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CHAPTER 9:
MEMORIES OF A DREAM
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Author's Notes: The music for this Chapter is, in order of scene: 'FATES ~ God's Destiny,' from the CHRONO CROSS Original Soundtrack, Disc Three; and after this 'To the Last Drop Of My Blood,' from the VALKYRIE PROFILE Original Soundtrack, Disc Two; and afterwards 'The First Unison,' from the VALKYRIE PROFILE Original Soundtrack, Disc Two. The first composition can't be found in KINGDOM HEARTS Insider's MP3 section, but the other two can.
Kairi reached Invi and swung Destiny's Embrace at her chest, aiming for her heart with all of the precision she could concentrate without giving up too much strength.
Yet, as with Platina, Invi didn't draw her Keyblade.
She held up her left hand once more and the same white shield of energy with differing concentric circles appeared to block the blow.
Kairi withdrew it and snarled viciously, the inside of her entire being shrieking and screaming everywhere.
Fine, then.
If Invi wouldn't take Kairi seriously enough to call her Keyblade, Kairi would make her do it.
She wasn't useless baggage.
Kairi brought Destiny's Embrace into a horizontal position before her, held its hilt with both hands, and focused on the strings of light and darkness inside her heart and her memories of the darkness that she had sensed within Xehanort's Heartless and Terra-Xehanort.
After several seconds, rippling waves of ivory and ebony flames detonated outwards around her and fanned out in circles, and not the outlined feathers of an angelic wing but what she knew were the outlines of a bandaged shadowy phantasm the same shape as Ansem's and Terra's erupted outwards and backwards and upwards from her back, its heart cavity shimmering and glowing and flowing and shifting with all the amorphous pale colors of a rainbow.
"Formchange, Cantata Stella, Specter in Starfire," she hissed hatefully and furiously through clenched teeth.
Now that she was in touch with both light and darkness, she was attuned enough to her heart to know that she could do far better than this or the Cantata Nomine, Fairy in Tapestry Formchange she needed to perform to launch Ultimate Break; or than any Keyblade wielder or Keyblade Master with the possible exception of any of Yozora's three selves, with or without a Keyblade. Maleficent didn't need a Keyblade to Formchange into the Dragon; Ansem and Xemnas hadn't needed Keyblades to Formchange into World of Chaos and World of Traverse, and World of Order and World of Twilight; and Cloud hadn't needed a Keyblade for his Cantata Tempus, Pixie in Catalyst Formchange, nor had Sephiroth for his Cantata Spatium, Pixie in Distill Formchange, Donald had told Kairi that he'd been able to tell that Tifa possessed a Formchange known as Cantata Intervallum, Pixie in Reagent, though he hadn't seen her perform it.
Terra-Xehanort had been able to Formchange into World of Dusk without summoning ethereal energy from No Name to do it. Additionally, Xion had Formchanged into Chamber of Glass, Manor of Glass, Cavern of Glass, and World of Glass without applying her Kingdom Key. Xemnas' memory-siphoning contraptions had enabled Xion to do that. Nor had Sora's and her dual Cantata Metempsychosis, Pixie in Amber Formchange they'd performed when harnessing One Heart, or the Formchange Sora had used to attempt to connect with her when she'd been trapped inside the Demon Tide, Cantata Prodigium, Pixie in Universitas, been obtained with their Keyblades, though they'd intertwined themselves with their Keyblades to utilize them. Anyone with sufficient skill in harnessing light or darkness, or both, could Formchange, with or without a Keyblade.
Kairi was a Princess of Heart. She could accomplish Formchanges that Keyblade wielders such as Sora couldn't even think of, whether she possessed a Keyblade or she didn't.
She even knew what her pinnacle Formchange was named, though she didn't know how to unlock it at this time.
Through the other Princesses' connection to her heart, Kairi knew the name of Anna's, Elsa's, and Rapunzel's pinnacle Formchanges, too, though Kairi didn't know how they could unlock theirs, too.
Kairi's was Cantata Perpetua, Goddess in Filament.
Anna's was Cantata Mortis, Goddess in Fire.
Elsa's was Cantata Lux, Goddess in Mirror.
Rapunzel's was Cantata Nox, Goddess in Tear.
But that was all that Kairi knew at this point about what else the other New Seven Hearts, and she, could accomplish.
Kairi started.
If Lezard actually did split his heart into his own and two replicas', Kairi was now in tune with the strings of the heart's energy enough to tell that he himself would be capable of a Formchange called Cantata Fractura, Pixie in Thread; his proposed Hope would be capable of the Formchange Cantata Caldaria, Pixie in Glass; and his proposed Vanille would be capable of a Formchange called Cantata Laevis, Pixie in Sand.
Kairi had recognized that Lezard was struggling with the same kinds of hate and despair and powerlessness and fury that she was, but she'd assumed his words about actually attempting to wipe out all the deities of Olympus and destroy Kingdom Hearts were just meant hypothetically.
Now she wasn't sure.
She had even more reasons to talk to Lezard, now.
And, much more than that, to try to ensure that nothing else happened to Alicia than whatever she'd already been through and was going through.
Lezard was actually talking about mass murder and thinking about how to do it, even if it was just in theory, while the most Sora had said or done had been to start to remove his hand from hers so he could hurt Luxu badly for killing her mother. Agony seared Kairi at the memory, but though she knew that Sora had honestly considered killing Elsa when she'd requested him to, he hadn't so much as said a word about it or made the slightest motion to do so.
For Lezard's sake, and Alicia's, and their other family and friends, and the Gods and Goddesses and people of Olympus and the realm of light and the rest of the reality that Kingdom Hearts had created, she needed to keep Lezard from losing sight of the light.
She didn't know if Lezard was as smart as he bragged that he was, or if it was possible to cause Kingdom Hearts itself to vanish, but she knew that it could be engulfed by darkness and cast the realm of light into emptiness a second time, and she knew that Hercules had lost his immortality and could be killed, so the same thing could happen to all of the other deities here, and she didn't know for certain that Kingdom Hearts itself couldn't be destroyed, or, at best, lose its heart to darkness wholly.
And Kairi had been helpless to prevent too many other connections from being severed as it was.
She couldn't let that happen to Lezard and Alicia, or any of their other loved ones and friends.
Even though Kairi knew that she had barely any chance, if any whatsoever, of being able to support them, and of keeping Lezard's eyes on the light with anything that she said or did.
Invi nodded. "You're wielding both the light and the dark as Cantata Stella," she acknowledged. "Well done."
Kairi could see Roxas taking up a position far to her left, Xion far to her right, and Lea behind her.
She could sense and hear the other guardians, the Einherjar, and Lezard moving into positions of their own, while, thankfully, Tidus, Selphie, and Wakka were pulling back, though not so far that no one, or Kairi herself, couldn't get to them quickly. Kairi wanted to tell Lezard and the Einherjar to stay out of this, but she knew that they wouldn't listen.
Kairi bared her teeth in a bitter smile. "The dead weight isn't irrelevant to you, huh?" she commented.
Then she aimed her free hand palm forward and summoned her enhanced light into her magic.
"Luminaire," she said. "Plasma. Scintillation."
But what appeared in one if Invi's hands while her energy shield of concentric angles of white manifested in the other and remained was an unfamiliar Keyblade of a large number of coral colors and prongs of twisting light green resembling plankton.
Invi batted away the white hemisphere of Luminaire sailing at her with its rounded front forwards, then the following similarly facing hemisphere of white with large sheets of further pearl whirling around its equator, then the last likewise facing hemisphere with the colors of the rainbow flowing up it from its back, in a quick series of cuts.
Kairi clenched her teeth together furiously.
Had Invi forged a new Keychain and attached it to Current of the Ocean, was this Keyblade a solely Keyblade Formchange, or was she still treating Kairi as baggage and wielding a whole Keyblade inferior to her preferred weapon?
Roxas sent the four pillars of yellow hot Exaflare dancing around themselves shooting at Invi from Oblivion; Xion enshrouded herself in a globe of light rainbow colors and interwoven circles surrounded by runic inscriptions and fired the large dark purple beam of Eternal Cannon with a diameter larger than she was tall from the sphere; and Kairi could see the silvery armored apparitions of the twelve Knights of the Round Table and Arthur Pendragon, the latter with a flowing red cape descending from his shoulders and Excalibur in both hands as the other knights held their swords in one, arc up from behind Kairi and then arc together towards Invi, the result of Lea casting Ultimate End.
Invi walked back and positioned her energy shield to block all three assaults, and Kairi knew that Invi might be waiting for her to do something different other than to unleash the dark older brother of the light of Eschaton, the dark Final Eclipse that Roxas needed both Keyblades to be able to call upon.
So that was exactly what Kairi did.
Kairi raised Destiny's Embrace above her head and her phantasm raised its arms, and six enormous wings of light purple energies flecked with lines of shimmering medium blue burst out around the tip of Destiny's Embrace. Light and dark rainbow colors rippled together in front of the wings from all directions and generated a growing orb of fractals of light purple, and then it fired a single beam of average size at Invi.
Kairi let herself experience a surge of satisfaction as Invi failed to react fast enough to bring up her Keyblade and block or deflect the Final Eclipse, and it impacted with Invi's shield at the same time as the column of Eternal Cannon and the sheets of Exaflare did, and Arthur and his knights reached the shield and swung their swords in tandem.
The shield dissipated into motes of light, Aqua unleashed the medium sized dodecahedron energy construct of Starburst flowing with countless shades of blue, Ven launched the whiplashing tongues of solid dagger-sharp air of Cyclone, and Terra fired the brilliant orange and red pinpoint of Flareja.
Invi responded as Kairi had.
Rather than going for the obvious least predictable choice of Roxas, the best Keyblade wielder of the front company, she broke into a sprint aiming to take her around Kairi in the direction of Lea, the weakest, and let Starburst, Flareja, and Cyclone sail through where she hadn't been standing.
Kairi fired several of the extending sequence of glimmering opalescent Pearlja spheres that she'd learned from Mickey in Invi's direction, but Invi was moving too quickly for any sequence to hit her, so Kairi back-flipped out of the way and let Roxas, Xion, and Lea unleash their Delta Force triple tech and Aqua, Terra, and Ven activate their own triple tech of Delta Storm.
The gargantuan triangular Delta Force column of intermixed flowing white light, light blue water, and orange flames screamed down from above to intersect with Invi's path and strike her, and a similarly sized pyramid of interspersed tumbling clouds of ivory, dark blue water, and yellow fire broke up from the stone pavement below Invi at a similar time.
Kairi leveled Destiny's Embrace and sent the flowing raindrop shape of the iridescent opal Heavenly Tear in Invi's direction while she was flying through the air.
Unexpectedly, knowledge of how to take that light spell to its highest level rushed into her head even though she'd learned how to create her phantom once she'd discovered that she could utilize darkness, and Kairi re-aimed Destiny's Embrace as Invi back-flipped herself out of the Delta Storm and Delta Force, her robes and snake mask singed but otherwise intact.
"Heavenly Peal!" Kairi shouted, and a waterfall of jagged iridescent white like a wide lightning bolt ripped forward to smash into Invi's midsection and hurl her backwards off balance.
Aqua was there to swing Master's Defender at Invi, and Invi met it.
Invi went back on the offensive with an alternating series of tight, focused blows and wide cuts, driving Aqua back and forcing the less experienced Keyblade Master to keep blocking and parrying.
"This battle is meaningless," Invi informed them. "Even if you defeat me here, it won't affect Kairi's, Sora's, or Tidus' fates."
"I disagree," Roxas responded. "One less puppeteer trying to use Sora and Kairi as weapons makes for a good day in my book. Zettaflare."
Even though Aqua, Mickey, and Riku were the Keyblade Masters, Roxas was the only guardian of light who had learned how to cast Donald's Zettaflare without exhausting himself into unconsciousness in the process, due to how he used two Keyblades rather than one and could distribute the strain of Zettaflare between them, and he'd eventually grown so skilled with Zettaflare he'd become able to cast it with only one Keyblade.
Kairi wanted to tell Roxas that she'd still be a weapon anyway, but there was no point.
Xion swung her Kingdom Key and added Tera Graviton to the mix, and Lea chopped with Flame Liberator and did the same with Giga Graviton.
As the sigils, symbols, and circles for Zettaflare appeared below Roxas and began to revolve around him, multi-colored sigils symbols appeared in a globular surface around Xion, revolving counterclockwise around a wildly tumbling sphere of magenta and black, and sigils and symbols appeared in an equator to revolve clockwise around a gathering globe of black and dark blue about half Lea's height in diameter.
Both Gravitons fired at Invi and Aqua sprang back low to the ground, but Invi followed in a low jump of her own, avoiding them and letting them impact with the surrounding buildings and fizzle out harmlessly as all non-elemental spells did when hitting anything but their intended targets.
Aqua tried to jump back low once more, to keep Invi from using her as a shield to reduce the other guardians' lines of attack, but this time Aqua was ready.
When Invi followed Aqua's jump, Aqua moved Master's Defender into a backhand grip and harnessed Halation.
A horizontal ring of a wide sheet of glaring rainbow colors rippled out from the back of Master's Defender, bending and refracting rainbow light from the moisture in the air itself.
Sin Harvest or Descend, Heartless Angel wouldn't have any effect on Invi, but the wide area version of Sin Harvest, Death's Rainbow, would, when unleashed as the concentrated single target fourth and highest stage of the sequence.
Invi held up her Keyblade to block, but the rainbow sheet shimmered through the Keyblade as though it wasn't even there and drenched Invi with its unearthly light, and though an aquamarine corona exploded around Invi as she attempted to protect herself, Halation still turned the kinetic and ethereal force of all the injuries Invi had inflicted on her enemies since she'd begun combating others back upon her.
Invi flew back through the air like crumpled toy, directly into the path of the inferno column of Zettaflare.
Invi flew further back, and then Xion was at her side and cut into Ars Grimoire.
Her Kingdom Key adumbrated in silver, Xion darted to Invi's sides and below her and above her as though she were a flitting gnat, launching double-handed strike after double-handed strike from what appeared to be unpredictably opposing directions at Invi but were actually moves in a pattern of twenty-five consecutive slices.
Xion slid to a halt below Invi after the twenty-fourth strike, pulled the Keyblade tip down and prongs facing inwards in front of her legs, and then leapt up into the upwards chop of Fin.
Invi went flying upwards uncontrollably through the air, Terra fired Gaia Magnade, Lea cast Demon Star, and Ven launched Heavenly Gate, as Kairi broke into a sprint, ready to break into her Celestial Refraction Shotlock.
A diagonal geyser of huge tumbling boulders the rough shape of pebbles sailed at Invi and struck her as a miniature Sun of crimson appeared before Flame Liberator and refined into a sheet of crimson that went sailing at Invi, and light yellow bars of pure energy formed at the points of an invisible octagon around Ven's body and rocketed at Invi.
As they'd believed would happen, Invi had recovered at this point and pulled out of her pantomime of a somersault, forming a blue sphere with her Keyblade that blocked the assaults.
But that held her in place long enough for Kairi to fire Celestial Refraction.
Eighteen phantom mirrors of nothing but energies shimmering with a kaleidoscope of innumerable colors soared out of the prongs and front point of Destiny's Embrace to surround Invi at a respective eighteen points, and then they all began firing thick but unremarkably sized beams of rainbow light at Invi. They all impacted against Invi's shield and rebounded into other mirrors, but as soon as they struck the other mirrors, they intensified in size and fury and launched once more, and when they were deflected into accompanying mirrors they did the same thing.
This process repeated until they were large enough and brilliant enough to chip through Invi's shield, rebound, then increase even further in fury and repeat that process until they ripped the shield to shreds.
Even then, however, it wasn't over.
The beams passed through Invi and reflected off of the mirrors at the other side of their paths, increasing in the intensity of their conflagration still more, and continued to rebound until Invi's robes and mask were trailing smoke in many places and the Shotlock at last ended.
By this point Ven was whirling upwards around a nearby lantern in Flowmotion and Xion and Roxas were doing the same things up the walls of buildings on their sides of the street.
Ven shot feet-first out from the top of the lantern post with his Keyblade locked between his feet and pointed forwards in the magenta corona of Pyroclasm Phoenix, Roxas jumped horizontally outwards from his wall, spinning like a top and enclosed in a magenta corona of his own, with Oblivion pointed in Ethereal Bullet, and Xion jumped with the Kingdom Key aimed the same way, though not spinning, then ripped through the air at Riku's best speed in the magenta enshrouded Light Aura.
All three Flowmotion attacks struck Invi, and she dropped, but she flipped into a knee-bending crouch and landed.
She staggered slightly when she did, however, before she reassumed a ready combat stance.
But Kairi knew that this was no guarantee that the other guardians and she had the advantage. Xehanort, Young Xehanort, and Terra-Xehanort hadn't bothered with Command Styles or solely Keyblade Formchanges because they'd preferred to develop more original battle strategies, and Young Vanitas had learned from Xehanort so he hadn't used them himself, but Luxu had harnessed both Command Styles and Keyblade only Formchanges the times they'd fought him when he'd been wielding No Name, so it was likely the other Foretellers battled similarly.
Nor did they know if they'd outmatched Invi yet without forcing her to resort to a Command Style or Formchange, assuming that her current Keyblade wasn't a Formchange.
But however Invi battled, Kairi knew from their previous confrontations with Luxu that the Foretellers were much more skilled and experienced than this.
Invi wasn't putting much effort into the fight yet, and this battle was just getting started.
"There's no point not telling you," Invi spoke up, clearly having seen something in Kairi's expression or body language. "Yes, this is a Formchange for Current of the Ocean. Pandora's Box is the final component that Hades needs to fashion the Angel of Sin, so I thought it best to come here prepared."
That didn't bode well, and Kairi felt uneasy. If a Foreteller was worried about the Angel of Sin, it was a much more perilous than they'd believed that it was.
"Meaning what, precisely?" Lea questioned.
"Pandora's Box is the physical manifestation of the world heart of Olympus," Platina entered the conversation, and a violent chill ripped up Kairi's spine.
If Invi was speaking the truth, if Hades was merging Olympus' world heart with the Angel of Sin?
Then how in the stars were they going to defeat it?
Even if Kairi's darkness hadn't returned to its usual state, would they have had the smallest chance of defeating an entity with the powers of a world heart itself?
Reality was back, and Kairi could barely stay on her feet.
If Invi was telling the truth, about Pandora's Box and Tidus' choices, this might mean that there very well was no way to save Zack without Tidus becoming a Keyblade wielder or dying.
Kairi didn't even know if they could beat the Angel of Sin unless Tidus became a Keyblade wielder or died to free Zack from it, which would likely undo the whole being.
Kairi cast about with sheer, almost hysterical desperation, in her heart and mind, searching for something, anything that she could think of that could give her an idea of how they could defeat the Angel of Sin without sacrificing Tidus in the process.
No.
This couldn't happen to Tidus as well.
But this time Kairi couldn't cry.
Or maybe she was already crying, and she just couldn't tell.
But Xehanort had never shed a tear for any of the victims that he'd sacrificed, so why should Kairi be capable of, or even know, how to cry for them?
"He'll try!" Aqua cried, knowing as well as the rest of them what that meant, and held up her free hand to call her Keyblade Glider.
"It's too late," Invi informed her, and reality was gone once again.
Sora.
Riku.
Now Tidus.
Beyond doubt, Selphie and Wakka sooner or later, as well.
She was the daughter of Dreamreaper Xehanort, and a weapon forged by millennia of suffering and slaughter.
Kairi hated herself even more for feeling this way and thinking it, but she would have given almost anything for Sora to be here with her now, so that he could hold her and kiss her tears away once more.
But she was Xehanort's daughter.
She was hatred and anger and selfishness and exploitation incarnate.
Aqua didn't summon her Keyblade Glider, but nor did she lower her hand. Aqua knew as well as Kairi that Invi might be lying, but they both knew that they needed to hear what the lie was.
"Hades can't open the heart of the world himself directly. Zeus detached it from the core of Olympus millennia ago to keep any of the other Gods and Goddesses, or the Titans if they somehow escaped their prison, from accessing it, and all the darkness and light and knowledge within the heart of the world, and exploiting it for the wrong ends.
"Gods and Goddesses can't open Pandora's Box.
"But Megara's soul has been bound to Hades for years." Ven gasped, Terra stiffened, and Aqua thinned her lips together, but Kairi felt nothing. "She gave it to him to resurrect her first love, Paris, Prime Minister of the city of Troy, who then repaid her generosity by leaving her for another girl named Helen and convincing her to leave her fiancé, Braska, the pacifistic General of the military forces of the city of Ithaca. This strained relations between them and eventually touched off a lengthy war that didn't end until Braska, and Philocetes' late pupil, Achilles, died when the Trojan forces lured them to fake negotiations and Paris himself shot them from behind with arrows; Braska in the back of the head and Achilles in his one weak location after the training Philocetes had put him through; his heel. Helen was horrified when Braska and Achilles were murdered and, realizing her mistakes, turned Paris over to the Ithacan forces against his will and surrendered Troy to Ithaca.
"Paris was then executed and Helen returned to her former fiancé, but the war had by this point resulted in the deaths of Braska and Philocetes' late pupil, Achilles, who the Ithacan forces were fond of. The Prime Minister of Ithaca, Odysseus, wanted to leave Troy in peace so long as they provided Ithaca compensation for the lives lost during the war, but his officer subordinates mutinied, set him adrift at sea with his followers who remained loyal to him, and then avenged his death by leveling Troy and refusing to rebuild it unless the survivors of its sacking spent decades in indentured servitude serving Ithaca as one of its colonies. Poseidon eventually found Odysseus, rescued him, and returned him home, and Odysseus reassumed his station as Prime Minister of Ithaca and executed the corrupt officers, but the damage had been done.
"Hades recognized long ago that Hercules' greatest weakness is his connection to Megara, and he would have exploited it long since if he hadn't learned of Megara's true potential when Xehanort and Maleficent advanced Hades' knowledge of the heart and the astral tapestry of the realm of light.
"Life and death are not to be tampered with. The hearts of those who live on a world are inextricably bound to its world heart, and when they die, they sever that connection and pass into The Final World unless a deity exists on a world who implements his, her, or its own afterlife for those hearts. But even if a deity, such as Hades, preserves dead hearts in a pocket dimension outside of the larger balance of space and time, this connection is severed, and those reborn from death through any means but the power of waking or the power of spectral cannot regain that connection. Megara's former love repeatedly attempted to reestablish his connection with Olympus' world heart each second he was alive and after he died for a second time, to no avail, but this left a minute active thread between the external world of Olympus and its world heart that Hades learned to trace through Maleficent and Xehanort.
"Furthermore, Paris brought about a large amount of death for years, and Poseidon, who rescued Odysseus, is Zeus' second youngest brother, and both of these matters gave Hades an even greater ability to trace Paris' connection to the world heart.
"Lastly, Auron was a world traveler who came to Olympus years ago and had no ties to Olympus' world heart, but who befriended Odysseus, Achilles, and Braska, and joined Ithaca's military to better be able to protect them. When they were both betrayed and murdered, Auron felt that he'd failed his friends and infiltrated Troy on his own to attempt to reach Helen through her darkness and convince her that she was in the wrong. He was successful in returning her to the light, but afterwards, when he attempted to return to Odysseus, he was caught by Troy's forces and his left arm was broken when he defeated them. He was set adrift with Odysseus and was instrumental in helping Odysseus to survive his time at sea and Poseidon to return him home, but during Odysseus' subsequent battle with his corrupt officers, due to Auron's crippled state, he was required to die to protect Odysseus' wife, Penelope, and his son, Telemachos, from the officers. This placed his heart in Hades' Styx Maelstrom and gave Hades a third means of strengthening his tie to the world heart, a tie that still exists."
So that was the pain that Auron carried around.
Interesting.
That was how Xehanort saw pain, wasn't it?
As research to delve into.
"Megara still hasn't fully moved on from Paris' betrayal of her and thus severed her connection from him by accepting Hercules' love for her, so Hades hasn't yet used her against Hercules because he wants her to remain bound to Hades so he can more effectively use Megara to trace Paris' connection to the world heart through her.
"But even this wasn't enough. He was waiting for you to figure out his plan, taking the calculated risk that Aqua would arrive on Olympus and he could strengthen his connection to the world heart one last time through her strong heart connection as a Keyblade Master with Auron and with Zack."
Aqua's hand fell to her side, and she looked as if now she had lost partial sense of reality.
Terra and Ven had spent months attempting to help Aqua come to terms with her pain over having failed to protect and be there for Eraqus, Ven, and Terra over a decade ago, but she was still a very long ways away from fully moving forward from it.
But Kairi didn't know how Aqua felt.
She couldn't.
Kairi couldn't care about abandoning and betraying and deserting and leaving Sora and her friends, and stabbing them in the back and shooting them in the back.
She was who she was because of death and blood and abandonment and betrayal.
She couldn't care about it.
"I can sense the connections and the astral fabric within the balance.
"Even had Aqua left minutes ago, she wouldn't have made it in time. The Day of Wrath of the Second War of the Gods is upon us."
Kairi knew what that meant, but she couldn't care.
The water in her eyes was left over from one of the spells or maneuvers one of the other guardians, or she, or Invi, had called upon.
She didn't have a heart to cry with.
"The Angel of Sin is complete."
There was no point to it, it would cause things to become a lot worse, and it wouldn't improve anything or change anything, but Kairi turned and ran in Tidus' direction and dispersed the familiar behind her into nothing in clear flickers of space, trusting the others to be able to defeat Invi.
It wasn't as though she could make a difference if she fought with them.
But she heard Invi say, "I should leave since I have the chance to, and avoid putting myself in danger now that I have preserved the balance," and then the sound of a dark corridor opening, and Kairi knew that the confrontation was over.
She reached Tidus, whose face was a mask, as was Selphie's, though Wakka was looking at both of them with too many emotions to decipher, and more added to them when Kairi became close enough.
"I recommend you become a Keyblade wielder," she said with a forced smile.
Now you're actively ruining his life.
Like father, like daughter, as they say.
"It can get bad at times, but it's not that bad," Kairi tried to reassure him. "And Sora and Riku and I will be with you as much as we can."
Yeah, right.
"You'll see more sights than you could have believed you'd see your whole life," she continued. "And you have no idea how many friends you'll end up making.
"Pain brings people closer together, because it teaches us to carry each other's hurt. You don't need to worry about not being able to connect our dreams."
"He'll still worry about it," Platina's voice spoke up from behind Kairi and to her left, and she started as the other girl, no longer winged, walked to her side. "He doesn't want to just carry your hurt, and Sora's, and Riku's.
"He wants to carry all of your pain, while living in a world of hurt and a world of warmth at the same time.
"That's why I apprenticed myself to Hercules. Leone did it because she believes we should fulfill our divine mandates, because they teach us how to be kind to others even though they require us to give so much of ourselves that we hurt others around us by doing so anyway.
"But that's not why Alicia and I did it.
"Our parents didn't sell Leone and Alicia into slavery, because Leone was too old and Alicia has problems I'll get to shortly. But they sold me when their lives had already been damaged by Hades' attack on Thebes, partially because I was the best age, and partially because we had a rocky relationship all our lives. They admired Leone's devotion to the Gods and Goddesses, and Alicia for her condition, but there was nothing special about me and Lucian has been my best friend since my childhood and he has his own issues with the Gods' policies, so I was the odd one out. Yet they did die trying to protect me, so I know what it's like to be here because people have suffered and died to bring me to where I am, and when Hercules rescued us, I attempted to save Rena and failed, and she was shot from behind in the neck by an arrow right in front of me.
"I can feel your pain, Kairi. I can feel Tidus' pain as well."
Her gaze became filled with anguish and longing. "And Lezard's. I didn't understand it until my parents sold me and then died for me, because Leone shielded me from a lot of the nature of suffering, but since then I've tried very hard to take it away.
"But his heart is Alicia's, even though Alicia's is Rufus', and I know Lucian is in as much pain as Lezard because of what happened to Rena and that he loves me as much as Lezard loves Alicia." Kairi winced. And she'd believed her situation with Sora and Anna was tangled. "So I told Lucian that sooner or later I'll be willing to return his feelings.
"Not now. It feels too much like abandoning Lezard, even though I've been interested in Lucian for most of my life until I understood Lezard's pain. But sometime, sooner or later."
Platina waved a hand. "But my feelings aren't here or there right now.
"The point that I'm trying to make is, I understand all of the sides of the argument. Lucian's, who believes that the Gods require too much from humans by choosing the greater good over people's personal feelings; and Leone's and my parents', the former who admires the Gods for their altruism, the latter who just wanted to survive in a city where their lives had been wrecked even though interest in their survival goes against divine mandate.
"So I enlisted in Hercules' and Megara's hero academy to protect mortals and Gods, and in the hopes of bridging our realities and dreams so that we can better understand each other.
"Alicia is the same. Hades flattered the Fates into telling him the most likely potential futures they were aware would occur if he launched his coup, and they're not supposed to do that. That's not just Zeus' and the Parliamentary Assembly's rule, it was woven into the astral fabric of Olympus as much as the rules for becoming a true hero were.
"Additionally, deciphering the currents of time is a strain on even deities. So, when they broke the rules of the astral tapestry, it cost them most of their powers and put them in danger of losing their immortality. They tried to recover by ceasing to read potential futures and living as humans who traveled from place to place in human form taking up odd jobs for a living, and in time, we met them as children and our parents employed them.
"They admired Leone's devotion to the Gods and revealed who they were in time, though not what the prophecy that they'd told Hades was.
"They told him that themselves a few months after Hercules defeated the Titans last year because the prophecy had been fulfilled and they were free to speak of it to anyone they chose to now, according to the laws of the astral tapestry. When they did, they warned Zeus and the Parliamentary Assembly and Hercules to be careful, because Hades had made no effort to keep him from Mount Olympus when he'd deployed the Titans and all of the futures that they'd seen had stopped unraveling the way that they'd witnessed them unfolding as soon as the Unversed first came to Olympus. So the Fates were no longer certain that Zeus and the Congressional Parliament would survive in any future.
"However, when Leone kept badgering them about if there was anything she, or the rest of us, could do to enable them to heal, they eventually gave in to Leone's inquiries and revealed that if they could rest inside a human heart for a few years, because humans aren't as bound by the astral fabric as Gods and Goddesses are, they'd be able to heal.
"Leone, of course, offered to let the Fates rest inside her heart right away, but the Fates rejected her proposal. If they did, they told her, Leone would gain the ability to see potential futures herself, but she wouldn't be able to control it like the Fates could, so she'd be plagued by often recurring random visions of Olympus' potential futures and the cosmos outside of it for the rest of her life. Leone said that she didn't care, that she could deal with visions and even learn how to better serve the Gods because of them, but the Fates argued that Leone had a bright future ahead of her in service of the Gods, and they refused to inconvenience that.
"Alicia, however, overheard this discussion, and she's been best friends with Lezard and Mystina for as long as I was best friends with Lucian, so she was unusually adept at magic even then. She already knew how to animate statues, so she figured out how to alter those principles to move the Fates into her heart, and did so that night when the rest of us, and the Fates, were asleep.
"I don't know what she saw when she had her first vision. Outside of telling me that it didn't involve Olympus and took place in a 'cemetery of person-sized keys,' a 'lake of clouds and hovering stone,' a 'labyrinth of roofless walls,' and a 'city of hills and water,' she won't speak of it."
Was there any point in trying to figure out how to tell Platina what that vision had been about as painlessly as possible?
How much of how badly Alicia had been frightened of the vision had been Kairi's fault, too? Kairi knew that a good deal of why Alicia had been scared must have been due to the Demon Tide and the Lich, if not more.
"But whatever it was, it terrified her so much that she attempted to remove the Fates from her while she was still living the vision in the hopes that, if she removed them soon enough, she wouldn't be plagued by any further visions.
"The spell was successful and Alicia didn't undergo another vision, but this strained the astral fabric in its own way and split Alicia's heart into two, and the second heart inside hers was a mortal with the potential to see the future who Alicia named after her middle name, Silmeria.
"Out of guilt for what had happened, the Fates left our employ, and we didn't see them once more until their warning to Hercules, all three of them having healed enough to use their powers to their fullest once more a minority of years ago, and none of them in any further danger of losing their immortality.
"Alicia was free of the visions, but Silmeria wasn't, and though Silmeria refuses to tell Alicia about the visions herself even though she and Alicia have developed a limited ability to communicate, every time Alicia sleeps, her dreams are engulfed by vivid nightmares of the visions Silmeria has gone through. Additionally, the Fates see potential futures through limited power over space and time, so she has the ability to seize limited control of Alicia's body." That was possible if you weren't a Heartless or you didn't do so with a Keyblade? "Additionally, because Silmeria often loses awareness of reality due to her visions, she has a habit of unintentionally using these abilities to take control of Alicia's mouth and talk about them out loud, so our parents kept Alicia from having contact with most people for most of her life."
Kairi had ruined someone else's life as badly as she'd ruined Sora's and Riku's.
She saw no point suppressing the urge to wince, and winced.
Platina's eyes became sympathetic.
"I thought so," Platina spoke, and smiled reassuringly. "You're one of the people from Silmeria's visions. Yes, I know you created the 'dancing torrents of shades' and the 'chained reaper of night,' and I'm saying all this without holding you accountable for any of it or what creating them resulted in."
Kairi didn't feel better at all.
"To reach my point, Alicia refused to open up to anyone but Lezard, Silmeria, and Rufus, an archer she met due to the upheaval in the astral fabric when Hades freed the Rock Titan and Ice Titan without undoing the seal on their prison, and who learned his craft under Artemis, Goddess of the Hunt. When he did, Rufus grew to see her as the older sister he'd never had, but divine mandate required her to stop spending a lot of time with Rufus because mortals and deities aren't supposed to coexist that closely to prevent mortals from becoming too dependent on divine power and divine wisdom, and deities from suffering when their mortal friends grow old and die, and when Rufus lost Artemis it hurt him very badly.
"But the Fates hadn't known that Silmeria could actually take partial control of Alicia's body, so when we met them again, they didn't know to keep their power from resonating with Silmeria's. Silmeria nearly unwillingly stopped Alicia's heart from beating, and to disrupt the astral fabric enough to break the Fates' influence on Alicia as well as to bring Auron back to life, who we'd known since Hercules saved me from the slaving ring, Rufus signed the contract with Hades Lezard told you about, and this broke Alicia so badly she started opening up to the rest of us and, together with Silmeria who she has since learned how to give full control of her body by her own choice, she enlisted in Hercules' training academy herself.
"Alicia and I share the same dream, and Alicia takes it even further.
"I want to bridge the realities of deities and mortals and enable us to protect each other and support each other, so we can both be happier than we are now, rather than deities just using their powers to protect mortals, but I'm not sure it's a good idea for us to live side by side. As much as I empathize with Rufus, the rare times Zeus has given deities a chance at coexisting with mortals for too long, it's usually led to suffering because the deities go through too much pain when the mortals age and die; or the mortals become too dependent on divine power and delve into energies that they haven't been taught how to cope with or otherwise learned to endure, and the mortals get themselves killed or crippled for the rest of their lives.
"But Alicia, who sheltered three Goddesses inside her heart for a few months, and who has lived since then with a third sister with limited divine power, sees deities as victims of the hardships of reality as much as mortals are. According to her, deities put themselves through too much pain of their own providing for mortals, and mortals should cherish them as much as they cherish us."
Kairi found that she agreed with that.
Cinderella's Fairy Godmother, Genie, the ethereal entities made form of Halloween Town and Christmas Town, Mushu, and perhaps the Cheshire Cat weren't deities, but they put themselves through too much pain giving people bound to matter happiness. Genie hadn't even had a choice in the matter. Before Aladdin had freed him from his lamp he'd been bound to stricter ethereal laws, or 'astral tapestries,' as the people on Olympus put it, than even the Fates and Hercules.
The ethereal entities Sora and Riku and she herself had met, as well as deities, had hearts as much as Nobodies, replicas, Pinocchio, toys, and Artificial Intelligences did.
They, and deities, deserved to live lives of their own not serving others as much as anyone else deserved to.
"Her dream for the future," Platina concluded her story of Alicia's wishes, "Is of a world where mortals and deities live side by side as much as mortals themselves are capable of, carrying each other's pain and catching each other's tears so all of our hearts, person and God, can laugh together and be happy.
"Tidus is the same. He's seen too much suffering, both yours and his other friends, to be happy in any other way than to bridge your dreams of battle and his dreams of kindness."
Kairi pushed away the feelings of desperation and helplessness.
What was the point in feeling them? She should know by now that experiencing them accomplished nothing.
To Kairi's surprise, Platina reached out and put a gentle hand, warm with compassion, on her right shoulder.
"Don't look like that," Platina spoke. "Remember what I said. My parents died to turn me into who I am now, and I Rena died before my eyes. I know precisely what you're going through.
"I can feel your pain, and I know that the path that you're choosing isn't the one that you want to take."
Kairi wanted to walk backwards out from under Platina's hand, but there was no point to that, as well.
"It doesn't matter what I want," Kairi replied. "There's no other path that I can take."
"Yes, there is," Platina disagreed. "I'm sure that you believe otherwise, that the only course left for you is to distance yourself as much as possible from the people who you love, or you'll fail them once more or keep hurting them actively.
"But question yourself this. I named my Dreamstone sword the Glance Reviver, and asked Lezard and Mystina to hollow it of color until it became transparent glass, because it's meant to reflect the illusions of our memories of the lives we once lived and forge them into dreams of better worlds, realities, tomorrows, and futures."
What was Dreamstone, anyway?
It could be used to wall off a world, or at least reinforce a wall of Gummi blocks, and it could be polished into glass, so was it a mineral that naturally broke off of a world heart's Station of Awakening?
"You are who you are today because others have suffered and died for you, yes, and because you didn't stop others from suffering and dying, and we see ourselves the way that others remember us, yes. But who are you yourself, independent of what others have given you? Additionally, who were you who made you who you are today?"
She raised Glance Reviver with her free hand and turned it so that Kairi could see her face reflected back in it.
Kairi almost didn't recognize herself.
Her eyes were bloodshot and lifeless, and her face was haggard and exhausted. Kairi saw nothing of the vitality and the cheer she'd used to have, or her hope and trust in Sora's and Riku's and Tidus' and Selphie's and Wakka's vibrant hearts and those of the rest of the people who she loved, and the colorful verdure of the reality around her.
But Kairi could barely remember what that girl had looked like.
She'd forgotten that girl when Sora had faded into the air and disappeared from all existence when her hand should have been enough to hold him to reality.
"Was your former self the agent of massive and continual pain and death that the Foreteller claimed that you are," Platina asked, "Or, based on what Tidus has implied, was she a kind girl who loves others and wants to run like the wind together with them, smiling and laughing with the breeze caressing her skin and hair under a sky of cerulean and causing them to smile and laugh and be caressed by the wind themselves?"
Kairi's eyes widened, and sudden, desperate hope rushed through everything that she was.
Kairi wasn't sure if it was just her mind's eye, or the Glance Reviver itself, or both, but the memories came flooding to her as though she was lost in one of the dreams that Platina had said that she'd purified her sword to fashion.
"But you know… I wouldn't mind going to see it."
"Sora, don't ever change."
"I just can't wait. Once we set sail, it'll be great."
"Sora, are you really – No. He can't be! I won't let him go!"
"Sora? Is that you?"
"Uh-oh!"
"This time, I'll protect you."
"Sora!"
"Kairi!"
"Kairi, thank you."
"Even in your Heartless form, I knew it was you."
But Kairi had been nothing more than an oblivious infant. Maybe she'd shown Sora and Riku and others warmth and hit lit their way back home sweet home, but for all that she'd tried, she hadn't had as much of a grasp of what Sora and Riku were going through as Donald and Goofy and Mickey had. She'd given all her heart to attempting to understand their hurt and taking away their pain, it had been for nothing, and she'd made things worse for them since she'd met them.
While all that time she'd wished her happy, comfortable world would exist forever and never change, and she'd been entirely ignorant of how much people were suffering for her sake and around her.
And now she'd condemned Tidus and Selphie and Wakka, as well.
"A light at the end of the tunnel…"
"Oh, your grandma's story, right?"
"That's right. We were together."
"You know what's funny? I looked everywhere for you, but you were with me all along. Finally, we're together, Kairi."
"When I turned into a Heartless, you saved me, remember? I was lost in the darkness. I couldn't find my way. As I stumbled through the dark, I started forgetting things – my friends, who I was. The darkness almost swallowed me. But then I heard a voice – your voice. You brought me back."
"I didn't want to just forget about you, Sora. I couldn't."
"That's it! Our hearts are connected. And the light from our hearts broke through the darkness. I saw that light. I think that's what saved me. No matter how deep the darkness, a light shines within. I guess it's more than just a fairy tale."
She hadn't let go of Sora, hadn't forgotten him and left him behind in Hollow Bastion, and had shone a way for him to walk out of tunnel of darkness for him to return to what?
Increasingly worse darkness and despair and pain and torture?
For her to continue abandoning and betraying him every second she was alive, much less by his side?
"You'd kind of be in my way."
"Don't ever forget. Wherever you go, I'm always with you."
Always with him to hurt him with every pulse of her blood and beat of her heart.
She wasn't just in his way, she constricted him from even taking a step.
"Maybe… waiting isn't good enough."
"My thoughts exactly! If you have a dream, don't wait. Act. One of life's little rules. Got it memorized?"
She'd betrayed Sora then.
She'd told him that she'd known that he'd keep his promise, that she believed that they were connected when they were apart, and then she'd broken that trust and run into the corridor of darkness to Twilight Town.
If she hadn't, Isa might not have taken her from Lea and Sora might have gone through as much suffering as he had at the hands of the initial Organization Thirteen, and who knew what else would have been different.
Sora had promised to come back to her, but she hadn't promised him anything in return.
She'd been so determined to keep the present how it was that she'd used him as a puppet as Xehanort had used Sora and innumerable other people, a toy to keep the life she enjoyed preserved for all time.
Xehanort had sought to preserve the past, and Kairi had sought to preserve the present.
That was the sole difference between her and her father.
"What took you so long, Kairi?"
Her infantile obliviousness.
She hadn't wanted to lose her happiness and contentment, even as the people she'd believed that she'd loved the most had inexorably lost theirs.
"We gotta' fight!"
"But – Kingdom Hearts!"
"Sora! Sora! It's really you!"
"Kairi!"
"You leave Sora alone! Sora–!"
"Take it."
"This time… I'll fight. You know Sora's completely hopeless without us! C'mon, Riku!"
"Kairi, you were great!"
"Oh?"
"You are different, Kairi, but I'm just glad you're here!"
"You and Riku never came home, so I came looking for you."
"I'm sorry."
"This is real…"
But was that true?
Kairi couldn't believe that it wasn't true, but if it wasn't true, why had Sora himself said that she had changed?
She couldn't believe in herself, but she couldn't not believe in Sora and Riku, or she'd further sever their connections, and abandon them and betray them further.
Maybe she had done the right thing by running to Twilight Town. If she hadn't, she might not have been able to be there for Sora when he'd been on the verge of giving up, and while she didn't know for sure if he'd have given up then as he almost had when he'd become a Heartless, if she hadn't been willing to fight and started to wield the Keyblade, she might not have grown into her power as a Princess of Heart enough for her letter to reach him and Riku at the Dark Margin.
And even if her letter would have reached them anyway, that she'd been willing to fight and put herself through pain was evidence that she cared about more than just an eternal present.
She'd been willing to give up her happy, comfortable life and open her eyes to the pain other people were going through around her.
Sora himself had said so.
Would she genuinely have done all those things if all she'd cared about was unending happiness?
"Riku, don't go!"
"Huh?"
"Kairi, what did you just say?"
"Riku."
"I'm no one – just a castaway from the darkness."
"Sora, come here. Say something to him. Here. You'll understand. Close your eyes."
"Riku… It's Riku. Riku's here…"
Sora had spent week after week, month after month, traveling in search of first her and Riku and Mickey, then Riku and Mickey and later her, for over more than a year, but both times, in the end, she had been the one to reunite Sora and Riku.
The first time she'd been at Sora's side through most of his journey and had protected him and shared his pain and burdens, thus enabling him to call Riku out of the darkness. If Sora hadn't defeated Riku, Riku might not have become darkness itself and Xehanort's Heartless' vessel, and he might have remained less ethereally dark but much more willingly dark, and continued down that road until it had become far harder, if not fully outside of the realm of possibility, to call him home sweet home.
Then she'd taught Sora that light never went out and had enabled him to defeat Xehanort's Heartless and pave the path for Riku to eventually reunite with Sora permanently. Yes, without knowing it, she'd sent a Demon Tide after Mickey and Aqua, and another after Riku himself, but Mickey and Aqua had been able to deal with them, and even if Aqua hadn't used herself as a shield to keep the second Demon Tide from Riku, she wouldn't have been able to leave the realm of darkness through the Door to Darkness any more than Riku and Mickey had been able to, and when Ansem the Wise had provided means for Riku and Mickey to escape it he very likely wouldn't have given Aqua a similar card.
A full-fledged Keyblade Master would have been too much of a threat to his plans for revenge.
Kairi couldn't believe it, but it was plain.
The Demon Tides had hurt Mickey and Aqua badly and had almost hurt Riku, but she'd helped more than harmed during Sora's and Riku's first adventure.
The second time, she'd gone looking for Sora and Riku when she'd become too worried about them and had felt their absence too powerfully, and she'd been the one to reunite them when Riku had refused to return to Sora's side himself and Sora hadn't recognized who Riku was.
She'd been powerless to protect them when World of Order Xemnas had ambushed them, but they'd been able to defeat World of Order Xemnas and World of Twilight Xemnas while working together because she'd brought them back together.
If she hadn't, both Sora and Riku might have been murdered.
"We pray for our sorrows to end, and hope that our hearts will blend.
"Now I will step forward to realize this wish."
She'd written that in her letter when she hadn't even remembered who Sora was, or anything about their first adventure other than why Riku was gone, and had had unimaginably more of a reason to want to remain happy and carefree within her enjoyable present forever.
Yet, even then, she'd loved Sora enough and had wanted to protect him enough that she'd stepped forward and called him home sweet home, and had taken away his and Riku's pain and blended their three hearts together.
She hadn't just wanted to run like the wind under cerulean skies herself.
She'd wanted Sora and Riku to do so as well, while she was at their sides so that she could cherish them and keep them safe.
Was Platina right, then?
Was she the girl who she'd once believed she had been after all, and not the orchestrator of endless and unending suffering and despair and torment and death, for Sora and Riku and Tidus and Selphie and Wakka and Lea and everyone else she'd known or loved?
"Sora! Riku!"
"W–We're back."
"You're home."
She hadn't been able to protect them when World of Order Xemnas had ambushed them, but afterwards she'd called both of them home when they'd been lost in the darkness and giving up a second time, and then welcomed them there with an extended hand and as warm a smile as she'd been able to think of giving them.
Would she have done that, if she was no more than Xehanort's daughter and the daughter of the dreamreapers?
"Who's this new Riku and where's the old one?"
"New me?"
"Yeah. You're more like Sora."
"Should I be flattered? I try too hard to be the role model. It's more fun to just listen to my heart. Which is Sora-esque."
"Well, we still like you. Master, I came here because I wanted to help somehow. What can I do?"
If all she'd cared about was her own happiness, of remaining oblivious and closing her eyes to pain and never changing from that naïve, sheltered girl, why had she understood Riku so well that she'd seen how much he'd changed before Riku himself had?
She could tell now that there was a part of her that hated Riku for betraying Sora and for what he'd done to Sora and the ripple effects of him giving into the darkness, but Kairi knew for certain that that wasn't her.
She could never genuinely hate Sora or Riku, or Tidus or Selphie or Wakka, or anyone else who she loved or who she was friends with.
Maybe Platina was correct.
Platina had lived in oblivious happiness, and then her parents had died trying to keep her safe even though they'd betrayed her in the end, and Platina had let Rena be murdered, but Platina, clearly, hadn't been a selfish girl concerned with an eternal now.
She'd been happy and hadn't wanted to lose it, but she'd given it up to take away others' pain.
Furthermore, if Kairi had just wanted to remain oblivious and separate from torment, why had seeing Riku's pain hurt Kairi so much that it had removed her last veils of uncertainty and driven her to ask Yen Sid how she could become a better Keyblade Master.
She'd sent two Demon Towers after Riku and Mickey without being aware that she had because she hadn't wanted Mickey to keep anything else from Riku or burden Riku with more responsibilities, and because she hadn't wanted Riku to successfully save Aqua because Kairi had been terrified that, if Riku had saved Aqua, he'd end up being put through more hurt than he would if he was unsuccessful in doing so.
Kairi understood that now.
But, though those Demon Towers had almost killed Riku and Mickey, or at least taken their hearts, twice, endangered Sora as well, and then further endangered all three of them by completing Aqua's transubstantiation into Anti-Aqua, if Kairi hadn't caused Riku to become aware of how much he'd changed, he probably wouldn't have taken his final steps towards attaining the special strength to protect what mattered.
For the third time, she'd kept Riku safe.
"Here."
"Huh?"
"Tomorrow's fight will be our toughest yet. I want to be a part of your life no matter what. That's all."
"Kairi, I'll keep you safe."
"Let me keep you safe."
She'd seen how much pain Sora had been in then. She'd seen that he was fracturing, that he'd begun to fall apart since he'd felt Roxas' and Xion's and Namine's and Aqua's and Ven's and Terra's pain in the dream of The World That Never Was. She hadn't been there then, but she'd heard from Riku and from Lea's Gummiphone synopses of how Sora had reacted to waking from his second descent into darkness immeasurably more terrified and worried for the people who he loved than before.
He'd hugged Riku, terrified that Riku had been hurt by his dive and not concerned about himself at all, and then had run to the dream of Traverse Town to say goodbye to the Spirits who had assisted him during the Mark of Mastery Exam.
Sora had experienced torture he'd never known that others had been capable of going through before, and it had brought him closer to others and forged him into a much more loving and caring person who had gone to far greater lengths than he had since before he'd woken up to cry in the place of people who were hurting, yet as Namine had warned Mickey, it had started to chip away at his heart.
By the time she'd completed her training and Sora had gone through failure after failure in the worlds he'd traveled to in search of a way to restore Roxas, he'd already been fading into the ghost he'd literally briefly become before vanishing completely later.
And Kairi had been more determined than she could recall being before in her life to prevent that from happening.
Would she have loved Sora enough to try to do that, even though she'd failed, and to try to keep him safe because of how dangerous the coming confrontation was, if all she'd cared about was remaining happy and carefree?
If she didn't care, why had she created the four Demon Tides, the Lich, and the two Demon Towers in the first place?
The closer you got to the light, the greater your shadow became, that was true, but you couldn't cast a shadow without light there.
"Sora."
"Kairi! I found you!"
"You see? I had no doubts that you'd pull through."
"The light in the darkness. It was you. You're the one who kept me from fading away."
"All I did was believe that you wouldn't."
"I feel strong with you, Kairi."
"The others are ahead. Come on. I told you, Sora. You're safe with me. You okay?"
"Yeah. Thanks, Kairi."
She hadn't even needed to do anything that time.
Even after Terra-Xehanort had begun to fragment her own confidence in her ability to protect the people she loved and to cry in their place, all she'd needed to do the time when Sora had been in the most danger he'd been in in his entire life until he'd saved her from Xehanort had been to believe that he'd make it through the latest nightmare.
And by doing so, she'd saved not just his and Riku's hearts that time, or opened a way for him to come home sweet home together with Riku, but theirs and the others' very lives as well.
Yet even so, she had been the one who had nearly murdered them all in the first place.
And then she'd still been so oblivious to pain and the reality around her that she'd lowered her guard when she shouldn't have and had finished Sora off anyway.
Could she truly believe that she wasn't Xehanort's daughter, and the daughter of the dreamreapers?
"This mirror of your memories is just an illusion," Platina's voice came from what felt like nowhere, though Kairi was somehow as aware of Platina's warm hand on her shoulder as she was of her haggard reflection in the mirror of Glance Reviver and her dream of her recollections.
"But truths can be found even in the midst of illusion. And when the illusion vanishes into a dream, these truths can continue to reverberate with the hearts of the people who you are connected to.
"You need to attempt to recall your former self. Recollect who you used to be. Recollect what you used to want. Recollect the love that you used to wish to share. Recall the happiness that you used to hold. Recall the tears that you used to shed. Recollect the dreams that you used to give others to clasp close to their hearts. Recollect the laughter that used to spill from your mouth.
"And ask yourself this.
"As the memories disappear and wash into reality, and reality vanishes and your dream has a chance to form, even though many of your dreams may have been born from memories of sorrow and have since faded into day, why are you who you are, what did you want to do with your memories of joy and warmth and torment and sorrow, and what dream do you want to change those memories into now?
"Are you who you are because you received the pain of others and your own happiness and you just accepted that pain and joy and lived with them, or are you who you are because you received that pain and your own happiness and understood what they meant so well that they encouraged you to dream of a brighter tomorrow?"
Kairi's eyes flew wide, and reality was back.
The girl in the mirror of Glance Reviver did have tears in her eyes, but the agony was muted now, and her eyes were no longer exhausted, nor was her face haggard.
She knew the answers to both of those two questions.
She hadn't been an oblivious idiot this time, but she'd still been a world-weary idiot.
Kairi reached up with her free hand, she covered Platina's on her shoulder, and she squeezed it tightly and gratefully and then removed it.
"My answer is:
"I am who I am because I value giving others happiness and receiving it myself, not receiving pain and hurting others even more.
"What I used to want, and what I still dream of, is to continue to receive pain, not because I want to cause it, but because I want to feel that pain in Sora's and Riku's and Tidus' and Selphie's and Wakka's place, and in the place of everyone else who I love and anyone else who I can, and cry so none of them need to.
"I dream of receiving darkness and transforming it into light.
"I'm going to protect Tidus and his connections, Lezard, Alicia, Hercules, and Meg; defeat the Angel of Sin and save Zack; light Hades' and Persephone's way home sweet home; and then return to Sora's side and reconnect the bond that I've severed with him."
Platina smiled in relief and approval.
A familiar, arrogant, voice sounded from the direction they'd been walking in before Invi had interrupted their travel.
"It appears that you've received and accepted my declaration of total war this time, then.
"That's fantastic!
"Hercules isn't here yet, but I can sense he's on his way on Pegasus, and Meg and Phil and his last two Einherjar with him, and I've got my latest and greatest instrument of divine war right here with me.
"So let's Ragnarok and roll!"
Kairi shifted Destiny's Embrace back into a combat position and turned to face Hades.
.
"My journey begins here, and now. I'm going back to the real world, and then to Sora's side."-Riku
"That… is your answer?"-Xehanort's Heartless/Ansem
"Yes. I know the way. Consume the darkness, return it to light."-Riku
KINGDOM HEARTS 3D: DREAM DROP DISTANCE