The World That Never Will Be Chapter 4
by the infamous and notorious tocasia
8/17/2018
CHAPTER 4
Sephiroth studied Master Aqua, who'd regained a semblance of composure and was seated on the fountain bench consulting her charm. He wondered if she'd ever stop blushing at him.
He waited for her to ask how he knew there was still a Realm of Light. But she didn't. She simply accepted his word.
He'd been intrigued by the Door to Light idea. It now seemed... less likely to lead anywhere.
Without that, how was Master Aqua useful to him?
...did she have to be? She was interesting.
Was she to be a toy, a passing amusement like the rest? Did he want her fear? respect? devotion?
The ambient darkness had taken its toll on her mind, mazed corridors of coiled shadow everywhere unlocked. She could not resist his influence. He might not have to use any magic to do it.
To her credit, she didn't trust him. But she found him attractive, and she was lonely. Vulnerable.
She was aware of her state of weakness, and probably hated it.
He would, if he were her.
What an odd comparison! Ha! He was... Surely he could never be as worn down as Master Aqua?
There had been Nibelheim.
Was that the basis for his sympathy? He'd acknowledged her strength and loneliness... and lapse of self-control. She would not normally have run into his arms.
A similarity, buried so deep.
Sephiroth remembered fear of loss, fear of failure. Things he now thought of only as tools.
As she was, also; material for his use. Though he'd chosen to spare her thus far, death at his hands, to deny the usurping darkness her essence, was Master Aqua's destined end. When he tired of her.
But there could be a different ending, that would spite the darkness just as well...
It was a shock, realizing he was contemplating seriously a less selfish altruism: an end to suffering in which she survived, rather than merely a generous reduction of what he could inflict.
She could not possibly comprehend the privilege of his mercy.
He had power here, in this realm of despair.
Right now, she could die in purest agony, screaming his name in ecstasy after he'd learned what he could from her. Another for his choir.
If he feared her future strength, that was the proper choice.
That or enslavement. Keyblade users were formidable. Would she retain her weapon under his control? Sephiroth could test it. Pretty Master Aqua, another puppet for his strings! She could dance for him, beautiful destruction, harvesting the worthless at his orders. He could watch through her eyes as she fought. He would know what it was like to wield a keyblade, he'd feel everything she did. Her reserves of magic would be available to him. Her knowledge his. Entirely, his. His champion, forever.
The darkness, so close to shattering her mind, held open the door for him. It would be more difficult to do in the Realm of Light, once she recovered.
He'd hesitated.
He didn't make mistakes. Was her recovery what he wanted, then? Master Aqua's miraculous salvation? He was willing to forgo worship for...? She'd called him a hero, a part Sephiroth had not played in a long, long time. Something he hadn't admitted he missed...
Maybe it was.
Her talent, if restored to health... he already admired...
He could not have an equal. But a Second... enough time had passed that maybe his memory of Zack wouldn't be offended. Sephiroth could never replace what he'd thrown away that day, but...
She was the nearest to being worthy of his favor that he'd encountered since.
"You truly are lucky, Master Aqua."
"...?"
"Shall we move on?"
The hug was nice. More than nice...
She had to stop thinking about it!
She'd panicked. She should apologize but wasn't actually sorry. A treacherous bit of her brain wondered what she could do to get him to hold her again.
She'd shown him the lightwell and... he hadn't seen anything.
But the light was definitely real! When she stood up, it rippled around her ankles like the surface of a puddle. Aqua knew if she hopped, it would splash. The little droplets in the air would hang like fireflies for a while, or snowflakes reflecting rainbows. Something harmless like that. Not cinders from a bonfire gone astray.
Sephiroth seemed content, or amused, to let her lead. It was hard to know what he was thinking.
He couldn't see where the light gathered, but he believed her, anyway! Finally, someone trusted her! Why hadn't Terra and Ven...?
She'd messed up. She wasn't about to tell Sephiroth to go home. Maybe he didn't have one to go to either...
They left the vacant cobblestone streets behind, heading for the winding road up the hill to the castle. The Realm of Darkness's malice intervened. Gravity tilted, step by step, nauseating, until the path sloped down instead. The castle disappeared, a false mirage in an icy desert. Diamond dust crunched underfoot; they were walking on a frozen sky or the mirror of an icebound lake. Translucent. It stretched to the horizon, which was stuck in a perpetually glaring, rosy dawn.
Sephiroth and Aqua picked their way between needle-sharp fang-like stalagmites, avoiding huge dark shapes looming in the depths beneath.
Her mind kept insisting it was sweltering hot, that the ice was timeless fire melting her boots and she deserved to feel pain.
"Who are Terra and Ven?"
"How did you...?" She hadn't said their names...
"You talk to yourself. You mention them when you look at your charm. Are they the friends whose lights guide you?"
How much had she given away? She should be ashamed... Of course she thought of her friends a lot! There wasn't shame in that!
Sephiroth didn't mock her embarrassment. "It's alright. I don't plan to hurt you, or them. You can tell me the story if it helps."
Why not? It would be such a relief...
"Ven and Terra and I... we grew up together, training with Master Eraqus. Those are some of my earliest memories."
Aqua glanced back nervously. He was listening.
"We were always climbing and falling off of stuff; it's a miracle we didn't fall off the island."
"We trained all the time. I usually beat Terra in races. I pretended to feel sorry when he was upset but the truth is I was really proud of winning."
Sephiroth didn't interrupt, so...
"Sometimes Master Eraqus took us on field trips to other worlds. The best was when we got to play in the snow. And later, when we got to practice flying with our gliders!"
"I lit Terra's birthday cake on fire once. I swear it was an accident! I just meant to do the candles!"
"We got in trouble. I, um, forgot what we did."
Sephiroth snorted. Aqua smiled. The muscles in her face ached.
"Terra tried to take the blame, but it was my fault, too. I didn't want him to lie, so I confessed too. He was so mad!" she almost laughed, "He'd wanted to rescue me so he could be a heroic knight in shining armor like in the stories and brag about how many buckets of water he had to carry up and down the stairs as punishment. I had to scrub the cold marble floor in the main hall. I remembered a sweet song about nightingales, and it got stuck in my head."
She worried for a moment if Sephiroth was going to ask for the words. He didn't. Phew.
"Ven got bored and came looking for us. He ran to find us; he skidded on the wet floor and fell over. He wasn't hurt, and said it was fun, so we were slip-sliding around, and Terra dumped a bucket on Ven's head and I laughed too hard because the bubbles! and Master Eraqus heard and we were sent to our rooms and grounded for a week."
"We stubbornly snuck out every night and told ghost stories."
"Terra boasted he could beat me with the wooden keyblades while giving Ven a piggyback ride," Aqua let her smile turn smug, "...he couldn't. Terra's really strong but carrying Ven made him even slower."
"I was better than them at a lot of things, and snobby about it, cause I was a kid. Terra was jealous even though I tried to be nice. I didn't view Ven as competition; he was younger than me. Maybe I should've taken him more seriously. Maybe I didn't show them well enough how important they were to me..."
"I guess, no matter how much time you spend with someone you love, when they're gone, it was never enough."
"What happened to them?" Sephiroth said.
Useless regret reignited as rage! "It was all Master Xehanort's fault! He did something to Ven... an awful thing, something you're not supposed to do. He unlocked the darkness in his heart."
"Can you do that?" Sephiroth asked.
"I wouldn't!"
"Hmm. You speak of Ven as if he's still alive."
"Yes, but he won't wake up! I'm supposed to find a way... And Terra... Master Xehanort forced Terra to become a host for his heart, in order to steal his body. Terra fought, so Xehanort dragged him into darkness to make it easier to break his will. I took the fall instead, I sacrificed myself, I was so stupid! I don't know what happened to Terra. He should be in the Realm of Light. If he's down here... it's all been for nothing," Aqua shuddered, trying not to relive her suffering. "Master Xehanort is strong. I have to get back and help Terra. And Ven. If I'm too slow..." She refused to dwell on the rest: They'll die. I might be too late already.
Tears had abandoned her long ago, or she would've cried. "I thought it would be good to be a keyblade master, but everything went wrong so fast."
Aqua waited for Sephiroth to say something, anything. Please, I need to know I didn't just recite this to myself.
His low and soothing voice silenced her doubt. "Thank you for your story, Master Aqua." The way he said her name short-circuited her reason. "I hadn't heard of Xehanort, although the ability to break wills is an uncommon one. The mind is a specialty of mine; I may be able to help your friend."
He's going to help me?
"Yes, I am."