Author's Note: Somehow I erased what I was gonna write, so now I am very pissed. But this is what I remember: unless you are stupid and blind or just really slow, most of you should start understanding what's going on as the story progresses. Kairi's side, actually. Of course someone's already mentioned it before in his/her review but still…just please don't flame me! – laughs evilly – But this is a sad chapter in my opinion. Just please, don't flame me! Enjoy!
also, i decided to not dense the paragraphs again. that was a pain...>.
also, language will become a factor in the rating of the fanfiction, so i advise you people to be careful and be sure that you won't be offended as we go further into the story. i'm not sure there's language in here but it's just a warning
Secrets of Memories Chapter 52: A Tower of Souls
" It's just a bunch of incomplete sentences!" Tidus yelled at Iago. " There's no meaning to it if it's not correctly written!"
" Boy, when you really start reading prophecies, you'll know the meaning of 'incomplete' sentences. If you want to talk about grammar, talk to my red feathery ass!"
He turned around and literally stuck his behind up at Tidus.
" Thanks but no thanks," Tidus replied, eyeing Iago a bit strangely. " Hey, Kairi, we've found something! …with improper grammar…"
He found he was wasting his breath; Kairi was not paying attention to him, instead looking out into the distance, to the east, where that mysterious teenager had vanished to.
" I think she likes him," Iago whispered.
Tidus slowly turned his head to the parrot. The look on his face must've surprised Iago but nothing more than the smack on the bird's head that came after. " Ow! Whatchu do that for!"
" You idiot!" Tidus hissed back, fiercely, in horror of such a heretical statement. " You stupid idiot! You bastard! How could you say that, you – you – you birdbrain!"
" Ah, but I am a birdbrain," Iago reminded him. Then he fell silent for a few seconds. " That means I'm stupid, right?"
Tidus sighed. " Someone save me from this monster."
" Hey!" Iago squawked, flapping around and creating a storm of red feathers.
" Look, it's Selphie and Merlin!" Kairi suddenly exclaimed, gesturing with excitement to the southeast. " And Oracle Kenaii!"
" The old man!" Tidus and Iago exclaimed at the same time.
" Who's an old fart!" Iago added soon after.
" Who's got wax in his dead ears!" Tidus input after his statement.
" No, the dead oracle," Kairi shot back sarcastically.
" Kairi!" Selphie shouted as soon as she caught site of her friend. " She's alright after all! Merlin, we've found her."
" Yes, yes, yes, I know, I know," Merlin muttered back, while deep in conversation with the oracle.
" And with some blond dweeb and a red parrot," Selphie added. " What the?"
" He's not a dweeb, Selphie," Kairi laughed as she came forward to meet them. " Don't you recognize him?"
The brown-haired girl replied by looking pointedly at Oracle Kenaii, who coughed, harrumphed, and cleared his throat before looking away. The girl continued to stare at him, until the specter looked at her and asked, annoyed, " What?"
" Why is it that whenever you're right, it ticks me off?" Selphie demanded.
" For you to find out," Merlin quipped. " Ah, it's Iago. Our old friend, a most unexpected double agent."
" Excuse me?" Selphie ignored the oracle for a moment and turned on Merlin. " Say that again?"
" Relax Selphie, he's on our side now," Oracle Kenaii input. " Yes, Kairi, you can relax, too. He's given up his old ways for good. Aladdin and Jasmine and friends can vouch for that."
Kairi nodded, suddenly subdued. Puzzled over her sudden change of moods – Kairi, up to the moment they were pulled into that secret door in the secret spot in Destiny Islands, had never really exhibited any signs of bipolar disorder – Selphie studied her face, then demanded, " What happened?"
Kairi wanted to answer quickly but she knew she had to say things very carefully now; apparently, no one other than Tidus, Iago, and herself knew of what they had come across. Or, in their case, who. " Oracle Kenaii, what…is Celt Circle?"
" Ahh…you know of this world now, don't you?"
Selphie inched towards Kairi; the smile on the specter's face was not particularly comforting.
Tidus and Iago looked in their direction, their ears zoning in on the conversation between these acquaintances.
" Celt Circle…was a good world, a world were refuges often went to. It was a lush, prosperous world, famous for harboring extremely famous exiles. Our last hope was among those residing here…when the world was destroyed."
" How?" Kairi demanded.
" We…wish we could answer you but there is a lot we don't know," Merlin offered an explanation.
" Hey, Oracle Kenaii is dead; he should know," Selphie replied rather crossly. Kairi looked at her in puzzlement. What happened to her?
" This is the one thing I don' t know," Oracle Kenaii admitted, looking depressed as well. " That is why we are here. Our only clue lies in something this young man knows of well."
He gestured towards a very confused Tidus, who was gesturing to himself and mouthing the question, " Me?"
The specter nodded. " The key lies in dreams, they say. This you, and you alone, most certainly understand, as you are the only one who passed from the world of the living to the world of dreaming back to the world living, am I right?"
Now even Tidus looked troubled. " It is not a past I'm particularly fond of."
" Yet there is goodness in your past," Oracle Kenaii pressed on. " Your friendship with the others of your seaside home, your life on Spira, your friends there, and one girl in particular…"
Tidus turned red.
" Wait a minute…" Selphie went to him and peered into his blue eyes. " I know those eyes…but that's impossible! Tidus?"
He weakly flashed a grin and two thumbs-up.
" Oh you're joking." Selphie turned to the others for support but found none. They were all agreeing with the 'blond dweeb'. " Are you serious? Tidus?"
" Hey, Selphie. My, my you've grown some."
" Look at you!" She gestured at him several times, stunned. " You think I've grown some? You've gone through some mad growth spurt or something. I mean, come on! You're a walking, talking, breathing, eating, drinking, everything-ing adult!"
" Spira's time is faster than our time, Selphie," Kairi decided to input.
Selphie hit herself on the head. " Enough! Whatever, fine, so what if Tidus is three years older than us or something like that! Oracle, talk your stuff, I'll shut up now."
Her explosion disturbed Kairi a lot. She looked at the two old men, one who happened to be dead. " What happened?"
Merlin sighed and rubbed his face with his hand. " I think she snapped. We hid too much from her and she cracked."
" You know, I thought she scared me, back at Destiny Islands, with her thing for romantic stories," Tidus said, recalling something from a distant past. " But now, she really scares me."
" Where's that parchment piece, Iago?" Kairi asked as they huddled around the rather claustrophobic parrot.
" Right here!" He stepped on the edge of the paper and it crinkled under his feet. " But the wording's kind of weird. Tidus, read it to them."
The man scowled at him. " Why me?"
" 'Cause I say so!" Iago shot back. " Read my lips: Tidus, read it to them."
" Except for the fact that you don't have any lips," Tidus countered.
Iago scowled as best as his beak would let him. " Shut that hole of yours and read it!"
He flapped around madly, sending up a wave of crimson feathers.
" Fine, fine, fine, anything but the feathers, please!" Tidus threw his hands up to evade the feathers. Groping about, he found the parchment and pulled it towards him. The others winced as they saw the parchment begin to tear.
" Okay, here's what it says…in unfinished sentences:
Utter silence...
A fragmented tale...
A world without you...
The eyes will close...
Something so natural...
The memory beyond...
Something so simple...
Ansem's Other Report
A creature born of ignorance...
Behind the darkness...
Door to the light...
The Secret Place...
A world between...
A forgotten world...
The gathering...
The third enemy...
Nobody...
Endless...
Heartless...
The Thirteenth Order...
Change the Third Key...
End of the world.,
Paradise...
Now what the hell does that mean?"
He turned on the others but found no answer, save Oracle Kenaii.
" We will worry about that later," he decided, apparently the leader of this mismatched group. " We must find the tower of souls."
" A what?" Kairi, Selphie, Iago, and Tidus demanded.
" It is a tower of lost dreams," Merlin, the translator, interpreted for them. " All the lost dreams of Celt Circle were concentrated – collected, I should say, at one single spot, a tower. It is a tower of dreams, of souls. We need to release the dreams and relive the days leading up to its destruction. Our hope lies in the fact that maybe the dreams may go as far back as the coming of a refugee, a very important refugee."
" A refugee…" Kairi looked to the east again.
" Why do you keep looking east?" Selphie demanded.
Her mysterious smile mystified them. " There is a sentry, here, a sentry of a forgotten era. He is now gone but his memories are still here. Memories of a happier time, of another life, before the darkness came and took it all away."
She ended in a bitter note, surprising them.
" A sentry?" Oracle Kenaii looked at her sharply. " No…"
" What?" Selphie asked, looking from Kairi to the ghost back to Kairi. " What's going on here?"
" He escaped, then," Merlin deduced. He looked at Kairi. " His name…is Aozora, am I right?"
Kairi nodded, bowing her head. " He's gone. He's gone to find Sora."
The collective sigh of relief made her look up. " What?"
" He's escaped. Somehow he escaped," Merlin looked gleeful. " Eldest has done it again! That man is a wonder unto himself."
" Escaped?"
" Imprisonment, Selphie. He had been imprisoned but he has escaped. There is hope for us. He will return to the Real Universe and follow Sora."
" Wait, I've a question," Iago squawked to Oracle Kenaii. " Who survived the destruction of Celt Circle?"
Both Merlin and Oracle Kenaii looked at him heavily. " No one."
" Wait a minute," Tidus looked at them in surprise. " Are you sure? That's not right."
" About what?"
" Of course…" Kairi understood as well. " Aozora said he came from here, Celt Circle, from this town."
" No…" Merlin countered. " Impossible. Nobody survived Celt Circle's destruction!"
" But that's what he said," Kairi exclaimed. " He said he was here, that he came from this town. He said he remembered everything."
" Impossible…"
Merlin and Oracle Kenaii looked at each other in absolute horror. The stunned looks between them could not be explainable.
" What? What now?" Selphie demanded angrily.
" Nothing, we are talking about the tower of souls," Merlin replied. " Come, let us find it."
" See!" Selphie shouted. " You never tell us everything!"
" Perhaps he has a good reason to keep things quiet," Tidus offered. " Of course, that makes the rest of us wonder…"
Oracle Kenaii drifted off, muttering to himself, waving his hands madly, obviously agitated about something.
" But Aozora wasn't wrong," Kairi whispered. " He did come from this place, he did. He told me…everything."
" It is only the tower of souls that would answer all questions," Merlin explained. " You see, a world that had been violently disrupted, destroyed, becomes nothing more than a dream, a figment of the past. But the people…the creatures, the places, they were never able to find peace, find Paradise…"
" And so they've become dreams, never at rest." Tidus looked rather sad. " Dreams that live on…not knowing that they are gone."
" If we release the dreams of this world, they will tell us the truth. Which is why Kenaii had gone ahead to find the tower," Merlin continued. " A tower locks the souls. Unlock it…and we shall see."
" See what?" Selphie asked curiously.
" Whether or not our last hope had died."
They found Oracle Kenaii in the middle of what seemed to have been the town square. It looked as though the rubble strewn about had just recently stopped letting off smoke. The charred wood had not rotted into dust and the crumbles of stone had not moved, was covered in a fine layer of gray dirt. There was a carving, a crude marble statue of a fisherman and his catch. It laid on its side, shattered, an echo of a tragic past, a tragic ending to a happier time.
" I can feel it," Tidus whispered. " I can feel…the dreams. They are restless, they are weary, they seek release."
" They have waited for long, for far too long," Kenaii said slowly, walking through the shattered statue to them. " Once they are released from the tower, they vanish…to Paradise."
" The Farplanes?" Tidus turned on him.
" Merely a part of Paradise," Oracle Kenaii strode about, his hands flailing, blind yet seeing. " They , like all, seek Paradise. The Heartless seek it, the Nobodies seek it, we seek it, because Paradise gives us what we cannot fashion ourselves. Peace, everlasting peace…that frees one's heart and soul. Release the dreams, they will show us, and then they will go."
They looked to Kairi, who had suddenly fallen silent. Obviously something was going through her mind. And then she looked up.
" We must free them, then, if it will give them peace…and us answers."
" But do you think we can find the tower so easily?" Iago demanded as he sat rather comfortably on Tidus' shoulder. " I sure don't see a tower!"
" You don't understand," Tidus turned to Iago. " Unless you find and release the tower, you will not see the tower. You can only…feel it."
" Really?" Kairi asked, her feet taking her along a winding path, barely flinching when her feet crunched on bones. " A calling…?"
" I hear voices," Oracle Kenaii said, turning around. " But they are all around me, here and there, undistinguishable, buzzes in my wax-filled ears."
" I know…" Tidus agreed, just as confused. " So do I."
" A calling…" Kairi kept walking, until she came upon the post and lintel of a door, a lonely structure in a sea of rubble. " It calls…"
She moved to step into what remained of a home but froze. Before her right shoe were droplets, crimson red droplets. Splashes of color in the sea of gray.
" Was he here?" she wondered, looking up and at the standing, broken posts. Furniture lay strewn upon the stone ground, broken wooden chairs, tables cracked and splintered, ragged and tattered cloth hung over the jagged wood. And yet…and yet, the center of this lonely structure was clear, empty, and clean of rubble dust. She thought she saw something shimmer in that center, a tall shimmering mirage. She looked up at the rippling nothingness as it soared into the gray sky. It towered over her, calling her.
" Will it shimmer?" she asked. " A shimmering nothingness that soars?"
" Shimmer? That I don't know," Oracle Kenaii stuck his head through the remains of a standing door towards her. " Why? You found something?"
" It…shimmers…" Kairi inched forward, sidestepping the droplets of what she knew was surely blood. " So strangely…"
She reached out slowly, cautiously, towards the strange rippling, the imagery that defied the laws of reality. The power, it was growing under her fingertips, glowing, a strange pleasant warmth. She felt, slightly, the pulse of life
Her hand met something solid. She felt it with her fingertips; it was a pulsing, living thing that soared into the skies, invisible, rippling. She moved her fingers and felt it, felt them, actually, intricate carvings. She moved her hand and then she felt it, a wing, a carving of a wing.
It came to her. This was a tower of carvings, of motifs. But what kind? Her fingers followed the wing to a beak; it was a seagull. Did it soar above the harbor, about this seaside town, at the hour of its destruction? She moved her fingers, felt faces, hands, feet, bodies, clothing, buildings, motion…it was all there, everything, she could feel it. They were pulsing, faster, more intense, willing her to release them, once and for all…
Her finger met a depression, a carving, shaped into a crescent, the crescent of the moon. Could it be?
" No…" she pulled out the Moonbeam, the one Aozora had given her. Holding its little medal, the silver moon with the motif of King Mickey's head etched into it, she tried to fit it into that crevice, that little depression.
" What is she doing?" Selphie demanded, staring at her touching rippling air.
" She's found something, that's for sure," Iago surmised.
" You always say the obvious." Tidus rolled his eyes, and walked towards the ruined house. " Maybe it's the tower."
" Kairi, is it the tower?" Merlin called out to her. " You must be careful! If it isn't, it could unleash destruction of the very worst! We don't know what was on Celt Circle before it detonated. You have to be careful!"
" I know what I'm doing!" Kairi shot back. The crescent moon slipped into the crescent hole and they could all hear a click.
" The tower!" Oracle Kenaii exclaimed.
A soft song hummed in the gray, still air. It was a sad song, a sad melody, wailing, crying in this dead world. The hair stood on the back of her neck.
" No, not the song…" Tidus covered his ears. " That is the tower of souls!"
" Lights!" Iago squawked. " Lights! Ah!"
Lights swirled around them, coming from the rippling, glowing, little fireflies. One soared into the sky and, to everyone's astonishment, took the form of a seagull.
" The dreams are coming alive!" Selphie exclaimed. " Amazing!"
Then the fireflies shot around them, among them, through them, hitting the wreckage, the broken statue, the earth, the walls. They heard the cries of seagulls, the lull of the waves, they heard, faintly, cries, laughter, argument, talk, gossip, anger…
Before their eyes, the little seaside town became alive.
Children ran before them, pulling along a little toy on wheels, while old men dragged into the town square baskets of fish. Women of all ages hawked their wares on the sides; the town square was a market and in the center the statue of the fisherman and his catch was resurrected and whole. Buildings sprung up, cozy homes, and lively taverns, and a shady hostel in the far corner. The dock was alive, creaking as waves lapped at its supports, while white seagulls circled the ships and fishing boats, crying, begging fishermen for a bite of fish. The grass was green, the flowers were brilliant, the skies picked up a hue of bright blue.
And everything happened to be rather translucent, kind of like Oracle Kenaii. That meant…
" They're ghosts!" Selphie exclaimed, suppressing a scream.
Tidus looked at her strangely. " You're afraid of ghosts?"
" No!"
Tidus didn't seem convinced. " They won't harm you, Selphie. They're dreams. Unless they're very special dreams…"
" Where'd Oracle Kenaii go?" Kairi looked around, not seeing that damn old dead man.
" Off to search for the truth, I presume," Merlin replied calmly as he put his hand through a man's head. " Watch, for this dream is locked in time. Before the catastrophe, this was what was happening."
" They were living on their daily lives…" Kairi whispered.
Her blue eyes followed two siblings as they laughed and skipped to where a woman had set up a stall to sell homegrown greens. She seemed to be their mother. Then they skipped back, towards them, until they came to a sudden stop.
" Locked in time," Selphie shivered., watching the two children look about. " How scary is that?"
" Not very scary, really," the dream girl replied. " Of course, if you're afraid of ghosts, then maybe we have a problem."
Selphie seemed to turn to stone, staring at the girl. She tsked, " Thought so. At least you've come. We've been waiting for ages."
" What-what do you mean?" Kairi asked carefully.
" See, we've been waiting for the right person to come for ages," the girl spoke. She had long wavy brown hair and an adorable face. " We're the representatives of the dreams here in Celt Circle and only we can see you."
" I've been wanting to go to bed for so long," the little boy, her brother, added cheerfully. He had short brown hair and a ready smile. " It's tiring staying up so much longer than Mom lets you."
" How long have the dreams been waiting?" Tidus questioned.
" Since we were destroyed, we've been waiting in that tower," the girl explained. " The power of the Prophet saved us, locked us away, until our secret was to be revealed."
" Well that's what I want to know," Iago said loudly and crossly. " What secrets!"
" The question I always ask of Merlin and that damn dead man." Apparently Selphie had come to life.
" You see, Celt Circle harbored many refugees," the girl began. " We've always been known as the ones who took care of those who fled their homes, loves, and lives. Kings, wizards, persecuted creatures, we took them all in and protected them. Celt Circle, a fertile world, had the means to do so. We had the bounty and the space. And peace; the world barriers rarely fluctuated and no danger could cross into our borders.
' But I guess everything had to come to an end. A distant world, Deep Tranquility, was destructed by unknown dark forces. We almost lost the king of Disney Castle; we were not so lucky when it came to Keyblade masters and wielders. Only one child of the last Keyblade Master survived and he came here, yet another refugee."
" King Mickey was here before, too!" the little boy chirped. " Grandpa said so!"
" King Mickey?" Kairi asked sharply.
" Indeed he is right," Merlin nodded. " King Mickey took refuge here, in another time…"
" Our world was destroyed because the darkness sought to kill the last child of the Keyblades. King Mickey had no surviving children; his only child was taken from him by Time and grief keeps him from begetting another heir." The girl seemed so much wiser than her years; it frightened them yet awed them.
" Sister, the report, the report!" the little boy whined.
" That I'll get to later, brother," the girl hushed him. " The more pressing matters they must know."
" King Mickey had a kid?" Iago demanded, scratching his head. " That…don't sound right."
Kairi and Tidus looked horrified. " What is going through your mind!"
" Let him be, I understand," the girl forgave the bird. " You see, things aren't what they seem. The power of the Keyblades seem very strong yet they are not; with every day they weaken in power. Even Sora's. King Mickey's powers are fading; his time was of another generation and with no one else to take his blade, he must continue to wield it, until several things happen: the door of light is found, the Keyblades are destroyed, he has a child or finds his lost child, or…he ceases to exist. Dark indeed but Fate would have it so, like us. Once you witness our destruction, we will vanish, to sleep in peace forever and to live in our eternal Paradise."
" Dark words, as the Prophet spoke," Merlin murmured.
" He…is never wrong," the girl answered. " Yet I, now the speaker of the dreams, have more knowledge than he does. Sora is unlocking his powers. If they do not come into full use in time, if he does not reach the door of light, if he takes one wrong turn, then it is all over. Paradise will break away and carry with it all who had already been saved; everyone else is doomed to utter darkness and forgetfulness forever."
" Oh my god, just shut up, you're depressing me," Selphie snapped.
" Ignorance is folly, while knowledge is more holy!" the little boy grinned back. " Grandpa taught us."
" Wait, you said something about the reports," Kairi spoke to the girl. " What do you mean?"
" One contains a prophecy, which the red parrot found. Several contain information regarding your enemies, past, present, and future. And some lead you down the path to the truth of the past, because in the past lies the key to the darkest secrets Hollow Bastion holds."
" Hollow Bastion?" Kairi demanded in horror. " No, not that place again!"
" Yet the secret hides there, and hide it will," the girl said. She looked up, at the first of the dreams, the seagull. " Only through the darkest of crimes will reveal that secret. A terrible trade-off in my opinion, but nothing will come of it if the secret remains sleeping."
Kairi fell silent, thinking, wondering. This was not sounding very good at all…
Bells tolled in the distance. People began to hurry back to their homes, hurriedly packing up their goods and rushing off, finding their children to carry home safely, warning others of an unknown danger only the bell and its ringer knew of. And in the distance, where Kairi first found the tower of souls, they heard explosions and horrible screaming.
" Ah…the darkness, the sleep of Paradise has come," the girl smiled, was now peaceful. " This was what me and my brother heard before the tidal wave drowned us. This was the beginning of the destruction of Celt Circle. The culprits? A familiar face was once among them but now darkness reigns within."
Selphie screamed as a huge tidal wave towered over them, Transparent as it was, it still looked frightening enough.
" The prophecy with its incomplete sentences is a tale of the future, near and far," the girl said, lifting her hand to wave farewell. " Heed its words well or else you will be overcome. Farewell, Warriors of Light! May the Light guide you on your path to the Door!"
Stiffly, they waved farewell. The little boy laughed and shouted," Bye bye!" before the wave engulfed them and stormed the city, rushing right through them to ravage the buildings once thought to be safe refuge.
" I can't look, I can't look!" Selphie sobbed, closing her eyes and trying to block out the screams and wails as people were dragged out of their homes, trees, any building, into the waiting belly of the sea. " Let's get out of here, please!"
" I for one, definitely agree with her on this!" Tidus exclaimed.
Kairi had to agree, though her feet seemed rooted to one spot. The screams shackled her to the ground; the wails and cries of despair shook through her in torrential waves.
" Kairi!" Iago squawked in her ear.
Jumping, she turned to the others. " I agree. This is too much. Oh why did I release those dreams?"
"Wait!" Merlin thundered as soon as they tensed to up high-tail it out of the dying town. " You will not outrun the tidal waves, nor the earthquakes nor the thunder and lightning, nor the volcanic eruptions, nor the disruption of the fissures, nor the erasure of the living beings of this world. Stay put or you will see worse. Trust me, a certain, immortal eyewitness told me all the gruesome details in great satisfaction, something you don't need to know. And Oracle Kenaii must come back!"
" Which I did!" the old man exclaimed, appearing out of nowhere all of a sudden. Selphie nearly screamed. " Great and strange news, Merlin. I cannot find the last child. He was not among the dreams. I have looked everywhere and he is not among them!"
" Then that means…" Tidus guessed it already.
" Then he's not dead."