After the End of the World

Kingdom Hearts Prologue: Consequences of Existence

Kingdom Hearts. The place where His Majesty oversaw the damnation of the world. The place where guards lost their lives and their lineage to a servant of Darkness. This is the very keyhole the entire populace of Hell itself had been looking through for so long. Once the right key was found, there was to be nothing left…

A sage scrambles down the winding hallways of kingdom Hearts, rallying all available defenses. He arrives at His Majesty's chambers to find his attention occupied by the window, and the disheartening view it provided. The sage approaches His Majesty humbly and joins him at the window. Together, they watched in chagrin and fear as the first, second and third waves of His Majesty's soldiers fall by the hands of a single warrior in a black robe and a purple masquerade persona. The figure wields three keyblades at once, one keyblade in his left hand, and two forged together in the form of a staff in his right hand. "Your Majesty-", begins the sage as he looks away from the window. "Who is that?" The King ignores his courtier's question and instead tightens his grip on his own keyblade and runs off down the hall to aid his army.

Outside in the fray, the masked figure twirls the keystaff impatiently as he awaits an attack from the next wave. The army advances and gives way as His Majesty approaches to stare down the figure. Without a word, the masked figure charges the King, and the two engage in a blazing storm of slashes and parries. His Majesty deflects an attack aimed at his throat, rolls to the side of the figure and gives an unexpected forward swing, knocking the figure to the ground and sending the now-cracked masquerade persona sliding along the ground. The figure drops a keyblade to cover his face with one hand, and finally speaks…

"Why do you hasten your demise?", asks the warrior in a frustrated tone. "Your efforts will do nothing more for you than see you off to the flames of Purgatory!" Now much lighter minus the weight of one of the large keyblades, the figure seemingly vanishes and reappears behind the entire army. His keystaff dripping from both ends with blood, every single soldier in the courtyard drops dead simultaneously. Only they; one the King and the figure remain. He turns and speaks again, this time with a calm demeanor. "I'm going to free this planet from sin, and you are obstructing my path most audaciously."

His Majesty only prepares his weapon for another bout and replies; "Free the planet? Just how do you figure that?" He raises his keyblade and lunges at the figure. "Your sins far outweigh any number of ours!" As the two clash, the sky, once dark and heavy with clouds, now turns a brilliant red, and tendrils of violent flames hang from funnels of swirling wind… Flaming hurricanes…tearing into the earth and shaking it to ashes. A great formation of these burning tempests encircles Kingdom hearts and begins to close in, slicing and scorching everything in sight. The King and his assailant pay the destruction no mind as they leap from rock to floating rock, slashing and blocking at each other. The figure lands a decisive blow, dodging an open stab from His Majesty, then knocking him onto a ledge overlooking a sea of swirling fire. The King clutches the ledge for dear life, but the figure approaches and drives his heel into His Majesty's hand, dropping him into the inferno.

There is no scream. The flames do not roar. Somehow, His Majesty survived the fall. Now enraged, the figure gives a feral scream and leaps into the inferno after him. The King, who had managed to land on another ledge, leaps at the figure as he descends, and the two of them are now battling in free-fall. A spinning strike from His Majesty is enough to send the figure tumbling through the air into the eye of the firestorm. His Majesty speeds up his descent to finish off the figure, and everything fades to white as sound becomes silence.

"We have created. You have destroyed. We have given. You have stolen. We have observed. You have ignored. Just as we have delivered you life, we must now take it back. Just as the wages of sin is death, the consequences of existence are Vergessenheit."

Where had everything gone?Where had everything been? His Majesty awakens in a vast snowy field; his weapon nowhere in sight, and the figure vanished from both sight and mind. There were bodies; bodies of his soldiers, strewn about the field. He had survived…the planet was not so lucky. Not a trace of Kingdom Hearts remained; not a trace of anything remained. There was only the snow… The snow; and a faint glimpse of Castle Oblivion in the distance…

-To be continued