Hi. I'm not dead, I promise. c: Put simply, a number of factors conspired to make this chapter overdue. Above all, though, are these: I've been working almost every single day this summer (shock of shocks), and while money's good, it doesn't leave a lot of mental energy to write.
I've also had a killer wall of writer's block. Those of you who follow me on Twitter have seen the product of THAT frustration lol
Anyway, you're not interested in my excuses. I just hope the way I finish this arc doesn't seem half-assed or contrived. /cringe
Enjoy!
The Sleeping Lion's silvery blur and a continuous stream of magic became the tides that formed their path in the Heartless ocean. Before long, light bore the group and their unconscious burden out of the game grid's battleground.
The light faded, allowing Sora to blink away the spots it left in its wake. He glanced around to see if Char's plan to run through the gap had worked; she had succeeded before, but the MCP could have tricked them by not fixing the blemish in the game grid's otherwise smooth walls and closing off its former destination.
Discomfort still crawled along Sora's spine at having to run into total darkness, and his eyes were still smarting after said darkness' abrupt shift to white light, but he could glimpse his surroundings nonetheless. At first, the lack of windows in the room confused him and sent a bolt of alarm tapering into his chest – but then he took in the pink tendril of light floating down from the ceiling onto a platform and the way the floor sloped up into the walls.
Guess it spat us out into the I/O Tower. Char had ended up here after her own misadventure in the game grid, Sora reflected, and the MCP hadn't gotten around to tampering with that escape route.
Suddenly, he remembered the others – and, most importantly, Tron.
He spun around and found Char and Goofy gently lowering the battered man to the ground. Donald lingered close by, as much worry as Sora had ever seen expressed in his anxious eyes and half-open beak. Goofy, who was supporting Tron's legs, yelped as one of those legs slid off the raised part of the ground and threatened to pull him over entirely; but Char quickly reached over and straightened his body.
Sora knelt down next to Goofy and rested his hand on their friend's chest, a bright green glow emanating from his fingers onto Tron. He tried not to wince as he brushed over purple-black gaping out through a slit in the suit. "Heal," he whispered desperately.
As his mana seeped into Tron's bruises, erasing every trace of ugly discoloration as they wove throughout, the man suddenly lurched up with a wheeze. "Tron?" Donald gasped, dashing over to confirm his status.
Relief washed over Sora in a thick delirium when Tron groaned and shook his head. "I… didn't get de-rezzed?"
"Yup," Goofy said with a grin. "Looks like we got you outta there in time."
Hearing the knight's voice, Tron glanced up. A thin, uneven red line stretching across his brow accentuated the bewilderment etched across his features. "What are you all doing here?" he asked weakly.
We need your help, sprang to the tip of Sora's tongue. The phantom vibrations of Leon's Gunblade as it had landed against his Keyblade swept through the boy's arms, along with the unspoken paranoia in that action.
Just when he opened his mouth to speak, though, Char rolled her eyes at Tron. "You're welcome for saving your life."
"Char," Sora chided her before he could stop himself. Surprisingly, she silenced herself at once, though not without a brief glare in his direction.
He turned back to Tron, who rose steadily to his feet. The Cura spell had done its job well; not even a trace of dizziness marred the man's actions, and he fixed a relatively clear dark eye on Sora. "We came because we need your help," the Keybearer explained. "The MCP's been using this Heartless factory to terrorize Hollow Bastion."
Tron clenched his fists. "That doesn't surprise me," he muttered, a growl embedded in his voice. "He's ready to wage all-out war against the Users."
"And that meant you too," Donald assumed.
His hypothesis was confirmed with a nod. "Not long after you left, the MCP found me again," Tron said. As he went on, fear that a virtual being shouldn't have had the capacity for tightened his words. "I've been fighting in the game grid ever since."
"For three days?" Sora asked incredulously. No wonder Tron had succumbed to pain and fallen unconscious before the group's arrival. While Sora had been frantically scouring the worlds for a shortcut to the Organization's stronghold and the girl who had suggested that course of action, Tron had been fighting for his life. Computer program or not, a basic instinct to survive had kept him going until they had arrived.
He looked at Donald and Goofy, whose eyes had both grown wide in shock and sympathy. "Gawrsh, Tron, I'm really glad we saved you then," Goofy said sincerely.
Char breathed out a sympathetic murmur. "Three days," she repeated, one hand pressing gingerly against her side. Mild pain ghosted over her face as she grazed the wound she had sustained in the game grid. "I can't even imagine…"
Donald shook his head. "Tron, I know you're tired, but we need you. Everybody from the User world needs you."
The man's eyebrows lifted. "The Users… need me?"
Sora thought about chastising Donald for disregarding their friend's safety, but in the end relented and just nodded at Tron. While the news about just what they had saved their friend from strengthened his gladness for having pulled him out, Sora knew their friends from outside needed their help as well.
Tron glanced at Goofy, who nodded and smiled, then at Char, who gave a single confirming nod. Then he met Sora's eyes with fresh determination furrowing his brow. "Tell me what I need to do."
"All right!" Sora cheered. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Char rolling her eyes and the slightest upward quirk of her lips. In spite of Tron's encouragement, he hesitated; he had yet to figure out how to explain what Cid had wanted Tron to do.
Some amount of contemplation must have shown on his face, because Goofy took it upon himself to explain. "Our friend Cid made this program that's supposed to take out the MCP," he said. "But he said we needed somebody to help accept it from a terminal in this world."
Tron looked like he was trying not to smile – Sora imagined he was thinking on how he'd missed these Users and their naïve ignorance of this place – but seriousness overtook that at Goofy's explanation. "I understand," he said. "They just need me to send a signal pulse to the outside."
Have Tron send a signal pulse out to us, Leon's deep voice rumbled in Sora's head. Aerith will take care of the rest.
"Yeah, a signal pulse!" he confirmed, bobbing his head up and down.
Donald sighed. "Sora, do you even really know what that is?"
"I know we need to do it! Isn't that all that matters?" The Keybearer frowned in mild indignation.
"Well," Char cut in, "no time like the present, right?" She folded her arms and hiked one thumb in the yellow monitor's direction. "This is the closest terminal." When her impatient undertone met with Donald's hostile glare and Goofy's confused expression, she huffed and waved the same hand. "Excuse me if I want to help save the town I grew up in."
Tron tilted his head to the side at her. "Hometowns… are very important to you Users, aren't they?"
His words calmed the two Disney residents immediately. Donald's shoulders dropped, along with his gaze, and Goofy scratched his chin in an almost guilty manner. Sora thought about his island – the sand oozing up between his toes, the paopu tree's smooth surface beneath his back, the sunset scrawling familiar lines of red and purple and gold across the sky – and felt himself nod. Char sighed, muttered something that sounded like "guess so."
Wordlessly, Tron turned to the terminal and tapped a few choice keys on it. "I'm letting the Users outside know to install the eradication program," he tossed over his shoulder to the others.
A few moments passed, during which Sora found his gaze glued unwaveringly to the terminal's screen. Fluctuating blue bars undulated across the dark surface, and he chafed at not knowing what those meant. "Come on, Aerith," he whined under his breath.
Suddenly the screen flashed, startling the non-virtual beings in the room. Tron simply peered closer at it, then gave a nod of understanding and started toward the center of the room, where the pink light cascaded down. He halted directly beneath it and reached around behind his back to withdraw a disc with glowing blue veins.
"What's that?" Donald asked.
"My identity disc," Tron answered. He lifted it to the ceiling, and it began to float up, pulled by invisible fingers. "It should take in the eradication program, and then we can go stop the MCP."
When the familiar deep voice reverberated throughout the room, the group's fraying nerves jolted them into starts once again. Even Tron jumped and nearly stumbled off the platform; the pink light bathed his confusion and cast shadows along it. "What are you doing?" the MCP demanded. "Do not – insignificant Users, cease in your –"
"Bon appetit," Aerith's breathy voice sang, lighter timbre easily overcoming the MCP's wobbling one. "Don't talk with your mouth full, now." Sora barely restrained his laughter at the healer's flippant words.
He glanced up when the disc floated back down into Tron's waiting grasp. As Tron caught the disc and examined it, the Keybearer asked, "So are we ready to go –"
His question never finished.
It started out as a tremor, something that rippled briefly beneath their feet almost as a warning. Then the MCP let out a roar, something throaty and primordial that clawed up from an untapped fury deep within, and the quakes intensified. Sora's hands flew to his ears, pushed down as hard as they could, but not even that could keep the ongoing scream from penetrating into his skull. Somewhere in the depths of his heart, triumph stirred that this world's tyrant could experience pain such as this – and then the quakes seized his chest and shook even that much out of him.
He freed one hand to cling to the terminal for support, heard his friends' cries of confusion and pain and felt concern for them twitch inside him. Before he could do much more than wonder what was going on, though, light flashed bright enough to force his eyes closed.
And the images that darted across his eyelids answered that question for him.
A gray-haired man clad in a lab coat whose tails swung as he walked with purpose in his stride. The top of his head vanishing as he descended down an invisible staircase, with turrets lining the walls nearby.
The man rounding the corner at the bottom of the stairs and following the corridor. The corridor widening out to reveal a room with high walls and a single monitor. Five coffin-like shapes fanning out behind the monitor. Five other humans turning to greet the newcomer.
The youngest eyeing the newcomer with uncertain gray-blue eyes that peeked out from behind like-colored bangs.
The gray-haired man standing alone in front of the monitor. The light catching off the man's teeth as he smirked.
The man walking up the stairs to the postern. Darkness coating the postern, dotted with vicious gold of the Heartless' eyes.
Vertigo pulled Sora down to his hands and knees as the onslaught ebbed, leaving him dizzy and panting. He looked around at the others, trying to speak and gulp in air at the same time. "Did… did anybody else… see that…?"
Donald nodded and squeezed his eyes shut. "Yeah. Yeah," he repeated, the second time a little steadier. "I wonder what that was all about."
Tron groaned and rubbed one palm over his head. "I think the MCP went out of control and sent us those images of the User world."
Goofy pointed one finger at the ceiling. "That makes sense," he agreed. The initial nausea had subsided from all of them, making his voice less reedy than Sora would have suspected.
He glanced at Char to see her reaction… only for every ounce of curiosity to go into overdrive.
"Char?" he demanded, falling back to his knees in front of her, his hands flying to her shoulders in the process. "Char!"
She lifted her head in perfunctory response to his worry. He nearly fell back at the pure panic he found on her face, but didn't dare turn away. Her mouth had fallen open, brows drawn over her eyes, frozen in horror.
"That was them," she whispered. "Xehanort, and Ienzo, and the other apprentices."
Suddenly his fingers were falling away from her as she leaped to her feet, far too quickly for someone who had just recovered. Sora's hands had just begun to lift in an instinctive response to her stumbling when she promptly steadied herself. "Sora," she said urgently, "we need to leave now."
"But we haven't stopped the MCP yet!" Donald argued. "Why do you think we came back at all?"
Char ignored him, eliciting a muffled snarl from the duck, and didn't take her eyes off Sora. "I always wondered how they got all those Heartless to come after them," she breathed out, sounding as though every word clawed its way past demons in her throat. "Master must've had the MCP set up even then. He saw the whole thing."
"And that's why he went out of control?" Tron asked desperately.
"Most likely." Char nodded. "That was the old lab we used to use for experiments on Heartless and darkness. That's how the MCP is churning them out so fast."
Sora blinked and scratched his head. "Char, I really don't get why –"
The redhead growled loudly and shook her head. "We're responsible for the Heartless in Hollow Bastion!" she shouted. It took him a moment to realize we referred to her and the other apprentices. "I don't know why I need to spell this out for you; it's bad enough knowing our research basically screwed our home over, and that the MCP's using it to hurt everyone." She stopped, groped for words, found none, and simply stared hard at him, as if willing for him to just understand.
Now that Sora thought about it, Char had mentioned something about the MCP using Ansem's research to hurt Hollow Bastion. However, he hadn't spent that long wondering about it; the situation's urgency had tugged him to the task at hand. Ironically, this new situation's direness shoved her offhand remark back into his mind.
Only now did he realize he should have pried the answer out of her, the same way he had slowly, albeit unintentionally, coaxed her into revealing her past with the Organization.
But her raw terror told him the MCP's flashbacks had forced that part of her past into the open already. They provided the final piece that had remained unknown even to her: how the other apprentices had become Nobodies.
The fact that they had done so willingly sent incredulity skittering across his thoughts. Why would you just sacrifice your heart like that?
You did it, too. Remember what you had to do to get Kairi's heart back?
Char's chest rose and fell in a deep breath, as much to calm herself down as to recover the air vertigo had snatched from her. Her eyes softened slightly and she took another breath. "Now let's go," she urged. "Tron, you can handle things here, right?"
The man gave a firm nod. "I think so. At the very least, I can hold off the MCP until you figure out how to destroy that laboratory."
Although bewilderment at Char's usurping Sora's decision-making position should have crossed his voice, Tron sounded resolute in his promise. Not a trace of doubt in what the others were about to do marred that resolve.
Donald huffed and threw his hands up. "You're not even the tiniest bit confused about this?" he demanded.
Tron hesitated, then spoke slowly, his true nature as a scientific being ringing through. "When I needed your help, you didn't hesitate, even though remaining in this world to assist me was illogical," he recalled with a smile. "There's no reason why I shouldn't return the favor to you now."
"Gawrsh, Tron, thanks a lot!" Goofy grinned back.
"You're becoming more like a User every day, aren't you?" Sora surfaced from his thoughts long enough to tease him.
Tron shrugged. "I suppose I am," he said, without a trace of bitterness in his voice. "Now go on. We need to end this."
Char narrowed her eyes in his direction, before she seemed to come to a decision and gave a single nod. "Care to do the honors, Tron?" she queried. Her tone resembled nothing even close to gratitude – in fact, her brusqueness made Donald and Goofy exchange mildly bemused glances – yet the way in which Char regarded Tron held only the smallest chill.
In a way, Ansem the Wise had created both of them.
Within moments, the terminal's light engulfed the group.
Predictably, once they had made it back to Ansem's computer room, Char gave them all of about four seconds to get their senses back. During those four seconds, Sora noticed three things in succession: the light dripped away from his vision; the Heartless factory's blazing pink turrets pulsating in a way that created a muted glow behind the computer screen, the same way as earlier; and Leon and Aerith were gone.
Then soft fingers were wrapping around his wrist and pulling with every ounce of effort they could muster. The fierce grip forced him into a sprint to accommodate its pulling him along, lest he stumble and taste the floor. He gritted his teeth at the pressure on his wrist, almost tugged it free until he looked up and saw the back of a crimson head bobbing with the rhythm of footsteps.
"Where are Leon and Aerith?" Goofy called from behind them, keeping up easily with his long-legged gait. Donald was struggling to keep up until the knight plucked him off the ground, not slowing in the slightest, much to the duck's dismay.
"Put me down!" he squawked, and was ignored.
"I guess things are that bad in town," Char answered tightly. She sounded even more agitated now than she had in the virtual world, mostly due to the fact that it had to force its way past a wall of clenched teeth. Her constant sprint didn't help her voice's steadiness, either.
From his position behind her, Sora could see the doorway Aerith had walked through to speak with them earlier. Fortunately for both Char's fears and his rapidly diminishing ability to match her pace without tripping, the door already hung open.
As Sora passed by it with Goofy and Donald hot on his heels, he couldn't help noticing what looked like scratch marks clawing their way up the door's hinges. Right next to the unmistakable furrow of a blade's talon scored across the surface.
It almost looked like Leon had come back… and then Heartless had forced him and Aerith out into the corridors.
Just how bad had things gotten while he was gone?
If Char noticed her extension's sudden ability to keep up with her, or how she no longer had to drag him behind her, she said nothing of it. Even the back of her head emanated determination, offsetting her back's ramrod straightness.
Past the doorway lay the Heartless manufactory room: a single platform nestled into the corner of a vast expanse. Turrets lined walls that sloped sharply upward and extended out into that endless canyon. On normal days, pink would not rim those turrets' forms; they wouldn't glow a shade that reminded Sora of the day the Beast had lost his senses and turned on him.
Then again, those walls had held no demonic light when Xehanort and the other apprentices had sacrificed their hearts.
Char must have been thinking the same thing, because she began to crush the bones of his wrist even more tightly together in her grip.
But then she let out a sound of satisfaction as the ground dropped away nearby. "Good," she sighed, "the stairs are still here."
"The stairs?" Donald echoed. His feet still dangled down from where Goofy held him up, but he seemed to have forsaken his indignation for now.
Sora glanced over his shoulder and saw Goofy nod. "It must lead to the lab the MCP showed us."
A pause, during which Sora realized he was waiting for Char to make a sarcastic remark on Goofy's obviousness.
Trying not to think about how much her silence unnerved him, he craned his neck to see around her and spotted the stairs. The same ones Xehanort had descended when he had gone to meet his fate.
Xemnas, not Xehanort, he had to remind himself. Somehow, thinking about the man who led the Organization as an enemy proved immensely easier when he could refer to him by his Nobody's name. He started all of this.
And then his brief streak of seriousness died when they began to descend the stairs and the ground beneath him grew uneven. Suddenly, not tripping over his feet proved immensely difficult.
Fortunately, Char noticed she was still pulling him along behind her. She halted briefly in order to release his wrist. Goofy stopped as well, hastily enough that Donald screeched in protest as he swung precariously forward.
"Sorry," she muttered, while Sora fought the mighty urge to check for bruising. It definitely felt like her fingers had broken enough blood vessels there.
When he heard her apology, half-hearted though it sounded, he hastened in a placating response. "Ah, no, it's okay," he said, raising both hands.
That earned him a roll of her eyes from her before she turned back around and resumed her dash as quickly as she had stopped it.
"C'mon, we gotta go help!" Goofy called from behind him.
Sora turned around to give a nod of agreement, only to stifle the movement before he had even completed it. Donald had his eyes narrowed, but Goofy's expression implied a concerned undercurrent powering his resolve. Although the knight refused to explain why that particular power source existed, Sora could figure the reason out for himself.
Char hadn't acted this truly terrified since they had first heard Ansem's name in a different context than the Heartless from before.
The trio followed that particular streak of red to the bottom of the stairs and found the same hallway from the MCP's flashback stretching out in front of them. On the wall across from them, a black-and-red heart etched itself, starkly visible to them even in the half-light: the emblem of the Heartless. Sora shivered as the flickering panels above his head sent skittering pulses of light across the room.
Donald's anger faltered, and he shuddered as well, recoiling back from the room's eerie aura. Goofy said nothing, but he did lower Donald back to the ground with knuckles bulging in their grip on the back of his blue shirt.
Sora began to say "this place is creepy," only for that remark to strangle itself in his throat. At first he thought the shadow twitched as a byproduct to the flickering light source overhead, but then it heaved sharply and he whipped his head toward it.
Normal shadows definitely didn't move like that.
"Oh, crap," Char hissed, diving toward the darkness' source. She swerved in her tracks and dashed into the room just beyond.
In spite of his and the others' fear, Sora didn't need to tell Donald and Goofy to follow after him.
To his relief, the erratic flickers of light only extended to the room's threshold. Illumination garbed the lab itself more brightly, and Sora spent a few rudimentary seconds blinking against the sudden assault on his retinas. Once he grew accustomed to those darting tracks of light and shadow's disappearance, his eyes widened.
True to the MCP's information, unwillingly given though it was, a machine with a monitor stationed in front of it lay before him, along with five pods spreading out behind the machine.
At least, he would have anticipated seeing those pods had darkness not coated the machine – and the extensions that reminded him so eerily of coffins – completely.
"Why did you have to be right?" Donald hissed out behind Sora. If Sora didn't know any better, he might have thought the dread saturating Donald's belligerence turned that remark into a whimper.
Char's shoulders tensed.
As the four of them watched, frozen in place, the shadowy entity curled around the machine before them twisted free and split off into multiple tendrils. Those tendrils then wove together into the pink-and-black globe he had come to associate with Heartless' appearance.
Sora summoned the Sleeping Lion to his grip and fell into his battle stance, glaring down the globes as they swirled together. "If we just have to take out these Heartless," he called to the others, "this should be easy enough."
"How're we supposed to beat the MCP like this?" Goofy prompted.
Sora hesitated, unwound from his tense crouch just a bit. The question was a perfectly valid one, but it called their original objective back into his mind a bit too well. Again, he saw the door to the Heartless manufactory, imagined its aggressors in the form of Leon's Gunblade and Heartless claws, and felt concern twitch violently in his heart.
Just as quickly as he had wavered, though, he clenched that silver hilt tighter to gather his resolve again. No matter what form it took, the Keyblade grounded him and kept him focused on who he truly was and what he was fighting for. "Tron said he'd take out the MCP from the other side while we destroyed his Heartless source," he reminded them, then lifted his head to gaze at Char. The back of her head, at least. "Right?"
He meant only to confirm the reason they had come here in the first place, yet toxic doubt dripped through the cracks in his determination. So much latent fear lay compressed into that one-word question that it worried him.
I know what I have to do… but we didn't think this through very well.
Char didn't think this through.
That was who that fear really belonged to, though – that acid corroding his spirit's foundation. It wrapped around the foundations of Donald and Goofy's courage as well: anger tempered Donald's anxiety, and Goofy still had that desperate desire to trust marring his. But they were eyeing Char with the same worry and dread that he felt.
From the despondent arch along her spine, she understood her mistake as well.
They didn't get more time to dwell on it, though, because the spheres coalesced into all-too-familiar beasts.
For the tiniest fraction of a second, Sora's grip on the Keyblade slackened. The glare he had aimed toward those beings in their nascent form gained a tinge of fear. From the gasps of Donald and Goofy behind him, they recognized the Heartless as well.
Long bodies, demonic horns, pale broadswords…
In that instant, the lab's pale walls and sterile floor vanished in favor of violet caverns and almost-snow that should have crunched underfoot.
Then one of the demons swung its blade toward them. Instinctively, Sora brought up the Sleeping Lion to parry the blow; the sword landed against his Keyblade with an ear-piercing clang, resulting shockwaves trembling along his arms. However, it took only a moment for the Heartless to recover from its equivalent of surprise at not cleaving its prey in half. It yanked its broadsword back and flew in for another strike.
Almost as if that were some sort of signal, the other demon Heartless swept over the room, each picking its own target. One in particular dove forward toward Char, who was still eyeing the monitor with tangible panic. Even though her back was still turned, that emotion was obvious.
No sooner had the thought to go help her flitted across Sora's mind did something crash into him. Pain exploded in his side, but he didn't dare waste a moment finding a healing item in his pocket.
He whirled toward the source. Blazing purple undulated in front of him and wove across his vision; this time, he managed to leap away from the dark energy before it could crack his ribs. The demon Heartless lowered its hand, where that energy dripped from its claws onto the floor. It drew itself up, eyeing him in a way that made Sora narrow his eyes.
It reminded him of how that Sark guy had looked at them just before setting the Heartless on Donald and Goofy. Sharp, cold, calculating.
Thinking of the MCP's lapdog, Sora spun around and glared at the monitor. His injury destroyed some of the fire wound about every word and turned his belligerent query into a series of pants. "Alright… MCP! Where… are you?"
"Is this really the time to antagonize that guy?" Donald shrieked from the other side of the room. He snapped his staff up into the air, and sparks rained down onto the demon's head; it recoiled only momentarily before continuing to advance on him. Sora glanced around and saw Goofy running toward a Heartless, shield first; he turned back and charged toward the one attacking Donald.
As it turned out, he barreled into it on the side that had just been hurt. Sora gritted his teeth and swerved around the broadsword flung in his direction, leaping up to carve a spiral into the demon's head. When he landed, one hand fell to the area just under his ribs.
"You all right?" Donald asked, not wasting time with gratitude. A moment's concentration, and then a green glow snaked past Sora's field of vision. He sighed in relief as the agony dulled.
"Thanks –" he began, only to jolt as white flashed in his periphery. Without thinking, he turned toward it… and ended up with a weight slamming into his forehead as a result.
He heard Donald scream his name – heard, but couldn't see the fear that undoubtedly twisted the duck's face. Terror wove into his heart when he blinked furiously and the darkness coating his vision failed to scatter. It's just the blood, it's just the blood, he repeated frantically to himself in his mind. It's just the –
Then the blood cleared from his eyes. He jumped back to his feet, ignoring the dizziness that pounded him as he did so, and charged toward the nearest demon.
When the Sleeping Lion flashed out in front of it, the Heartless had no time to react; its body cringed under the blows rained down on it from behind, then yielded to Sora's continuous assault. The boy landed with his target having disintegrated behind him.
One down, three to go…
Oh no.
He was pretty sure only four had initially appeared. One to fight each of them.
But two more demons were advancing on them from either side of the coffin-bearing machine.
And as he looked on, Char struck one down with a triumphant snarl. She bared her teeth at the vanishing body, only for movement over by the machine to catch her eye. Sure enough, two more demons had materialized just behind their companions.
"You've gotta be kidding me," Sora breathed.
His words drew Char's gaze, which certainly mirrored his own panic.
Then darkness passed between them and the battle continued.
Again, one of the demons halted his urge to help any of his companions with its blade. He rolled away from the deadly broadsword and felt the aftershocks from its landing ripple beneath his feet. Blood loss from the still-wet wound on his forehead robbed him of his ability to bolt back upright for a counterattack; it replaced that dexterity with faint nausea instead, just strong enough in his belly to work up into his vision and send dizziness throughout his body. He stumbled mid-roll, sending his shoulder on a one-way journey to the floor, and the Heartless took its opportunity to swoop in.
"Oh no you don't!" a female voice barked from behind it. A pause, then the Heartless froze, blade half-lifted in a terminated attempt to impale Sora's skull. It writhed in a series of spasms that signified an assault from behind before disintegrating into dark mist.
Char straightened, shaking a stray, black wisp from one sword. The cuts on her forehead and cheek had reopened, and bright red glistened along her arms, but she had no pain on her face as she looked at him. Only concern. "There's no end to these bastards," she grunted.
Sora gave a nod. He heard a rustle from behind him; he shot to his feet and whirled around, slammed his Keyblade down.
Both for his dignity and for his life, he prayed he wouldn't stumble again. Why he was concerned about what Char thought of him now, he didn't know; but he did know that one more fall could end everything. And he couldn't afford to die at this point. For Riku and Kairi, I need to stay standing.
Even Char let out a gasp when Sora's Keyblade clashed with the nearest surface, the startled noise elicited by her fraying nerves. Sora blinked – which ended up serving as much to clear a few stray drops of blood as to convey his surprise – when he met not golden Heartless eyes, but Goofy's dark ones. Those eyes gazed at the two teens from above flaring golden spikes lining his shield.
"Sorry, Goofy," Sora gasped. All of a sudden, exhaustion had returned, as if knowing it had driven him to attack his comrade had strengthened its resolve. "I just… they're everywhere, and I thought you were –"
Goofy shook his head in silent acceptance of the apology. "I know whatcha mean," he said. "But we ain't got time for this." He whipped his head to the side and charged forward, succeeding in barreling into two demons; one of them twisted in a vain attempt to dodge, but only ended up impaling the Heartless behind it as Goofy knocked them back. The twofold attacks proved too much for them and they dissolved.
However, their triumph at that proved short-lived when nearby, four more dark globes appeared and shaped themselves into their demonic forms.
"You're right," Char agreed grudgingly. "There's too many of –"
"Look out!" Donald screamed nearby. Char's eyes widened and she turned toward his voice, only to gasp and leap back at the sweeping, deadly arc of a broadsword cleared not two inches clear of her body. The demon pulled its blade back and thrust it forward again, but Sora quickly darted in and sliced his own weapon deeply into its flank.
As it drew back, cringing under the force of the blow, a feral snarl rent the air. Donald ran under the Heartless' legs and came to stand by Sora's side, glaring fiercely at the Heartless before them. He lifted his staff with another growl. Firelight bathed the room in flickering orange as the flames shot forth, somehow failing to singe their source. The flames died down at contact with their target, but still lit Donald's glower for a brief moment, staining his white feathers in shadow-tinted fire.
"You're welcome," he snorted at Char.
Char rolled her eyes. "When you deserve it, I'll give it."
Sora glanced over at her. Blood stained the ground behind her, marking her battle path in a shade like that of her hair; the orange glow on Donald's face had exposed multiple red lines running down his neck and stiffening his feathers, and Goofy's grip on his shield was tight enough to coat the yellow handle with blood.
If they had to fight much longer…
"When is Tron gonna tell us he took out the MCP already?" he whined.
"He only said he would hold him off," Goofy pointed out mildly. The seemingly innocent remark lilted upward in octave at the end, giving away the true extent of his dread.
"But then how else are we supposed to –?"
Suddenly bright light flashed in the machine's direction, lining the Heartless' forms in white. The ones closest to that part of the room floated away from it, vaguest tinges of disgust in the eerily synchronized movement. "What was that?" Donald demanded, holding his weapon closer.
Sora was about to voice his uncertainty when a familiar voice resounded, making even the Heartless halt in their advance on the group. Even though endless shadow greeted his eyes wherever he looked, the Keybearer could envision the face of the man – program – speaking, and the thumbs-up he was likely giving.
"I managed to subdue the MCP," Tron called. "Now it's up to you to destroy the Heartless source."
"But how are we supposed to do that?" Sora shouted. It occurred to him that while Tron's voice had somehow crossed the border between worlds, the boy's own voice might not extend that far. Nonetheless, he kept going. Everything else's been possible with that place. "They just keep on coming!"
"Sora, wait," Char said suddenly. "If Tron took out the MCP, then there shouldn't be any more Heartless showing up."
Donald's eyes widened as he realized her theory. "Then they won't reappear faster than we can take them out!"
"But there's so many of them!" Goofy said. He hefted his shield up closer to his body – dragged it, really. He said nothing of it, but exhaustion marked the movement, and more blood dripped from his shoulder down his arm.
Goofy's right. We need to end this fast, before they kill us.
Then his eyes caught sight of the machine, and the monitor resting in front of it. Looking at it, he found himself remembering the images the MCP had sent to all of them in his spasm of pain. Xehanort had walked up to that monitor… typed something in…
And then the Heartless had shown up.
Char followed his gaze and came to a decision before he did. "The monitor," she whispered, then whirled to Donald and Goofy. "We need to clear a path from Sora to that machine."
It was a testament to how tired the Disney residents had grown, that not even Donald offered any obligatory refusal at Char's order. They simply threw themselves into the mass of darkness and scraped together every ounce of strength they had left.
Sora scanned the shadows frantically, seeking a gap in the heaving sea. Then Goofy flung aside one demon and left a path open for him.
He dashed toward the monitor, focused only on the tiny, lit square of light in front of him. Somehow, the Sleeping Lion had found its way in front of him, extending out so it would be the first thing that monitor felt when he reached it.
His eyes narrowed fiercely. You started all of this. The Organization, Destiny Islands' destruction, Riku and Kairi. All of it.
And I'm going to help finish it.
Something white flashed in front of him – something with a black beast attached to it – and he skidded in his tracks. The demon rose up in front of him, but another blur slammed into it from the side and knocked it away.
As it turned out, that blur was a shade of red he had come to know so well.
With his goal just ahead, he leaped, pointed the Keyblade down toward the monitor. Lightning exploded forth from the Sleeping Lion's shaft, shooting down…
…right into that square of light.
Sparks erupted from the screen, danced together in midair and threatened to skate along Sora's skin as he landed just next to the machine. All around him, the demons were disintegrating. They left little more than ashes in their wake before Kingdom Hearts' call swept that, too, away.
He looked around at the others. Donald was simply gaping, while Goofy lowered his shield and sighed in relief. As the two of them exchanged triumphant glances and pumped their fists, the Keybearer felt a tap on his shoulder.
"Hey, um, so…" Char began, then seemed to decide words didn't suffice and surged forward. He nearly jolted back when her hands landed on his biceps, but then her mouth was on his and it didn't matter.
Just like before, just like the last time they had kissed, every coherent thought flew out of his mind, replaced by a haze whose name matched Char's. Unlike last time, though, only the smallest hint of gentleness lingered in her fingers brushing over him; they hooked fiercely over the crooks of his elbows, traces of adrenaline in her tight grip.
This had followed up a physical fight, not a verbal one.
His eyes had just begun to flicker closed when he heard Donald growl in disgust. "Get a room, you two!"
Sora blinked. For the second time that day, reality came surging back clad in Donald's hoarse voice, and he realized what had just happened. He tried not to flinch at the very audible smack of their lips parting as he drew back from Char to face the others. Sometime in the two seconds it took him to pull away, her fingers had slid free of his arms, leaving a decidedly tangible void in their wake.
"Uh," he began, then shook his head and started over. Donald proffered one expectant hand, while Goofy covered his rapidly growing smile with a knuckle crooked over his mouth. "We…"
And then he had to stop there, because at that moment he recalled that their relationship had no real name. Relationship didn't even fit; that implied something public, something that an untimely kidnapping and three days' mulling over had never interrupted. Something that he hoped would tailor itself around his and Char's emotions when he returned home with his friends.
Thinking about Kairi and Riku only opened the gates for another headache, though – he'd been trying to elude their hypothetical reactions for so long, after all – so he redirected his train of thought to now. Now, with his two longtime companions staring at him and Char with undisguised confusion.
Well, he reflected, you knew this couldn't stay secret from Donald and Goofy for very long. You moped around a little too much when she disappeared, so…
Relief cascaded over him when Char spoke up, casting him an impatient eyebrow-raise as she took up the task he couldn't. She misinterpreted his silence as worry for Donald and Goofy's opinions, though, judging by the mild concern embedded in her glance at Sora.
"He likes me," she announced. "The feeling's mutual." A pause, then a rather awkward "Obviously" tacked on to the end of it.
Sora thought of their kisses, of her warmth and the phantom grip of her fingers on his arms and collarbone, and fought the urge to touch his lips. The smile that came to him, though, proved harder to vanquish.
Goofy lowered his hand and shrugged his shoulders, making the redhead blink. She sought out a conduit for her rising bemusement and found it in Sora's eyes again. He just nodded encouragingly at her. "We figured somethin' like that was going on," Goofy admitted.
"You did?" Char blinked again.
Donald snorted. "Yeah, we did," he answered tersely, as if seeing no reason to justify his friend's claim any more than that. When Goofy nudged him in the side, though, the duck planted his feet more firmly and elaborated. "It was hard not to tell. Sora always makes that face at girls he likes."
Sora gave a start. "What face?" he demanded, slapping at his cheeks. They felt a little warm, but not contorted in any particular way. "I don't have a face!" he protested to Char. "Do I?"
One ice-blue eye narrowed. "Hmm… if you mean goofier than usual, then yeah, I can sort of see it." While she kept her tone relatively brusque, the grin on her face deadened that impact. "Then again, considering what happened two minutes ago…"
Sora dropped his hands back to his sides and appraised her through playfully slitted eyes. "Oh, ha, ha," he joked, before looking back to Donald and Goofy. He heard Char exhale behind him and nearly turned to figure out why it sounded so loud; then he remembered the worry on her face when she'd looked at him.
Somehow, in her own strange way, Char had regarded Donald and Goofy's reactions with the same uncertainty that Sora did for Riku and Kairi's.
That's weird. Why would she care what they think?
Maybe because they're her friends too.
The Keybearer almost laughed. Even now that he had her physical form back with him, her sardonic tendencies could still stir inside him.
"So," he said, putting his arms behind his head, "is that – ow." He winced at the sudden throb that lashed out violently in the front of his skull.
"That forehead wound looks really bad," Goofy remarked obviously, craning his head to get a better look at it.
"And I probably didn't help it at all," Char muttered under her breath. Something like contrition resonated in her lowered voice, which Sora found strange, since she had miraculously avoided bashing their foreheads together in her advance.
Then again, had she not directed them down here – into this lab that housed the past and all those demon Heartless whose fury had only plagued the crags and violet sea of the End of the World – he wouldn't have suffered that blow at all.
Yet he couldn't find it in himself to blame her. Partly because the MCP had played more of a role in the endless Heartless waves than she did… and partly because his head throbbed too much for any real bitterness to manifest.
Donald rolled up invisible sleeves, withdrew his staff, and allowed it to work its healing magic on Sora's injury. As the pain transitioned from migraine level to minor twinging, Sora sighed and allowed his body to slump from where it had tensed up in agony. "That's better."
"Tron?" Goofy called, glancing around the room. "We stopped the Heartless! Are ya there?"
Through his skull's ebbing tide of pain, Sora realized he detected nothing but silence. He blinked, ignoring how the collision of his lashes sent a final, white-hot dagger jackknifing into his brain, and followed Goofy's gaze. Other than the machine, the pods – not coffins that's not the right word even though five people Char knew died in there – the crimson pinpricks where their blood had fallen during the fight, and the still-flickering light from the hallway beyond, nothing greeted his eyes.
And then his eyes fell on the crushed monitor, its fragmented glass littering the floor, and he remembered the lightning bolt that had cascaded from his Keyblade into it.
His heart protested against the fear beginning to surface in it, ordering him not to assume the worst; but in light of what had just happened, he found it difficult to keep the terror at bay.
"You don't think…" he began, then stopped. Breathed deep, then started again. "You don't think he was in the monitor, and that I…"
"Oh, come on," Char snorted, "that's not how computers work and you know it, Sora."
Although her derisive sharpness disguised a tremble's edge, Sora found himself only hearing the overbearing abrasiveness. "Well, then tell me why he's not answering!" he snapped back.
"Yeah," Donald added, folding his arms and glaring at Char with relish. "Why else wouldn't he tell us what's…"
His fury died off then, and he stopped, glowering down at the ground as if it could assuage the dread likely rising up and placing a chokehold on his rage.
Goofy looked anxiously from boy to girl to duck and lingered on the very latter. "We shouldn't think the worst happened," he pointed out. "Why, I'm sure Tron's just waitin' to surprise us!"
His optimism sounded too strained, though.
Geez, Sora thought with self-deprecation gnawing in his mind, it's like the day we thought we lost him all over again.
Maybe that was why the knight could at least don a positive mask for his friends, though: because he had played the victim and not the mourners and therefore held no past memory of the terror and grief and disbelieving rage that losing a friend brought.
Next to him, Donald uttered a defeated whimper, and Sora knew he was thinking the same thing.
"Sora? Are you down here?"
Yuffie's voice floated down to them from the top of the staircase, somehow managing to sound airy even with concern sharpening its normally carefree pitch. Rapid footsteps punctuated her question, and even as she finished speaking a familiar dark-clad shape popped up in the doorway. Aerith stood close behind, hands clasped in front of her.
Yuffie spent a grand total of three seconds on her scan of the group before darting forward. Aerith followed at a much calmer pace, though her eyes grew round in worry as she took in Sora and his companions' crestfallen faces.
"Things are calming down outside!" the ninja chirped. "The only Heartless left are of the local variety. And it looks like there are fewer than before." She clapped Sora heartily on the back, making him lurch forward and almost add another head wound on top of the recently healed one. "Good job, guys!" she chirped.
Aerith tilted her head to the side as she looked from one fighter to the next. "You don't look very happy," she observed. Her gaze lingered on Sora without a trace of accusation: just gentle curiosity, and the unspoken promise to help if she needed to. Seeing the latter on her face, Sora found himself grappling with sudden desperation.
Because she couldn't help, if Tron had really…
With the healer's remark, Yuffie finally seemed to notice that the group's happiness failed to match hers. She pulled back from Sora and eyed him with one eyebrow quirked up. "Yeah, why the long faces?" she pressed, shoving one finger close enough to him that it duplicated in his vision.
Sora drew back so his personal bubble remained intact again; his weak amusement at her attempt to cheer them up faded within seconds, leaving him despondent and searching for a way to explain once again.
"We're fine, but…" he trailed off. Goofy drew himself up, ready to interject, but ended up drooping down again and sighing in resignation. Somehow, the fact that he had given up even that small bit of hope stung Sora even more.
"Tron disappeared," Donald explained with a sigh embedded in his words.
Char winced in Sora's periphery, a reaction that he understood all too well. Spoken aloud like that, Tron's fate scraped more harshly at his chest and left a much more raw pain in its wake. It sounded more real.
I told myself I wouldn't lose any more friends, he thought, but the frustration accompanying that reminder felt hollow.
Suddenly alarms began screeching overhead, startling everyone in the room. Goofy's hands flew over his ears immediately, fingers closing over his long ears to tug them down and try to block out the sound. Donald jolted, and Char's shoulders jerked in surprise.
Yuffie looked at Aerith and bit her lip nervously. "You don't think…?"
But Aerith only shook her head before turning on her heel and making a beeline for the staircase again.
Even amid his grief over Tron, Sora immediately traced the blaring's familiarity. The system had wailed like this when Donald had first awoken the MCP, however unintentionally. Goofy had covered his ears the exact same way that day, too.
But Tron stopped the MCP; how could he still be here?
Tugged forward by a sudden sense of urgency, Sora sprinted after Aerith with the others hot on his heels. He swerved around the corner; the staircase's bottom step forced a startled hiss out of him as he stumbled over it; righted himself just in time and raced after the bobbing tail of Aerith's braid as she reached the top.
The Heartless factory's pink glow had disappeared, he noted vaguely when they passed it by.
Aerith slowed her pace in time to come to a graceful, albeit massively restrained, halt in front of Ansem's computer. She narrowed her eyes, and as the others skidded to a much less serene stop close to her – Yuffie barely avoided bowling Aerith over with her own haste – she appraised the screen.
Sora peeked over her shoulder, grasping the keyboard's edge to keep steady and heaving in gulps of air. Char and Yuffie crowded in on his other side, while Goofy and Donald stood next to Sora, the latter balancing himself on his tiptoes to see properly.
All the while, the alarm blared around them.
"Can't you figure out how to make that stop?" Char begged Aerith, more desperate than irritated.
"Your master made this," Donald pointed out. Every bit of annoyance that Char managed to not channel had condensed into his own snide words. "Don't you know?"
Char bristled at the pointed reference to her. "I wasn't the one who messed with this thing!" she growled at the duck. "I didn't know anything about the virtual world, remember?"
Sora groaned and rubbed his neck. "Guys, can you not fight for ten seconds?" he complained. "It's making my headache even worse." And it was true; the combined influences of his head injury and Char and Donald's unfailing vitriol toward each other resurrected his migraines into tangible forms of the demon Heartless inside his skull.
"Sora's right," Goofy managed, tugging his ears down in visible discomfort, "we gotta figure out what's –"
At that moment, the room fell silent. In the wake of the alarm's absence, Sora could hear the computer's low hum. As much as the hum had unnerved him before, he found himself preferring the evidence of the device's exertion over the howling alarms.
Then a familiar tone echoed – one that would have passed as mechanical, had subtle hints of emotion not marred the façade – and summoned delighted gasps from everyone in the room.
"Greetings, friends." Tron's voice carried a warbling, almost digital quality to it now, but it was unmistakably his, and Sora felt a grin spread across his face. "System is up, and ready for User input."
"Tron, you're okay!" Goofy cheered, pumping his fist with a toothy smile of his own.
Donald slumped down onto his webbed feet in undisguised relief, only to jolt and puff himself back up. "Don't do that!" he snarled at Tron. "We were worried sick about you!"
Sora glanced at Aerith, who nodded and stepped back so he could look at the screen. He peered at its illuminated depths, squinting against the influx of artificial light, and cocked his head to the side. Other than a few squares scattered across the screen – what were those shapes called, windows? Technology still made no sense to him – it looked innocent enough. "What happened?" he asked.
A pause, during which he imagined the program shrugging, and then Tron spoke. "I'm not really sure," he confessed. "Some sort of energy came over me when I defeated the MCP, and then the next thing I knew, I was at his control panel."
Sora blinked. "Control… panel…?"
Tron chuckled, the sound vibrating throughout the room. "Well, at any rate, it seems like I'm the new MCP now."
"No way," Yuffie gasped, leaning closer.
"So what about Sark?" Char piped up from Sora's other side. He twitched in surprise; throughout all the commotion and her elected silence, he had forgotten she still stood next to him. She was surveying the screen as though Tron stood in front of them in its place, gaze leveled intensely toward the topmost window. Sora couldn't identify her emotions – or, moreover, trace the cycle they had taken in her few minutes' silence – but genuine curiosity wrinkled her brow.
"Sark?" Aerith echoed, glancing questioningly at Sora. Yuffie tossed a rudimentary look over her shoulder at them before returning to her fascination with the computer screen. She folded her arms a moment later, as if having adjusted to Tron's new position of power over Hollow Bastion, and turned to the others.
Noticing Donald and Goofy give a simultaneous twitch, Sora answered the healer's question. At the same time, he couldn't help but experience a sympathetic pang toward the others; they had suffered the worst of Sark's wrath, after all. "The MCP's second-in-command," he told Aerith. "Just a really bad guy."
Char snorted. "Understatement of life. Which is why I'm asking, Tron… You took him out, right?" She quirked one eyebrow at the screen. Sora almost pointed out that gesture's pointlessness – it wasn't like Tron could see it – and then he remembered the MCP had sustained enough power to watch Donald step across the keyboard. If Tron had truly usurped the tyrant, unintentionally or not, he should have received those powers as well.
Static rippled across the sigh that curled out of the monitor. "That was the hard part," Tron admitted. "The program your User friends made only weakened the MCP. It never inhibited Sark's functions."
"So the real fight was with Sark," Goofy guessed, propping one elbow against the keyboard's edge.
"Precisely." Sora imagined Tron nodding in confirmation.
Yuffie blew out a sympathetic sound that stirred stray pieces of hair on her face. "Must've been hard."
Again came a pause, during which Char narrowed her eyes and Aerith tilted her head at the screen. Tron's reticence implied something else beneath his triumph's surface, something that had taken the suitable pleasure at victory and shredded its majority to ribbons; that something's name eluded Sora, but clearly Char and Aerith understood its identity.
From the uncertain glance Goofy threw Sora's way, he did as well.
Sora didn't want to admit it, but… that something seemed kind of like regret.
"Well, at least you won!" the Keybearer told Tron. He almost winced at how falsely happy he sounded; the clumsy attempt to change the subject thudded in every word's unceremonious impact against the silence. Even Yuffie cast an uncomfortable look in his direction.
Donald nodded enthusiastically and balanced himself on his tiptoes to better reach the computer. "And now that that jerk MCP's gone, the alarms won't go off!" As he spoke that cheerful remark, he brushed a rudimentary hand over the keys on the keyboard.
True to his prediction, the alarms failed to announce Donald's transgression. The sound that followed, though, wrought even more of a startling effect than its predecessor: Tron chuckling, the sound light with surprise, as though the duck's simple move had… tickled him.
"Tron… did that…?" Sora trailed off, blinking.
"Tron is ticklish?" Goofy filled in. He reached out and poked the long bar stretching at the bottom of the keyboard, which eked out a quiet tap in response to the pressure. As Tron's laugh rang out again, this time tinged with more than a bit of panic, Sora felt a smirk rise up and curl his lips.
Judging by Donald's dark snicker and his rubbing his hands together, the same devious thoughts were running through his mind.
"Wait – no – stop!" Tron begged, but neither duck nor boy complied. Tap, tap, tap, went the keys beneath Sora and Donald's fingers; the new MCP's laughter almost drowned out the sound.
Char shook her head and sighed. "You guys are evil…"
"Look who's talking!" Sora retorted playfully, grinning over his shoulder at her. At her ensuing glare, he barely reined in his body's visceral reaction of recoiling, the restraint expressed only in his fingers' twitch. His fingertips brushed over the top of the keyboard, making Tron's tickled laughter escalate; but he didn't take his gaze off Char's.
Finally she relented and allowed him a smile of her own. "Fine then, Sora," she conceded. "You got me there."
For a moment, he could only gape at her, startled at a snarky remark's failure to escape her. What didn't waver, though, lay in the willing surrender quirking her lips upward and softening her icy eyes into something he remembered.
Suddenly, he had to fight the urge to brush his fingers over his lips and respond to her phantom warmth's return.
He heard a teasing chuckle nearby – too high-pitched and mischievous to have come from Tron – and turned just in time to see Yuffie smirking at him. Flustered, he fell back, managing to catch himself at the edge of Ansem's computer. While Char didn't share that drastic reaction, her arms dropped from their folded position and faint red dust spread across her cheeks.
Sora braced himself for a teasing remark, a preparation accompanied by heat's dance along his spine. Much to his surprise, though, she said nothing of the emotions occupying both teenagers' faces. "I think Tron's been hanging around those guys too much," the ninja commented to Aerith.
"I don't know… Maybe that was why the old MCP got so angry when Donald stepped on the keyboard," Aerith suggested, completely straight-faced.
"You think that bastard was ticklish, too?" Char sighed. "Give me a break."
Sora thought of the MCP snarling at them and writhing under every unwelcome sensation Donald's webbed feet streamed through the keys. And for some reason, thinking of that tyrant in such a vulnerable position made him laugh.
It didn't take long for Yuffie's raucous cackles to join in, strong enough for her to have to fold her arms about her abdomen just to restrain her amusement. Aerith allowed a tiny smile of her own to cross her face.
At last, Donald lowered his hands from the board, apparently having sated his desire to torture Tron. A few leftover sniggers still escaped him in erratic spurts, though. Goofy looked as if he were struggling between amusement and sympathy; in the end, the former won out, and he turned away with conspicuous giggles.
Incidentally, Tron's laughter faded out and he spoke like he hadn't just almost gotten tickled into the same oblivion where he'd banished the former MCP and Sark. "I found something when I took over for the MCP," he announced, drawing all six pairs of eyes to the screen. Goofy pivoted back around, while Aerith blinked curiously and Yuffie's expression faded into something like normal eagerness.
"Found something?" Goofy echoed, tilting his head to the side.
"Yes." Cue a nod from the man they couldn't see. "I think I'll be able to show it to you, like the MCP accidentally did earlier."
"What is it?" Donald asked.
"The town, back when it was first built," Tron explained.
That drew the Hollow Bastion natives' attention: ninja, healer, and dual wielder alike. Yuffie's smile, diminished from before as it had grown, fell from her face immediately; Aerith's eyes widened; and Char leaned forward just slightly, fingers tightening in their grips on her arms and showing her interest's true extent.
While the room remained gripped in silence – silence that felt even more hollow and conspicuous than it should have, considering laughter and conversation had filled that hollow to the brim moments before – its occupants' response to Tron's proposal was obvious nonetheless. And the new MCP took their desires to heart and obliged them.
Unlike before, when the images had pounded into their skulls and replaced any coordination with dizziness and nausea, every depiction of the past arrived on a gentle current. That current wound almost tenderly about Sora's mind and seemed to transcend the barrier between mentality and physicality. It soothed even the occasional throb in his forehead, as though reflecting its bearer's intent.
And this bit of reminiscence carried much less bitterness and pain than before.
Gushing waterfalls, pouring forth in cascades of mingling blue and purple. Mossy walls rising up, unbroken, around the falls and their small conduit below.
Trees scattered about a garden, with long grass that swayed gently to an intangible breeze.
A massive gate adorned with golden symbols, set into the wall of an impressive castle. Two burly guards, both clad in the same dark blue suit, stationed in front of it; one with dreadlocks and the other with shorter, wiry hair. A single pipe running along the adjacent wall, one that had yet to acquire more exposed companions.
Buildings surrounded with people, who had gathered around to purchase goods and hold conversation with one another. A duck with the smallest hint of whiskers smiling amiably as he extended his feathered, white hand to the possible customers milling about.
Grassy platforms sloping down into a courtyard emblazoned with a symbol in the middle. Smaller waterfalls trickling down the walls lining the courtyard
A woman with blue hair walking through the courtyard, a notably desperate look in her sapphire eyes, as though seeking out something with everything in her heart.
Around him, the others were emerging from the deluge of the past back to the present: Donald shook his head, dazed expression offset by a light of recognition; Goofy blinked, one hand already placed on his chin in thought; Yuffie groaned aloud and glanced around, as though confirming she was in fact still in Ansem's study.
For Sora, though, leaving that warmth behind proved more difficult. That last flashback – the one with the woman – jammed itself at his eyelids' forefront and refused to leave. Her sense of purpose, that confident stride, struck a chord in his heart: one of familiarity and nostalgia, but one whose resounding timbre in his chest oddly resembled that of pain. He brushed fingers over his chest, as much to assuage that pain as to consult the other part of his heart – but no, Roxas was giving a faint aura of distinct refusal inside him.
Before he could dwell on it further, though, Aerith spoke, so quiet he had to strain to hear. "You know, this town used to have another name."
"You mean way back when?" Sora twitched, having not realized another strange woman had entered the room. Funny, considering the talons summoned by the blue-haired woman's image were just now loosing their squeezing grip about his heart. Then he spotted Char's mouth moving again and felt his jaw strain to drop.
It didn't sound like Char. Her voice sounded too… nostalgic. Distant. Like some vestige, some last remaining shard of the girl who had stared so longingly at this castle's image on Hollow Bastion's horizon and denounced him as nothing but a key-wielding dork had made her appearance.
Then again, Sora reflected, the past could do that kind of thing to someone.
Aerith nodded. "Yes." She paused and closed her eyes, as though inhaling one last phantom remainder of air not polluted by construction or the afterglow of the defense mechanism's orange light; as though savoring that final image of what the town used to be, and drawing strength from what it could again become.
Then her eyes opened and she spoke the town's old name.
"Radiant Garden."
THERE. THEY KISSED AGAIN. Now to wait 20 more chapters for even that much. /shot
And yes, I did feel the need to include that Aqua cameo. This fic isn't COMPLETELY AU in regards to Birth by Sleep, guys.
Let me know how this was!