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CHAPTER 5:
CHASING A DREAM INTO CREATED SPACE AND IMAGINARY TIME
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Author's Notes: The compositions for this Chapter are, in order of scene: 'Sorrow – Imperial Version,' from the FINAL FANTASY XII Original Soundtrack, Disc Three; and then 'The Girl Who Stole the Star' from the CHRONO CROSS Original Soundtrack, Disc Three. Both of these pieces can't be found on KINGDOM HEARTS Insider's MP3 section, though.
Anna didn't want to open her eyes.
Even though she knew that, if she didn't, she'd be doing what Kairi had done to Sora and his friends once more, she wasn't fully sure that she believed that there was a point.
Why couldn't she have just stayed unconscious for the rest of her life?
That wouldn't have solved anything, but at least she wouldn't have hurt or abandoned Elsa or Sora or Kristoff any longer.
She'd abandoned and betrayed all three of them now.
She'd abandoned and betrayed Elsa for most of Elsa's life; she'd abandoned and betrayed Kristoff when she hadn't acknowledged how he felt about her when he'd come to love her on the surface of the frozen lake, and afterwards when she'd continued to do so because she'd been scared that there was a very small chance that Sora felt similar to how she was beginning to feel about him and she didn't want to risk hurting him if that was true and he returned to Arendelle one day; and now she'd abandoned Sora by doing precisely what Kairi had done and doing what she'd believed was best for him and not what would have hurt him the least.
She should have told him, right away, that she was harnessing the darkness as Riku had attempted to convince Kairi to.
But maybe that hadn't been that bad, as revolting as it had been, because, when she'd attacked Kairi when Kairi had stopped fighting, Anna had proven that he did have reasons to be terrified of her wielding it even while she was fully in charge of it.
There was no justification for any of it whatsoever.
And she still couldn't justify pushing away the blinding white ebony black, thrashing fury inside her at Kairi and Riku and Donald and Goofy for letting Elsa and Sora and Kristoff be injured as badly as they'd become hurt.
It was crystalline clearly obvious that what Kairi had been doing was wrong.
Riku had told her, straight out, that she could have taken charge of her darkness and prevented it from hurting the people who she supposedly loved any longer, but she had refused to do so until Anna had done one of the things that she knew Kairi wouldn't tolerate and dishonestly lied to Sora and the girl he loved and his friends to back Kairi into a corner and dr–
–there was no point in mincing words, manipulate–
–Kairi into taking charge of her darkness so she'd no longer be a danger to Sora or his friends.
While using Sora's pain as the weapon that would back Kairi into a corner to push her into doing it.
She'd intended to admit all of what she'd done once she'd succeeded, apologize to all of them and especially Kairi and Sora, and Kairi most of all because she knew that he cared unimaginably immeasurably more about Kairi than himself, and tell Sora that she was okay with him being angry with her for what she'd done no matter how angry he was.
But Kairi had been much more furious with Anna than she'd believed that the other girl would be for betraying Sora by attacking her when she no longer wanted to duel, and that had meant that Sora was in far more pain at the last stage of Anna's betrayal than Anna had believed that he would be. So Anna had believed it might be better that she not defend herself – assuming that she could have; Kairi had just conquered her darkness while Anna had been using it at her command a number of times by then, but Anna had underestimated what Kairi could do with her darkness when combining it with her skill with a Keyblade – and give Sora and Kairi and the others time to themselves to attempt to sort this out, and she'd let Kairi knock her unconscious.
That was another reason that she didn't want to open her eyes.
She was terrified that, when she did, she'd discover that she'd made another horrific mistake and abandoned and betrayed Elsa and Sora and Kristoff further.
She was terrified, too, that even if she hadn't and they were feeling better now, she'd say something stupid and make things worse once more.
How could they do that to Elsa and Sora and Kristoff?
Anna understood why Kairi had felt too guilty to take charge of her darkness, but Kairi and Sora's friends weren't stupid. They knew what Kairi's darkness was capable of bringing about if she didn't take charge of it, and they knew how much pain Sora was in because Kairi had been too terrified to face her guilt, but they'd cared more about their own pain than Sora's.
Kairi should have cared more about the pain that Sora was in here and now than her guilt over having injured Sora and her friends in the past, and Riku should have stood up for Sora and told Kairi she was being selfish by refusing to face her guilt when she could have stopped hurting Sora and endangering the people of Arendelle and Arendelle right then and there, but he'd let himself become too wrapped up in his own guilt once Kairi had implied that there was a part of her that might hate him for whatever he'd done wrong in the past. And Donald and Goofy had deferred to Sora because they hadn't wanted to feel uncomfortable from damaging group cohesion and disregarding the wishes of their group leader; they'd cared more about group order than about how Sora felt.
Anna had refused to do the same thing, so she'd refused to wield the darkness initially, but then the darkness Kairi had refused to take charge of had specifically targeted Elsa and Kristoff because it knew that murdering them would hurt Anna herself more than if it had murdered Anna, and thus avenge Sora's pain more effectively upon Anna.
And that would have tortured Sora even more than if Anna had just been killed.
Yet Kairi had to have known what her darkness was doing to Elsa and Sora and Kristoff now, yet she still hadn't taken charge of it, so Anna had chosen the option that she'd hoped would hurt Sora the least and compelled Kairi to take conquer her darkness. First by giving Kairi no further reason to fight, then by doing something horrific to Sora herself by betraying him and attacking Kairi when there was no reason to, to hopefully spur Kairi into conquering her darkness to keep Anna from hurting Sora further.
It had worked, but Anna had still abandoned and betrayed Sora herself in the process, and unlike Kairi she'd lied to him and the girl he loved and his friends and manipulated the girl he loved.
She would never forgive herself for this.
It didn't matter that when she was gone Sora wouldn't remember that she'd abandoned him and betrayed him, the girl he loved, and his friends. Hurting someone was still hurting someone, whether the person you hurt recalled it or not.
But her guilt didn't matter now.
This wasn't about her guilt.
Nor was it about the completely and totally scouring clean distillation of pitch ivory night so absent of absence in its epitome it erased all incomprehension or comprehension or erasure collapsing everything that was her existence and all other existence to a singularity while simultaneously exhausting her and consuming her whole being and reality and enervating her to a conflagration of fountaining jets of black ebony starfire, at the knowledge of what would happen to Elsa and Sora and Kristoff no matter what she did to attempt to love them or protect them or care for them or cherish them or save them or be there for them.
Elsa and Sora and Kristoff mattered.
Not her selfish pain and despair and desperation and ha
fury
she didn't didn't didn't didn't didn't didn't feel that way
Feel don't conceal
Don't think twice
Time to face the music.
"Anna?" Sora questioned.
Anna lost the ability to breathe.
There was a desperate broken terror and worry in Sora's voice, as though he barely even knew what happiness and hope were any longer.
She'd made another mistake.
She brought one hand to her side and pushed herself up, opened her eyes, and ignored her dizziness to scan the wasteland for Elsa.
Elsa's face wasn't too much of a mask, and she gave Anna a reassuring and relieved smile, so she wasn't concealing as much as she could have been.
Good.
That meant that Elsa, at least, was pulling herself together, though Anna knew that it was, at best, just by a very tiny amount.
Kristoff was next to her, so she saw him next.
His face was a much worse than usual mixture of the expression it took when he was angry at people for causing her or Elsa or Sven or Olaf or Marshmallow pain, and concerned about one or more or all five of them at the same time.
That was an incredible relief.
As soon as Anna saw Sora's and Kairi's faces, her stomach heaved violently and its insides rose into her throat, and even knowing that they'd be hurt even more if she retched she was barely able to keep the contents of her innards inside her.
Sora's tear-streaked face and eyes weren't even dead.
They looked like they'd never even been acquainted with what life was.
Kairi's eyes and face and posture, at least, weren't as bad; they were dead, but she, at least, looked as though she was still aware what life was.
Anna was relieved to discover that she still at least had enough decency that she didn't even need to restrain herself from reaching for Sora's hand. She still had enough regard for how other people felt that she knew Kairi might take it the wrong way if she took Sora's hand or even reached for it, especially now, and that would hurt Sora.
"You don't need to ask," Kristoff said, giving her an extremely irritated but genuine smile, and Anna forced a smile of her own. Kristoff was being as supportive a friend as he usually was.
Sora's hand was intertwined with Kairi's, so even though it might be a friendly grip and even though seeing it caused new pain to manifest inside her, that was reason to believe, if Anna had a chance to ask Sora a number of carefully worded questions before he left, she might be able to confirm that there was no possibility that he returned her feelings and she could at last give Kristoff the love that he needed from her.
"It's just the run of the mill," Anna braced herself internally. Elsa, Sora, and Kristoff didn't need her too horrified to be there for them about this, "Deceptive twerp shows up when Kairi's feeling better to tell everyone that he and his buddies want Kairi to be their leading lady and swing around the Note Blade sword that will cut everyone to bits, they've been tricking Sora and his friends into grooming her for the stage since she met them, Kairi's late dad has been ruining Sora's life and the lives of Kairi's friends and Kairi herself for years to try to make a New World before Sora put a stop to it by killing him without knowing he was Kairi's dad, and they want Elsa to attempt to toss herself on Sora's Keyblade to try to back you into choosing to let her do it or be the one stabbed in order to annoy Sora enough he'll put the finishing touches on Kairi's sword and she'll then lop off everyone's heads."
On second thought, maybe Anna should let herself be sick to her stomach anyway. Elsa and Sora and Kristoff might feel better seeing how much their pain hurt her.
No, if she did, Elsa and Sora might believe that meant she was revolted by them.
That wasn't an option.
"You know how it goes," Kristoff finished with a small shrug that Anna knew masked just how deeply he was anguished and infuriated by this.
"And you?" Anna questioned.
"I appear to just be an extra in the background," Kristoff reassured her. "Don't worry about me."
"You know I can't do that," Anna responded.
She ached to squeeze Kristoff's hand, but whether Sora returned her feelings or not, if she paid more attention to Kristoff than him now he might believe that, too, meant she was revolted by him.
So she gave Kristoff a reassuring, grateful smile; turned her face to Elsa's and let her expression harden into a determined set that told Elsa that she was not going to let Elsa unwillingly hurt her again, herself or through Sora or through anyone else, nor was she going to let Elsa herself be hurt by Anna or Sora or anyone else
"You kind of set off an eternal winter… everywhere. Well, it's okay. You can just unfreeze it."
"I can't!"
and then Anna turned to look at Sora and Kairi.
"Before you ask," Anna said without preamble, bracing herself internally a second time. Not for Sora's and Kairi's disapproval, but to prevent herself from reacting too much to Sora's pain and it thus potentially preventing her from being there for him, "I did what Riku advised Kairi to do at the start." Sora's face didn't even shift. "I was trying to push Kairi into conquering her darkness, and," be honest and straightforward, "manipulating Kairi into doing it," Sora's eyes widened slightly and filled with terror for Anna, but Anna pushed away her absolute and total shock at this and went on, "by destroying the Demon Tide and then betraying you," once more, there was no hurt, just terror for her, and again Anna pushed away the surprise, "to attack her when she gave up the fight was the sole way I could think of to do it.
"I'm sorry, Sora."
Then she turned to look Kairi directly in the eyes. "I'm sorry to you, Kairi, most of all."
Kairi looked back at her guardedly, but then her eyes widened slightly and an unexpected kind of relief that Anna hadn't believed she'd see appeared in them.
Uncertainty and pain manifested on her face and remained there for a few seconds, then they were replaced by determination, and then her look had returned to what it was before.
Anna furrowed her brow, attempting to decipher it. Kairi obviously still feeling incredibly guilty, so Anna needed to figure out what that had been since it might hurt S–
Frigid ice incomprehensibly unimaginably immeasurably more absolute zero colder than Elsa's frost curse had been when it had consumed her the most engulfed everything that Anna was and wasn't.
No way.
Kairi wouldn't dare.
But she was daring to do it, and for the first time in her life, Anna genuinely, truly wanted to hurt someone.
Sora would take discovering what Kairi now intended to do, and how Anna felt about him, extremely horrifically, but if Anna didn't address this right away he'd shatter unendingly more than he would if she didn't get this out in the open right now and prevent Kairi from doing this to Sora herself, all at once or gradually and agonizingly in its own way.
"You are not going to try to push Sora away from you to me because you believe he's better off with me," Anna told her.
Sora's eyes widened, then flew wide as he realized precisely why Kairi was thinking of choosing Anna for this.
And
Anna couldn't believe it. He'd just discovered the girl he loved, and who she was pretty sure he'd loved since his childhood, was rejecting him, and his feelings and thoughts were for Kairi and Anna and not for his own pain and he didn't even realize that this meant that Kairi was rejecting him right away?
it was only now that Sora realized what else this meant, but even then all that appeared in his eyes and face were complete, total, guilty horror and terror. Looking as though he wanted to shred his hand and arm to tatters
So it wasn't just a friendly grip. Wonderful.
he carefully extricated his hand from Kairi's, brought his hand and arm behind his back, stood up, and walked over to stand at Riku's side while taking care not to look in Kairi's direction.
Anna violently pushed away what she truly wanted to say to Kairi, because she knew how Sora would say that, and just said, "Get up and retake Sora's hand now. You don't get to decide what will hurt Sora the least. He does.
"And you're discounting that, while we both hurt Sora, you didn't lie to him. I did. I can't take care of Sora as well as you believe that I can."
"Just forget it," Sora interjected. "I'm not going to choose anyone else unless," Anna needed to retch. Her heart should not have stopped briefly, "I've traced this over very extensively and I'm as sure as I can be that that's what will hurt Kairi the least."
Good, if there was any good in any way to be found in this.
She didn't need to worry about coming between Sora and Kairi in the truest sense.
If Sora did choose her she was just a consolation pri–
No. That was disgusting. Sora would never feel or think of someone as a prize. She'd be a consolation person. Partially thinking otherwise due to her own guilt was betraying Sora again herself.
She was able to keep herself from experiencing any pain or disappointment at this.
Thank goodness.
What was important was what Sora needed her to do for him if he did choose her as a consolation person. Which answer would hurt him the least? Attempting to have a relationship with him or rejecting him?
"Kairi," Riku put in. "You aren't genuinely paying attention to what you're doing. You know better than this. You know Sora better than this. Even if Sora believes that choosing Anna is what will hurt you the least, he won't do so unless he's certain that he can love Anna herself, not as a consolation person, but as someone he truly loves as Anna herself."
Anna barely remembered to keep her mouth from dropping open.
How could she have forgotten in the first place, particularly when Sora was willing to go that insanely far for Kairi and her and his friends?
"And Sora doesn't damage people's connections with him. If he leaves you for Anna, if you have a change of heart, he will not hurt Anna by returning to you. You will lose Sora for good."
But even then, even if Sora truly did come to love Anna as much as he did Kairi, he'd begin a relationship with her for Kairi's sake. It still wouldn't be because she was Sora's true choice, even if he did genuinely love her when he chose her.
And she wasn't hurt or disappointed. It didn't matter whether Sora was willing to truly love her, or give up Kairi for her, or not. Sora mattered.
She wasn't hurt or disappointed.
She couldn't be.
Elsa and Sora and Kristoff needed her.
It wasn't tears that were causing her eyes to become blurry.
She just hadn't recovered from the Ultimate Break yet.
That was all.
She wouldn't betray Sora by being selfish this way, especially when, if they began a relationship, he'd be willing to stay with her even if he had the opportunity to return to Kairi.
She wouldn't.
She'd never do that to him.
She couldn't love or protect Elsa, but she could still love and protect Sora and Kristoff.
Right?
Right?
Right?
Right?
"You kind of set off an eternal winter… everywhere. Well, it's okay. You can just unfreeze it."
"I can't!"
Now Elsa's eyes were blazing with contained fury at the position she believed Kairi had just put Anna in, and Kristoff's face was set in a tight, unhappy frown even though his eyes were anguished.
"So you're going to follow my example, is that how it's going to be?" Elsa asked, voice level but burning with focused anger. "You're going to push Sora away because you believe that doing so will protect him, and in the process make things a lot worse? Luxu said that your father fell to darkness because he wanted to use atrocious methods to ensure people weren't hurt by other immoral people."
Anna knew that it was pointless, that Elsa would just talk through her as she had every other time before when Elsa was this angry and Anna had attempted to head it off, but she had to try.
Even more so because, though Sora now looked like he didn't know what life was once more, she knew that he was being ripped apart by needing to choose between Kairi, and Elsa and her, far worse than when Kairi had let the Demon Tide continue to rage because Sora now knew how Anna felt about him.
"Elsa, hold on, this is a very bad time for this."
As Anna had known that Elsa would, Elsa went on as though Anna hadn't even spoken while Anna herself was talking.
"It appears that you're your father's daughter after all."
Kairi winced, but otherwise she didn't react.
"What's next on your agenda when this doesn't work?" Elsa questioned. "Using your light or darkness, or both, to turn the Destiny Islands into an endless scorching day or an unending frigid night, or an everlasting quiet gray tomb?
"Blasting Sora in the heart with a globe of light or dark, and then letting him evaporate into eternal mist?"
Kairi didn't even wince this time.
"I know Goofy said that we should give the Foretellers what they want," Donald interjected himself, "But not like this! Besides, we don't even know what they want in regards to us sacrificing ourselves besides their script for Anna!
"As I recall, Luxu's words to us in Olympus about this were:
"'Oh, wow! Very nice, full marks.
"'All this altruism is giving me the warm and fuzzies. So then, does having a heart of light come with an extremely good insurance policy?
"'Oh, but I did though. No good will ever come from putting other people first.
"'Because you've got friends in high places, you mean. Tricks like that don't fly for your average joe.
"'I don't admire one guy leaping into danger if it means someone else might have to jump in to save him. You're all just lining up to lose out. Dooming others to take the fall with ya'. Oh, and you can spare me the usual party line. Yes, hearts are powerful when they're connected. But if you put too much of that power in one place, some of those hearts might end up breaking. Still, Sora, that doesn't mean you should change. Accept the power you're given. Find the hearts joined to yours.
"'As if! You don't have any choice but to follow this sweet little trail of bread crumbs. And at the end, you'll finally realize what destiny has in store for you. In fact, your reward might be right around the corner. You're so close!'
"Luxu obviously wanted Sora to keep sacrificing himself for you and the rest of us then, to hurt you, but we don't know if that still applies now. Nor do we know if he was ridiculing our altruism to attempt to cause us to lose confidence in the power of friendship or for another reason or set of reasons. The same is true for all of us save for Anna and Elsa."
"And I'm not sure Donald and Goofy and Sora fully realize what Luxu meant," Mickey continued. "When Luxu said that some hearts might break if you put too much of the power of connections in one place, he meant that, if you're too altruistic to those who you're connected to, you'll end up hurting yourself so badly that the people who you're connected to will hurt as well because they don't want you to hurt, or they want to keep you from hurting."
Now Sora winced himself, and Riku put a hand on his shoulder.
Anna suppressed the urge to tense. Riku had abandoned and betrayed Sora and his feelings almost as much as Kairi had. He had no justification to touch Sora. Doing so might hurt him fathomlessly more.
Sora didn't pull away from it, though he didn't acknowledge it.
Thank goodness.
Anna didn't know whether or not she should ask about what Sora had done that had supposedly 'doomed others to line up to take the fall with him.'
And did this mean that, when she'd given herself to the ice to block Hans' sword, she'd done something wrong even then?
"Don't worry about it," Goofy joined in, clearly having perceived what Anna was feeling and thinking. "As lousy as it was, in the end, you just froze yourself. That didn't force anyone to jump in after you. You could, and did, defrost yourself. You didn't go as far as Sora did before," that answered that. Sora needed her to know this, "Or as far as Kairi wants to go now."
"And this isn't protecting him," Kristoff contributed. "Sora needs a kiss and a hug, not a door shut in his face."
He met Anna's eyes as he said that, telling her with his look that whatever she believed was the right choice to attempt to lessen Sora's pain if he did what Kairi wanted, Kristoff would support that choice, no matter how he felt about it.
Anna forced a grateful smile back.
"So now Kristoff is lining up to lose out, too," Elsa addressed Kairi. "Is your entourage big enough for you yet?"
"You're upsetting both Kairi and Anna," Sora at last spoke up, clearly having discovered a solution that he was willing to act on. "Can you please stop?"
Kairi stood up, and gave Sora a tired smile. "I'm still one of your two best friends and our hearts are still connected, Sora. That won't change, and I won't sever our connection as I did before."
That was supposed to comfort Sora when she was putting unnecessary severe limits on their connection?
Anna refused to let matters reach the point where Sora might choose her.
She'd return Kairi to Sora before she died, or die sooner.
"There's no reason for me to stick around here any longer," Kairi said.
And she turned to walk toward the shifting rough hemisphere of purple and blue and black he'd obviously arrived through, not looking in Sora's direction another time.
Anna was in her own room and the lights were all off and there wasn't even any light shining through the space between the bottom of her door and the floor, and she couldn't fall asleep so she could escape the darkness and wake up when it was bright and inviting and welcoming and warm but it didn't matter because Elsa was in a different room down the hall and no matter how many times Anna knocked on the door or how long she waited outside Elsa wouldn't open it and let her in she'd just lie under the covers in the darkness, alone and cold and terrified and crying and lost and hopeless, without anyone to kiss her tears away or hold her close and safe and loved and warm, and no matter what Anna said or did nothing would change it nothing would change it nothing would change it nothing would change it nothing would change it nothing would change it nothing would change it nothing would change it nothing would change it nothing would change it nothing would change it nothing would change it nothing would change it nothing would change it nothing would change it nothing would change it nothing would change it nothing would change it nothing would change it or even slow it down the most spun web thin fraction of a tick of a second or lessened it by the most frayed threadbare string of an amount
nothing had changed it any night before any night before any night before any night before any night before any night before or even slowed it down or lessened it for long, wholly futile years after long, wholly futile years, and nothing would for so long as her pointless flaccid heart pumped worthless vain blood through a meaningless body and useless limbs that might as well have just been brittle straw for all that they weren't worth and all that they never hadn't been worth
a conflagration of howling and roaring flakes of snow and frigid clouds engulfed the entirety of the chamber Anna held her mittened hands and arms before her face straining desperately in vain to see through the monsoon to Elsa but she could barely see her body and face agonized and contorted and contorting with her dress and cape blowing and flapping to the side as her magic ate her entire existence from the inside out she could barely hear Elsa's footsteps through the tornado
Elsa grabbed both sides of her hands and clutched them and screamed, whirling around to attempt to keep her magic from dragging her as it would and Anna's eyes widened in complete and total all-scouring starfire horror and absolute zero frozen ice terror as she realized where Anna had just directed Elsa's terror and her magic now Sora was wrong Kristoff was right they had all been right she hadn't had the power and the strength and the capability and the ability to love and to protect and to cherish and to help Elsa she should have never gone to Elsa's side she should never have set out on this journey she hadn't just hurt Elsa and driven her from her home she'd obliterated Elsa and all of Elsa's awareness of what warmth and home even were this time and as it always had been since foreverneverneverforeverneverforeverforeverforeverneverneverneverneverforeverforeverneverforeverneverforeverforevernever since before Anna had been born and always would be for neverforeverneverforeverneverforeverneverforeverneverforeverneverforeverneverneverneverneverneverneverneverneverneverforeverforeverforeverforeverforeverforeverforeverforeverforeverforeverforeverforeverforeverforeverforeverforeverforeverforeverforeverforeverforeverforeverforever it was all her fault
Elsa's magic dragged her back around in Anna's direction like a marionette roped constricted to and asphyxiated against a wildly tilting and whirling gyre and she flung her arms and hands before her face and bent her head in one last denying desperate effort to keep her magic from turning her against Anna but Anna knew it was no use Anna should attempt to evade what was coming but she knew that would be completely and wholly futile as well Elsa was too skilled and powerful and Anna had no chance of dodging or otherwise defending herself
"I can't!"
Sheets of ice shrieked and erupted from her hands and arms and body as her magic spun her around again and Anna felt one plunge through her chest and into her heart and everything was deathly cold
Hans stood over Elsa, sword naked and unleashed in the air and a triumphant smile on his face and Anna was the one who had fallen for his pretenses and let him distort and twist her into a puppet toy weapon for him to wield against Elsa she was the one who had led him to Elsa she was the one who had abandoned and betrayed and deserted and left and failed Elsa and stabbed Elsa in the back and strangled Elsa from behind and cut off Elsa's head from behind and smashed Elsa's head from behind and shattered Elsa's trust and fragmented Elsa's faith and fractured Elsa's belief and broken Elsa and Elsa's will to defend herself against Hans and now Elsa was going to die and Anna was going to die and Arendelle was going to fall into the grasping clutches of someone who cared nothing for the hearts of Arendelle's people and who just exploited and distorted and warped and twisted their feelings and dreams and wishes and hopes and belief and faith and trust for his own selfish gratification and it was all Anna's fault and Anna knew why Sora wasn't here to kiss her and just Kristoff was because it was all her fault and even Sora didn't believe in her love for Elsa any longer or her ability to protect and be there for and cherish and help Elsa and now Elsa was going to die broken and abandoned and betrayed and alone and it was all Anna's fault
It was happening again.
Donald and Goofy walked over to Sora, and Anna suppressed the urge to stiffen. They'd abandoned and betrayed Sora and his feelings as well. If they even moved near him they'd hurt him indescribably terribly.
Goofy put his hand on Sora's free shoulder and Donald rested his head against Sora's leg farthest from Anna, giving her room to join in if she wanted to.
She might hurt Sora more if she didn't attempt to physically comfort him as well.
"Will you see it as betraying Kairi if I touch you as a friend?" she questioned.
Sora kept his eyes off both Kairi and her, but he answered back, with his emotions a mask, "No."
Anna rose to her feet, ignoring the aches from the Ultimate Break, and walked over to Sora to place a hand on his back and rub it in what were hopefully soothing circles.
Kairi passed through the portal and vanished from the air.
"This isn't really a break up," Riku said, squeezing Sora's shoulder. "Kairi's doing this out of love for you, and you're still connected even when apart. You're still together. You know that."
"Then I'll make sure that it becomes a break up," Sora responded, and Anna was barely able to keep her hand rubbing Sora's back from faltering. "I won't hurt Kairi any more.
"I'll talk to Namine," Sora said back, "If she can afford to do this without me accelerating hers and Roxas' and Ven's deaths any faster than I'm already murdering them."
Anna could once more barely keep her hand rubbing Sora's back from faltering, and she was removed from it all, somewhere dark and cold and cruel and warped and distorted and black and writhing with twisted serrated tongues and contorted jagged knives of pitch ebony night. Sora was being wielded as a puppet toy weapon to torture three of the friends who he loved to an excruciating and inexorable inescapable agonizing lingering death?
It was all happening again, and in incomprehensibly immeasurably worse ways this time.
No.
Not this time.
She wouldn't let it happen again, to Elsa or Sora or Kristoff.
She would never let any of it happen to any of them again.
"And I will never let what you went through when I felt your pain in my heart happen to you again."
A violent chill ripped up Anna's spine, and Anna wasn't even sure that she remembered how to breathe, she was so terrified, and now Anna wasn't sure she herself wasn't on the paper-thin margin of hysterical desperation.
There had been a fierce anger in Sora's voice when he'd spoken that last sentence that terrified her in ways that she hadn't even been terrified when Elsa had unleashed the everlasting winter, or when Hans had swung his sword down at Elsa, or when Anna had learned that Elsa had nearly killed her when they'd been children, or when Elsa had struck her in the heart with her ice fragment.
For a second, the sick cold angry dark thing was back and strangling and asphyxiating, and this time it wasn't just dark.
It was pitch ebony black.
And it felt so wrong to recollect saying, "I love you!" to Elsa this time that Anna didn't even start to.
She'd love and protect and care for and cherish and be there for and support and save and help Elsa and Sora and Kristoff this time.
She wasn't an oblivious idiot chasing butterflies and rainbows any longer.
She knew the answer.
She knew the solution to how to love and protect Elsa and Sora and Kristoff without abandoning and betraying any of them and hurting them further in the process, and setting Elsa and Sora and Kristoff and everyone else free from this nightmare of despair and death and torture and destiny forever.
Yozora and the Foretellers wanted to use Sora and Kairi as puppet toy weapons to forge a Note Blade and open the door to Kingdom Hearts and create a New World?
"I can't tell you what Kingdom Hearts, the door to Kingdom Hearts, the Kye-Blade, and the world order are, but I can tell you that the worst way that I could endanger what Donald calls the world order is to use the Kye-Blade to open the door to Kingdom Hearts.
"So I want you to ask me why I won't use the Kye-Blade to open the door to Kingdom Hearts to keep Kairi and my friends safe, no matter how bad things become."
Yozora and the Foretellers couldn't do it if Anna got there first.
They couldn't do it if she stole their guiding star of Kingdom Hearts right out from under their noses, harnessed its powers herself, and fashioned a New World of her own.
It was that simple.
And that complex.
And it was final.
She could do it, she knew that she could.
She'd never lie to Elsa at all, and she'd never lie to Sora once again or Kristoff a single time, but she could lie to everyone else.
Yozora and the Foretellers liked to treat people's hearts and emotions and thoughts and memories and dreams as though they were no more than bottles on a shelf?
She could do the same thing, and much better.
Hans had taught her well, she'd had a royal education in politics and society and the economy and the military from her parents and tutors, both out in the open where people knew what she was saying and doing and as subterfuge in the shadows.
She'd spent most of her life paying attention to how people felt and not her lessons, but she hadn't forgotten any of them, and she'd known Hans briefly, and a lot of his maneuvering had been written by scribes into official records.
Furthermore, she still believed what she'd said to Sora. The smartest people were those who just saw the heart, and who didn't disconnect from other people's emotions or their emotions and waste effort and time with pointless and unnecessary unfeeling thought.
Hans hadn't understood this.
Anna did.
Maybe Yozora and Luxu and the Foretellers did, too, so Anna would need to be a lot more careful around them than she'd have needed to be if she was just endeavoring to beat Hans at his own game, but Anna was certain that she could do it.
She wasn't the Queen, but she was still a Princess and second in line to the throne of Arendelle and she still possessed the authority to convict others, and the judgment that Yozora and Luxu and the other Foretellers had been tried and found guilty of; and perhaps Kairi and Riku and Donald and Goofy and everyone else in the cosmos who had abandoned and betrayed Elsa's and Sora's and Kristoff's hearts and feelings and thoughts and memories and hopes and wishes and beliefs and dreams for their own selfish fears and pettiness, as well; were to be used and tortured and murdered and broken as they'd used and tortured and murdered and broken everyone else themselves.
She had to do it.
Elsa and Sora and Kristoff needed her, and it wasn't darkness if it helped someone.
But Anna couldn't convince herself that it was the right choice.
It wasn't darkness if it helped someone, but if she did this, she'd still abandon and betray Elsa and Sora and Kristoff and their hearts and feelings herself once more, even if she didn't lie to or use them or hurt them directly.
Riku's eyes and face were swallowed by dismay and anguish.
"If – and that's a very large if, because Namine might refuse to do this, no matter how much it might help Kairi heal – Namine rearranges your chain of memories and removes all of your memories of Kairi related to Kairi's love for you, or your love for her, in any fashion but as best friends and friends"
Anna kept her hand rubbing Sora's back from faltering, but she lost all ability to breathe, and she couldn't believe that her heart had retained its ability to beat.
What…?
"the pain of the lack of those memories will remain with you, and even if you never ask Namine to restore your memories, that pain will stay with you for the rest of your life."
Anna wouldn't be abandoning and betraying Elsa and Sora and Kristoff and their hearts and feelings if she sought Kingdom Hearts herself.
She'd be loving and protecting and cherishing and preserving them and their hearts and feelings.
This was the final straw.
Sora was willing to cast among his most beloved memories throughout most of his life into oblivion, and distort and warp his very heart and identity, for the rest of the time he was here in reality, to love and protect and cherish and be there for Kairi?
No one did that.
Anna didn't know if she could force herself to do that, even for Elsa.
There was no such thing as a fate worse than death, because as long as you lived you had the chance to obtain happiness and if you died, there was no possible way that your pain could be taken away because you were no longer there even though the pain was gone, so Anna would give her life for Elsa's if she had to and let Elsa and everyone's memories of her, and even the agony of the loss of those memories, be wiped away.
But Anna didn't know if she was willing to give up her memories of Elsa's love for her and her love for Elsa, and live the rest of her life without them.
Sora was willing to say and do all of these matters, with all his heart, feeling without concealing and without thinking twice, without even gathering himself and just saying and doing them, so long as it had a chance of taking Kairi's pain away.
That wasn't self-sacrifice.
That was self-genocide.
Anna knew that her love for Sora couldn't be romantic because she hadn't known him anywhere close to long enough for it to be romantic, but if she didn't love Sora in every other way it was possible to do so now as much as she could with all her heart, there was no such thing as love.
Sora was an incandescent sheet of blinding light completely and totally incapable of being comprehended or encompassed even by saying or otherwise conveying that he couldn't be comprehended or encompassed that spread unending and everlasting throughout all of beyond infinitely infinite boundless space and no beginning and no end eternally endless time.
And Anna would not let that light be extinguished.
She would love and protect it.
Not Elsa's love and light, not Sora's love and light, not Kristoff's love and light, not Olaf's love and light, not Marshmallow's love and light, not Sven's love and light.
No one's.
This was the end of destiny.
From now on, dreams would be reality.
There would be no more Elsas, or Soras, or Kairis, or Namines, or Rikus, or Anna's parents.
Once she created the New World with her own hands, no more children would be born into the World to wake up alone and abandoned and terrified and lost in the dark of the night, or be wielded by the people around them or by their own selves against their family and loved ones and friends.
No more people and hearts would grow up into an existence and a reality of despair to die alone and abandoned and powerless and forgotten.
No more children or teenagers or adults would need to fruitlessly and futilely give everything they had to their family and loves and friends who they loved and lived for and strove to provide simple and clean sanctuaries for while facing their fears without thinking twice, with everything that they were, with all their heart, feeling and not concealing, without doubting, and watch it all dissipate in vain into the cold and lonely night without reaching the people who they loved and wished to protect and keep safe and warm.
No more connections and bonds, and trust and belief, and memories and dreams, would be shredded to tatters, or fade away and vanish into the brutal, savage, ruthless, remorseless, harsh, unforgiving light of day.
Anna's path was set now.
She would forge the Kye-Blade, open the door to Kingdom Hearts, and bring about a better New World, without abandoning or betraying or lying to or hurting Elsa and Sora and Kristoff in the process, and she would break anyone who attempted to stop her from doing so into uncountable shards of fractured spun glass past the point of no return.
"Elsa, Sora, Kristoff," she spoke quietly inside her mouth, knowing that none of them could hear her but needing to say it anyway, even though she knew that if she did say it audibly and loud enough for them to hear her that there was no chance whatsoever that they would forgive her at all, or in any way, for as long as they lived and resided in an eternal afterlife. "I'm sorry.
"I'll be the sister and the family, and the love and the friend, that you need me to be from now on.
"I'll never let you go.
"I don't break my promises.
"I promise you three this."
.
"Teach me sorrow
If your eyes are closed
You won't see sorrow either
.
"If you live without knowing warmth
You won't get hurt
.
"A soft voice I can't recall
Within the depths of my mourning heart
From my long forgotten past
Someone is calling to me
.
"When will you take back
The sorrow with your own hands
This moment that will never come again
I see only you
.
"Far away, quietly, shining
There's a gentle boat
Afloat on surges of grief
.
"Between the waves, it disappears in me
Why, a warmth I shouldn't know
Searching the confusing depths
The ripples spread
.
"Life's ship is sailing on
Can't see a single star
Advancing between the waves, going through
Beyond the darkness
I see only you"
'The Deep Sea's Solitude'
GUNDAM SEED DESTINY