And another thing: this is the first chapter to feature a song. You can find this song on the official Athens 2004 Olympics CD, which also features Utada Hikaru, woo hoo! The song featured here is A Thousand Years by Sting and Mariza. Yes, you may now wonder where I got the title for this chapter from. ;)
Secrets of Memories Chapter 50: A Thousand Years
Chaos was imminent, as Chaos rampaged and created an idea of what would happen if Hell was unleashed. It tore at the ground, stormed through the waters, ripped dead trees out of the ground and threw them at fleeing Unknowns. Several fought back but in vain; Chaos overpowered them and crushed them. It was unstoppable.
Roland and Sofis stared up in horror as Chaos loomed over them. They stared at its glowing green-yellow eyes, the green flames licking its metal teeth. One of its arms, with spinning claws like a blender, moved and came down. Screaming, they fled, too shocked and afraid to counter. The spinning arm came down on the strange force field rods that Vixen had supposedly created and shredded the rods into bits of metal. The black force field came down and Aozora, Kobi, and Lorien found themselves standing in the midst of chaos.
Chaos ignored them as it moved onward heavily towards Marucia, Axel, Domitan, Roxanne, Vixen, Lexeus, Maleficent, and the Advocate. The eight people stepped back warily, unsure of what to do with this sudden danger. The great monster was quite effective in diverting their attention from the three 'traitors', and nobody saw Zexion running towards them.
" Quick, get down from that damn hill!" he yelled. " Follow me, hurry!"
Without a second thought they followed him, running after the blue-haired Unknown. Other Unknowns were running around, trying to seek order, weapons, or a place to hide.
" What about Eldest?" Kobi managed to ask.
" He told me to get you three away as fast as possible!" Zexion shouted as they headed for the outskirts of the place, the Gathering. " You must get out of here. If all else, you must go! Eldest knows this; he puts you three before himself. As for me…"
He slowed down as they came to a place somewhat blue, somewhat black, somewhat purple, somewhat gray. He looked to the three as they caught up to him, huffing and puffing. " As for me, I will accept whatever punishment they will exact on me…if they discover that I am the culprit. But I agree with Eldest: you must go!"
He gestured before them and they saw a series of doors. In a row they stood, ominous and silent. They seemed to go on forever, door after door, on and on and on and on…
Aozora spotted two doors. They were open; one emanated the light of night and the other cast gray. Zexion saw where he was looking and nodded. " Lorien and Kobi, you have to go through the door with night. Aozora…that other doors leads to In Between."
All three stared at him. " What!"
Zexion nodded. He had been expecting this reaction. " Aozora, you have to go to In Between. There is someone there, waiting for the Moonbeam. Then you must go to Agrabah. The world will not go until you have conversed with the Guardian of the Cave of Wonders. He will open a door for you and you will pass into Twilight Town. There…you must await the keeper of the Oblivion."
Aozora hit himself on the head. " Oh shit. The things I have to go through. When am I supposed to catch up to Sora now!"
" After the Oblivion hand-over," Zexion answered patiently and quickly. " Lorien and Kobi, you must go to Traverse Town. Old Universe is in serious danger and Kairi's only just beginning to reverse the tide. Eldest may continue to keep contact with you three. Go."
The three nodded, with some hesitation, and began to head for the two doors. Aozora stopped though, when Zexion gave him a warning. " Eldest wants you to be careful, Aozora. Beware of what lies in the gray. It may affect you for a very long time, perhaps forever."
He then promptly vanished. Shaken, he turned to go to the door shining gray, only to find his path blocked by Lorien.
" I hate this," she said quietly, looking into his troubled bronze eyes. " We've only just met again after all of us thought each other dead for five damn years. But this is life."
" I know," Aozora agreed, losing himself in her deep blue gaze. " I'm sorry, Lorien. But…duty calls. Duty and destiny."
Lorien smiled bitterly. " We'll be waiting for you in Traverse Town, I guess."
" Lorien, come on, we have to go," Kobi called to her as he stood with a foot in their door. His voice was tense and uneasy.
Lorien held a hand up, silencing him. " Good luck, Aozora."
She kissed him on the cheek, turned, and joined Kobi at the door. Without another word, they stepped into the door of night, and vanished. The door closed behind them and shut out the light, leaving behind a black wall. That left only the door of gray.
Aozora raised his hand and touched the place where he felt her lips. Why? What was it, why did this bother him?
He had no time to wonder, as he heard footsteps rushing for the row of doors. Were they seeking them? Was there any time to find out? He bolted for the door of gray.
Roland and Sofis, followed closely by Domitan, reached the long hall of doors just in time to see Aozora's foot pull away from their world and into a door shining a hint of gray. With a shout, Domitan rushed forward, but the door sealed itself. Then, to his astonishment, the door disappeared completely. The door had erased itself completely and no longer existed.
" Dammit!" Domitan screamed and kicked at the wall, doing nothing but hurting his right foot. Why did Aozora need to go to In Between? It was so hard to open a doorway to that gray realm from any world. The only place with full contact were two doors in their world, their base. Only the Society could activate those doors.
Domitan's mind began to rush through these facts like the person he was, quick to put facts together and quick to come to conclusions.
" A traitor…" Roland and Sofis heard him hiss and they shivered.
Aozora staggered into a rush of gray mist. The rather damp matter rushed up his face and into his throat, causing him to gasp and cough as he fought his way through the blast of gray and sought to find air. It hit him as a cool breeze, a cool but dead breeze. Then the gray mist fell away from both sides and everything cleared into the last thing he expected to stumble upon.
He remembered the cliffs near the eastern border, where he used to climb when he was very young. There were the hills, now bare, but once filled with trees where he found refuge from the sun, the parents, and reality. The buildings rotted and many had collapsed but he recognized the streets, was even able to pick out some of the buildings. But he was horrified, stunned by what he had stumbled upon.
He staggered forward, stumbling over a rather unmovable stone, stepping on rotting wood beams, heard the distinctive crunch of bone beneath his feet. He lurched forward, an automaton, his feet slowly moving forward towards a ruined building to the east, near lifeless shores and a sea of mist. Wood beams hung by rusty nails and fading cloth lay scattered all over cold stone floor. He saw the post and lintel doorway, the familiarity of it. His eyes took in its former glory, its former welcome, the building that sheltered him for seven long years.
" Home…" he murmured, and his eyes, dry for so many years after the loss of this home, felt damp. It had been so long, so long…and for so long he had given up on seeing his home again. He closed his eyes, breathing deep, and the echoes of his memories whispered in his ear, beckoning him to come. Slowly and with precision, he stepped forward, as each memory jarred his mind, bringing the laughter of children and the voices of his adoptive mother and father to his mind. With each step, his mind jolted and pained him. He closed his eyes tightly, biting his lip, and kept walking, as each memory tore at his heart. He saw Kobi and Lorien, when they were all seven, when they all first met, and he saw the three long years of close friendship, with Kobi's carefree attitude and Lorien's serious, calculating mind.
His foot stepped into through the door and he suddenly fell to his knees, clutching his head, fighting against the sounds of explosions that marked an end of his childhood. He never saw Kobi, Lorien, or his parents again afterwards; the blasts had thrown him to the ground and he had blacked out.
But his past had come back to haunt him. Kobi and Lorien, he thought dead but no, they were alive, alive and well within the Society. And now, Zexion and Mentor Eldest had thrown him into the heart of his home, Celtic Circle.
Why!
Aozora fell onto his hands and knees, and he stared down at the stones that made the floor, the huge flat tiles, untouched by the gray time they spent in In Between. He bit his lip harder, then watched as crimson droplets fell on the grim stones. He continued to watch as his blood blended with his tears as they fell for the first time in five years, stinging his eyes and making him realize how weak he had become.
But were all tears dark? Were all tears evil?
Aozora slowly dropped his head to his hands, feeling himself collapse within. His duty to defend Sora, his friends in Twilight Town, the fate of the Universe, Kobi and Lorien, Celt Circle…
He began to cry.
He was honed to be a fighting machine, he was trained to be somewhat of an assassin, an assassin of a darker sort. Even in his state, he could sense, he could hear things that one would normally not hear in sleep. He heard footsteps, lonely footsteps, uneasy, wary, unsure, unfamiliar…
He looked up wildly and around, searching for the one who walked about. This someone did not belong in Celt Circle. He jumped to his feet, wiping his face and hiding any signs of his crying. No one needed to see, no one needed to know. He called Oblivion and Oathkeeper to him, then pulled them back when he heard the footsteps again, as tentative as they were. They were the footsteps of a female, a girl to be exact. But just in case, he kept them at his fingertips. Knowing Lorien has made him very wary of everyone.
He slowly inched his way down the pathway, careful to be quiet and as unnoticeable as possible. He looked forward, towards the source of the footsteps. He saw nothing, though.
" Oh damn it!" he swore. Enough with hide and seek! In fact, there was a better idea…
He rushed to the hills, quite glad he had kept hold on his cloak. He threw the hood on his head carelessly and zipped up his coat three-fourths of the way up. And there he stood, a dark, ominous being on a gray hill, against a dark gray sky.
A fresh breeze blew and Aozora heard the source of the footsteps, knew where they came from now. He turned his head into the breeze, felt his bangs brush against his forehead. And he saw her. The last person in the Universe but there she was, walking the road into his home, with a taller, blond man far behind her, a red bird on his shoulder.
Somehow, he knew her. Her short red hair that was slowly inching past the nape of her neck, her purplish-blue eyes, the sweet, soft face, worn with grief and swift maturity. She was wearing a sleeveless white shirt, something like a purple 'skort' with a gold chain for a belt, and white and purple shoes. She had a slim, lithe figure; she seemed so delicate, one just need to push her a little bit and she could easily shatter.
He then saw her look up towards hills bordering this dead town, staring up at him, a lone sentry wearing the cloak of death in this lifeless seaside city. Their eyes met. Something stirred deep within him, as his gaze narrowed onto her face, into her eyes.
" Kairi…"
The wind blew, tousling her hair. It was nothing like she had ever felt before, not since she first walked the road of In Between. This world…was strange. It was alive, a living world in a Universe of gray. She had never felt anything like this before, a world radiating with a power unlike anything she ever felt before. None of the other worlds held this strange power like the world she, Iago, and Tidus had stepped upon. This world, it really was alive.
She looked down and kicked at a pebble on this gray dirt road, watching it jump and tumble. She looked behind her, to Tidus and Iago, who were deep in conversation. They seemed to be getting along fairly well. Her eyes turned back to rotting walls of a seaside town, long abandoned and long ravaged by time and the gray deadness of In Between, the Universe of the dead and dying.
The wind teased her, whispering in her ear. She smelled the faint tinge of salt in the breeze, the echoes of a dead sea. She heard the whispers, the words of many people, the people of the past, the people long gone. Fathers…mothers…children…friends…farmers…fishermen…masons…merchants…
A voice shouted in the wind, empty of sadness and joy, a cry…a haunting call in the gust of sea air…
" Sora…" was the first word in her mind. " Sora? Sora? Sora! Sora!"
Tidus and Iago stopped in their conversation and looked towards her. She looked around wildly, searching for am impossibility. She looked to the town, to the cliffs to her right, the hills to the left –
Bronze eyes watched her, a wolf silently studying its prey. Wisps of long blond bangs hung out from underneath the hood, the breeze brushing them across those haunting eyes. A face stared back at her, a pale face but a face she knew nonetheless. But those were not Sora's eyes, that was not the color of his hair, that was not him who stood on that lonely hill, a lonely sentry overlooking the dead town. But who was he, who was the person wearing the long black coat, who was watching her every move, who carried Sora's face?
As she watched, the mysterious man vanished. She stared, stunned by his sudden disappearance. Like the gray mist of In Between, he faded away and left no trace of him.
Shivering, she turned back to the road that they were walking.
Those eyes, they really were bronze. There was that metal tint, the brownish sheen, the eyes of a wolf. The golden locks that covered half the face boyishly, she wanted to touch them, brush them aside, stare into those eyes that locked her in its gaze forever.
" Who…who are you?" she barely whispered out her question.
" This…was my home," he told her, knowing the others were keeping a very respectful distance. " What you see is what remains of it."
Kairi looked at him, nervous, wary, and shy all at once. Tragedy tore at his voice, tears in his eyes. Those were the tears of one who had not cried for a long time. " I am sorry."
" I don't need pity," he kept his voice monotone, untouched by emotions, free of his tears. " I need none of that. What I need…is…"
He turned away, towards the gray mist where the sea once was.
" You don't know," Kairi looked at him. " But you are here for a reason. Here, right now, for a very good reason. And I think you know quite well."
" That depends." He looked at Tidus and Iago. " You were journeying with more than those two but they're not here yet. But they are coming."
" We have time, then." Kairi sat down on what remained of a tree and looked up at him. " You were with Sora?"
He nodded, seeing the pain in her face when she said his name. " What was he like, before the Heartless came?"
Kairi was silent for a few minutes, trying to recollect those scattered memories, memories that were buried in the darkness that came with the Heartless. " He was…well, we all knew he was naïve, naïve and stubborn and sometimes a fool." She smiled. " But he was smart, he was really smart in his own way. He…has a sense of justice that not a lot of us have. In some ways he's a little rebellious toddler but in other ways, he was older than us, mature. He always had a smile on his face, though, whenever he saw me and Riku. Always smiling, always laughing. It was just the three of us, Sora, Riku, and me. Until the Heartless came. Why are you asking?"
She was losing herself in those eyes again…
"…that is not the person I've come to know as Sora," he admitted, running his fingers through his hair. He had removed his hood and Kairi could only stare at how much more similar he looked like Sora, the Sora from her memories and dreams. " The Sora I met, he has suffered much. He's darker, moodier and yet he still smiled. He is a hardened warrior, and he looks and acts the part. He's not as immature as you say he is but whether or not he really did mature is open to debate. He got mad at me once, over something really stupid yet really important…"
There was a bitter tone in his voice. Kairi wanted to know more.
" He wanted to do something really dangerous," he explained with an unusually infinite patience, " We were trying to save the people of a world from a tyrant and his accomplices, including Nobodies, and Sora wanted to help Robin Hood – a hero of that world – steal gold from under the tyrant's nose. But…the situation, I thought, was too dangerous for him, particularly him, but he wouldn't listen. He just wouldn't listen!"
He ran into difficulty trying to explain how frustrating it was to keep Sora protected, and his eyes clouded over with trouble. Kairi asked, as kindly as possible, " What happened?"
" We nearly lost him," he answered bitterly, ignoring Kairi's gasp of shock. " If it weren't for Robin Hood, we could've lost him. I told him it wasn't a good idea but he went and tried to help Robin Hood steal the damn gold from under that damn tyrant's nose, that bloody tyrant, so Sora got mad at me like you wouldn't believe it and…and…I lost him. He got mad at me over something not so mundane but it was something that hit him kind of hard, I guess. I kinda masterminded the destruction of this one world and…I haven't heard from him since."
Kairi stared at him in profound horror. " You destroyed a world?"
She stood up and backed away from him. " How could you do such a thing, and have the right to protect Sora? What else have you done!"
" Opened Kingdom Hearts, played the brains in murders and destructions and there's a lot more you don't know," he answered acrimoniously. " I've committed more crimes against this Universe than you can even imagine."
" I don't believe you!" Kairi shouted and backed away even further, pointing an accusing finger at him. " You – you – you, how could you have done that! Destroyed the homes of so many people, murdering them, being the mastermind behind other crimes, and you opened Kingdom Hearts! Who are you! And what gave you the idea to do such things!"
He opened his mouth to counter but she was not through with him yet. " And you say you're supposed to protect Sora? How dare you go near him! How could you be doing such things if you've done other things completely opposite of his cause! What in your right mind would let you do such things! How could you!"
She turned to run off, with her two stupefied companions sitting nearby and staring at the fiery exchange in bewilderment, but he was up on his feet as well. He was there behind her in the blink of an eye and grabbed her arm, pulling her back. She was yanked into him, finding herself unable to move with his arm around her, holding her. His face was beside hers, twisted in a hidden pain.
" Do you think I wanted to do that?" he hissed, his voice incredibly harsh and furious, yet low and sad. " Do you really think I wanted to murder, to kill in the name of darkness and evil? Do you think I did everything on a whim, open Kingdom Hearts for the hell of it? A thousand years may pass but what I've done will still haunt me, maybe forever. I was a member of the Society, and I was there when the Society became evil, when it corrupted and began to use us to destroy and cause chaos. I had no choice but to remain in the Society, until I was told to leave and find Sora. King Mickey told me to open Kingdom Hearts; do you think I really wanted to open Kingdom Hearts? By the gods, I would've rather died than open those damn doors but what would you do, if the king told you to open those doors? What would you do if you were faced with Sora's damn obstinacy while trying to keep him safe, at risk of chasing him off and making yourself go bring him back? Kairi, I've suffered enough, enough. I lost my childhood long before any of you did, twelve years ago, when I lost my family to an explosion nobody really cared to explain. I've been branded by the Society for trying to hold on to what they used to stand for before corruption took them. I lost my friends for five long years, and we've only just met again. I don't know when I'll ever see them again. I've been wandering the Universe for two to three years looking for the owners of two Keyblades burning in my pockets. I've been fighting Heartless and Nobodies wherever I go, and I've been told countless times what I must do, all the time, to the point it sickens me. Kairi, I've suffered enough and I don't need to hear more from you, especially you!"
Finished, he did not let her go, instead seeming to rely on her presence to stand on his feet. She felt his weakness, able to tell that it was a weakness he hated but could no longer hide.
" I'm sorry…for adding more to your burden." She saw one of his eyes, the burnish color dying. She realized how much he hurt inside." I didn't know what you went through…I thought we had it bad enough, Riku, Sora, and I. But you…I've never met anyone like you before…"
" You shouldn't apologize," he interrupted. " I should have never lost my temper that way."
She shook her head. " Sometimes, you just need to let it out. I heard of someone who kept her emotions inside her. It destroyed her and she became…something like the living dead. She was no longer alive, but not yet dead, and she lost her soul to her pent-up emotions. She died afterwards. I guess that's what happens if you don't release your emotions. You die…or you just explode."
He was silent. His presence radiated heat, radiated a strange light, a hope, that she had never felt before. Since Sora had gone, she had been holding onto the dying hope that she would see him again. That hope was dying, and she thought the hope might have died when she lost his voice. But with his appearance, that hope had been rekindled. He had seen Sora, was now chasing him across the Universe, and she knew, deep in her heart and soul, that they would meet again. And maybe then, she'll be there, too, along with Riku, and all their friends, Selphie, Wakka, Tidus…
" You are the one, the first one in fact," he suddenly spoke, his smile tragic but full of release. " One less burning hole in my pocket."
He fished out something on a chain, something made of metal and shining silver in the dank gray. The medallion was a moon, a crescent moon with King Mickey's head carved on it. He held it out before her, letting her see what it was, before, with his other hand, he held out her hand and dropped the keychain on it. " This is the Moonbeam. I don't know what it's real purpose is, truth be told, but it has its own form, it is its own Keyblade. They say it's a rogue Keychain. Probably the Society made it to counter King Mickey but I don't know. What I do know is that you need it. So keep it, Kairi, and make good use of it."
Her fingers closed around the cool, silver metal. " You said the evil things you've done will haunt you still after a thousand years. I think someone will forgive you by then."
" And who would that be?" he asked with a slow, sad smile, placing his hand on her shoulder. " I doubt it would be Sora."
" He'll forgive you," she said firmly. " I've no doubt about it. He will forgive you for everything you've done, because he'll understand that you did it all for his sake and for the Light's sake. It'll…just take some time. As for me, you are forgiven. Just as long as you do nothing else that could possibly help all things evil in the Universe I forgive you."
" One down, billions more to go," he cracked, then suddenly let her go and moved away. " Something stirs in the wind…"
She stared at him; he seemed to be sniffing the air, searching for something…or trying to understand it. Behind them, Tidus and Iago fell silent again as well, watching the blond teenager with apprehension.
" Nothing to worry about," he reassured them. " At least you people don't. Your friends are almost here. As for me, I've got to move on. There is a gate waiting for me at Agrabah. I've one more Keychain, and then it'll be all over. I'll be free to go after Sora."
" You do that," Kairi told him, watching where he was looking. " Find redemption…and I'll be waiting for your return, Guardian. We need people like you."
She turned away abruptly, and walked back to Tidus and Iago a few steps. " They say…the days are growing shorter, because the darkness is growing longer. We're lacking good people, people who can fight. But you are one of them. Do what you must but, on behalf of the Order, I ask you to please find and protect Sora, at all costs."
He watched her, feeling the tension in her voice, the pleading, a cry of despair. " I will find him, Kairi. I promise you, I will find him. And I will make sure he remains safe throughout."
A thousand years, a thousand more,
A thousand times a million doors to eternity
I may have lived a thousand lives, a thousand times.
An endless turning stairway climbs
To a tower of souls
He turned away, on a path east, to Agrabah. Kairi, Tidus, and Iago watched him go, a new purpose in his steps. A fresh breeze blew and Kairi was sure the scent of the sea was stronger in the gray gust.
" He's got a long way to go," Tidus noted solemnly.
" Agrabah's not that far, you know," the red parrot on his shoulder countered.
" That's not what I meant," Tidus sighed. " I thought I had it tough but…" Tidus shook his head. He didn't know how to explain it to Iago.
Kairi was silent, fingering the Keychain that he had passed on to her. She felt a radiance within it, a faintly glowing light, something like hope. She felt a part of him in it, that hope. Sora's lost guardian carried a hope and she knew that everyone depended on that hope. The Order fretted like mad when he was found to be a prisoner of the Society; now he was free and charged with the duty of finding Sora.
And I hope he does, she thought wistfully, trying to recall Sora in her mind. But her memory was hazy and all she saw were the haunted wolf eyes of a lone sentry in her mind, the lone sentry that stood a silent guard over the remains of a destroyed city of another lifetime, another era.
There was a crackling sound as Iago revealed his leather pouch to Tidus and tried to smooth out the roll of parchment he had found earlier inside the Guardian of the Cave of Wonders.
" I know this place is called Celt Circle and look, this piece of paper says something…" Iago and Tidus fell into a quiet discussion. Kairi ignored them. She had seen some people in the distance, to the southeast, people who were quite familiar…
As she heard Selphie and Merlin shout their greetings and run towards her and her two other friends, saw the Oracle Kenaii shake his head as he continued his steady stroll towards them, Kairi could not help but look due east, to where that sentry had finally gone, leaving behind a bygone epoch, perhaps forever.
Por milénios mais gritos e ais
Fados fatais como sabores eternos de saudade
I could shed another million tears, a million breaths,
A million names but only one truth to face
She heard Sora's voice, faintly, in that salty wind. All for power…and it will all come back to you…
She felt a burden lift and a weight upon her shoulders, all at once. She gripped the moon charm in her hand tightly, with a fierce promise.
Don't worry, Sora. We'll keep you safe; we'll help you find the Door so we can all go home.
She remembered the eyes of the wolf, the eyes that had suffered more than she could ever imagine.
We'll help you find that Door, so we can all have peace.
She whispered luck to the only one who could truly help him now.
" Good luck and safe journey, Aozora. May we meet again, in war or peace."
Then she turned back to the southeast and went out to meet Selphie, Merlin, and the ghostly Kenaii.
I still love…