Lightbringer- Chpt. 16: Echoed Past

Adalai- Ok, this chappie is in two parts- the first is Strife/Riku, Axel and Lady Axel, the last is what happened to Ellos after she woke up, ending with her meeting Kairi. I'll see if I can squeeze in Scion and Clay too. Sephy, disclaimer!

Sephiroth- (dusty from being dragged out from under the coffee table by his hair) She didn't own them last 15 chapters, what makes you think she'll own them in the 16th chapter?

Adalai- you didn't read the paper.

Sephiroth- I refuse to use the word 'chappies'. It's bad grammar.

Adalai- Like you refusing to use the work 'literary work' when describing my story?

Sephiroth- yes.

Adalai- fine, be a soil-sport. Anyway, on with the Fic!

Dear Diary,

Today the Endless gave me a strange sword in the shape of a key, a Link called a keyblade. It's some kind of magic blade that controls the 'natural locks' in hearts, used to constrict or release things inside the heart. There are 6 different keys, one for each side of one of the three doors between the Worlds. Mine opens or closes the way into the Present World from Kingdom Hearts. I understand that these doors and keys have hearts and wills of their own, which is why the keyblade's ability to control hearts also allows it to open these doors.

They have also given me a large number of documents, preserving their culture, their technology, their history, their ways of life, and most importantly, shards of the two broken keyblades. Though they have not entrusted me with any of the Links written during The Gathering, the Links they have provided me with allow me to travel, with the help of the Keyblade, through most worlds and places in the Disney Kingdoms system. Enough that I might finally go home.

(the speaker goes on to tell of how he was apprenticed to a wizard, and was kicked out after a 'broom enchanting incident' and, through a series of events, was competing with his brother for the throne and had to bring back a legendary sword called a keyblade to prove his authenticity as king.)

The Endless are fascinating creatures. They are more than they appear simply on the surface, and despite the tension between the two, they have more in common than they know and actually come from the same source. It is said that the keyblades and the doors were made by Endless and Nobody working 'as one', at least more so than they do now at the Gathering.

(Tale about the two keyblades, one bringing destroying worlds, the other saving them, and a note at the end saying 'Oblivion and Oathkeeper? The End and the one who will open the door? Castle Oblivion Link- where one falls, two shall arise? Fall to what? Two of what shall arise? Is there an 'Oathkeeper' Link?)

Though I have lived among them for 5 years now, I still do not know all their secrets. I may know their culture, class system, technology, abilities and defects, their physiology, but so many thinks are left in the dark to me. What is their connection to the Nobody? Why are they called endless? What do they have to do with Kingdom Hearts? Where do they come from, originally? What does Castle Oblivion have to do with the Endless and their connection to the Nobody? What do they have to do with the keyblades and the doors? Where do their Sensates and Giant trees, which are unlike anything on any of their worlds, come from?

This is a mystery not easily solved. The past of the Endless and Nobody, particularly where they coincide, is very much a fragmented tale. I cannot gain any answers to it in this place, but it is answers we so desperately need. So I must set out to find those answers.

They shall come in the form of three hearts.

First, the true Keyblade master. He is the only one able to wield the keyblades for their true purpose, whatever that may be. Though they may be many keyblades, there is only one true Keyblade master. Just possession of a keyblade is not proof of mastership, since they have hearts and wills of their own, and can change from wielder to wielder. However, a type of 'identifying trait' was written into the Link, so that it would be easier to narrow it down. This trait is that the Keyblade master will be half-human, half-Cetra, a race from an Age near to the Endless' homeworlds.

Second, the one who will open the door. This Link has one identifying trait: that they will probably be someone close to the Keyblade Master. They are the one who will open the door to the light, the key to it being their own heart.

The third is trickier. They call him the Lightbringer. His creation is entirely our mistake; we tried to create a Link that recreated the fissure as a heart, giving it physical existence. This was not or original plan; we tried to protect it by linking it to a heart that we believed could not exist. And yet, somehow, impossibly, it does. The problem is something that has a physical form, or is a heart, can be destroyed, broken, or die. We have checked and looked over the Words of the Link we created, but still cannot see how such a heart could be possible; We wrote the most blatantly paradoxical heart we could think of. It shall also be impossible to find; no identifying trait, and it could be anywhere.

Unless the Endless and the Nobody know something about their origins that they have not told me.

Sincerely,

Mickey Mouse

"No mistakes?" Lady Axel inquired.

"No." Axel said tiredly, pushing a pair of thin, elegant reading glasses she had given him for his birthday last year. He still refused to admit he was far-sighted; when she had come in and seen him hunched over the manuscript with the glasses on, he made up the excuse that the writing was to tiny for 'anyone to be able to see without a magnifying glass' in a angry, exasperated tone.

Axel's voice interrupted her remembrance. "This part about the keyblade master being part Cetra", stabbing at the part in question with his finger, "Reminds me of something that happened back when I was living at Hollow Baston, before I became a Nobody."

Riku shifted uncomfortably from his sleeping place on the windowsill, head resting on his bent arm and the other over his chest, knees drawn up and muscles bunched in the constricted space. Not that there was anywhere else more comfortable; the whole ship was made of shadowflesh; stone cold and hard as iron, and the window was way to narrow to accommodate his frame. Sighing, he lay his head down, hair spread out on the stone, and looked out the window, seeing Twilight Town disappear beneath them. No longer needing the presence and the firepower of the big ships, a force of Heartless and mindless and one of the smaller ships would stay and finish the conquest of the world, the rest of the fleet moving on to invade new worlds.

Lady Axel stood in the doorway, watching him watch the ships ascend from the planet's surface, wondering what he was wondering. The chains that had bound him when she had seen him yesterday were now bolted to the floor of a small room off the main room, bare of everything but a window that he was now perched on.

Strife had fought other rouge Nobody before, but at least he had a weapon and Ellos was there to empty a round out of her gebo at their sadistic countenances. Now this Nobody held the key to his chains and the ability and knowledge to slip past his unemotional chassis and get up close and personal. And it made her cocky as hell.

"What's your name?"

"Strife." He muttered.

"I just thought you might want to know where we are going. Isn't that what you Nobody do, collect information to decide your next move, where you are going to exert your influence next?" She said, smiling in a ways predators smiled at prey before they feed.

"You're the Nobody, not me. You tell me."

Crossing the room, she looked in the voluminous black of his blindfolded gaze. "Clever Strife." Voice dripping honey, it nevertheless could not disguise the disgust and raw hatred she felt towards her own kind. "We Nobody; we calculate. We manipulate. Legends say we have no god because we strive to be gods."

"Don't we all." Strife responded, voice deadpan.

She looked at the intra-space beyond the window, as if she could see their destination from where she stood. "We are going to an age called Hollow Baston. A little out of our way- and out plans." His seraphic silhouette, black against the deep space and myriad stars beyond, twisted in recognition, before growing cautious and guarded. His lack of reaction in itself signified that he knew of the age.

Turning her gaze to him again, she spoke. "I am a person of a curious nature. And curious times have come to us. Ansem (another twitch of recognition from the Nobody at the window), our current Heartless commander, who had destroy many worlds, killed many people, both with my Lord Axel and those four years ago at Hollow Baston. It is a demanding job, one that he does well and thoroughly."

Moving closer to Strife, as if she might find the answer to this next question written on his sphinx-like front, she continued. "And yet, he cannot bring himself to allow the death of one stranded Forgotten. Curious as I am, I can only ask myself; Why? Does our great commander find himself in love with an unknown female Half-Dead? Truly, love is a strange thing, that Ansem should find himself enamored with such a person."

This time, when she failed to read a response on Strife's empyreal profile, still turned away from her and looking out, disappointment and anger showed on her face. Even though she was not the most beautiful, she was unused to being ignored, especially by men, when her position and charm usually sent them flocking to her in droves. She changed the subject of Ellos to another; at least for now.

"And what of you?" Strife asked, voice quiet and yet strangely audible in the silence of the room, voice a sonorous baritone and tone grave and hard. "Companion of the highest commander in the whole fleet, probably the most powerful woman in this society. How do you see yourself as an individual, see your future? What do you wish for, hope to be? I've heard the speeches you give to the populaces of your conquests, about how you are only interested in converting hearts to their true forms, but even I can see that the commanders and military personnel each has their own design and agenda, a different idea of how things should be carried out. Though Nobody, you are all human, and individuals. What part am I to play in your plans?"

"Treasonous and blasphemous talk, Strife. I think I like you already."

"You have to believe it first to commit treason and blasphemy. I just say what I see."

"And calculating."

He didn't exactly shrug; it was more a kind of movement, somewhat like a shiver but too fluid and quick to fully describe, centered on the shoulders, with the same liquid, mercurial grace noted in Ellos. "Well, I am a Nobody. It's in my nature. Like you said, we are always calculating."

Pulling a key from her pocket, she unlocked the chains around him from the floor. That is all very interesting, but unfortunately, a complete waste." She pulled out two Twin hooks swords. They looked somewhat like swords; the blade part was curved over in a hook, the bottom of the hilt had a spearhead attached to it, and over the hilt was a crescent blade, tips pointing opposite from the hilt, connected to either side of the handhold by two flat metal rods.

Twisting to the side, he swung to avoid the blow he thought was directed at him. Instead of going for Strife, she thrust both blades at the material of the window. It stretched for a moment, and then popped. The entire window gave way, the shards flying away into space, air rushing out.

Not expecting Lady Axel to go for the window and not him, Strife grabbed frantically at anything to keep him from flying out into intra-space, feet sliding ever closer to the edge as he simultaneously tried to keep his balance. His hand brushed against fabric and he instinctively grabbed at it.

Now steady, he realized what he had grabbed.

Psyche body manifested to keep her from flying out, a superior smile on her face, Strife realized he had grabbed at Lady Axel's black cloak, specifically, at her chest. A moment passed, uncomfortable and anxious for him, but Lady Axel had a smug, self-satisfied look on her face, which reminded him painfully of a tiger looking at a particularly juicy piece of meat. Her weapons disappearing in a flash of light, she grabbed at his chains and pushed back tentatively balanced Strife, so that he was kept from falling into oblivion by Lady Axel's grip.

"Enough fooling around." She spoke. "I'm not interested in why Ansem spared her. What I'm interested in is the fact that she can manifest Nobody energy bodies, even though she isn't a Nobody. Half-Deads can't manifest those. Is that why the Nobody are so interested in her origins? Or is it...something else?"

Strife still did not respond. "Don't remember your friend's origins? Her home age, her lineage, how she escaped from Kingdom Hearts? I don't suppose you had anything to do with that? And why did she come onto this age at this crucial time? I don't suppose you have something to do with that, too? You're a Nobody; calculate this." With her other hand, she drew a syringe full of some kind of glowing green energy and placed the tip of the needle against his chest, keeping him at the edge of the window. Basically, Strife was stuck between a sharp needle and a hard place. "The likelihood of you staying alive without my help. Done calculating yet?"

"Save your breath, Nobody." Strife replied. "If we knew how, do you really think she would be running around the present world? You've seen Ellos; even if we did know, do you think we could honestly control something like that? Get to your real point."

She smiled. Observant little one. "Do you know what was in that syringe?" She looked down, Strife following her eyes to see the object of her attention, wondering what she meant by 'was'. The syringe was stuck in his chest, empty. Because of the adrenaline he had not even felt the prick of the needle.

"Pure Mako energy." She concluded. "Most humans would have already died from that level of exposure to it. The only ones that could survive that much would have to be part Cetra." Behind her, the shadowflesh of the ship closed around the hole left in the ship. Though his body was dead for so long he could not feel pain, he could still feel his flesh ripping open. He felt a cold liquid running down his back, he collapsed on one knee, dizzy and weak from blood loss.

Circling Strife, she idly ran a finger horizontally over his shoulderblades. "The survivors of Hollow Baston tell a story. Of a female Jenova clone called Danya, who was strangled and thrown, presumed dead, into the Ocean of other Worlds. Strangling is such an unreliable form of murder; sometimes the person goes unconscious from lack of air, and their bodies go into shock, and the heart stops beating temporarily, causing them to seem dead even if they aren't. It is possible she could have survived. So thus my question is; why would Ansem seek to kill this person?"

Not getting an answer from Strife, who was busy with other things (Mainly trying not to collapse unconscious), she provided her own answer. "It has to do with a certain Endless called Malificient. Call her a 'seer' of sorts. They are many views as to whether anyone, Endless or not, can predict the future. Or futures. Perhaps she was just a raving lunatic, pushed over the edge by the destruction of her home age. Perhaps she could not see the future, but drew her knowledge from...somewhere else."

She stopped behind Strife. Reaching into his back, she yanked a lone, slender wing from his back, bits of flesh and dislodged feathers flying loose, slick and wet from blood, its true color stained crimson from the liquid, cold as his body was dead. "She said that the child born of a Jenova clone would be the true keyblade master. And that he would be Ansem's downfall. He and Sephiroth where both Jenova clones, but they where men; so that left only Danya."

Trailing her finger from his wing, over his shoulder and up his neck, it came to rest under his chin, sharp nail digging into the skin. With the other, she brought out the Oblivion keyblade.

It vanished in a haze of black and purple energy, reappearing in Strife's hand. Tilting his chin up to her eye level, she spoke.

"You are the last Cetra." Releasing his chin, she ripped the blindfold from his eyes. They were green-blue, and had a sort of intangible, liquid, depthless quality to them, transformed into glistening gems by his transformation into a Nobody, the mako energy giving them a green glow that seemed to come from the very bottom of those endless pools, the Jenova cells seeming to enhance that aforementioned liquid, depthless quality.

"And you are the True Keyblade Master."

As soon as he had spoken the words, Hades found himself at the point of Ellos' knife. He rolled his eyes. Jeez, this woman had no sense of humor. This living, they acted as if it would kill them to, well, live a little!

Hades, being the kind of person who thinks everything's a joke, through this was a joke, too. "Listen kid, stop fooling around and put that butter knife away. Do you really think something like that would kill a God like me?"

"Ever heard of the Subtle Knife? They say it's blade is so sharp it can but through the fabric between ages. They even say it can kill Gods."

Hades' eyes traveled downward, looking at the plain knife and wondering if it really could do what she said.

"This, obviously, is not the Subtle Knife." Hades felt at the same time relieved, stupid that he had fallen for her bluff, and angry that she had made him look like a fool, if only to himself. "But I know having your throat cut and the subsequent blood loss that will follow will be painful, immortality aside. Tell your three Endless friends to come forward."

From the shadows, a cackling, eerie laugh was heard. A second voice spoke. "It's been a long time since anyone called us that."

A third voice, higher and warbling, spoke. "What made you know that?"

"The fact that the three fates where supposed to have lived forever. That's close enough." Ellos snapped, eyes still on Hades.

"A Forgotten? How exotic." the short, fat one said. A tall, thin one spoke next. "No wonder you saw us." To normal eyes, the three figures seemed indistinct, still half-hidden in shadow. But to Ellos' sight, every detail was clear and disgustingly distinct.

One was tall and thin, on short and fat, one middle height and weight. They're bodies where rotted, wrapped in rags, bits of grave dirt and decayed flesh falling off their corpses in clods, straggled, grey hair falling into empty eye sockets.

The fat one at the end spoke first. Out of the side of her head, a rotten, wizened sensate emerged from her head. From the flower-shaped organ, she plucked a rotten, yellow, oozing eye. Rubbing it clean on her clothes (which only served to make it dirtier) she popped the moldy eye into its socket, the ocular spinning lazy arcs, until it got stuck backwards in the eyehole. Trying to dislodge it, she danced around the room like a drunken ballerina, smacking wetly into the walls, completely blind. Rolling her missing eyes, the thin and tall one smacked her up the back of the head. The rotten eye unstuck and faced the right way, lolling and jiggling in the slightly too big opening, tilted slightly downwards and to the side.

"You are light"

"You are dark"

"You are in-between gray"

"You are the leap of faith into the light"

"You are the sure path through the darkness"

"You are the link between"

"You are the light's strength"

"You are it's weakness,

"it's wound"

"You are our salvation"

"our redemption"

"our damnation"

"your allies will be legion"

"you will kill the humans without hearts"

"And a different kind of darkness, a shadow, will stand by your side."

"You are nothing."

"You are all things"

"Made one thing."

"You are the third key."

"The third enemy."

"Paradise, Change, and Nobody"

"The World of Darkness."

"The World of Light."

"The World of In-Between."

"A creation born of ignorance."

"The true light sleeps, inside the darkness."

"But the door to the light is not behind the darkness."

"In a World in-between live the remnants of a forgotten world."

"Where one falls to the heartless, two of these ruins shall rise."

"then there must be a you other than yourself existing somewhere."

"However, the importance of the future will be written with your hand."

"You will forget everything you knew and will have to search for it again.

"And now you step forward to realize this wish."

"We pray for our sorrows to end."

"We hope that our hearts will blend."

"One sky, one destiny."

"You are the key to your own door."

"You, who died so you could be born,"

"Will have no end."

Suddenly, the fat one on the end yanked the putrid eye from it's socket and thrust in into Ellos' eyeless gaze.

"Because the all-seeing eye sees what the eyeless seer cannot."

Ellos blinked. Suddenly her vision changed; she saw the three fates on a black background, not with her own eyesight, but through the three fates' eye.

The fates vanished into the darkness. Suddenly, from the darkness, a small point of light appeared. It grew in intensity, filling Ellos' whole view.

She saw through the eyes of an Endless. It was like her synaethesia, only more extreme; sight, color, sound, touch, and smell where incredibly acute and so blended together that it was impossible to distinguish one from the other; ever color and hue was distinguished and tiny edges and details etched in light. She could see smells, textures, and sound like people see color; and vise versa. It had everything forgotten sight did, but better and more.

A woman was crumpled up in front of a black castle surrounded by falls that- Ellos resisted the urge to rub the grimy eye in disbelief- flowed upward, surrounded by floating platforms. Slowly, she got up, clutching the side of her head. Ellos recognized it as the woman from her dream; she had the same grey skin, glowing green eyes, and black hair. Slowly, she got up and walked, swaying, to the castle's door. She slipped inside, the stone door shutting behind her with a bang.

Suddenly, Ellos found herself yanked back from the vision. Clutching her stomach and not caring that Hades and the three fates where there, she leaned over and heaved, vomiting blood because she had no food in her stomach.

Shaking, kneeling, Ellos watched the demonic blood melt the stone beneath her feet. Cocking her head downward, she threw up again, not because she had been thrust from the revelation so abruptly, but because in the few seconds the door of that castle, her body had sensed an evil stronger than any she had ever encountered, even in Kingdom Hearts. Not even since her first memory of Kingdom Hearts had she encountered an evil that would make her body react so violently and fill her mouth with a hard metallic tang that filled her mouth with dry sulfur and made bile rise from her throat.

Ellos raised her head to find herself looking straight into eyes of blue hellfire. Hades was grinning; looking at the three fates, she saw them shuffle around uncomfortably, as if they had shown her something they weren't supposed to reveal, and knew a secret they had promised not to tell.

"Listen, Ashy." Hades said. "I'm a business man; there's no love lost between me and Sephiroth...damn white haired angel wannabe..." he trailed off. Jerking himself off his reverie, he spoke again. "Someone of your...talents...would be useful for a job my superiors want done."

Snapping his fingers, a scroll appeared in front of Ellos, complete with quill.

I, Hades, henceforth bequeath protection and use of the three fates to find her friends (Strife, Leon, Aeris, Cloud, Yuffie, Cid) to Ellos, in return that, in a month, week, and day of the signing date, she kill Ansem.

Failure to kill Ansem will result in permanent binding of Ellos to the service of my superiors.

"What about after?"

"Huh?" Hades questioned. "Oh. Dammit, I hoped you'd miss that." He snapped his finger and the requested line appeared on the parchment.

Ellos went over the agreement a second time, looking for loopholes. "Why only those six?"

Hades crossed his arms. "You don't want to know what happened to the others."

"Fine." Ellos said. "Then you won't mind if I ask the fates where they are." Turning to the Endless, she thought of someone to ask about. "What about Clay?"

The tall, thin one answered. "She is safe, but trapped. Trapped inside the mind of the Nobody..." Suddenly Hades gave them all a hard glare, shutting them up.

"Scion." Ellos finished. "Where is he?"

Hades pouted. "Listen, it doesn't matter. You can't get to him even if you tried. So why do you want to know?"

"I'll be the judge of that." Ellos said, just a little bit of bite in her voice. Hades started back, not expecting emotion in her voice.

But is was the Fates who answered her in return.

"The Nobody sleeps, trapped in his own mind, deep in the river of the dead."

"Fine, go break a leg, or an arm, or maybe something vital like, oh, a skull!"

Ignoring Hades' entreaties, Ellos opened the large stone doors of the God of the Dead's stone palace, walking out into the prison.

"Listen, there is no way you can beat him, and even if you can and all the demons beyond, you can't step foot in the river of the dead; you're still living! The only reason he's not a withered husk is because he's already dead! And he's at the very bottom of the river. It's not as if you can just go for a swim in it...hey! I'm not done talking to you!"

Running to catch up with Ellos, he continued his rant. "I want to protect my investment. A dead Ellos, an aged Ellos, or a wounded Ellos isn't of any help to me."

"What investment?" Ellos questioned. "I haven't even signed your contract."

Hades felt his temperature rise and fire creep down his shoulders and hair. Just before he burst into yelling, he looked at the contract. Looking at the scroll and it's noticeable lack of signature, then to Ellos, then to the scroll and back to Ellos again, it only caused his temper to worsen.

"After I do this, then I'll decide whether or not to sign your contract."

Suddenly, the God was engulfed in flames. Opening his mouth to continue his angry outburst, he paused and sniffed the air.

"Do you smell smoke?" he questioned. Looking down at himself, which was now completely immersed in an orange inferno, he jumped up and down, yelling in surprise and trying to beat down the literal flames of his own rage. "Heh, I'M ON FIRE! YAH! SOMEBODY GET SOME WATER!"

Wondering how someone such as Hades could have possibly gained and kept a position such as God of the Dead, Ellos descended into the depths of Hell itself, heading toward the eerie blue glow that marked the final resting place of so many of the dead of this world. By gaining Hades as an ally and allowing him to move part of his domain into the ship, they insured that even the hearts of the dead did not escape the heartless' grasp. As the wails of the damned became audible, Kairi wondered how someone who had never before head such cries could continue on without fear or grief. But Ellos felt each moan and wail acutely, as if another nail was studded in her heart. As such cries do, ever one of them felt like that of someone she cared about and had died because of; Natalia, Cameron, Liz, Kat.

But she wouldn't let that happen again. Not with Strife, now that she had finally found him again. He wouldn't be in this mess if not for her, so she would get both of them out.

Yes, it truly is people who make life complicated.

"Let the past be past. Do not call up that which you cannot put down. Destroy that which destroyed us, so long ago./You are afraid you will forget, but you never will. You will forgive and remember."

Magic the Gathering/The Poisonwood Bible

Adalai- quick chappie before I go out for the weekend. This also marks my first complete week of school! Yeah! And I also got the chapter up on schedule. The school schedule goes as such- Fridays, as often as possible, but if not, the chappie is posted Sunday. Que the line!

Sephiroth- R&R please.