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CHAPTER 66:
AURORA BOREHOLE
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Author's Notes: The music for this Chapter is, in order of scene: 'Ormus Stronghold,' from the XENOSAGA Episode 2 GameRip; and afterward, 'To the Last Place,' from the XENOSAGA Episode Three Original Sound Best Tracks. Both compositions can be found in KINGDOM HEARTS Insider's MP3 section.
Sora reaffirmed the walls keeping his feelings, and thoughts, away.
Any reminiscences of the searing throbs and acrid stenches Yozora's Heartless had caused him the first time they'd met, astoundingly deft and shrieking debilitating with a drawn anguish that was practically too keen for him to even register the pain, even after what he'd witnessed, and endured, from Xehanort, Terra-Xehanort, and Anti-Aqua, departed, as well.
Sora retained his guard, but he kept his voice warily companionable.
"In that case, talk away," Sora returned.
"That won't convince me to not visit Lacuna with Empyreal, though."
Yozora's Heartless shrugged.
"As long as it doesn't prevent me from discovering the answers about myself I seek, answers I can assure you, unlike Xehanort's Heartless, I do not believe solely lie within darkness, that's fine with me," Yozora's Heartless said levelly.
That much was an improvement over Xehanort's Heartless, at the least.
Sora had no doubts the willingness of Yozora's Heartless to search for answers in light, darkness, and any other shades of light caused him to be far more dangerous than Xehanort's Heartless, in his own shapes, though.
"I, and my scouts performing reconnaissance for me, are searching for answers about myself, and they're what I'm worried about."
"But they let their hearts become misted over by the long curly fluffed thoughts of addled pates, and they became convinced, as long as the darkness kept them in place, that would ensure everyone but their enemies had a place."
"Behold the endless abyss!"
Kairi
Riku
Donald
Goofy
Anna
Roxas
Jiminy
Why won't you please keep it away
Why won't you please stop it
Sora pushed the sentiments, and thoughts, about the possibility, aside again.
"Is that what Lacuna is?" he questioned.
"Entire fixation on your own light, without any shimmers of the light of others, or the world, or the realm, or the World, showing someone what they believe to be a path through the darkness?"
"Yozora doesn't testify to anything.
"He doesn't want to unlock doors or connect anyone, he just wants to seal them shut forever and sever everyone's bonds so they're trapped in eternal lonely cold.
"The New World that he believes in is made up of nothing but the same empty halls and rooms and castle and corridors that I've lived in for most of my life because Mom and Dad didn't want the rest of Arendelle to know about Elsa's magic."
Sora extremely highly doubted Yozora's Heartless would be willing to say anything back to this, even if he had remembered, or he knew, a meaningful amount of the answer to this, now.
Though, he wasn't going to pass up this chance.
"Or, is that what Synchronicity Perceptual is?" Sora asked, keeping his words companionable.
Mild annoyance assumed itself on Yozora's Heartless' expression.
"I'm familiar with the term, so I'll say no, to both," Yozora's Heartless replied, keeping his tone level.
"But we were talking about Lacuna.
"You're correct, in a manner of speech.
"That's because, though, hearts within Lacuna have no one but themselves to believe in, or search for."
Kairi
Riku
Donald
Goofy
Anna
Roxas
Tidus
Selphie
Wakka
Jiminy
nowaypleasenowaynowaynowaynowaynowaynowaynononononononononononononononononopleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasenonopleasenonononononononononononononopleasepleasenopleasewayno
Ven
Xion
Elsa
Mickey
Yen Sid
Leon
Cid
anybody
somebody
pleasenopleasenonononowaynono
no
not
please
this
please
notthis
no
thisnot
no
notthis
noway
no
no
not
no
notthis
this
no
not
please
no
"That's the heart's true nature – to never, ever let go."
"Having no one to turn to was the worst kind of hurt."
"So what happens when those bonds are stretched to their limit? When they are worlds apart, can cloth and plastic hold on to their hearts?"
"The New World that he believes in is made up of nothing but the same empty halls and rooms and castle and corridors that I've lived in for most of my life because Mom and Dad didn't want the rest of Arendelle to know about Elsa's magic."
"A castle of isolation
"And it looks like I'm the Queen
"All I needed was a wedge to widen the divide – someone like you to fill them with distrust and doubt."
"But if the light of friendship is a form of power… the darkness of being alone is a power… even greater."
The exhausted resignation that drew all the vitality from Sora's body didn't sap anything from his guard, or his capacity to keep his physical guard up.
However, he couldn't think of a single path leading to a light that gave him a reason to keep any cheerful brooks in his words.
Sora's tone was quietly tired, and resigned.
"Lacuna lies below the foundations of the endless abyss because it's a realm of complete loneliness."
Ka
Kairi, and his friends still needed him to keep his sentiments, and thoughts, walled to the side
This was why Vanitas had chosen Toy Box to broadcast the Yozora commercial at.
This was why Sora had known what Lacuna was, all along, in the same way that Kairi, and Riku, and Roxas, and even whatever the genuine Yozora sought from Elsa, and the Kye-Blade, had been there all along.
Sora had spent an entire year there, with literally no one else to turn to.
Even with his belief Kairi, or Riku, or both, would bring him home another time, that had still frozen Sora's own heart enough, until Anna had thawed it, Sora had even lost sight of his success at ending the Second Keyblade War in a lasting compromise, not enduring judgment.
Sora kept his voice from cracking, or breaking.
While Sora remained totally aware of what was within, and outside him, and that the fatigued, and resigned voice, was his own.
"Lacuna, the Gap Amidst Transparency, is the realm of emptiness.
"What, if anything, do you know about what the heart of this realm, that I assume is what emptiness absent of even emptiness genuinely constitutes, is?"
"I haven't learned any more than I knew when we first crossed blades, and beams, about any of the realms at the end of the roads from that intersection," Yozora's Heartless answered, his tone unaltered from before.
Sora let the rush of disappointment rise.
"I've learned how to scry this body's memories, to an extent, enough I can confirm Empyreal really is blindly following the orders of at least one of the Foretellers, while he really is laying the groundwork for a mutiny against at least one of them."
Sora pushed down the mixture of rising emotions at the concept one of Yozora's selves was able to eavesdrop on the heart, itself, of one of his worst victims, if not his worst one.
"That's all, though, I've been able to see into his heart.
"Now for my attached catch."
Sora shifted the Kye-Blade, and Childhood's Laughter, repositioning them to better match what he could remember of the movements, and impacts, of the strikes Yozora's Heartless, and his contraptions, had delivered before.
"I'm still hunting down all of the specifics about who, and what, I am," Yozora's Heartless continued, and there was now a set determination to his voice.
"But I've learned enough by now to know, sooner or later, I need to be recompleted.
"And, once that happens, I'll end up like Roxas, and Xehanort's own Heartless.
"I refuse to let that happen to me, or to return my individual heart to any kind of old, present, or new greater heart the way other Heartless, Nobodies, and the other usual castaways of ordinary hearts strive for, along with the true Xehanort."
Sora couldn't believe he could trace Yozora's Heartless' connections enough precisely to discern any genuine sense of if Yozora's Heartless was telling the truth.
But, he called the cheer back up, nonetheless.
It still took no effort.
Sora didn't know why that lightened him, however.
He had no doubts as to why, if Yozora's Heartless was telling the truth, he was lighter to know Yozora's Heartless wanted to hold onto who he was.
Yozora's Heartless was Yozora's reserved other, not his Nobody, and his Nobody was the outgoing one, but any self assertion was still self assertion, and Sora didn't know Yozora's Heartless well enough to know just how much of the reservation Yozora's Heartless displayed was because he was concealing, and how much was because that was his way of feeling.
"To that end, first, I'll provide you this much payment for services rendered.
"As far as I can tell, the Foretellers don't just resort to using others' snares as covers to operate even more effectively than denizens of darkness who employ subterfuge, or to more effectively sweep the rug out from under their foes to demoralize them.
"They've been playing it intelligently, to ensure if anyone does take the plunge for their cloak and dagger activities, it isn't them."
Ka
light did not go out
it couldn't
Sora pushed it far to the side, again
"Anything, everything at all, down to the most subsidiary ploy, the Xehanorts, Maleficent, and anyone else you've met, not just Xehanort, implemented, is a potential scapegoat.
"Synchronicity Perceptual isn't one of my primary concerns, so whether you believe me, or not, this self of Yozora isn't setting you up to take the fall in any of our places.
"However, I have enough experience with military strategy to recognize, even when relying on subterfuge itself as a cover, a degree of efficiency is necessary in a tapestry, otherwise your own traps are going to end up outsmarting, and snaring, themselves.
"Even with all my spotters', and scouts', successes by this point, my reconnaissance hasn't been successful enough to tell me this, but you should be in a position to decipher the answer.
"There must be one spindle tying all the Foretellers' vital core puppets together, where they should be storing Reports, Secret Reports, and similar records of their own."
Sora let his eyes widen, and the rush of hope, through.
He didn't know whether to laugh in despair, or smile in relief, that this, also, took no effort.
"That their base was cobbled together from fragments of other worlds itself gives credence to this," Yozora's Heartless was continuing.
"This tells me it wasn't just another of their diversions, but the resources they have solely at their own disposal are scant, compared to the Xehanorts, and Maleficent.
"With all their acuity, and experience, if they'd been able to erect a citadel of their own to protect the Black Box, and the Note Blade, they would have done so. The more you're involved in designing a base, the better you know the ins and outs of its home terrain when you seek to defend it, yet they hid the Black Box in a jury rigged combination of the territory of others, and territory they knew they had foes who were familiar with.
"With this in mind, it's myself I'll be saving this time.
"Regardless, in order for you to know what you're up against, no information about what you're about to clash with me over, or what you refuse to believe you're really about to strive with me over, is too sensitive for you to know."
Sora suppressed that urge to clench his teeth.
"Recall what the wall around Kingdom Hearts is comprised of, and how we stand at an intersection of realms where sleep, and death, can cross dreamstone themselves.
"As with Ven and Young Vanitas, my scouts, and I have learned that if I, myself, totally break the heart of my own Nobody, there are conditions under which I'll be able to weave the skein of my recompletion to ensure I remain myself, and a Nobody who refuses to assert his own individuality at all will be sent into the same manner of sleep Ven was.
"Those conditions are as follows."
Honesty or lie, or falsehood with one, or more, rings of truth, at least Yozora's Heartless had the decency to be matter of fact about it.
"First, you never made the effort to question why a datascape within a network in Radiant Garden, a world the Xehanorts, and Maleficent, ensured retained its world heart, fell to darkness and returned as a Sleeping World, when all the Heartless you've come across in your travels, as relentlessly, and often, as they've pursued your Keyblade, didn't drag Jiminy's first journal to End of the World long before you first set foot on Hollow Bastion."
Sora didn't see a reason to clench his teeth at discovering he'd made another oversight.
"That's because Lexaeus, burgeoning with envy over how, even before he accepted his destiny, Xehanort's Heartless valued strength while he knew he possessed a variation of a heart, chose to become the Seifer to Xaldin's Setzer,"
Sora suppressed the urge to clench his hands, slightly, at what Xaldin saw as the difference between honorable, and dishonorable, puppeteering
"and while doing so, he browbeat the second Ansem into restoring the Master Control Program in order to terrify Xehanort's Heartless with the empty conflicts inherent in the Master Control Program's dreams of a datascape."
Lightness returned at the confirmation Xehanort's Heartless hated empty loneliness as much as the other Xehanorts.
Did Yozora's Heartless hate it, or chase it, as his genuine self did?
Had Lexaeus done anything specific to terrify Young Xehanort, as well, or, perhaps out of similar envy for another Xehanort he knew had a heart, and valued power, had Lexaeus merely repeatedly rubbed Young Xehanort's destiny in his face the way Seifer intimidated Vivi, and he sought to intimidate others?
Sora would ask Young Xehanort that, the next time he saw Kairi's older brother.
"Faced with that, and a destiny of night with unfettered feeling it could but claim if it resigned itself to its fate, the choice was as elementary as Xehanort's Heartless later argued darkness itself was.
"As the second Ansem restored the Master Control Program, his unique abilities as a Heartless were able to draw other Heartless there, while his willingness to travel through time as he booted the Master Control Program back up ensured, even when the Heartless were severed from its world heart and it returned to the realm of light enough for you to meet Tron, the flow of time had been altered sufficiently you reached its future to return its present.
"Nevertheless, while the second Ansem didn't seek to corrupt the world heart of Space Paranoids itself, he still left a miasma of darkness there, and while your, and Riku's, efforts removed him from Riku's body, he was still able to tie himself to the artificial Kingdom Hearts of world hearts enough to leave similar wafts there.
"Because of this, due to our location, I can piggyback on the photon impulses of light, darkness, and electricity through dreams, and data, directly into your Kye-Blade the same way I did your ordinary Keyblades, and commandeer it sufficiently to strike down my Nobody, thus recompleting myself as who this self is now, and here."
Sora jolted violently.
Ka
"Yo"
He didn't even make the effort to push the sentiments away.
He also couldn't afford to spend any time questioning why Yozora's Heartless had wanted him to know what he was up against.
He hurled himself in a Dodge Roll to his left, away from what he hoped would remain the confining range of the globe that might be meant to take the Kye-Blade away from him, suppressing the urge to dismiss it when he had no idea whether that would cause it to become more, or less, vulnerable to Yozora's Heartless.
Yozora's Heartless was already landing from a forward somersault, his neon orange blade aimed above his head with his bowgun in front of him in a block.
Sora curled up out of the Dodge Roll to shift into a rising, jumping slice at the blade with the Kye-Blade himself as he opened himself to his memories of Kairi keeping him alive, and Riku diving into the endless abyss to rescue him from the Armored Ventus Nightmare, and the Xehanorts, and he reached for the Kye-Blade with all his heart, nowhere near as much into its energies as he had when he'd defeated Yozora's Nobody by reflecting his Sigma Armor against him, but what Sora could trace should be enough to weave another paopu out of the two of them, Tidus, Wakka, and Selphie, and reflect light along the inside of the polyhedron Yozora's Heartless could be about to construct.
Yozora's Heartless, however, pressed his lips together in annoyance at Sora's ability to preempt whatever variation of what had once, and still may be, his deadliest ability was meant to commandeer the Kye-Blade, and he brought his blade down in a single precise arc to strike the Kye-Blade into Childhood's Laughter, after which he reversed his bowgun and jabbed the back pommel of it at Sora's forehead.
Sora crossed his Keyblades above his head to catch it at their vertice, but he'd lost his chance to defeat Yozora's Heartless the same way he had Yozora's Nobody.
"I'd leave the Kye-Blade to you if I was naïve enough to believe I could conscript you, or maneuver you, into obeying my orders," Yozora's Heartless commented, tinges of contained anger in his tone, now.
"If my intelligence, however, isn't mistaken, a different war is about to begin, or already has begun, in Arendelle.
"You refuse to risk the cost of utterly utilizing the Kye-Blade to open a path back there, so, as far as I'm concerned, you're a lost cause as a lasting asset."
"Sora, have you finally decided to call upon the darkness?"
"Yo"
"Wh"
Ka
Sora did clench his teeth at that one, tightly.
His insides warped sickeningly.
"Same verse, different song," he responded, bringing challenge into his voice.
"I don't care whose destiny it is.
"Depending on whose, and what, it is, I'll follow it home, or refuse it, but I'm not going to attempt to control it.
"Even if the battle has begun, Elsa, Kairi, Riku, Donald, Goofy, Anna, Roxas, and the others can take care of themselves without me."
Full, although reserved, irritation now passed behind the eyes of Yozora's Heartless as he pulled his bowgun back, and he lowered it to aim it at Sora.
His glaring orange sword then appeared on top of it and slid forward to rocket at Sora even as sixteen blue tracking symbols appeared around him to launch rays of lethal blue in Sora's direction.
Sora leapt up, over the sword, and out of the torrents of blue as the lattice collided down upon where he'd just been crouching, at what he took the chance was a genuine opening in the defenses of Yozora's Heartless.
He was still unsurprised when Yozora's Heartless disintegrated into a small spheroid of light, to rocket in what was clearly an Airstep, or something similar, in the direction of what Sora could register was the sword Yozora's Heartless had just thrown.
Two could play at that one.
Yozora's Heartless wanted the Kye-Blade, and the Kye-Blade was a natural Keyblade.
Sora traced his connections.
He threw the Kye-Blade in a whirling Strike Raid with the torsion of Slingshot added to it at the still shooting glaring sword, and as soon as it passed the orb of energies that was Yozora's Heartless, Sora added the acceleration of a Faithline to an Airstep of his own, and he rushed past Yozora's Heartless with precise enough timing to reach the blade first, solidify from the Airstep, and deliver a slice with Childhood's Laughter that sent the glaring neon spinning askew through the air.
Yozora's Heartless appeared slightly in front of where he'd been attempting to reach.
By then Sora had reached out with his free hand to grip the Kye-Blade, and segue into a Flowmotion in the same time, one that carried him around the Kye-Blade as though it were a vertical pole he then launched off to corkscrew at Yozora's Heartless.
Yozora's Heartless brought his bowgun up to intercept the blow, and he bent backwards into a somersault to then push up against Sora and send him flying over his head.
Shriekinglancing magma carved through Sora's back as crimson washed into his eyes, and sides as he bent and curled desperately to the side, and by the time he was on his knees and shifting around to bring up both Keyblades in the direction of the footsteps sprinting at him, black spots dancing in front of his eyes from the red beams that had struck him, Yozora's Heartless had brought his bowgun down to point at Sora's head point blank, while his neon orange sword was aimed at Sora's neck below the bowgun.
"My Nobody has greater talent, but I'm his military half, separated and indoctrinated specifically to wage war against all darkness, even his own.
"Part of the reason, and, for all I know, the sole reason, my initial self admitted to the darkness in his heart was specifically so it could be extinguished when he launches his holy war to end all wars."
Sora let himself start, slightly, but not enough for it to affect his position.
"My new Formchanges don't have even a shard of the battlefield capabilities Sigma Armor does.
"Although, once I'm recompleted with the ability to utilize them as a natural born heart, I'll think of a way to alter the Sigma Armor to incorporate the Heartless Formchanges I intend for my human self to retain.
"While, even though I can't influence the Kye-Blade enough to pull off what the First Keyblade War did, I told you what you're up against, and the sole reason I'm saying this much about that is to better utilize the card I have left inside my sleeve."
Sora suppressed the urge to start, but not to clench his teeth.
Then he couldn't continue the battle.
"One way, or another, my Nobody is done."
However, although Sora was certain Donald's, and Goofy's, approaching shadows from above had already been identified, he smiled tiredly, and still effortlessly, at the recognition of all the times Donald, and Goofy, had kept his back before, to the point they'd even literally called him out of the darkness, and held him up, so he could defeat Xehanort.
Yozora's Heartless rolled his eyes a little, turning his head up at Goofy, descending in a corkscrew with his feet locked below the handle of Save the King Plus, and Donald above him, firework rockets sailing through the atmosphere behind Goofy.
Yozora's Heartless' eyes widened slightly as the rockets accelerated in speed, striking the back of Goofy's shield, to detonate, and send him careening headfirst at Yozora's Heartless.
He backstepped, slicing out with his sword with timing clearly meant to bring it cleanly through Goofy's neck, while he aimed his bowgun up at Donald.
For a number of Donald's rockets to arc into Save the King Plus' side and erupt, and hurl Goofy sideways in a cartwheel that caused Save the King Plus to connect with the orange glare of Yozora's Heartless' blade, deflecting it, and leaving enough of an opening for the rest of the rockets to sail closer to Yozora's Heartless.
He jumped backwards, and Goofy, and Donald, tumbled forwards to land in front of Sora, with Goofy on Sora's left, and Donald on his right, both of them between him, and Yozora's Heartless.
"The Knight Captain with the shield," Yozora's Heartless commented, slight downward turns to his lips making it clear what his perspective was on such a concept.
"War is waged in order for conflicting beliefs to prove themselves to each other, and one another, so I now have an even better audience to prove myself to."
"What audience would that be?" Goofy queried, guarded camaraderie in his tones.
"My Nobody, who must be scrying this from somewhere, and any of my fated comrades in arms, or destined adversaries, who are doing the same.
"Empyreal, in his dreams, if he's unchained enough to discern this.
"Lastly, my first foes, who began all this because Strelitzia sought to hide safely in her brother's shadow for everlasting time, while Ven longed to claim the light outside of that shadow at any cost."
Sora let himself start, at hearing that.
Strelitzia was even more like the dream Quasimodos, and the dream Frollos, than the Yozoras, then.
Was that what the heart of the realm of emptiness was, then?
A prison for all of the shades of the heart, not just a cage of darkness enclosing light?
"I know little about the present situation, but, planted or not, my spies have uncovered a lot of what they believe to be information involving what sent Faerie,"
nothing in the voice of Yozora's Heartless was present to tell Sora how much, or how little, she meant to him, and how much he knew, or remembered, about her,
"To Gaes, that began the war that has engulfed my world for millennia.
"It's beyond me what the initial self of this body sees in Strelitzia.
"Outwardly, Strelitzia one of the most reserved people I've learned about, but inwardly, her Station of Awakening oscillates back and forth in so many directions, it could host a Keyblade War, or a Symphony of Sorcery, all its own.
"Strelitzia created the first Heartless out of the dark chambers in her heart that wanted to leave her brother's shadow and become her own person, regardless of what it would entail to do that, then created Vanitas, and his kin because she cast aside the chambers of her heart that wanted to hide inside her brother's shadow at any lethal, or hurtful, cost.
"Because she was so terrified of what her dreams of being her own person had caused.
"All of this began, and escalated to the point it even dragged Gaes itself, and Domain of Tales, into the vortex, for millennia, because Strelitzia was terrified of herself."
Sora suppressed the urge to cringe at hearing that.
"All the directions Rapunzel's heart initially tugged her in must have drawn Lauriam to her, as much as her other similarities to Strelitzia.
"My first self is supposed to have harnessed Kingdom Hearts to ward the Kye-Blade off from easy access, even his own, after he cast the Keyblades, and founded their teachings, to school wielders not just in harnessing them, but in harnessing the Kye-Blade itself, for it to then be demonstrated wielders couldn't be trusted to harness the Kye-Blade responsibly.
"Before then, calling it was as simple as two people with a connection seeing themselves as they remembered each other, with one person lending a fragment of his, her, or its heart to store the Kye-Blade in, the other person becoming the heart to wield it.
"My subordinates, and I, need to delve into this one more, but from what I gather, Strelitzia was also the person who did the first damage to the Kye-Blade, by somehow severing this connection.
"If I can't scry it right out of my Nobody when I strike him down, I'm determined to find out what this pertains to sooner, rather than later, however.
"Because I also know this information, misdirection, or not, is purportedly bound to a whole Vanitas, and his kin, initially were."
"Then do us the courtesy of retrieving it on your own," Donald commented angrily.
"You won't find any fanfare here," Goofy said.
"It's not fanfare he wants memorized," Lea's voice interjected from above, a reality weary, and angry, edge in it Sora hadn't heard before.
Sora suppressed the urge to jolt, and he looked up.
He forgot to stop his eyes from widening at the sight of Axel standing on top of a magenta dream portal, Flame Liberator in his hands in an offensive combat position aimed down at Yozora's Heartless.
Axel gave Sora, Donald, and Goofy a reassuring smile that was drenched in terror, his weary and well worn terror for Roxas, and Xion, among it.
The sole fanfare Roxas, Xion, and Axel need of their own existence is to recognize hearts, and worlds, are not just pain
Lea gave Sora reassuring smile.
"Don't forget, Kairi isn't the sole trump card with promises to keep," Lea spoke, the anger now gone from his voice.
"This isn't the power of waking, but a variation on the method Yen Sid, and you, used to traipse the Sleeping Worlds, and Mickey's talents for opening paths to the realm of darkness, I've been researching on the side over the years.
"I'll save the details for how I got it going for when we're no longer inside enemy lines, but suffice to say, two can play Ansem the Wise's game with his code, and it's a good thing Sora wasn't the sole heart asleep in Castle Oblivion, and Twilight Town."
Donald jumped into the air in shocked and surprised wrath, and he raised his face, and beak in Lea's direction to quack at him with unfettered rapid wordless fury.
Goofy gave an accomplished, albeit slightly discomfited, grin, and he cried joyfully, "Hyuck hooray, and the Gray Room pompom Roxas told me about on top of the Anti-Black Coat Moogle of Mare!"
For the first time Sora had seen, the visage of Yozora's Heartless became a little paler than before.
"You've met an Anti-Black Coat, Nightmare, or not?" he queried, and the traces of contained fear in his voice were unmistakable.
At least what Riku had told Sora about the Anti-Black Coat had caused Sora to recognize it was a potential enigma there could very well be more to.
"Did you meet any Armored Nightmares in its vicinity, or around the same time?" the fear was gone now, but there was now composed military urgency in his voice.
Sora opened his mouth to reply, but, before he could, Yozora's Heartless furrowed his brow slightly.
"That's irrelevant.
"All I need to do to defeat my opponent is to know him, her, or it, and that's easier than usual when my adversary is myself."
"As I can attest, you've got that one right on the hammerhead," Riku's voice joined the conversation, with a different kind of weariness, as well as edges directed at Sora, Goofy, Donald, and Lea, that told Sora it wasn't Riku, himself, who was saying that.
"Riku Replica refuses to leave the realm of darkness, though, even though I've repeatedly tried to convince him to go to the side of the real Riku."
"You were correct, however, not to doubt we'd pull through.
"This time, you found all of us."
Lea's visage was a composed mask.
Donald's beak was thinned tightly.
Goofy was frowning, and much of it was guilt.
Sora sighed heavily in a different kind of fatigued resignation, as he turned to look at Riku's true Replica, now standing behind Yozora's Heartless, and to Yozora's Heartless' own right.
"I'm so very sorry," Sora whispered, his voice an absent hollow, unable to justify talking any louder.
Riku Replica gave Sora a partially sardonically amused, partially honestly mirthful, if exhausted in its own ways, part smirk, part thankful smile.
Sora let himself start violently, this time.
Master Yozora hid in the cover of others' snares, partially to endeavor subterfuge, and demoralization, even better than the Xehanorts had, and partially to use others as living shields.
It was entirely possible the last lost heart Sora had been destined to bring home was someone he hadn't known he'd needed to search for.
However, with one last Princess left to find, and with how Sora had overlooked Riku Replica for so long, Sora now registered that didn't guarantee the last heart Sora was prophesized to bring home was Elsa.
Even more so because Riku Replica, unlike Elsa, Roxas, Xion, and Namine, had refused to return home until the very end.
Sora himself might be in enough of a position to know his enemy to understand it would be right up the true Yozora's alley to maneuver Sora into spending one final journey, without knowing he was, attempting to shine a lantern back home for a heart who didn't want to return to any hearth.
Sora needed to remember to breathe.
He couldn't lock himself into second guessing, but there was no way he wasn't going to make another attempt to bring Riku Replica back to the hearth of loving light, beginning this instant.
If Riku Replica was the true final castaway, were they out of time to locate the last New Seven Heart?
Riku Replica nodded once, a composed and contained one, up at Lea.
Then he looked at Sora.
He shrugged his shoulders with edged, weary genuine mirth.
"I couldn't say whether it's Elsa, or I," he commented.
At least Riku Replica had been doing reconnaissance of his own; he'd stumbled on information the hard way that, planted or not, learned hurtfully or not, at least gave him light because he knew it, or he knew one, or more, less cover stories to see through; or both.
"What I do know, on my own end of things, is that part of the reason I was able to reach this realm is because you didn't just leave me out the way I prefer it, but because, this time around, you don't even know, for a surety, who you're looking for."
Riku Replica then turned to face Yozora's Heartless.
"If you're willing to enlist me, count me in.
"I'll do whatever it takes to remain out of the realm of light, and the realm in between, until I can at last convince the darkness to reclaim me, and preferably not to The Final World."
Sora clenched his teeth together tightly, at that.
"I'll also pledge, not just to follow your orders without mutiny or insubordination, but to carry them out a lot better than flitter beam of Sunny smiles, here.
"Talking from my own star smarts, he doesn't have that much left to learn about the different kinds of darkness, and emptiness, inherent in us and them when hearts sever fellows, or societies, but for all his actual combat talents, and skills, he's a rookie even of greenhorns when it comes to warfare, itself.
"I made a different choice than my past self, but I understand every single blackbody photon of where that darkness came from when, to fire the last warning shots, he contended with, and in some ways even outdid, Kairi's, and Aqua's, Demon Tide.
"I recognized the whole time, and not because Luxu was backing him up with Snipers at San Fransokyo, he wasn't seeking the Xehanorts', Maleficent's, Ursula's, Jafar's, Runeard's, Narissa's, or the idea itself of stratification, or suppression, between, and among, hearts, and demesnes.
"Maybe the Master Control Program, one, or both, of the dream Frollos, or one, or both, of the dream CLUs, was, or were, willing to leap that deep, but since they never got the chance, I have no way of knowing if they'd have gone that far."
Goofy's mouth dropped open.
A quiet whine, with underpinnings of the closest thing to a canine growl Sora had heard from Goofy in all the time they'd met emitted from his vocal cords.
Donald's beak hung unmoving, and there wasn't any trace of challenge at all on his face, just shock, and the kind of resignation he expressed when a fear he hadn't wanted to voice had at last been confirmed.
Kairi
Riku
Roxas
Anna
Tidus
Wakka
Selphie
Something sickly cold pinched Sora's insides in distortions, and wanted to violently retch out everything within him.
What depths of darkness, or emptiness, could, in any definition of conceptualization, or abstraction of far flung though, remain for Sora to cascade into now?
"That's what your true self really wants with the hearts he'll discard from Synchronicity Perceptual, if my guess is on.
"True darkness will be left in what he's done to the rest of the World, and existence, not for the purpose of muzzling the hearts there, but to ensure hearts with even the most gossamer wisp of darkness have their backs to the wall, and no way out.
"My past self had no interest in proving himself to be the worthy one by outdoing his rival, as Xehanort did Eraqus; Isa did Lea; Riku, and Roxas, did Sora; Mare did, and still does, Kairi; and so on.
"For that matter, even hearts like Mare, and Lezard, who have no interest in something left that can be rebuilt afterwards, are still okay with the possibility there are pieces to pick up.
"My past other went right for the jugular, fatally, the very first time he met my real self, however.
"This resembles Master Yozora's dream for purifying all existence of darkness is to unleash a sacred campaign where your Luminous Legion, and all his other forces, march in without offering a single one of their foes the most minuscule chance at a way out through a kind of suppression, and stratification, unless it's on a temporary basis to not expend potential resources, and assets.
"For the singular purpose of cleaving every single heart, realm, world, and locale he sees as unsuitable for Synchronicity Perceptual, and Domain of Tales down to the last heart through unconstrained genocidal obliteration, and to hunt down anyone, and anything, that weathers this until he has ensures that no one, and nothing, have any lives, or pieces, left that can be picked up from the rubble."
Kairi
Riku
Donald
Goofy
Roxas
Anna
Jiminy
Tidus
Wakka
Selphie
Elsa
Namine
Ven
Xion
Aqua
Terra
Hayner
Pence
Olette
Mom
Dad
keepitaway
on the most remote fringes of
perception
was aware he'd lost almost all awareness of his guard
sowhat
whatdoessafeguardingmatter
noonewould
that'stoofar
hearts
World
existence
worlds
reality
nightmare
derangedfeverishdruggeduphallucination
heartsarenotbornofconflict
people
evendenizensofdarkness
hearts
noheart
is
arenot
cannot
be
capable
of
"But, the first light – the light of Kingdom Hearts – it can give us a new start."
"You must understand. Our ultimate objective is not to clash with the light, but to complement it."
"So, it seems your hearts have led you to obliteration."
"There is no such thing as light."
"Robert."
keening
very young
voice
was
"I couldn't hear what that meanie' said, but he didn't sound very nice.
"But I'll help you find the knight named Robert."
falling
orangehair
whitedress
pavedstreets
someonecatching
Boo
getawayfromme
"Are you Sir Robert, the knight champion sworn to deliver this poor young man from his tearful affliction?"
"My name is Robert, yes."
Sorawasweightlesslight
wasitthathe'djustfallenfromsomewherehighup
thegirlstandinginfrontofhim
blackhairnotbrown
notBoo
Robertwashere
Annayoudiditonceagainyouthawedtheeternalwinter
thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyout
"But I'm no knight.
"Why would you think something like that?"
somethingwaswrong
Robert'svisage
histoneofvoice
weightless
night
.
"Xehanort… Do you see now? There's them… and there's us."-Baldr/Hringhorn
KINGDOM HEARTS: DARK ROAD