this was almost beyond belief. Sei, the dual-blade wielder and her close friend...Sei was Ansem? It didn't seem possible, not after everything that she had heard about Ansem! She took some time to reflect of the moments they had spent together. And she realized with a surprising certainty that it actually did make a lot of sense.
So Sei finished, and waited. He didn't dare look at any of their faces, most especially Kairi's, afraid of what he'd see. Then he felt slender arms wrap around his shoulders hugging him close, and he looked up in shock.
"You remember what I told you before, about trust and wanting to know so that I could help you?" asked a strong voice behind the waves of russet hair. "Well I certainly haven't. I'm so glad you finally decided to trust us."
In all respects, Ansem was supposed to have been someone strong, the powerful leader of a country. Right then Sei felt as if made of something more fragile than glass, ready to break at the slightest pressure. To his added horror, he felt something wet trickle down his cheek, tasting of salt as it touched his lip.
"I'm glad too," he managed at last, so softly that Kairi almost didn't hear. "You're...friendship... means more to me than anything."
Kairi giggled. "Hee. That's good to hear."
She stood up, and pushed his bowl closer to him.
"Now come on-eat up. You're thin as it is already. Thinner," she added. "Then both Sora and Riku and that is completely unacceptable."
Sei muttered something that sounded like a teasing "yes m'am." Kairi slapped him lightly upside the head.
"Don't be a smart-ass."
Sei looked at her coolly from the side of one eye, most of his face hidden by platinum hair.
"Wouldn't dream of it princess."
Riku snorted into his cereal. Sora laughed outright. Kairi finally gave up, rolling her eyes.
As they say, boys would be boys.
Breakfast was finished quickly and the group got up to leave for Leon's office where matters would be further discussed. As the others went ahead, Sora found himself face to face with Riku.
"Do you mind if I could talk with you...alone?" Riku asked.
Sora tried to read the expression behind his friend's face but failed.
"Sure," he finally replied. He guessed the others would simply have to wait.
He followed the silver-haired man outside onto a small walkway. This one overlooked the training yard where already a number of young men and women had gathered for practice. The fighters were stretching and warming up, waiting for the instructor. Sora could hear their chatter and gossip floating up in the late spring wind. Their chatter quickly turned to respectful silence as an irritated looking Cloud Strife walked into the yard. Yuffie had slithered out of her duties for that morning in favor of plotting with Leon, Aerith, and the keyblade masters, leaving /him/ to deal with her mess of trainees. God, sometimes he hated that woman...
Sora turned his eyes away from the scene to look at Riku. For a moment there was only silence, Riku surveying the smaller brunette from behind the cloth of his blindfold. He finally sat back, folding his arms across his chest.
"You've changed so much since we left the islands." Riku murmured. You've become stronger then I ever would have imagined." Then with a smirk, he added, "I had been beginning to wonder if you would ever lose that cute baby fat."
Sora snorted, grinning in pretend annoyance. "Hah! It's not like you can really gain any weight when you're running around saving the worlds."
Sora leaned against a stone pillar, letting the cool wind blow through his thick hair. His expression was suddenly serious, almost world-weary, and very vulnerable.
"I was so worried about you Riku! I know it was necessary for you and the king to stay behind the doors at Kingdom Hearts but, Goddess!"
He took a few steps until he was at the walkway's railing and propped his elbows up on the white stone, resting his head on his hands.
"You have no idea what a relief it had been, even inside Sei's body, to realize that you were all right. That you had escaped Kingdom Hearts."
"Hey, it wasn't exactly easy for me," Riku said. "Always wondering where you were, what could have happened to you. Who could have guessed that you were right there under our noses this entire time?"
Sora smiled, but the smile didn't reach the sadness in his eyes. It felt fake, reminding him of that grin he had given Donald and Goofy at the very beginning of their adventures.
"Even when you fell into darkness, I had always cared for you. I mean, yah at times you seriously pissed the hell out of me for being such a dumb-ass, but at others time you scared me so much-I was afraid that I'd lose you completely to the Heartless. Like I had been sure that I'd lost Kairi. We've been best friends forever and that isn't going to change at the flip of a dime."
A sound something like a groan escaped his lips.
"I should have never allowed any of this to happen. I should have never made you feel so ignored, should have never let you think that you weren't wanted."
"This isn't your fault," Riku interrupted harshly. "Joining the darkness...that was my decision! You shouldn't blame yourself for my mistakes."
Riku vibrated with rage and hate and sorrow, but all these feelings were directed towards himself, not towards the young man before him.
~I had /needed/ to be the best... I had /needed/ to be /needed/. Don't blame yourself Sora. Don't try to take my fall for me
"But you didn't bring me out here to reminisce in the good old days, did you?" Sora asked, abruptly changing the subject. He twiddled his thumbs, staring at smooth, translucent fingernails.
"So what's bothering you? Was it my eyes?"
When Riku didn't say anything Sora added, "I've been seeing people's hearts, blazing inside them like stars. I think it's something like your own eyes, maybe. I see hearts, and probably Heartless too."
He glanced back at Riku seriously. "You can see it in my eyes can't you? Just like I can see it in yours."
Riku laughed, a muted sound full of false humor.
"They say that the eyes are the windows of one's souls."
Sora inclined his head.
"Hearts definitely," he replied after a moment. "I don't know about souls."
He hugged his arms across his chest.
"What is the difference between the heart and the soul, do you think?"
Riku shrugged, unable to bring himself to care too much. A shadow of a frown creased at Sora's brow as he stared at Riku.
"When I look at you, I see something different. It's not your heart, but your eyes that shine, even when you've tried to hide them behind blindfolds."
Riku waited but Sora had nothing else to say. Dark thoughts began to rise within him as he considered this.
"Are you saying that you can't see my heart? Or maybe," Riku said coldly, "I don't have one. Maybe I lost mine to the Heartless and that's why my eyes have become like theirs."
"Oh, you have a heart all right," Sora said, in a tone of certainty that was clearly not to be questioned. "It's just hidden. Or transformed. Or something." He threw his arms up into the air. "I can't say anything for sure--if you have any questions about the Heartless, you probably need to talk to Sei. Even when he didn't have his other half, he was pretty well-informed on that sort of thing."
"Sei...Ansem..." Riku looked off into the distance, his eyes glinting lanterns only barely veiled to Sora. "Now isn't that interesting."
"What?"
"Both of us have shared bodies with the same person at one point or other. Or," he shrugged "practically the same person."
Sora nodded slowly. "That /is/ a funny coincidence, isn't it?"
But they both looked at each other and knew they were thinking the same thing. Maybe it wasn't coincidence. Maybe it was Fate. Every other damn thing that had ever happened to them had had to do with the word. Fate that the two of them had even been chosen by the keyblades. Fate that now the only meaning for their very existences was to somehow end the threat of the Heartless.
Fate that somehow even now there stood a line between them, one that neither of them could understand.
A separation of light and darkness. Nothing was ever going to be the same.
Riku sighed, breaking those thoughts, and ran a hand through his silver mane of hair.
"We probably should get back now."
"We should." Sora agreed, but he hesitated after a few steps.
"Riku..."
"Hmm?"
Sora flashed his trademark radical grin.
"Thanks."
"For what?"
"Well...you know...everything."
Riku looked at him questioningly, still in the dark.
"For taking care of Kairi for me. For looking for me even when it began to look like I was dead or something. For never giving up. Just...thanks."
Riku gave Sora a very long look, as if saying "well what else did you expect me to do?" But, after a moment of looking into that boyish, enthusiastic face, Riku's lips parted into a smile. A real one.
"You're welcome.
###
Leon's office was a medium sized room with dark wood paneling and a large window taking up most of the far wall. It was clean and spacious, everything fairly organized on the tables and shelves and upon stacks in the corners of the room. There were five chairs, counting Leon's. Kairi sat next to Sora, with Riku between himself and Sei on the far right of the room. Yuffie swung her legs over the side of Leon's desk, while Aerith had settled onto a stool pulled out from behind a large potted plant, pale, graceful hands clasped across her knees.
Sora glanced over to the left side of his chair, catching the profile of the young woman beside him bent over a fresh surface of paper. Kairi was scribbling something in that journal of hers again, filling up the blank emptiness with scrawling words and letter in clean black ink. She was always doing that these days. She said she had a lot on her mind. Besides, she wanted to remember everything when this was all over. To forget was like saying that something had never happened, or someone had never existed. It's easy to forget, when you're living in a world in which no one else believes.
"So, back home...no one remembers what happened that night?" Sora asked.
Kairi shook her head, clasping the small book to her chest.
"Your parents...yours and Riku's, they were really devastated by the loss. But don't worry. When we get back, we'll have a huge party. We'll invite everyone on the island. We'll celebrate that we're back at last to the place we grew up. We'll celebrate that the Heartless are finally gone..." she took a deep breath before finishing. "We'll beat them. I know we will."
~We have to defeat them. This fight has been going on for far too long.
Leon eyed the couple with his usual jaded expression, clearly not impressed with such optimistic sentiments.
"What we need to know, however, is /how/ to accomplish that."
He was seated across from them in a chair at his desk. A slight breeze blew in from the open window, catching at the ends of the papers strewn across the tabletop. Yuffie absently moved a silver paperweight of the Hollow Bastion crest onto some of these while Leon spoke.
"How are you planning to defeat the Heartless?"
Five years ago, it had seemed that the answer had already been found. Now it looked as if that solution had only just chipped away at the tip of an iceberg.
Beside Riku, Sei was busy trying to block out certain "voices" inside his mind. Up until now, the voice had been suspiciously quiet. Presently, it sounded quite smug and pleased with itself.
~You are the source of all Heartless
Sei closed his eyes with a silent moan, lamenting his whole miserable existence.
~Shut /up/
The voice only laughed.
Aerith looked around her at the disquiet faces with unease. "Hadn't Sora already closed the doors of Kingdom Hearts with Riku, Donald, and Goofy?"
"Yes," Yuffie said in agreement. "You closed the doors and defeated Ansem. But the Heartless are back, stars are still falling from the sky...yet the walls between the worlds are, well, kind of still up. At least enough that Gummi ships are utterly useless."
Aerith pursed her lips together, liking the way things were sounding even less and less.
"So what does this all mean? What exactly can we do?"
Aerith, Yuffie, Leon were determined to do whatever they could to aid in this battle, even if it seemed they would be unable to fight it themselves. They had been fighting against the threat of Heartless for nine long years before even Sora, Riku, and Kairi had even known of the existence the darkness from which it was spawned. Friends, family, the only home they had ever known...all lost for too many years. Yet, what real hope was there for them in this crusade?
"I think that what we really need to do first is to review the facts," Riku said "And maybe learn a few things that we never knew in the first place."
All eyes turned towards the silver-haired young man at this statement, but he wasn't finished.
"Sei found the rest of his-(Ansem's)-reports down in the old laboratory. There may be something of use for us in these."
"Oh, the missing reports," Aerith clarified, catching on.
"Of course...convenient time for them to finally resurface," Leon added a bit cynically. "Heh. I wonder how much they'll help us, and how much they'll make this situation even more of a problem."
Leon had noticed the small packet Sei had been carrying before, but had not thought to associate it with such importance. His eyes followed Sei as the blonde man dropped the sheaf of documents onto the table before the group.
Sei was completely frank with his thoughts on the whole issue at the very start.
"This may not be exactly the sort of information you're looking for, because I'm sure it isn't," he said. "But I think this knowledge will prove valuable all the same."
Leon looked at Sei with incredulity, but the other man proved to be completely unresponsive but for a wry smile, merely sitting back down in his chair as if to wait for the rest of them to read and make what they would of it.
"Okay," Yuffie said, clapping her hands together. "Let's get started."
The eleventh report was skimmed over, having little information that was new. It detailed the connection between shooting stars and worlds, gummi blocks and the worlds, and the measures Ansem had taken to prevent anyone from using the keyblade to seal the hearts of the worlds (that is, sending the princess of heart known as Kairi as an instrument to reveal the location of the keyblade).
The other reports, the twelfth and thirteenth reports were a far cry more surprising in the information it detailed. Aerith read aloud to the group from the yellowed and stained papers, her smooth voice clear in the silence:
"...in order to cross over to the dark side, which is not this world, you must go beyond the door of Kingdom Hearts, the place connected to the world's heart. The innermost part connected to the world's heart, the place connecting to the world of darkness. (I will record the details in another report...)
There are still so many unknown worlds.
The present world.
The world of darkness.
The world of light.
And,
The world in-between.
Where does the true paradise lie, I wonder?"
Aerith stopped, licking dry lips when she had finished. Yuffie took up the reading after her friend on the first page of the thirteenth report.
"When the heart casts off the flesh, where does the body go?
Heart and soul are separate, and the spirit remains in the body. But can we assume that the leftover body and soul perish? Certainly when the heart changes into a Heartless the body disappears. However, that is only this world's story; in another world, mightn't they change forms like the Heartless and exist there? If we take that to be the case, there must be a you other than yourself existing somewhere.
An existence neither of darkness nor of light. An in-between existence. Cast off by the heart, a mere shell, one who begrudges both the darkness and the light. This mystery cannot be easily resolved. The relationship between the heart and the flesh is a complex one. But since we exist here, they cannot be termed as existent. Therefore I shall call them...
'The non-existent ones.'"
Yuffie turned the last page, only to find polished wood beneath it.
"Well I guess that's that, if there aren't any more of the reports somehow missing out there," she added with a shaky laugh.
"That is the extent of my knowledge," Sei said. "There is little else that I can offer. I am sorry for that."
"Don't be," Aerith said. "We would have never known about all this if it hadn't been for your efforts. All the reports, not only these, have aided in our understanding of the Heartless considerably. It is only a pity that even so, there still lies a wealth of unknown information."
Leon's usual jaded expression had not changed throughout the entirety of the reading.
"I'm almost not surprised that things have turned out to be so much more complicated then we had first believed."
Something twitched in the back of Kairi's memory. She frowned, trying to remember what it was.
"I think I remember something like this." Thoughts from a dream. The words flashed again before her mind's eyes like lightning.
"Who are the Nobodies you ask?" Kairi murmured slowly. "They are the nonexistent ones."
"Nobodies?" Aerith's chocolate-colored bangs bounced lightly as she shifted in her seat to face Kairi. Her eyes were bright with questioning. "Where did you hear that Kairi?"
Kairi rubbed her eyes. "This is all very weird but yesterday night, when I went into Sei to find Sora, I found myself in some kind of dream. Or something like a dream. I saw Sei in Traverse Town, as he was when Sora had been inside him. He fought Heartless and then ran up the side of a building towards Riku. Riku received the Oblivion from Sei and then I saw Sora's fourteen-year old self at a crossroads that parted four ways. The last place the dream took place at was a dark beach of some kind, with a glass bottle in the water, and then-"
She halted for a moment. "I saw Sora talking to me on the rocks. Except, somehow I knew that wasn't me and that wasn't Sora. Sora, our Sora, was flying across the waves as his younger self into the distance."
"'There must be a you, other than yourself existing somewhere'." Aerith recited. "Of course that dream would make sense then. But the rest of it, what could it mean?"
"I met Sei in Traverse Town." Riku remarked, seeing again in his mind that moment that seemed so long ago, but in reality really wasn't. "He didn't do anything as impossible as run up walls but he did fight Heartless. And, in a way, I did receive Oblivion from Sei."
"You attaining a keyblade of your own was only inevitable." Sei put in calmly. "But, yes, I do see your point."
Sora watched the discussion through his swirling glass, sky-gold eyes. Now he had something else to add.
"Kairi, do you remember that day when you caught me sleeping out on the beach, the day we had begun working on the raft?" Kairi nodded her head at Sora, waiting with curiosity at to where this was going. "I had a dream that day, a strange one with stained glass windows of the princesses of heart and of you and Riku. Thinking back on it now, I think it was more than just a dream."
Kairi eyes widened, an idea coming to her. "A vision?"
"Probably." Sora agreed. "And then, when my heart was captured between the worlds, I had another one, the same one that you say you saw last night. I'm sure that this dream holds secrets to what will happen to us in the future."
He fingered the crown emblem around his neck carelessly, caught up in these thoughts.
"An existence that begrudges both the darkness and the light...is this a new enemy?" A look of determination came over his face. "Regardless of whatever obstacles, I'm sure of what I have to do next. I need to find the door to the light. Something about that door and the light must be the answer to beating the Heartless, and I'll find it!"
"Easier said than done." Leon's words were characteristically cynical, but a smile was twitching at his lips. "Where were you planning on looking?"
"I'm not sure yet," Sora admitted.
"You're just sort of B.S.ing your way through this one, aren't you Sora?" Riku asked. He chuckled.
"Heh, don't worry. Whatever happens, we'll be right here behind you."
Sora looked at Riku through derisive, half-closed eyes.
"/Behind/ me, huh? I feel so reassured."
Yuffie crossed her legs up on the top of the desk. "But seriously guys, what are you going to do from here? Wonder the worlds until you get lucky? Too many people are counting on you for you to fail now." Including us, Yuffie silently added.
"Perhaps we should think about visiting King Mickey again." Kairi suggested. "He may have at least some clue of where we should head."
Riku nodded, an obscure expression behind his blindfold. "I get the feeling that he's never telling us everything that he knows."
"Don't you?" Kairi said. "Maybe that's because he doesn't think we need to know yet, or it'd hinder us if we did. But now we've found Sora; I think we're ready to tackle this new quest!"
The sooner they found the door to the light, the sooner the Heartless were defeated, and they could go home. Kairi didn't think there was anything she wanted more than that.
With at least a vague course of action to follow now, the group dispersed to prepare for the departure. Kairi and Sora left with Aerith to restock on healing items and other necessities. Sei went to look through what Accessories the skilled artisans of Hollow Bastion had to offer (he would continue to fight with his own dual blade swords, having surrendered the Oathkeeper to its true master).
Sora and Kairi walked down the sunlit hall, stopping at the corner of one side as Aerith switched a trigger on what had seemed a mere ornamental crystal. A gilded lift slide down from an upper floor, and Sora and Kairi followed Aerith as she stepped onto the platform. They exited off this on the second floor up, went past several rooms that had been set up as the infirmary, and then into a smaller enclosed area serving as a storeroom.
"Cure spells are fine and everything, but sometimes you can't afford to waste that kind of energy." Aerith said, sorting through the bottles and boxes lined up in the storeroom.
"Hmm..." The chocolate-haired woman picked up a bottle, examined the label, and then peered at its contents with a frown. She began to select various other bottles off the shelves and packing them into a sack.
"Some ethers should go with you as well...which reminds me, Kairi." She turned her head to flash a grin at the younger woman. "I'm very impressed by how much you progressed with your magic since we were last together in Traverse Town. Of course, five years /have/ passed."
"I was practicing at home on the Islands every chance that I could."
"It definitely shows." Aerith zipped up the flap of the sac, and then tossed it to Sora.
"That should keep you covered for a while yet." She informed him. Then, with a wry look she added, "I just hope nothing happens to you four that would cause you to really need to use any of this."
Kairi smiled shyly. "This is really very kind of you."
"It's not any problem. Besides, I think the four of you will need all the help and the luck that you can get.
Sora pulled the strap of the bag over his shoulder. "We'll manage, don't worry."
"I hope so." Aerith looked at Sora consideringly. "You know, you've really grown up from that little kid we met in Traverse Town. Then, Leon couldn't believe that the fate of the universe rested on the shoulders of such a child. Now I believe there is no question. If anyone would be able to pull this off, I know it'd be you."
"I hope you're not just saying that."
"In the beginning I might have." Aerith said with a laugh. "All I can say now is that you've changed so much. Even Leon shouldn't have any more doubts about the person you've matured into."
Sora looked doubtful for a moment but allowed it to give way to a smile.
"Thanks."
"You're welcome. Now how about seeing where Riku and Sei are now, shall we?"
Riku and Sei were already waiting with their things in the entrance hall, along with Yuffie and Leon when the three arrived. Cloud had also shown up to see them off.
Sora grinned. "It's good to see you again Cloud. I guess you found your light after all."
Amusement danced in Cloud's eyes.
"And it seems you've become quite the hero." The blonde man replied.
Sora shrugged indifferently. "I guess."
Five years ago, he might have felt proud at such words coming from the older man. Now it didn't seem to matter much anymore.
Sora shoved his hands into his pockets. "So now that we're all here, I guess we'll be going?"
"Yes; the trip here took three hours," Kairi said. "We probably don't want to waste any time if we can help it."
"Airship would be faster," Yuffie put in helpfully.
Leon stood up from where he was sitting next to his fiancé.
"As I've just told Riku and Sei, we've already arranged with Cid to have one ready for you," Leon said. "By now he should be about done, so whenever you're ready."
Kairi looked around at the bright, marble hall and the faces of those who had always been ready to help them ever since this battle had begun. Perhaps this wasn't her home any longer, but she was certain that she was going to miss it now.
"As ready as we'll ever be."
###
The airship chosen was one of the smaller models but was perfectly suitable for the given task. Its metal plates were painted ivory and deep emerald with gold trim, and wings fanned out at its sides and crown in ivory sheets. A blonde, slimly built seventeen-year old wearing thick goggles was finishing last minute work on the engine. Cid Highwind was watching the girl, overseeing her handiwork.
He removed the bit of straw he was chewing from his mouth to holler at the young woman above him.
"Hey, Rikku, what's taking you?"
Rikku didn't even look up from her tinkering to answer.
"I'm almost done here, Cid..."
"Well hurry it up!"
A few minutes passed, then Rikku secured the top and jumped down to the ground level. Her clothes were stained and her face was smudged, but all in all she looked completely satisfied with her work. Like any typical Al-Bhed working in Hollow Bastion, she spent more time knee deep in motor oil and scrap metal than anything else. She pulled up her goggles, revealing green glass eyes with a strange, twisting design somehow worked into them.
"The Sonja is ready for flight," Rikku announced, peeling off oil-covered gloves. "Brother's inside, waiting for his passengers.
Cid grunted an approval. He crossed his arms over his chest, looking back the small group waiting behind him. "You heard the girl. So whenever you people are set on goin'."
Yuffie patted Kairi on the shoulder as they walked towards the craft, an almost conspiratorial gleam in her eyes.
"You take care okay?" Yuffie told Kairi. "Keep those boys in line."
"Good luck Kairi," Aerith said.
Kairi grinned, hugging them both. "We won't let you down."
Aerith smiled, but it was hard to tell if maybe there wasn't a little sadness in it too.
"May you have fortune's blessing," she murmured. "Always."
Kairi hugged Cloud and Leon too, although Leon looked somewhat embarrassed at receiving his. Sora, Riku, and Sei, having finished their own good-byes, had already started onto the ship and Kairi hurried to follow them. The craft lifted from the earth in a flurry of wind and a smooth roar of the engines.
"Destination is Cremyia Chocobo Farm on the F'laren Road, yes?" Brother asked from his seat in the front. Judging from his eyes, he was of the same race as Rikku. Unlike the younger teen however, his words were heavily accented. He was also rather odd looking by most standards, with his blonde Mohawk and his gray-blue overalls.
Sei said something in another language to Brother. Surprise crossed brother's face, then a grin. He answered in the same language, and then returned to navigating the ship.
"That was unexpected." Riku remarked wryly, having watched the exchange. Sei took a window seat across from Riku, looking outside the small opening at the rapidly disappearing outskirts of Hollow Bastion.
"I found it useful to be fluent in more than one language when I governed a country." Sei said simply.
"Hmm. So what language was that?" Riku asked, gesturing vaguely off in Brother's direction.
"Al-Bhed. That's the race that Brother and Rikku are of. You can usually tell them from the unique eyes. Most of them are also highly skilled with machinery, (machina to them) and they've made quite a few advancements with the gummi ships."
"Hey." Sora stuck his head over the top of Sei's seat, resting his elbows on the top of the chair. Sei looked up at him with a bland expression.
"How long will it take us to reach our destination?"
"About twenty-five minutes, I'm pretty sure," Sei answered.
"Oh." Sora disappeared again.
There were sounds of him shuffling around his seat, and then his voice could be heard saying, "Anyone interested in a game of cards?"
Sora and Kairi sat together playing with the deck Sora had found under the seats. Riku slept by the window and Sei read a book from his bag. It was nice...doing absolutely nothing and talking about even less. Certainly it was calming after that discussion in Leon's office. No one really wanted to think about what might happen tomorrow, of the day after in this endless battle.
Almost without thought, Kairi began to hum a soft melody beneath her breath.
"When you walk away... you don't hear me say... please, oh b-aa-bby, don't go..."
"What are you singing Kairi?" Sora asked. Kairi abruptly broke off and looked up in surprise at his question.
"Am I bothering you? I'll stop if you want."
Sora shook his head.
"No. It's only that that song seemed familiar."
"Hmm. It's from one of Sei's CDs. There are several other arrangements too, one sung in a language I don't know."
She thought for a moment, and then began the song on another verse.
"Hold m-ee...whatever lies beyond this mor-ning, is a little later on... Regardless of warnings, the future doesn't scare me at a-ll...nothing's like before..."
Kairi trailed off, wilting a little. Sora recognized the fear in her eyes.
"It's okay if you're scared."
He leaned back against the side of the seat with his head bent, a strange sort of weariness settling onto his features that Kairi had never seen before.
"I'd be lying if I didn't say I was scared too. Practically everyone is depending on us, and that's one hell of a load. It's too much for anyone to carry by themselves."
Kairi bit her lip. "The future is so uncertain," she mumbled. "Anything could happen. People could die. /We/ could die. I hate feeling like anything we do affects everyone else, especially when sometimes all I want is to quit with this fighting and go home. Then I feel selfish and dirty, thinking about myself when so much lies on the line."
~Sora...sometimes I can't believe how pure your heart is. How do you keep going? How /can/ you keep going?
"Even when I was looking for /you/ I was being selfish," Kairi added with a harsh laugh. "Definitely I wasn't thinking about how finding the keyblade master would help the universe."
"Well," Sora said. "Sometimes its okay to be a little selfish. If it got all of us together, I would say that's a plus. For us and the universe."
He sat up. "You know what I'm dreaming of right now? Going home with you and Riku, and lying in the warm sun until I fry over like some piece of fish. Maybe have that party you said we could do to celebrate coming back home. We could have karaoke and raid Sei's collection of CDs for music... stay up late dancing in the light of the moon and the stars and the waves until we collapse in the water, too tired to do anything else...bake a pineapple cake in the shape of a giant key... I'd get fat again from so much delicious island food," he said as an afterthought.
"You're just being silly."
Sora didn't falter. "Sometimes its okay to be a little silly. Before, I had always had Donald and Goofy for my comic relief. Label me immature, but it makes me feel better if I can think there is something left in the world to smile about. Call me selfish, but sometimes I need a little incentive to go crawling up that road again."
"Selfish...so what are we fighting for?"
Sora smiled. "Cake, of course."
"Oh yes. Cake and Karaoke."
Kairi looked outside at the brilliant blue sky. How crazy this conversation was turning out to be.
~But seriously. Despite selfish thoughts, I know none of us would really be able to simply drop everything and leave this battle. We've all been affected too much...is that why we're fighting? To bring all this sorrow to close?
She hugged her knees close to her chest.
~The end of our crusade...I'd like to see that day.
###
The minutes passed quickly and soon Brother was landing the small craft to the side of the main road, several yards away from the chocobo stable to which they had first gone.
Brother would wait with the Sonja until he was sure that the four had been successfully able to get back to Traverse Town. Kairi looked back at the gleaming ship of ivory and emerald paint and metal, then shook her head and strode forward towards the faint glimmer in the air. Her heartkey materialized in her hand at her will and she held it forward to summon forth the door. The portal appeared and she waited as Riku, Sei, then Sora disappeared from the world. She waved one last time at the ship, although she wasn't sure if Brother would be able to see it from where he was. Finally, she turned around to follow her friends.
Something slammed into her mind the moment she stepped through. White spots danced before her eyes and she fought to gain balance through a haze of dizziness and nausea. She put a hand to her head, feeling ready to keel over or simply throw up. If not both.
It only lasted for a few seconds. Just as suddenly those ill feelings had come, they vanished. Kairi slowly straightened cautiously, not quite trusting herself not to fall over again. It took her a moment to realize that where she was standing was not, as she had hoped, Traverse Town but rather a large circular room. The ceiling towered three stories above her head and the gray stone walls were covered with irregular openings that might have passed for windows. The floor was covered in small black, white, gray, and black tiles that were arranged in a star-shaped pattern with eight points across the earth. There wasn't any sign of Sora, Riku, or Sei.
A hooded figure in a stylized coat stood across from Kairi, her front facing the opposite walls. The person turned towards Kairi with uncaring grace, moving as if she had just then noticed Kairi's presence. The face was shielded with a hood, but a lock of bright, auburn hair had fallen from the shadows to hang before smooth pale skin and rose-colored lips.
Kairi's body tensed. "I saw you in that vision."
No reply. Kairi swallowed away the dryness in her throat and tried again in determination.
"You are a Nobody, aren't you?"
The Nobody watched her with cool interest. She did not speak, but a detached female voice entered Kairi's mind.
~How intriguing.
She stepped forward until only a few feet in front of Kairi. Kairi felt unnerved by this, as if she was somehow staring into a mirror. She gazed at her double with wary eyes as more words entered her thoughts.
~The story repeats itself as another chapter unfolds. Unexpected, yet not unsurprising. Your existence...a definition for the light and darkness, and a representation of a forgotten world. It is in your name and your nature. How ironic that you are also a princess of heart.
She seemed to be staring, thinking, but Kairi could only see the black within her low hood.
~Or...perhaps not so ironic. Admittedly in all things, this has worked out quite well.
"What are you talking about?" Kairi demanded, feeling fear and trying to hide it. "What have you done? Where is Sora? And Riku, and Sei?"
The Nobody considered the questions.
~Nothing was done here that was not already inevitable.
A weapon appeared in the Nobody's hand. Kairi took a sharp intake of breath when she realized what it was--a key the size of a baton, its metal colored in shades of black, gray and white. In many ways it was very similar to her own heartkey. Soon after, the Nobody's form flickered, fading gradually away into nothing.
~The time we can meet again will doubtless come.
Kairi stared, uncomprehending, but then seemed to gather her wits at the last moment with a frustrated cry.
"Wait!"
The Nobody might have smiled, but she vanished before Kairi could be sure. Everything faded and shifted away until she knew she was longer in that strange room apart from the worlds.
She looked up. It was a clear, radiant night in Traverse Town. Silver rain clouds floating through the cobalt sky, barely veiling the white pinpoints of light above. A faint wind swept through the square, brushing against her skin in soft caress.
And Kairi was all alone.