The "Gilgamesh" and "Enkidu" mentioned here are references to two characters from Final Fantasy V, rather than their namesakes from the ancient Akkadian epic poem.

Chapter Two: Life Goes On

Cid placed the crescent wrench on the metal counter in the back of the auto repair shop, swept his shoulder-length blonde hair back for a better view, and marveled at his creation. Even after spending the better part of the past year in captivity without a chance to practice his craft, he'd managed to build this in only ten days' worth of free time. The teenager smiled smugly. Highwind, you still got it.

He pulled off a work glove and checked the watch on his wrist beneath. Three o' two. Shift ends in two hours. The kid can wait 'til then.

His boss, a large man with a dark, heavy beard and almost always seen in an aviator's helmet and goggles, could be heard in his office arguing with a customer. This time, he'd called the patron a "spoony bard"…for some reason. The boss' name was also Cid. Cid Pollendina, to be exact.

Another coworker, Cid Fynn, was busy at work overhauling an airship's engine, while Cid Previa aided Cid nan Garlond in refitting the external plating of another dirigible, leaving Cid Bastok and Cidney (the only woman, whose name was also coincidentally Cid-based) to attend to various repairs on the land-based vehicles also in the garage. They all worked at Cids' Auto Shop.

The clock had struck three in the afternoon just over two minutes ago, but Shion couldn't hear it. Like everything beyond the nursery, she'd chosen to block it out. Kairi had been sleeping peacefully in her crib for an unnervingly long time—she was overdue for a nightmare or some other feeling of discomfort that would rouse her awake and wailing for help. Shion had resolved to watch her for just such an emergency. This was the way it had been since she was born; with no birth-mother to care for the infant, Shion unwaveringly accepted the unspoken responsibilities that a guardian was tasked with when caring for a child. She hadn't expected Kairi to need this much monitoring, and Grandmother Hikari had told her that no one as young as her should ever have to assume so much responsibility but should instead enjoy her youth while she had it. But Shion couldn't take her mind off the baby. Tired as she was, she needed to always be there for her.

But her preadolescent body had other plans, and before she knew it, Shion gradually fell asleep in her wheelchair in front of Kairi's crib. When Grandmother discovered this, she draped a quilt over Shion, turned off the light, and closed the door behind her as she smiled at both sisters enjoying their naps.

It was half-past five when Cid returned from work, grimy and sweaty and odorously offensive to stand in the presence of. Such was the agony the guardsmen, Dilan and Aeleus, had to endure as they greeted him at the front door.

Aeleus cringed. "Welcome home, Highwind."

Dilan added, "You're fragrant as ever," as he opened the smaller, single-person-sized front door contained within the far larger pair.

The eighteen year-old smirked, his young face contrasted by the black smudge and light, blonde stubble. His grubby face was all the more visible since he wore his shoulder-length hair swept back and his goggles loosely reposed around his neck. "Evenin' gents," he greeted. "Hope the doors've been good company."

A duffel bag was slung over Cid's shoulder. Dilan noted it, "I should hope those aren't dangerous explosives you're smuggling in here."

The young mechanic smiled. "What, this? Just a present I've been working on for Shion."

Aeleus grunted. "I pray you shower before giving it to her. The poor girl doesn't need to lose her nose as well."

Cid smirked at him knowingly. "Trust me. This'll be worth it."

It was nearly six when the freshly-showered mechanic delicately opened the door to the nursery and found Shion sleeping in her wheelchair before Kairi's crib, a quilt covering the raven-haired ten year-old. Cid smiled. Grandmother Hikari had asked him to wake Shion and bring her downstairs for dinner. They were in for a surprise.

He flicked on the light, grateful it didn't disturb the infant, and gently rustled Shion from her rest. "Hey, kiddo," he whispered, mindful not to wake the sleeping newborn only a few feet away.

A soft moan indicated the girl's return to consciousness, and when her weary eyes opened at their own pace, she stretched her arms and yawned, brushing aside the sable tresses from her face as she stirred. Like the other orphans—Cid being the obvious exception—she'd had a haircut since moving in with Grandmother Hikari; her once-waist-length hair now reached a less cumbersome extent just below her shoulder blade. Awake enough, she found Cid at her side, the eldest of the orphans who'd always carried her up the stairs and then gone back for the wheelchair until the lift was installed. Of all her new step-siblings, Cid was Shion's favorite.

"Hey, Cid," she greeted groggily. "What time is it?"

"Supper time. Granny says to get your butt downstairs pronto."

Shion rubbed more of the drowsiness from her eyes. "M'kay. Race you down."

He placed a hand on the chair's armrest. "Not so fast there, kid." He held up the duffel bag. "I got you a present first."

A curious smile graced Shion. "Is it my birthday already?"

Cid almost spoke, but stopped to think just before handing her the sack. "Come to think of it, we dunno when any of each other's birthdays are." He chuckled. "Well, Merry Unbirthday."

She giggled a bit at that, then accepted the bag and pulled it open by the zipper. At the first inch, she hadn't the faintest idea what the present might be. Four inches later, the mystery only intensified. In another three, a solid idea formed in her mind. By the tenth, she knew what it was and was totally breathless with jubilation, joyful tears forming in her eyes as she brought a hand over her mouth.

Grandmother Hikari asked from across the dining table, "Squall, dear, could please see what's taking Cid and Shion so long?"

He didn't like being called "dear," but the scarred eleven year-old didn't mind an excuse to stretch his legs and have time away from his step-family, no matter how brief the intermission would be. It wasn't that he disliked them personally, but since Cid spent most of his time away from the manor, Squall considered himself the alpha of the pack: the oldest child and also the coolest. These toddlers and children only cramped his style. Or, at least, that was the excuse he told himself. He needed a reason to keep his distance from others after the Seeker's concentration camp. He wasn't ready to open up. It didn't help that Aerith had earlier insisted on helping him change his bandages and reproachfully shouted "Squall Quentin Leonheart!" at him like a parent to a child the last time he refused her help, never minding that "Quentin" wasn't his middle name.

"Sure," he answered Grandmother stoically and left his chair.

Ienzo was now hungry enough to chew on the tablecloth. Yuffie was impressionable enough to join him.

Squall exited the dining hall, his hands stuffed in the pockets of his jeans, and entered the vast living room, where the wide flight of stairs against the far wall connected the ground level to everyone's rooms. But before he was halfway across the lounge, he heard a slow, rhythmic clanking drawing steadily nearer from further up the stairs, followed by what was unmistakably Cid's voice. "Hey—easy! Easy! Don't rush it. Just keep going one step at a time."

Squall's curiosity was definitely piqued. Is he talking to Shion? Is she—? Is she walking?

He ran forward to the foot of the stairs for a better view, stupefied and hardly believing what he saw. With her hand gripping the rail, Shion certainly was walking on two legs and Cid guided her descent from a few paces ahead on the stairs. Squall observed, beneath the girl's calf-length skirt, a metal prosthetic moving in awkward but steady motion with the natural limb. The artificial knee couldn't bend as gracefully as the organic, so she descended the stairs step-by-step—her good leg moving forward one step and her prosthetic coming forward to meet it, rather than to pass it as one without an above-knee prosthetic would do.

"Remember," Cid instructed, "rely on your good leg; keep your weight on the fake one."

Squall rubbed at his bewildered eyes in an attempt to separate the reality from the fantasy. Shion did have a prosthetic leg, but the awkwardness with which she lumbered suggested it wasn't bionic—not connected to any nerves for smooth functionality—but only a crudely humanoid metal peg-leg. Much of it was hidden beneath the girl's skirt, but he could gather from her expression that she suffered no discomfort, meaning Cid had taken great care to ensure his amateur contraption fit cozily for their step-sister…or so Squall hoped.

"Take your time," Cid coached after Shion briefly stumbled. "Don't rush or power through anything. Just keep goin' one step at a time."

Shion's eyes met Squall's, and she couldn't help but smile somewhat shyly now that she had an audience. She hoped the shock he was clearly exhibiting didn't strain his half-bandaged face.

Another voice called from across the room—Aerith's. "Is Shion walking?!"

That roused everyone's attention. Seated at the edge of the table, Aerith was the only one among the diners with a barely sufficient view of Shion's trek. Sudden exclamations of surprise sounded across the table, followed by the clamor of chairs scraping and shuffling as their former occupants bolted from the dining room and into the main hall. They all assembled hastily before the stairs, passing Squall in their excitement. Yuffie, Aerith, Ienzo, and Grandmother Hikari were soon among the bewildered spectators, and soon shouts of joy were cried as everyone congratulated now-flustered Shion.

It was then, among everyone she loved, that Shion's vision shifted suddenly to a scene at once foreign and familiar to her: there stood four of her family-members—Cid, Aerith, Yuffie, and Squall—all much older and gathered by gaslight at the main street of a warmly-hued town of cobblestone under a starry night sky. And Shion was at once herself and…someone else. Though unseen by her limited perspective, the body she inhabited didn't feel as though it was wholly hers, yet inhabiting it felt natural all the same. She sensed two other presences beside her, out of her field of vision, and assumed these were Ienzo and Kairi.

"Look out for each other," instructed the older, scarred portrait of Squall. "Keep your spirits up." Was he speaking to her? Were she, Ienzo, and Kairi going away somewhere?

This sudden occurrence of jamais vu—the first since divining Kairi's name in the hospital ten days ago—stole Shion's focus and balance from her, and a misstep of her prosthetic leg launched her forward from the stairs and safely in Cid's arms, her face planted against his chest.

"Whoa there, kid!" he exclaimed in surprise as the others gasped at her fall in unison. When the shock subsided and everyone knew she was okay, Cid met his mortified step-sister with the smile that always brightened her spirits, "Heh. Looks like we've still got a few kinks to work out."

Shion smiled back, still humiliated from her blunder, but profoundly grateful for being in such loving company. After a year in the Dark Seeker's death-camp, her new home felt like her heavenly reward.

The high-pitched cry of Kairi's infant voice wailed through all nearby rooms of the mansion, and the mood was instantly soured. Shion would have pushed herself back into a balanced position and awkwardly made for Kairi's room had it not been for Grandmother Hikari passing her and curtly affirming, "I'll get her. You children enjoy your dinner."

Six months passed. No breakthroughs had been made for the children's condition.

Ansem stood at a tall window in his private office, overlooking his estate's courtyard. So much time and resources had been spent building and strengthening his armies ever since the prophetic dream of the "Ansem" who plunged the galaxy into Darkness. The people knew to trust the sage-king's visions and the measures he took to meet them—it was how he earned the title "Ansem the Wise"—and the citizens almost unanimously, if not wearily, accepted the increase in taxes for their kingdom's defense. But even still, the increased presence of soldiers, the various new mechs some piloted, and the sky-blotting patrols of the monolithic zeppelins instilled a powerful sense of fear and unease, rather than one of comfort, just as Ansem ruefully expected. For, if this rapid militarization—the heavily-armed forces stationed at every corner and the airships obstructing the sunlight—was their defense, then just how cataclysmic of threat were they expecting, and when would it strike?

This was the weight the aging sage-king shouldered, and he silently dreaded how exponentially it would increase when war finally came.

And yet, Ansem knew a bittersweet glimmer of hope. Against every projected tragedy attempting to crush him, he could see, just outside his window, three of the children he'd rescued enjoying a late afternoon stroll. Perhaps it was because of his inability to have children of his own, but despite his busy schedule, he'd come to think of the orphans as his own family and tried to memorize as much information about them as possible.

The first of the three on their present outing was eight-year-old Aerith Gainsborough, jubilant as ever, yet there was a subtle grace to her in how she carried her parasol that foretold a sort of potential elegance in adulthood.

She held a lively conversation with ten-year-old Shion, from a village where last names were unpracticed. Despite this, the children had all assumed the surname "Hikari" in reverence of the grandmother who took them all in. By now, Shion Hikari was a natural with the prosthetic leg Cid made for her (this was the second, more functional model, in fact), and the long skirts she wore hid the slightly awkward limp in her gait so that none could see her disability on sight.

The third was six-month-old Kairi in the stroller Shion pushed. Now old enough to emote more than discomfort and hunger, Kairi had become notably bubbly and joyful from having such a loving family. And unlike the others, she would grow up with no memories of the Dark Seeker's prison camp. A short layer of red hair was beginning to grow in.

Ansem beheld this precious scene and smiled. But that smile faltered when the children reached the first newly-installed checkpoint, where one of the stationed guards under Dilan's command requested their business before letting them proceed—not unkindly and not enough to dampen the girls' spirits, but just enough to remind Ansem of how bleak the world had become. By the time the sage-king heard footsteps approach him from behind, the sentinel had finished reviewing the girls' papers and making sure it was really a baby inside the carriage and not any sort of hidden explosive. Kairi giggled at the sight of him as his face drew close for the inspection, and her laughter prompted a soft smile from the young soldier. With protocol concluded, he ordered the two on-duty mech pilots to clear a path for the three.

Then, they were out of Ansem's sight.

The old king sighed.

"Master Ansem?" His top scientist called from the doorway.

"What is it, Even?"

He placed an opened envelope on his king's desk. "I've Aeleus' latest report on the mecha suits we assigned his unit. He still claims they're inadequate by his standards, but it sounds to me like he's too stubborn to accept that war is changing."

Ansem turned to face him. "Perhaps he'd be more accepting of these radical changes if he had a hand in shaping them."

Even raised an eyebrow. "You mean, enlist him as a project consultant?"

"Our knight-captain may harbor a very traditional mindset, but he is also one of the greatest warriors our kingdom has ever known. Some historians are already comparing him to Gilgamesh and Enkidu. Perhaps he has a bit of wisdom to pass on to this new generation of mechanized soldiers."

Even sighed. "I'll see what we can do." Then, he brought one of the manila folders held under his arm to his leader's attention, handing it to Ansem so he could follow along. "In other news, we've finally finished the blueprints for a prototype ship for the new space program."

Ansem grunted in acknowledgement. "And I assume it's still too early to estimate when we'll be able to traverse the ether for other worlds?"

"Far too early. And scientific curiosity aside, it's not a project I'm enthusiastic about, either. There's a good chance that many of the worlds we seek to form an alliance with against the Dark Seeker will be significantly more advanced than ours, and though we would ultimately stand to benefit from meeting stronger civilizations, Radiant Garden would no doubt suffer a blow to its morale."

Ansem grinned. "Then we'd best practice our 'humble' faces, Even. We'll want to make a good impression."

The scientist cringed and replied sarcastically, "I can hardly wait…"

There was a short silence as Ansem perused the notes and blueprints for their spaceship prototype. He groaned internally at wondering how many more designs and redesigns would find themselves on his desk through the years if their plans of space travel proved as arduous to realize as he feared. And that wasn't even considering the inevitable impairment of their already-dwindling treasury.

Even spoke again with some hesitance in his voice. "There is…one other matter."

The sage-king briefly closed his eyes and exhaled to manage the oncoming stress. "The children?"

"Yes sir."

He readied himself for the worst. "Let's hear it."

Even handed him the other folder under his arm and reported, "It's as we feared. Their Darkness is spreading. It's still at the microscopic level, but there's far more of it now than before."

Ansem asked wearily, "How goes the cure?"

"We've been trying to use antibodies from the freed adult prisoners to synthesize something, but to no effect."

The sage-king rubbed a hand over his face in an effort to quell the draining effect the news had on his heart. It didn't work. "How long do they have?"

"If their growth continues at its current rate, perhaps several years. If it suddenly turns exponential…"

The sage-king waved his hand and turned away. "I've heard enough."

"But we did recently confirm an oddity that might prove useful," Even persisted.

His hopes hadn't raised, but he asked anyways, "What oddity?"

Even replied, "The infant, Kairi—she hasn't been infected."

At this, the sage-king's eyes shot open and he heel-turned back to face his apprentice. "How is that possible? Only the adults have proven to be immune."

"I can't yet explain it, sir, but Kairi does seem to be somehow immune. Either that or she wasn't exposed to the same elements nearly as long as the other children and so never had the chance for infection. She was only two days old when we shut down the facility. But even still, I'd like to analyze a sample of her blood for antibodies to begin work on a new cure."

"Then do so!—as soon as you are able!"

"Of course, sir. I only needed your approval." He hesitated, then added, "Where is the child right now?"

Ansem nearly blurted the answer with the same zeal as before, but he calmed himself when realization settled in. "Taking an afternoon stroll with two of her sisters. Let them enjoy the rest of their outing. There's no need to interrupt or frighten them." Even noted the wistful countenance that claimed his mentor's wrinkled face then. The weary king concluded, "We've disturbed the peace enough with all this drastic militarization upon learning of the Dark Seeker. The people are fearful enough, and these new security measures have given them anything but peace. They can't even enjoy a clear sky anymore without seeing our warships tainting the heavens. It's very possible that this environment will raise a generation bred of unnatural paranoia. If we can preserve even these three children's sense of tranquility for as little time as we are able, then we owe it to decency to do so."

Even raised an eyebrow. "Then, I should wait until after they come back?"

"After supper," his king advised.

The scientist nodded. "Ah, yes. If I'm administering a shot to an infant, she'll want to have her strength up first."

"And be careful with how you approach her. The Dark Seeker won't gain an advantage on us just because we remember our bedside manner."

Ventus fell to his knees atop the sandy dune, screaming in mindless agony at the heavens as his eyes turned ghost-white and trails of shadow emanated from his fatigued body and heavy robes. The sandstorm intensified.

"Control it! Control it!" Master Xehanort shrieked at him in what seemed simultaneously from inside the boy's skull and from the other side of the universe.

But the growing Darkness was too much for Ven, and at length, after training for what seemed a painful eternity under Xehanort's sadistic guidance to allow Darkness to flow as freely as blood through his body while also controlling it as a weapon—to forge the χ-blade—something inside Ventus broke. He froze then, eerily lifeless and subject to every whim of nature with no will of his own to resist. He fell forward—just before Xehanort could snatch him by the back of his collar—and face-planted against the sandbank's downward slope, and there he fell, tumbling beyond sentient control until gravity finished its work and he rolled, unconscious, onto his side on the desert floor. Xehanort was only seconds behind, equal parts fearful and exhilarated. He reached Ven's immobile form and knelt beside him, quickly turning him over so he could place his hand over his heart for a diagnosis. When the magic scan was complete, the aged Master's silent euphoria became limitless. Six months early…

Hidden behind the coverings of his desert robes though his mouth was, what began as muffled cackles exploded into all-out hysteria. "I've done it!" he bellowed to the shrouded heavens, paying no mind to the millions of sand grains racking him through the mounting wind. "I've broken him! Where are your prophecies now, Seeker?!"

The Darkness inside Ven was killing him, just as the masked Seeker predicted it would, but Xehanort had rejected the chronology and pushed this achievement half a year ahead of schedule. A prophet sees the future, the elderly Keybearer had reasoned, but if the future diverges so radically from what had been predicted, the prophet was either capable of being defeated, or a fraud. Xehanort was satisfied with either, so long as it meant the Seeker was fallible.

Knowing Ven would never control this much Darkness inside him and survive, the aged Master returned to his feet, summoned his Keyblade in a burst of shadow, poised it over the boy's chest, and fired a concentrated beam of Darkness directly into his heart. It was there, amidst a terrible sandstorm and at the brusque extraction of another's inner Darkness six months before the prophet had foretold, that Vanitas would manifest in the realm of the living.

Only time would tell what consequences this change in schedule would bring.

[Author's note] Mechs and militaries in a Kingdom Hearts story? I think my Metal Gear is showing...