The great bridge of Beast's castle was engulfed in chaos.
It was alive with magic, alive with wind turned to weaponry, alive with cries of pain and anger and alarm.
Xaldin smirked. It was his chaos, he thought, sending three of his lances on a deadly course towards his opponents. The darkened skies, the biting cold wind, the very air were his to command.
And command them he did.
Sora and his band of fools stood no chance. Xaldin would obliterate them all this night. And that was all that mattered.
Once, he supposed, his existence – or, more appropriately, his nonexistence – had held some more meaning. Once, he had been a man of science. Of reason.
Of compassion.
Two of his lances missed, the third glancing off Goofy's shield barely half a second before impact.
Xaldin grimaced inwardly, whipping up a tornado in the enemy's midst. The man he used to be was no more, and he was all the better for it. Xaldin's primary goal now was cleaning up after Dilan.
Dilan.
How he hated that name. It was only a liability – a reminder of weaker days.
Xaldin swatted the keyblade wielder out of the air with a particularly vicious blow.
None of this had to happen. The darkness didn't have to get out of control. Radiant Garden didn't have to fall to those vile, savage Heartless.
He didn't have to lose his heart.
But Dilan had let it happen. He had failed.
The Nobody that had replaced him leaped out of the path of a charging Beast. Failure had left Xaldin along with his heart.
"Had it?" Xaldin thought sourly, hastily assembling his lanes into a dragonlike form. He had come so close with Beast. The castle had been his; the pathetic creature who resided there had, per Xaldin's "suggestions", driven away his friends – even his "lover," Belle.
The dragon soared through the night sky, across the bridge, Xaldin standing astride its head.
"His lover." Xaldin scoffed at the very idea. What was love but a mutual feeling of lust, harnessed and used to an advantage by one participant?
There was always an ulterior motive. You couldn't trust anyone, least of all yourself. Xaldin had learned this lesson well at Radiant Garden.
What led him to doubt himself was the fact that Beast had not. He had returned to Belle after throwing her out, the fool. Not only had he condemned himself to an eventual betrayal at her hands, but he had also lost Xaldin a particularly powerful Heartless and Nobody.
Xaldin growled, raining gusts of wind sharp as his lances down on Sora and company. He won either way, after he was done with them. The Beast was his. A new Heartless, a new Nobody to control.
Darkness and nothingness.
His killer and his jailer.
That was definitely one of the Organization's perks. Control. Power – of the sort Dilan had lacked.
Xaldin used every inch of it on this night.
But sometime after dismounting and dismantling the dragon, it occurred to him that he shouldn't have to.
Yet through Xaldin's barrage of lances and lancing winds, Sora and Donald and Goofy and Beast had persisted, and continued to do so. And as the battle wore on, Xaldin found himself playing more and more defensively. Winds that had torn violently at his opponents, their skin and clothes, now pushed them desperately back. Lances that had flown at terrifying speed to pierce now formed a protective cage to defend.
And shortly after this realization, Xaldin found himself increasingly on the receiving end of his enemies' attacks. His lances whirled and spun like lightning, faster than sound, blocking Keyblade and spell and shield and claw – but not always in time.
Was he to fail in the same manner as Dilan? This question haunted Xaldin, grim in its slowly growing relevance.
For like it or not, Xaldin was losing. The memory of Dilan's fall cut as deeply as Beast's claws – which, Xaldin noted, spinning away too late to avoid them, was quite deep indeed.
Beast's claws were the filthy, grasping talons of countless Shadows, clamoring incessantly for hearts. A fireball that singed Xaldin's braids as it passed burned Xehanort's papers, his machines, his life's work with merciless hunger. The bridge was the laboratory, Dilan's last stand.
Xaldin's grave.
Xaldin backflipped to avoid the Keyblade's strikes, melted an incoming ice bolt with a superheated jet of air, and flew – with too much effort – out of his executioners' reach. It was all he could do to stem his bleeding, hold his bones in place, stay afloat and alive. But soon, Xaldin knew, even this would be beyond him.
He would lose.
But he would not fail.
His lances reformed. The dragon towered menacingly in the sky, Xaldin at its head. He rose a hundred feet, taking it into a kamikaze spiral, perpendicular to the bridge, straight for Sora. The young Keyblade Master was his great enemy – something to be eliminated at any cost. He would be Xaldin's savior as well, his life all that stood between the Whirlwind Lancer and irredeemable failure.
The dragon screamed down upon the battlefield. Xaldin roared in triumph. Sora leaped. The Keyblade flashed.
Xaldin was struck from the dragon. He fell heavily upon the hewn stones below, his ribs screaming in protest. His lances followed, littering the ground around him, fallen and useless.
"NO!" It would not end here!
Xaldin pushed himself to a standing position, willfully ignoring the agony searing his every nerve. He fixed Sora with a crazed, livid stare, summoned a blast of wind to knock the damned creature into oblivion.
But the wind would not obey.
Xaldin saw his lances rise in the air around him, straight up and down, beyond his control. They glowed, exploding into six shafts of purest, blinding light. They burned Xaldin even more than the pain of his injuries, and were quickly overshadowed by a different, greater pain.
The pain of defeat. Of failure.
He saw Dilan in his dimming, anguish-clouded vision, collapsing under an unstoppable tide of darkness. That same darkness finally claimed him now, as he began to dissipate and fade with his weapons.
Xaldin threw his head back, giving the last of his nonbeing over to a terrible roar of pain, of fury, of absolute sorrow.
And still the wind blew, but gave no reply.
