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CHAPTER 13:
STAIRWAY TO SPACE
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Author's Notes: The compositions for this Chapter are, in order of scene: 'Faraway Promise,' from the XENOGEARS Original Soundtrack, Disc One; and then 'Behave Irrationally,' from the VALKYRIE PROFILE Original Soundtrack, Disc Two. All of these compositions can be found on KINGDOM HEARTS Insider's MP3 section.
Something had been bugging Anna since Goofy had recommended that they tell Sora that Kairi was willing to get back together with him, and as Elsa, Donald, Goofy, Mickey, and she reached the open door into the igloo Sora was resting in, with a magical fire blazing near the bed that Donald had erected with magic for him, also cast by Donald, Anna realized what it was.
Self hatred and disgust ripped through her, but she had no choice but to say it.
Anna stopped and looked at Roxas and Mickey, and waited for the others two do so before talking.
"We can't tell Sora that Kairi is willing to return to his heart," Anna said. "We need to wait for Kairi to do that."
Elsa, Donald, Goofy, Mickey, and Roxas looked at her, and Anna tried not to believe that they weren't hiding hatred of her for saying that.
"This is part of the Foretellers' overall strategy," Anna elaborated. "It's classic divide and conquer. They're trying to turn all of us against each other, so we lose faith in our connections, fall further or fully into despair, and seek refuge from that pain by resigning ourselves to the destiny that Yozora has written for us.
"It's classic divide and conquer, taken to one of its most ruthless extents."
Mickey nodded. "I agree."
That Mickey did didn't enable Anna to feel any better.
"From what Roxas and the others who knew Luxu, when he was pretending to be working for Xehanort, have said, Luxu used the same tactics, as did the Young Vanitas Xehanort created from Ven's heart.
"Xehanort, and his Heartless and Nobody and younger self, and most of his companions, just attempted to dominate us, isolate us from each other, and guilt trip us into doing what they wanted. But Luxu, naming himself Braig, and then the Nobody, Xigbar; and Young Vanitas; were different. They didn't just try to dominate, isolate, and guilt trip us. They actively tried to turn us against each other.
"For example, Young Vanitas told Ven that Terra was going to abandon him. Braig tried to turn Aqua against Terra and Ven, though he failed. Xigbar maneuvered Xemnas, who was lonely and who genuinely did see the other Nobodies as his friends, into falling further and further into darkness and seeing them as just puppets, with carefully placed sentences, words, questions, and more, and played the other Nobodies, and Xehanort himself, in the same way. So that all of them would just see each other as fellow toys, at worst, or just business associates who had no bond of friendship, at best, and they wouldn't connect and potentially free themselves from the darkness. He even tried to turn Roxas, Xion, and Lea against each other a number of times, such as when he said that Lea just sat around and let Xion desert right in front of Roxas.
"I assume that Luxu played Xehanort's Heartless in the same way; he said after his final defeat that he initially hadn't wanted to serve the darkness, but then he'd felt that he'd had nothing else left but to do so when he lost his friends.
"Maleficent's attempt to turn Riku to the darkness might have been her own idea, though; and not Xehanort's, or Xehanort's Heartless'; maneuvered into giving Maleficent the idea by Luxu. Maleficent, as she said in her own words, sees herself as the Mistress of All Evil. It's extremely highly likely that she's willing to stoop to strategies that Xehanort wasn't on her own.
"But even Maleficent didn't want Riku to turn on Sora and Kairi while he still loved them. Unlike Luxu and Young Vanitas, who tried to turn people against those who they still cared for while they still cared for them, Maleficent wanted Riku to give into the darkness and hate Sora and Kairi, and be angry at them, before he turned on them.
"From things that the Foretellers have said when we met them, I gather that they initially didn't agree with Yozora's plans to bring darkness to the World, if they even knew about those plans at first, in part or in full. But then Yozora turned them against each other the same ways, so they'd fall into despair and seek refuge in his destiny for them. Ava might have been similar; he might have forced, or tricked, Ava into being the cause of why they turned on each other, and in time, fomented the First Keyblade War.
"You're right. Yozora, and the Foretellers, are masters at divide and conquer.
"How did you figure out that Kairi getting back together with Sora might be part of it?"
"I knew someone who used a similar strategy," Anna answered, not wanting to think about Hans. "He's dead now, though."
She didn't wish death on anyone, but she hoped Hans was no longer a danger to Elsa, Arendelle, and herself.
Mickey had told them about how many Heartless who were killed, if they had Nobodies, could be recompleted, and Hans had had a strong enough will to have formed a Nobody when he'd become Sköll.
She really didn't want to think about how dangerous a recompleted Hans who knew about the power of darkness could be to Elsa, Arendelle, and herself.
Especially not if she was correct about why Hans had fallen into darkness.
"His name was Hans," Anna went on, "And he maneuvered Elsa and I, and the rest of Arendelle, the same way that Luxu and Young Vanitas maneuvered Ven and Terra, and Luxu maneuvered Xehanort and his associates. Seeing as Elsa and are primary actors in Yozora's and Luxu's script, Hans most likely gave into the darkness, and learned his tactics, due to, and from, Luxu," Elsa went stiff, "Or Young Vanitas; or, perhaps far more likely, the young Foreteller who likes to manipulate people himself, and who also likes power over other people.
"So that Hans would set Elsa and I up for what happened today.
"Then the Foretellers are guilty of intervening in Arendelle's internal affairs," Elsa spoke. "That's all the more reason to bring them to our judgment."
Then Elsa turned and smiled reassuringly at Anna, obviously having understood what Anna wasn't saying, and Anna sagged slightly.
"Don't worry about whether or not Hans was recompleted," Elsa said. "Or whether he's now a puppet of the Foretellers. If Hans has been recompleted and is a puppet of the Foretellers, I'll deal with him myself this time.
"I will not let him hurt you, or Sora and Kristoff through both of us, once more."
Anna took a deep breath, knowing that this needed to be said, however much she didn't want to.
"If he's a victim of the Foretellers himself, we need to show him mercy," Anna spoke. "Especially since, if he's a victim himself, he might have truly been attracted to me," Elsa compressed her lips together tightly, "Because I believe in paying attention to other people's feelings, he didn't or doesn't, and he was lonely and wanted to connect with someone who hadn't fallen into darkness and who had personality traits a lot different from his form of darkness.
"Regardless of his crimes, he deserves better than to be killed or executed by the sister of the girl who he might have at least started to fall in love with, if his feelings for me didn't progress further in that direction."
"I didn't consider that his feelings for you might have been partially sincere," Elsa said, "But don't worry about the rest. I know better than to murder or execute traitors to the throne who have been incited to revolt against it by foreign provocateurs.
"If he's still alive, I'll see him disabled and imprisoned until such time as someone can teach him of his wrongs, or, failing that, imprisoned for the rest of his life."
Anna didn't want to say this, too, but it also needed to be said.
"Thank you," she spoke. "For Hans' sake, and for Sora's and Kristoff's and Olaf's and Marshmallow's and Sven's and my own."
"You're welcome," Elsa nodded.
"How do you believe that Kairi fits into this?" Mickey questioned.
"Sora won't be willing to accept the romantic bond that she re-extends unless she herself offers it," Anna explained. "He himself is too scared that he'll hurt Kairi if he's too close to her." Roxas attempted to pretend that he didn't want to cringe, but Anna saw it, as did Elsa, and she gave Elsa a meaningful look.
Elsa nodded back with an expression that said that Anna didn't need to advise her to try to say and do something about this.
"If he finds out that Kairi is willing to return her heart to him from anyone but Kairi himself before she does so, he'll distance himself from her further himself," Anna elaborated. "If Kairi tells him, it will be too late for him to refuse, because he won't want to hurt her, but if any of us tell him, he'll go to a lot of effort to sever their connection further on his own."
Roxas scowled angrily, and Anna cringed.
'You really are as naïve as Donald and Goofy told me that you act at times. If it's even begun to work the smallest amount, you're just going to end up hurting Elsa further if you don't cut it out right now.'
"You kind of set off an eternal winter… everywhere. Well, it's okay. You can just unfreeze it."
"I can't!"
Self hatred and guilt and powerless and despair flooded up to engulf everything that comprised Anna, and she did cringe.
"That's setting Sora up, and treating his heart as though it's a bottle on a shelf," Roxas objected. "He needs to know. What you advise is no different than what Xehanort did to Xion and Lea."
Anna didn't feel much further pain.
She already knew that.
"Roxas!" Elsa snapped sharply and officially, and Roxas drew to military parade attention and saluted diagonally upwards with his right hand.
"This is our first command to you as your new Queen. You need to learn to think through how you're going to feel about and think of, and criticize others and yourself, for their mistakes before you do so." Roxas winced. "To attempt to teach you that lesson, we require you to spend the rest of this day, and tomorrow until Noon, in compulsory public service guarding Arendelle's destitute from rioters such as the one you saw me arrest.
"When it's Noon tomorrow, we will review your performance and decide whether or not we require you to continue to serve in that capacity further."
Roxas stopped saluting and bowed at the waist.
"Your will, Your Majesty."
Anna suppressed the urge to smile at how Roxas had used the phrase, 'Your will,' and she attempted to read Elsa's eyes, facial expression, and body language to see how she was feeling and thinking about it, but Anna couldn't tell.
The urge to smile disappeared.
He straightened, saluted the same way, and then he turned around with the same parade military formality and walked away to do as he'd been ordered to do.
Anna knew that if she didn't smile at Elsa gratefully, Elsa genuinely might order her to serve her in the same ways for the same reasons, so she gave Elsa a thankful, but uncertain and dubious smile.
"This is the only language that Roxas understands now," Elsa explained. "He's far worse than even I was when I pushed you and Sora, Donald, and Goofy away."
Elsa gave her a look that told Anna that, if she didn't make an effort to come to terms with her own guilt, Elsa would think about commanding her to serve in compulsory public service anyway since she'd be terrified that that was the only language that Anna, herself, understood now.
Anna took a deep breath, and then a number more, and then she nodded, though she didn't see how it was possible to do what Elsa wanted, even after what she'd witnessed Elsa go through for so many years.
Feel don't conceal
Don't think twice
She'd try with all her heart, though.
"I pushed you away, and you're starting to think of doing the same thing," Elsa went on. "But deep down, we still wanted consoling shoulders to cry on.
"Roxas doesn't want that close to as much as I did.
"He just wants other people to hurt him, so I needed to give him what he wanted extremely mildly by giving him a light sentence. That might be the sole method that has a chance of reaching him now, and that will, at least slightly, keep him from hurting himself in worse ways.
"You see how he's talking and acting. He's assured, not anguished. That's because he's already decided to die a second time," Anna forced herself to remember that she had legs and not collapse to her knees, while Mickey lowered his head in sadness, Donald scowled blackly, and Goofy grimaced, "No matter what it takes to do so. And in such a way that no one can restore him from this time, if not what Sora talked about, as well, to uncreate himself from reality so he doesn't even have an afterlife and there's no chance at all that any part of him remains or that someone can bring him back to Xion and Lea and his other loved ones where he'll hurt them further." Anna pushed her memories of Sora saying that, and the complete and absolute horror and terror and helplessness and powerless and despair and the rest of what she'd felt at hearing Sora say that, as far away as possible. "So he's taking refuge in knowing that he won't hurt Xion or Lea or anyone else who he cares about, or anyone else at all, for that much longer.
"But it's far worse than that."
Anna felt her mouth open, and Goofy looked at Elsa in horror and terror.
What could possibly be far worse than wanting to die and unmake yourself from all creation so that you wouldn't even have an afterlife to live on in, and an eternal afterlife to continue to exist in?
"Roxas doesn't just see himself as a monster and believe that other people hate him.
"Mickey told us how Nobodies sought proofs of their existence through how others saw them and remembered them because they believed that they had no hearts, so they believed that the sole ways that they could be real were through how others felt about them, thought about them, remembered them, and defined them.
"From the emotions in Roxas' voice, face, and body language when he talked about how he killed Xion and caused her to die forgotten, even though he knows that he has a heart now, he's on the verge of seeing the fact that he murdered Xion and forced her to die broken and forgotten by everyone, even himself and Lea, as his sole proof of existence; nothing more than that as everything and anything that defines him, causes him to be real; and nothing more than that as the sole ways that others feel about him, think of him, see him, remember him, and dream of him.
"And he understood what Maleficent wants so well because even uncreating himself from all reality isn't enough for him.
"He hasn't chosen to go this far yet, but he's truly willing to, and is truly considering, at any cost, returning to the beginning of everything himself to thus ensure that no one in all of history, in any realm in any worldline in all of the cosmos, so much as begins to feel or think, even unconsciously or subconsciously, of accidentally or intentionally creating him, much less does so accidentally or intentionally, to ensure that he isn't just fully forgotten without even the absence of his presence remembered, but that he literally never existed at all in the first place."
Anna's stomach heaved violently and its insides rose into the top of her throat with so much force that it brought tears to her eyes.
She didn't even bother to fight it.
She turned, bent over, and retched violently, and after there was nothing left inside her for her stomach to empty herself of, she continued to violently dry heave, again and again and again and again repeatedly, until she was so weak that she couldn't do so any longer and she needed to struggle to take in air.
"You kind of set off an eternal winter… everywhere. Well, it's okay. You can just unfreeze it."
"I can't!"
"You kind of set off an eternal winter… everywhere. Well, it's okay. You can just unfreeze it."
"I can't!"
"You kind of set off an eternal winter… everywhere. Well, it's okay. You can just unfreeze it."
"I can't!"
"You kind of set off an eternal winter… everywhere. Well, it's okay. You can just unfreeze it."
"I can't!"
"You kind of set off an eternal winter… everywhere. Well, it's okay. You can just unfreeze it."
"I can't!"
"You kind of set off an eternal winter… everywhere. Well, it's okay. You can just unfreeze it."
"I can't!"
Anna pushed it away, pushed the pain from what she'd just gone through away, turned back to Elsa and the others, gave Elsa a reassuring smile that was one of the last things that she felt, and straightened herself.
Because she knew what this meant for Elsa and herself, and that was one of the largest reasons that she'd repeatedly thrown up and dry heaved.
"The Foretellers want to break Roxas so far that he'll decide to actually try to do that," Mickey stated what they were all fully aware of. "And this is one of the largest reasons that, if he does and Anna dies to protect you, while she might not literally end up as though she never existed, she'll be removed from everyone's memories without even the lack of the memories of her left."
Anna wiped her face until she was sure that it was as clean as she could make it, and then she ran up to Elsa, threw her arms around her, and pulled her as close and as safe and protected and tight as possible.
Then she kissed Elsa four times on the forehead and began rubbing her back with as firm, soothing, comforting, reassuring strokes as she could manage, while pushing her emotions about feeling Elsa's tears on her shoulder to the side as much as she could.
"You will not be turned into a weapon against someone you care about again," Anna assured Elsa. "No matter what."
"You kind of set off an eternal winter… everywhere. Well, it's okay. You can just unfreeze it."
"I can't!"
"You kind of set off an eternal winter… everywhere. Well, it's okay. You can just unfreeze it."
"I can't!"
"You kind of set off an eternal winter… everywhere. Well, it's okay. You can just unfreeze it."
"I can't!"
Anna pushed it away yet once again.
Anna looked at Mickey.
"From what you told me that Luxu said, he was lying, then, about how Xion's sacrifice hadn't been one of their calculated risks." It wasn't a question at all. "Xion's sacrifice was another of Xehanort's destines.
"And Xemnas didn't create the original Organization Thirteen as the initial plan, with Young Xehanort's Organization Thirteen as the contingency. Both the Real Organization Thirteen and the first one were the Real Organization Thirteens, and the sole purpose that the original Organization Thirteen had been created for, or one of the central purposes, and the sole or central purpose that all of its members, including Namine and Xemnas, and the other Nobodies suffered so terribly for for all of those years, wasn't even to turn all of the heads of it into other Xehanorts.
"It was to maneuver Xion into despairing and giving up because she was draining Roxas' life merely by having a beating heart and breathing, without actually doing anything to cause it to happen; and to maneuver Roxas into murdering her and forcing her to die broken and forgotten by everyone, including Roxas and Lea, with his own hands."
They all knew all of this now, but Donald still scowled with ebony, lethal fury.
"The Nobodies were born, and went through all of those years of terrible pain, for no other reason, or not that much other reason if they had other horrible destinies that we haven't figured out yet, than to bring those matters about.
"It's entirely possible that no Nobody save for Luxu and Roxas, even Xemnas and Namine, had any role, and suffered for anything, even to become vessels for Xehanort.
"With the exceptions of Luxu and Roxas, all the pain that all of the rest of the Nobodies went through for so long, no matter how slight or how terrible, very well might have been over a decade of wholly pointless and wholly meaningless torture that accomplished nothing at all in the end, with the exception of causing an enormous amount of other people incredible torment for a very long time."
Mickey thinned his lips a little, as though even he needed to suppress visible anger at hearing Anna state it so plainly.
"And then, once Roxas murdered Xion, Luxu and the Foretellers could afford to let Sora take them out of the picture so Young Xehanort could set up the second Organization Thirteen with less interference.
"Last but not least, whether or not Luxu also brought Xion into his discussion because he was telling the truth or lying, he did so to attempt to string us into maneuvering Xion into being the means that drives Roxas to try to keep himself from having been created, or for anyone from starting to feel or think of creating him.
"Whether or not Roxas or Xion is Anima or Animus, that is Xion's destiny."
Anna looked down at Elsa, and kissed her on the forehead another time.
"You know that we can't keep any of this from Roxas, correct?" Anna asked Elsa.
"Of course," Elsa nodded exhaustedly and weakly.
"That's more true than you know," Mickey put in, his face its usual pleasant self once more, though it was now indescribably sad and pained and agonized and exhausted. "One of the reasons Roxas and Lea ended up as enemies temporarily was because Lea kept the truth from Roxas to try to protect him, and Roxas stopped trusting him as a result.
"If we put Roxas through that a second time, and Xion, too, he'll stop trusting us."
What regard Anna had gained for Kairi vanished, and Anna clenched her teeth.
"Kairi didn't tell Xion what Luxu said," Anna spoke. "If she had, Roxas would have been a lot more upset than he is now, if he'd come to Arendelle to recover Oathkeeper at all."
Donald's jaw dropped, and he looked as though he wanted to stalk out of Arendelle, over to Olympus, and smack Kairi on the head hard with his staff a good number of times, if not worse.
If Anna was still capable of throwing up, she might have once more then, if not for a second series of retches and dry heaves.
How could she have even thought of not telling Sora the truth, much less talked about it?
What was wrong with her?
This was the second time in the space of around a half hour when she'd gotten what she'd believed was a good idea that had felt right, but that she should have known much better about, and that would have caused her to hurt Elsa and Sora badly once more if she'd gone through with it.
Was she truly still the naïve infant that she had once been, chasing butterflies and rainbows?
'You really are as naïve as Donald and Goofy told me that you act at times. If it's even begun to work the smallest amount, you're just going to end up hurting Elsa further if you don't cut it out right now.'
"You kind of set off an eternal winter… everywhere. Well, it's okay. You can just unfreeze it."
"I can't!"
"I'll tell Sora about Kairi myself," Anna said hurriedly, not sure who she was trying to reassure, herself or the others.
"Roxas was right. We can't keep this from him."
"I'll tell Roxas, Xion, and Lea the truth," Donald spoke, sounding furious at himself now for what he was saying that he was going to do. "They'll be the least hurt if they hear it from someone who believes in following the rules, as Lea used to."
"I wouldn't do that," Goofy disagreed. "This is likely how the Foretellers intend to start turning you against the rest of us and causing you to begin losing faith in our connections and other matters outside of Yozora's destiny."
Donald crossed his arms.
"I do not lose faith in what I believe in," Donald responded angrily and irritatedly. "The Foretellers can do their worst. I'm not going to break down and become their willing lap fowl.
"Besides, you yourself said that our best chance at defeating them is to give them what they want, so long as we don't need to give into the darkness to do so. For all their skill and experience, you're correct that they won't have seen your plan coming. As His Majesty puts it, when you're so practiced and clever that you believe that you can anticipate everything that your enemy is going to do and you reach over your shoulder and pat yourself on the back to congratulate yourself for your genius, that's when your enemy smiles and hands you the dagger that he or she or it just stabbed you in the open from right in front of you with."
Goofy frowned, but he nodded. "I see your point," he replied. "Okay, then. Go ahead. But if you feel bad about it afterwards, don't forget that you can come to us."
"Oh, I'll feel lousy," Donald snarled. "From wearing myself out from pounding Kairi's skull in for lying to Roxas, Xion, and Lea. Particularly if Xion tries to pull an idiotic stunt a second time when she finds out about this, and we need to ensure that she feels lousy to put a sock in it."
This was apparently enough to reassure Goofy, though, because he nodded once again.
"We're overlooking something important, though," Goofy said. "I'm pretty sure that Hans has already been recompleted."
Anna jolted violently, and Elsa pulled out of Anna's arms right away and turned to face Goofy, and though there were still tears streaking her face and brimming in her eyes, no more tears fell.
"Why do you believe this?" Elsa questioned.
"It's the only way Maleficent could have mastered your talents as an enchantress in a little over a year," Goofy answered, and Anna had trouble breathing.
No. No way. No. No.
"Maleficent might even have a second 'Organization Six' of her own now," Goofy went on. "Or a larger conclave. She has a new goal now, other than acquiring a new castle as a base of operations, or a new means of casting all of the realm of light into darkness. So she's probably formulated a new conclave of wielders of darkness of her own by now, and she'd have had reason to target dark hearts tied to the New Seven Hearts.
"Gothel might have been recompleted by now herself, and someone from Toy Box and the worlds the other New Seven Hearts are from might be among them, if they don't make up all of the rest of Maleficent's new cabal, too."
Anna needed to learn as much as possible about Sora's previous adventures as soon as she could, or she wouldn't be able to love him and protect him and back him up and be there for him effectively enough, if she was going to adventure with him.
"Though, thinking about it, Maleficent was so impressed by The Castle That Never Was, if not the initial Organization Thirteen itself, that her new conclave, including herself and Pete, almost certainly numbers thirteen or fourteen, and a third Organization Thirteen is now out there."
Donald snarled, and then he scowled and appeared as though he wanted to attack someone.
Mickey, however, just sighed in resignation and acceptance.
"Hans' Nobody was most likely one of the Sorcerers Kairi told us that Sora told her he fought in Scala ad Caelum when he was tracing Kairi's heart fragments. With the will Hans had, he very likely had the capability of becoming one of the best Nobodies you can be without keeping your human form.
"Maleficent's very good with magic, but as Donald can attest, you can't teach yourself new spells like the ones you can cast in the amount of time that Maleficent has without firsthand access to them. She'd need to be acquainted with someone who knows you and your magic well, and the answer to who that person is must be Hans.
"If Gothel has been recompleted, she was most likely one of the Berserkers that Sora beat when he was traveling through Scala ad Caelum to restore Kairi. Her Heartless was unusually deadly, though not as much as Sköll, so her Nobody was likely similar.
Before Elsa or Anna could reply, Sora's voice sounded from the entrance to the igloo, exhausted and resigned.
"So you're telling me that, by beating Gothel and Hans and reviving Kairi, I just hurt Elsa and Anna and Rapunzel and Eugene a lot more."
Anna forced herself to turn to see Sora smiling a bitter, broken smile at the door to the igloo, though he was standing upright on his own feet.
"That figures," Sora said.
Anna was pale and unsteady, and there was throw up on the ground nearby that was most likely hers.
No matter how deep the darkness, there was always a bright light that never went out.
Sora could not forget that.
"Kairi realized that she was wrong to leave you," Anna said.
Sora caught himself before his knees gave out.
He knew what he should say and do in response to this, but that would hurt Kairi even worse when she found out that he'd said and done it, as well as Donald, Goofy, Anna, Elsa, and Mickey, who were right there here and now.
But Sora pushed away how relieved he was and how much lighter he now felt, and he kept the tears that wanted to push forward into his eyes from doing so.
"Then someone needs to tell her that I'm still okay with having her at my side," Anna's eyes widened in surprise, and then she smiled, clearly even happier and more pleased than before to call Sora her friend. Sora acknowledged the newest strengthening of their connection internally, and then he put it aside, "And that I see us as back together as soon as someone tells her about it, since she believes that we're connected when we're apart as I do."
"Roxas is here," Elsa informed him, and Sora sighed in relief, and now he did let the tears push into his eyes and spill onto his face.
Kairi would feel a lot better now.
Sora reached into his heart and severed his connection with Oathkeeper, knowing that Roxas would be able to perceive that Oathkeeper was once again his to wield.
"He can tell her," Elsa continued. "I take it you want to leave Arendelle now to see if Rapunzel is okay, then?"
Sora nodded, and Donald scowled, but Mickey nodded, as though to say that he'd take care of something important. Sora would ask what that was about when they were on their way. "It's around a four-and-a-half day journey on Gummi ship from here to the Kingdom of Corona, and I don't have a connection with Rapunzel's heart similar to the one I have with Anna's, so I can't get there by any other way than Radical Dreamers, Unstolen Jewel.
"I won't even have time to talk to Kairi if she's still on Destiny Islands."
"She's on Olympus," Goofy told Sora. "She just convinced Hades to come to the treaty table."
Shock erupted through Sora, but he didn't need to force himself to smile then. It was fully real, for what Kairi had accomplished, and because he knew that Goofy wouldn't be saying this if Hades had been lying.
That was one less problem to worry about.
"Then our latest journey is genuinely kicking off," Mickey put in.
"But before you and Donald and Goofy leave, we should put our heads together and try to figure out who as many of the other members of Maleficent's newest Organization Thirteen… Let's call it the Successor Organization Thirteen for now, until we know what Maleficent's name for it is… Are.
"One thing that I believe we can all agree on is that Maleficent will try to keep it a mystery as to whether or not the Successor Organization Thirteen has a fourteenth heart of darkness. That will provide her with a strategic and tactical advantage."
Goofy nodded, as did Sora, but Donald didn't react.
"I believe that we can also agree that, if there is a fourteenth seeker of darkness in Maleficent's Organization Thirteen, whoever it is is Maleficent's trump card."
Donald glowered at that, but Goofy nodded a second time.
Sora saw no reason to respond himself this time.
"Riku told me months ago that the Chernabog that he killed in the Symphony of Sorcery smelled like a Nobody," Donald said, and Sora suppressed the urge to start. He did not want to think about what a recompleted Chernabog might be able to achieve if the two who they'd combated so far had just been his Heartless and Nobody. "And the first one we had the displeasure of needing to dispatch we met in End Of the World, so it was most likely Chernabog's Heartless.
"Whoever or whatever Chernabog is, I extremely highly doubt that Maleficent would pass up the chance to recruit him, so it's extremely likely that Chernabog is one of the new seekers."
"Darkness seekers from Toy Box, Wreck-It Ralph's world, and Andalasia, or wherever the last three New Seven Hearts are, are almost a given," Sora put in. "That leaves five or six more seekers of darkness."
He still couldn't believe that he could do it, put Kairi and Riku and Donald and Goofy and Anna and Elsa and his other loved ones and friends still needed him, still much more now, so Sora once more traced his feelings in his heart and felt them out.
"Ursula might have survived her third defeat at Riku's and my hands," Sora said, "Oogie Boogie might have been able to be restored himself a third time, Hook ran at the end of our battle with him, and Scar, Shan-Yu, and Clayton all turned into Heartless before we beat them, they might have had Nobodies, and they might have been recompleted, but there's no guarantee that Maleficent would be willing to make use of anyone but Ursula.
"Maleficent most likely brought Ursula back into the fold, though; she restored herself the first time on her own, and the second time, though someone else might have done so, she was in Xehanort's Heartless' vicinity when he was about to sabotage our Mark of Mastery Exam when Riku and I ran into her, and there must be a reason why.
"Maleficent most likely wouldn't have been willing to overlook this, so whether Ursula got knocked back into the realm of darkness when we beat her on Destiny Islands or not, Maleficent herself might have pulled her out of there afterwards, if Ursula didn't do so a third time on her own.
"Oogie Boogie deserted Maleficent before we defeated him the second time, so he's likely out. Shan-Yu, Hook, and Clayton were no more than petty conquerors and crooks, so Maleficent can do better than them. Scar is a possible tenth seeker, because his darkness was unusually strong even though he was no more than a petty usurper like Jafar, and I specifically asked Genie whether Jafar was dead or had been tossed into the realm of darkness before Genie returned to Agrabah after the first time we defeated Xemnas, and Genie said that Jafar was dead, not thrown out of the realm of light.
"So Jafar is out, too.
"The Master Control Program might have just been tossed into the realm of darkness, we didn't meet the real Frollo and CLU, and we don't know for certain that Julius was just a Sleeping World variation of Pete, so they're additional potentialities. Monstro might be one himself, if Maleficent is willing to employ a predator without a person's intellect, but I doubt it."
"What about the Queen of Hearts?" Goofy brought up.
Sora felt it out.
"That's a good idea," Sora responded. "There's a good chance that you're right. We haven't yet learned precisely how Wonderland is different from an ordinary world even though it clearly is very different from one, and the Cheshire Cat usually talked and acted like he knew more than he was letting on, so there could be something very special about Wonderland that Maleficent might want to exploit.
"That leaves three or four seekers of the dark unaccounted for."
"What about Cinderella's step family or Snow White's stepmother?" Donald asked. "We don't know for sure that the Cursed Coach Aqua told us about through Lea's summaries killed Cinderella's step family, and Aqua herself has no idea what happened to Snow White's stepmother, just that she died around the time of, or as a result of, her beating the Spirit of the Magic Mirror. There's additionally Doctor Jumba Jukimba, and it's very possible that Maleficent could get to Randall, that Davy Jones isn't dead but was thrown into the realm of darkness," Sora clenched his teeth at that possibility, "As well as that Barbossa stabbed Jack in the back after we left The Caribbean and reverted to his old tricks."
As much as Sora wanted to hope that Davy Jones was one of the new dark seekers, he knew how wrong it was to wish that, and he pushed his rage and fury far to the side.
"I doubt that we can identify who the remaining three or four hearts of the dark are at the present," Mickey spoke. "We'll just need to find out the hard way."
Sora grimaced.
He knew much better than Mickey what 'the hard way' was when it came to Maleficent and Pete.
"Do you have any idea what their specific plans are?" Elsa questioned Mickey. "Particularly where and how Hans will strike?"
"The three times that we've faced her so far, Maleficent favored deploying her associates on their home turfs," Donald told Elsa, "Where they knew how to fight at their best. And she herself worked with Pete more closely than any of her other colleagues. We ran into Pete a number of times outside of the Disney Kingdom, but most of the time we did so, with the exception of when he signed up for one of Hades' Cups in the Underworld at Olympus, Pete refused to take us on himself. He might have held back in accordance with Maleficent's orders or her advice. Though Maleficent herself appears to be fully at home combating outside of Enchanted Dominion, her home world. She wasn't any less talented and skilled at combat when Sora, Goofy, and I took her on in the world of Radiant Garden, or when Data-Sora faced her in Jiminy's Journal's datascape, than she was when Ven and then Aqua beat her on Enchanted Dominion.
"But now that you've initiated an interstellar war," to his credit, Donald didn't scowl at Elsa or give her any other kind of an angry look, "The situation has changed for much of the realm of light, if not all of it. We have no idea if Maleficent will send Hans back to Arendelle, or apply her old strategies, when an interstellar war is beginning."
Sora knew that Donald wanted to use this as a reason that Elsa should give up on her plans to wage war against the Foretellers, but Sora knew that Donald also knew far better than to say or imply that Elsa should put Arendelle in more danger than it already was for the sake of the world order.
"She's visited the past herself once that we know of, through the door that we talked about before, and maybe one or more other times that we don't," Mickey supplied, "But she might not be able to 'go back to the beginning of creation' through any of the means she's familiar with. We also know that she was interested in the box where Luxu is hiding the unfinished Note Blade, but we don't know how much or how little Maleficent has learned about the box by now, or the Note Blade itself.
"So we can't tell you what her methods are for making the realm of light darkness from its inception."
"She's arguably more of a threat than Yozora and the Foretellers right now, however," Goofy put in. "We have a small amount of an idea of how the Foretellers intend to achieve Synchronicity Perceptual now, but we know nothing about what Maleficent is up to."
"Then we'll need to find out," Sora interjected.
Donald and Goofy grinned excitedly, causing Sora to honestly want to smile back, and he did so.
But Mickey looked worried.
"There are plenty of other guardians who can investigate Maleficent, and the worlds tied to her and her new thirteen or fourteen seekers of darkness," Mickey said. "You have enough to worry about with the destiny the Foretellers want you to fulfill and finding the three remaining New Seven Hearts. Leave Maleficent to one or more of them."
Sora shook his head.
"Donald, Goofy, and I are the most experienced of all of us at dealing with Maleficent and her kind of darkness, whether those dark hearts are allied with Maleficent or are acting on their own," Sora argued back. "It's furthermore what the Foretellers are used to us doing.
"We need to be the ones who confront Maleficent and the Successor Organization Thirteen, and journey through the worlds they're connected to while we look for the three remaining New Seven Hearts."
Mickey looked as though he wanted to continue to argue, but he said nothing for several seconds, and then he sighed heavily and nodded in acceptance. He didn't look resigned as he did so, but Sora knew that Mickey was hiding it.
Anna looked at Elsa, and Sora couldn't breathe.
He'd agreed to take Anna with them if she was willing to come, but the concept of doing so twisted and contorted everything within him so agonizingly he didn't understand why he wasn't throwing up himself.
He couldn't return Anna's romantic feelings.
If he hadn't met Kairi, or if he had no choice but to leave Kairi for good, he probably could.
Anna's love for Elsa was the most incandescently blinding light that he'd experienced in his entire life, so much that, even though Anna wasn't different from him as well as similar like Kairi was, so he couldn't complement and complete Anna as well as he could Kairi, or vice versa, if, and only if, Kairi had another change of heart and, afterwards, it became unavoidably necessary to do so, Sora was willing to consider the possibility of romantically connecting with Anna. He was almost certain that he wouldn't be happy with Anna, if it was possible for him to feel genuinely happy connecting with someone any more, because Anna was too similar in personality to him, and she thus couldn't complement and complete him as well as Kairi could with how both similar and different Kairi was to him. But it wasn't his happiness that was important, so if he had no other choice, he'd think about it.
But regardless of precisely how Sora was willing to love Anna in the future, he did love her, and her blinding incandescence, and the concept of it flickering even more than it already was caused him to wish he could tell whether or not he was nothing more than a puppet weapon for sure, so if he was, he'd know to run as far away from her, and Kairi, and Riku, and Donald, and Goofy, and all of the others, as he could and never return.
Not into death or erasure from all memories, the pain of their absence, creation, and even the afterlife, because he remembered now that there was a light to guide him even in the deepest darkness, but he still needed with all his heart to know whether or not he at least needed to flee into the most remote reaches of the World, hide there where no one would find him, and live out the rest of his life completely alone.
I'm begging you. Please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, don't walk into this nightmare any further and extinguish your light any more than you already have.
But Elsa gave Anna a smile that was obviously forced and concealing all of its agony, and Sora knew that Anna had made her choice.
All that was left now was for him to try with all his heart to keep Anna safe from the nightmare, and with all his heart to let her try to keep him safe from what tongues of the nightmare hadn't claimed him yet, if there were any left that hadn't.
"You don't need to tell me," Elsa said. "I know what your best option is at this point.
"As Sora said, we're connected when we're apart.
"Can you please not even give me a hug or a kiss?" Anna's eyes widened. "It'll make it easier for me to believe that now if we don't rely on closeness to stay connected."
Anna thinned her lips together tightly, and then she nodded.
She extended her hand, and clasped Elsa's.
"I'll see you as soon as I can," she said. "I'll return to you. I promise you that with all my heart."
Sora would ensure that she kept that promise, as he'd broken his promise to come back to Kairi and Riku over two years ago.
I can't be depended on to keep my promises.
Anna can, and she'd never willingly break a promise, and I am not going to let her be forced to break one unintentionally.
Elsa squeezed Anna's hand back. "I have no doubts that you will."
Anna squeezed Elsa's hand and released it.
Sora spoke up before this could become any further agonizing for Elsa or for Anna.
"Keyblade Hero Four," he grinned and shouted, "Let's see if we can improve Maleficent's short memory this time, and drive it home what happens when the four half-pints are adventuring on the roads of starlight!"
.
"Shimmering so bright
Guiding light, divine
Flow along the sea
Of fading stardust
.
"Reminisce the touch
Over the hands you still clutch
We'll belong lost in the past
Left to emancipate
.
We pray among the clouds
In the pitch blackness of night
Our voices ascend to the stars
.
"There's will to overcome
Though we stumble and fall
In this serenity
Eternity
.
"We ask the starry sky
The reason to keep on our cruise
Why we suffer and
Struggle 'til end
.
"Though the darkness may prevail
A lighted heart shall avail
In this serenity
Eternally"
'In This Serenity'
XENOSAGA: THE ANIMATION