Chapter Thirteen: Festival Part II
"Xehanort?!" the three of them looked at Amaterasu as if she had just killed someone.
"How do you…? Why would you…? Why?" that was all Kairi could say, she looked at the girl a bit confused.
Amaterasu had asked Riku to call them up, and soon they could get their talk underway. She sighed for a moment still trying to let the pain in her heart subside, it wasn't the easiest thing to talk about.
Xehanort, he called himself Ansem once, out of ignorance born of deception. He was, in part, responsible for the exile of Ansem the Wise, and that was how the events of this whole thing started.
"You see, this all started about either more or less than 3 decades ago…" she began, laughing nervously. At that point the fireworks started to go off, and all four of them looked up at the sky.
"Strangely it happened during a festival, almost like this one. I met Xehanort, when I was still just a kid."
"But that would make you… old…" Sora said giving up as he counted with his fingers.
"I don't age, but that's another story entirely!" she said almost sounding proud for a moment. Another firework went off, it had blue and gold sparked shower part of the sky. "It'd be better if I just show you the memory…" she said to all of them, "Once the fireworks are over."
Back to Reeve and the others…
"We're going to win!" Tachigami counting down to the end of the fireworks display. Yuffie gave her a sour look, and just looked back at the fireworks.
"Tachigami…" the ex-Chaser looked down at what called her name. It was a small robotic cat.
"Cait Sith…" she had seen the little robotic cat earlier before. "What's up?"
"About Amaterasu, how does she know Xehanort?"
"I've been meaning to ask you that myself." Reeve said looking back at the young female. Everyone at the table got quiet and all attention was focused on Tachigami.
It was a very difficult matter to explain, but this was the only thing she could say. "Him and my little sister at one point, they…" she chose her words carefully. "They were once involved with one another."
"What, that's…!" Yuffie blurted out loud in protest.
"It still will sound weird in whichever way she says it," Yomigami said looking at Yuffie with a cautious glance. "Funny though it was around the same time as 'Project Blitz'."
"Question?" Yuffie raised her hand slightly. "What was that project about anyway?"
"Let me answer this one!" Moegami said raising his hand into the air. "Professor Hojo, was given orders to study people's hearts, like Xehanort, under King Ansem's orders. Professor Hojo at the time was trying to physically infuse darkness into a person's heart, and make it stay there forever. That's when he got some stupid idea to create a fake heart…"
"Fake heart?" Squall asked. He had arrived with Cloud and Aerith.
"Yeah," Moegami went on explaining. "A black box type of heart."
"So it's hidden?" Squall asked.
"A hidden type of heart, like it's unattainable at times. It means that the person has an artificial heart of darkness, and their own heart." The youngest male said using some napkins he found on the table.
"That was the only way one could have darkness without turning into a Heartless, back in that time." Yomigami said. "Riku of course broke that fine line, lucky kid…"
"The whole project was to create these types of dark soldiers. The way the artificial heart was placed, it would have find some place within the original heart, and Hojo made a small incision," Moegami stabbed the napkin, "and placed it in there. Mind you the fake heart was small."
"How many people were subjected to this?" Aerith asked.
"About five dozen…" Yomigami was uncertain about the amount. "We're the only two that survived. We had high resistance to the artificial heart, and our body would reject it time and time again. At one point it was locked…" Yomigami said pointing to his heart. "At a certain age it was opened up again, and of course we don't reject the fake heart now… the heart, it's a very strange thing…"
"You know…" Yuffie looked back at the fireworks that were still being set off. "All this talking and stuff, we forgot about the bet thingy…"
Twilight Town
Two hooded figures walked down the streets enjoying the silence of the night. The taller one with the purple eyes was male, and slightly shorter one was female, and she had honey colored eyes. The two of them walked in unison giving off a weird vibe wherever they went, which was normal to them.
"Lucifer's gone…" the female said looking back at her partner.
"That's not a problem…" the male said holding no remorse in his voice. "I think it's better this way, he wasn't much of a fighter anyway."
"Is that why you sent him there?"
"Sort of. At least we know that those pests are there."
"The Diaz family?" the female asked stopping for a moment in her tracks. The male stopped in his tracks and looked back.
"Them…" he said harboring some kind of hate. "And that kid… The Keyblade's chosen one…"
"You still really think he's going to be like him?"
"It happened once…" he said taking his hood off. He had messy brown hair and light skin. "It'll most likely happen again, Leana."
a m a t e r a s u
The last firework was about to go off, and the whole thing gave me some time to gather my thoughts, and some memories I wanted them to see. I sighed for a moment and I noticed Riku kept looking in my direction.
The last firework went off showering the sky with pink, gold, purple and white. For a moment it looked like rain, and the last image on there was that of a heart. It was very nice, which meant that the festival was coming to an end. In my mind though, I had another festival I wanted to show them.
"Hold hands you guys." I said pulling their attention away from the display. They all did as they were told. "Close your eyes, and let the beating of your heart take you away…" I noticed the hesitant look in their eyes. "Trust me on this, nothing bad will happen."
It was in mid December when this started to unfold. My brother and I just got out of the castle, still rubbing our temples feeling as though our hearts were going to explode.
Yomigami had longer shaggier hair back then, and I had my hair in layers. He had just turned eighteen and I turned sixteen. A couple of people, mostly maids, greeted us as we walked down the stairs. It was a very busy day, because a festival was scheduled for today.
"Still alive I see?" the two of us looked down at the bottom of the stair case.
This person's name, with the slight short black hair, that had bangs covering one part of his face, his name was Vincent Valentine. He was undergoing a different kind of experiment, but all by the same man, Hojo.
"Nothing's going to get rid of us." Yomigami said smiling at him.
"Brother, let's go…" I said gently still rubbing my temple a bit. "Mom's going to get mad at us again."
The night time had finally started to set in, and the festival was going as planned. The fireworks signaled the beginning of the whole thing. I remember looking up the night sky, noticing a blue comet looking thing coming down.
"Hey, look!" I pointed up as one of the fireworks showered out their sparks.
My family and I, we had front row seats since we were slightly close to the king himself. My mother and sister looked up at the blue comet like object, and my fathers eyes glanced up slightly. My dad, Mom use to tell me I looked like him, and I knew it to be all too true.
"Is that a shooting star?" I remembered hearing my brother Kazegami say.
I could remember hearing people scream and shout as the comet was getting closer, but for some reason my parents didn't pull away. I could see the object get closer and closer, and the fireworks were still going off.
"What if the fireworks hit it?" Moegami asked my mother.
"It'll probably hurt the boy…" she said.
"What boy?" we all asked.
"There…" my father pointed out.
The comet like thing was in fact a person, and the human figure was becoming more defined little by little.
"Why aren't we leaving like the other people?" I asked.
"He might get hurt…" and I remember as my mother said that the comet was a couple of yards away, and Aero spell was placed on the ground, and the human comet came crashing down, creating a sort of small crater around the area we stood by.
King Ansem was at the festival, because he rushed over to the scene, and he thanked my mother and father for their help.
"It looks like he's wounded…" I couldn't see anything.
"He's armor, pieces of it are singed." I heard my dad say. "There's another set of armor here, this ones pale…" that was my mom's voice.
"Hey!" Tachigami called out pushing her hair back. "A sword fell out of his hands!" she said picking it up, it was really heavy.
"That's cool!" my younger brothers and I said.
I walked forward and was finally able to see the comet guy. I looked down at the ground, he was wearing broken armor, with a torn and messy cape. He had brown hair, the middle part was combed back while the sides of it were left alone.
His face guard fell to the floor with a heavy thud, and I remembering picking it up, it felt really cold to the touch. He moaned a bit in pain, and King Ansem ordered to bring in a couple of mages. My mom was one of those, but she needed more help to take the guy into the castle.
I remember seeing his blue eyes for a small moment, but when he opened them up again they were amber.
"Hey… Are you okay?" I asked him, he moved his mouth a bit.
"It hurts…"
"What does?" I asked trying to keep him awake.
"My heart…"
"That was the first time I saw Xehanort." I explained to them as the link to the chain of my memories was cut off to them. "I didn't really know what had happened to him, but for some reason I probably should have said something when he said his heart was hurting."
"He looked, really young…" Sora said. I could feel his eyes on me. "And, he had brown hair and blue eyes. He was really different back then… I mean he wasn't bad…"
"I have another memory you guys," I said closing my eyes for a moment.
It wasn't a white room or anything, this place was called the infirmary and it might as well have been called the 'White Room,' it was white, and just sort of eerie. Mom made me check up on the outsider with Tachigami and Gekigami.
I ran up to the bed where he slept at, and I looked at his face for a moment, he was fast asleep. Mom said he was around 18, which meant I was two years younger than him. Tachigami sat next to him, and extended her hand over his chest, a light green glow came out from her hand and washed over his body.
"He said his heart hurt…" I said looking back at my brother and sister.
"When did he say that?" Tachigami asked.
"A month ago, when he crashed here."
"Why didn't you say that earlier?" Tachigami said, telling Gekigami to take care of the rest. "I'm going to tell King Ansem, and Mom, you two stay here."
We just sat there, waiting, and waiting, and waiting. Finally the guy started to move a bit muttering phrases and stuff. He opened his eyes slightly, and it was a mixture of amber and blue.
"Aqu-" he had his hand stretched out, as if trying to grasp something.
"Don't strain yourself…" I said putting his arm down.
"You're that girl," he whispered hoarsely. "From before…"
I blinked slightly, he had barely been conscious when he crashed here, and by surprise the whole thing caught me off guard. Gekigami sighed for a moment rolling his eyes muttering something in Spanish.
"Is she here?" he asked.
"Who?" both of us said.
"My friend…She came with me." He said, trying to move a bit. I shook my head slightly.
"Don't move," Gekigami said. "You'll open up your wound again."
"Wound?" he asked blinking his eyes slightly.
"It's by your chest," Gekigami said just to advise him to be careful. "If you move around even for a bit you'll open it up again, and Tachigami's going to get mad again at all of us."
"Tachigami?" he said looking at the two of us confused.
"Our big sister." Gekigami said describing her a bit. "Anyway, what's you name?"
"My name…" he repeated it softly to himself. "I think is was Another…"
"Another?" I asked, finding it strange to be called something so simple like that.
"But Xehanort sounds really familiar…" he said staring up at the white ceiling. "I think Xehanort was my name."
"You don't remember your name?" we both asked him.
Sora paused everything for a moment, "Wait let me get this straight, he was in a battle?"
"That's what we were told." I told him feeling the vision before me go fuzzy. "It was around the same time the Keyblade was first heard of. Back then we had no idea something like that even existed."
"That sword he dropped, was it a Keyblade?" Kairi asked looking directly at me.
"Not close…" I said thinking about it for a moment. "If memory serves right, it had no keychain. You all know for a fact a Keyblade with no keychain is just about as good as a sword."
"What kind of battle anyway?" Sora asked seeming interested in their former enemy.
"Keyblade War." I said simply. I sighed for a moment and disbanded the memory all together. There was a sound of glass breaking as the chains started to break off one by one. My memory of that day broke off and fell back into the darkness of my heart. "It's hard to describe what happened that day, no one really knows, but what we would guess was that he was in it, since he had worn out battle armor, and battle scars."
I looked at Riku for a moment and he didn't really seem all that comfortable with the fact I knew Xehanort, he didn't say anything for the whole thing. At one point or another Xehanort had given me the same expression, but that was for something else entirely. Those two were so much alike. 'That's why I feel weird around you…I get it now, you carry his darkness…' I thought to myself, it just really made everything a bit worse in my head.
"King Mickey a while back, he gave you guys a letter right?" I asked them clearing my throat for a moment. The smell from the fireworks somehow made its way over to this area of the park.
Sora and the others nodded, and Kairi asked as to why. The answer should have really been obvious, but I guess it wasn't, or it was, but they still wanted to hear it from my mouth.
"I mean it is pretty obvious…" I said laughing slightly, "You guys need us as much as we need you."
"Why would ex-Chaser's want our help?" Kairi asked. "I mean not to be rude or anything… You guys are pretty strong…"
"Ha…" I said laughing sarcastically. "We're nothing compared to the actual Chasers. We were born into their ranks, we didn't have to work our way up. But that aside, we're looking for certain memories, and I'm think that they're in the heart of each world."
"You think?" Riku asked, finally speaking.
"A very strong possibility that it's there." I said sighing for a moment.
r i k u
'A strong possibility…' I thought to myself as I looked at her for a moment.
For some reason every time I heard the name Xehanort, or even saw him in her memories, it made my blood boil. I just didn't feel all that comfortable when he was mentioned.
Ad now, knowing for a fact that she knew it, I just felt confused, and somehow in my heart I felt betrayed. If anything, I think our friendship is starting break apart now, due to some damn memory of him.
I know that dang Xehanort hasn't really left, since I'm still using the darkness he gave me, but I really wish he didn't have to affect my friendship with her.
It got me thinking again too. The reason why she was so comfortable around me, could it be because of Xehanort? Do I remind her of him? When she looks at me, does she look at me, or does she see him in me?
It's all really confusing, and I'm getting pissed at the same time now. I can't even begin to grasp the whole concept between Xehanort and Amaterasu. A voice in the back of my head was answering my questions, and I started to feel my heart sink.
'You know she'd never let go,' I voice in my head told me. 'I now that, but there's still a chance to set things right again, like how it was before…' I answered back in my head.
The others were just talking some more, and I ended up blanking everything out, lost in the darkness in my heart.
'Would you be willing to go back into the dark, to help your friends?'
"Why would I want to do that?" I asked myself.
'Some of that darkness in your heart, it may have some memories she may need.'
The festival had been some fun up until this point, when the whole weight of reality came crashing down on all of us. I didn't really want that to happen, but I knew somehow it was going to, and I wish it didn't.
'Each of their fates pass through time and gather together…'
At that point I caught the scent of darkness again, but it was coming in the direction opposite of us. Amaterasu was already standing up looking in the direction of the scent, she looked back at us with a sad gaze. Something told me that everything would turn bad from here on out.
A/N: You know what to do 1 review.