Chapter Seventeen: Revelations

It had only been a few days since the events at Kitty Hawk. After that day, we had walked until we found a ghost town, and after clearing out the Heartless, took a green truck. She had been driving for only a couple days when we finally reached our destination: Washington, D.C.

When we got there, she asked me where in D.C. I wanted to go, specifically. The World War II Monument and the Reflecting Pool. It was the dead of night, with a partly cloudy sky and cold, crisp air. We had already cleared out the local horde of Heartless.

Amy pulled up to the Monument, and we got out. We stood there, looking at our reflections, and then looked up to see a red-robed man with blonde hair standing opposite from us, near the Lincoln Monument. He looked familiar…

"Roy, who is that?" Amy asked me.

"I don't know. Let's go see." I replied. We then began to walk around the Reflecting Pool. It really did make me reflect… on who I was, on how far I had come, and on what my future might hold. After a few minutes, we reached the man, who had his back turned to us.

"Who are you?" Amy asked him.

"I am a servant of the world." he answered, then laughed as he turned around. "And if I'm a servant, you should consider yourselves weapons, at best."

When he said that, it felt like my head was going to explode…

If you go there, you will find the truth about yourself, about your darkness, but more importantly…

"… the truth about the light in your soul." DiZ finished. It was him: DiZ, or Ansem the Wise. Darkness in Zero…

"What do you mean? Why are you helping us, if you are?" I asked him.

"So many questions, so much time. Suffice to say, I feel… responsible for what has happened here. All of it ties back to him." he answered.

"Who?" Amy asked him.

"My foremost apprentice, Xehanort, of course. Surely, you know of him?" he asked us.

"Well, yeah. His Heartless ravaged the worlds in Kingdom Hearts, eventually trying to send all into oblivion. And his Nobody, Xemnas, tried to obtain his own Kingdom Hearts and, in short, become omnipotent. What of it?" I answered Ansem's question with one of my own.

"You know of the hero, Sora's, exploits? Then you know that Xehanort has been completely destroyed. But there was another, created by the Light, to dispose of Xehanort if the Keyblade master could not." Ansem replied.

"… another, created by the Light? Who… what are you talking about?" Amy asked.

"The one you would know as Charon… master and commander of the Order of Light. The one who controls all the elements in conjunction with Light and fate." he replied.

"Charon… he is the Master? Created by the Light?" I asked.

"Yes, he was. You see, the Light had a 'backup' plan, in case Sora failed. The Light created its bioweapon, Charon, as a last resort for defeating Xehanort." Ansem stated.

"A bioweapon? He's a person, made by the Light, to destroy Xehanort?" Amy asked.

"A person? No. It would be best to refer to him as a Luce, beings created with bodies and pure hearts, but lacking souls." Ansem replied.

"Okay, I'm tired of getting half-assed answers! I want the truth! The whole truth!" I shouted after a pause.

"The truth?" He laughed. "The truth is, Charon plans to make your world into his Sanctuary, a place where he, and other Luce, can exist. But for his Sanctuary to be hospitable, nearly all souls, and all Heartless from the world must be destroyed. Only then can Luce exist in that world, and in order to achieve this, he brainwashes pure hearted people he abducts These people are his 'Masters,' and they carry out his orders from his base within Kingdom Hearts itself; Amaterasu." He explained at great length.

"But why doesn't the Light just destroy him, if the Light created him?" Amy asked. "Why do we have to clean up?"

"Charon… was engineered specifically for destroying Xemnas. He was made to be better, faster, and stronger. But once Sora defeated him, Charon had no purpose. He was simply discarded, but was too strong to just vanish. Charon set out to find his own life and goals. But lacking a soul, and the direction of the Light, he found only death and sorrow along his path. Death and sorrow he caused." Ansem said.

"Death and sorrow… and emptiness. Being engineered to kill without mercy, no light, no twilight, no darkness can defeat him. You must use the one thing Charon fears to overcome him." Ansem told us.

"The one thing he fears?"

"The power of your souls. Especially you, Roy. Your odd mix of a dark heart and a soul of light… you walk a path only one has walked before." he answered.

"I think I understand… we have to go kill him, because nobody else can. What about Sora?" I earnestly asked.

"Sora? He's busy playing on his beach with his friends. Regardless, he isn't strong enough, and his world is sealed off." Ansem replied.

"So… what do we do? How do we get to Amaterasu?" Amy asked him.

"Amy! Isn't this a lot to take in? We're taking the fate of the world on our shoulders! Maybe more! Don't you think this is beyond our scope?" I asked her.

"No. We've been handling this pretty well, up 'till now. It's just a little more. And we both knew it would come to something like this." Amy replied.

"I guess so. Alright, Ansem. We'll do it. How do we get there?" I asked, ready to accept whatever came next.

"Go there." he said, and snapped his fingers. A Keyhole appeared in the Reflecting Pool. "There… go to Kingdom Hearts. And Roy… I admire your control of your darkness." Ansem said, then dissipated into black smoke.

"Wait!" I yelled, reaching out to him. But my hand only grabbed smoke…

Ansem's voice stayed for a moment, though. He said: remember, don't think. Feel. Do as your heart tells you.

"Come on, Roy. Let's go." Amy said. We walked over to the shining Keyhole, and then waded up to it. Then everything got bright…