Kingdom Hearts: The Girl Who Stole the Star Chapter 39: Clangor, a kingdom hearts fanfic

CHAPTER 38:

CLANGOR

Author's Notes: The music for this Chapter is, in order of scene: 'Destiny,' from the FINAL FANTASY XII Original Soundtrack, Disc Three; followed by 'Faraway Promise,' from the XENOGEARS Original Soundtrack, Disc One. The first composition can be found on Zophar's Domain, and the second on KINGDOM HEARTS Insider.

Anna was so exhausted from everything that had happened today by now, emotionally and physically; that now that they appeared to have salvaged everything they could from the nightmares of Toy Box and Arendelle and the confrontations with Maleficent, she wished she could just close her eyes and fall asleep where she was standing.

But from the slight alterations to Kairi's face, all too familiar to the expressions Anna had seen every time she'd looked in the mirror of an icicle during her catastrophic journey to convince Elsa to end the eternal winter with a mere positive outlook, Anna knew the vortex of despair that had engulfed almost all of this day wasn't over yet.

At that knowledge, Anna realized she was now so exhausted she would have slumped against the wall behind her had not Elsa caught the backs of her shoulders to brace her.

Anna gave her older sister a weak smile.

This time, although she pushed her feelings as far away as possible, her entire body felt as though it had been turned to aching rubber.

"Can you cast any spells that can create a prism of ice capable of bending light precisely enough it doesn't look like we're whispering longer than me asking you this one question?" Anna asked in a voice that was already a whisper.

Elsa's eyes widened slightly, and her brow furrowed as she thought it over.

But then she breathed out quietly, and the air shimmered a little in front of both of their faces before rippling slightly in a curtain down in front of them, and Anna felt the temperature grow a small amount colder before her.

Kristoff's eyes widened slightly where he stood to Anna's left, outside of the prism's range; but he knew better than to say anything, or even turn to watch them.

No one else appeared to be talking about anything important any longer, but no one else looked like he or she had noticed what Elsa had done.

"I doubt I can maintain a spell this intricate for too long," Elsa whispered back.

She kept her hands on the backs of Anna's shoulders, and Anna let herself sag back into their soothing and softly welcoming yet firmly strong and reassuring warmth.

But, even though Anna wished with much of what she was she could just drown in that warmth; her sister's hands now felt a little too warm.

As though she were now the one with the frozen heart, and Elsa's warmth wouldn't thaw it, but evaporate her into nothing.

"Particularly not after how much it took out of me to beat Maleficent."

Anna felt slightly lighter to hear a very small amount of accomplishment in Elsa's tone, even after she'd learned what she'd done to Christopher years ago, and on Toy Box, and how Grandpa very likely hated her and had most likely begun a war whose scars still hadn't totally faded even thirty-six years later.

Anna attempted to draw up more lightness at the reminder Grandpa was, at least, still alive; and it actually manifested.

Having Elsa holding her up was almost certainly the reason.

The familiar insides twisting longing Kristoff could be a part of something like this, or do so all by himself, more often; rose.

How can you still feel that way, now that he knows?

You know what you would have done then, in the very same clearing, unless Sora had been with you along with Kristoff then; if you'd gotten into that argument with Elsa for a different reason, and you'd met him without meeting Hans.

A bit of faint sickness that caused Anna to fear she might actually throw up, as emotionally exhausted as she was now, rose.

Unless Sora had been with her, and her conflict between choosing him and Kristoff had been brought to her attention as much as possible; she would have made the mistake with him that she had with Hans, and when the trolls had offered to give the two of them a marriage ceremony, she would have accepted the offer.

And that would have destroyed Kristoff and all or most of his newfound trust in her; less than hours after she'd at last told him how much she trusted him when she'd let go of the cliff side and fallen into his arms, and at last convinced him not every living being but reindeers and trolls hated him, and at least one human loved him.

Perhaps to the point losing the one human who had shown him warmth and love would have made him desperate enough for love himself, even with what he'd said to her about how she shouldn't have accepted Hans' proposal due to why the eternal winter had been catalyzed; he'd have then accepted himself, and followed her into the darkness.

Given how Kristoff wasn't Hans, and they'd become such fast friends in the short time they'd known each other that they'd almost have certainly begun a true romantic relationship long before now, if not for Sora; Anna knew there was a good chance, whether or not she'd dragged Kristoff down with her, she could have repaired their fragmented bond, and restored Kristoff's faith in himself and in her, perhaps even by this now.

But before she did, she knew she would have turned Kristoff's life into a living nightmare.

Why was she even still considering getting together with Kristoff now?

Kristoff and Sora were both better off with her out of their lives.

And none of this even get into how, while she'd known Elsa could very likely keep Olaf alive if she ended the winter, she'd still been willing to risk his life to do it the whole time; without even having the courage to come clean and tell him she was placing him in not just danger, but fatal peril.

How long would it be before she became a danger to Sven and Marshmallow, as well?

She'd brought Elsa home, but Elsa was the sole person she was capable of loving.

Perhaps she should have married H

Warm lips pressed against the upper back of her hair.

"What happened to the baby sister who believed I could just twiddle my fingers and defrost an entire country?" Elsa asked with her voice at a regular volume.

Anna forced a smile.

"She's trying to figure out how to do that for you herself, this time," Anna replied in the same volume, but it was far too hard to force much humor at all into her voice.

And new tears pushed into her eyes and fell onto her face along with what lightheartedness she could bring out.

Elsa held up one hand and gently brushed them away with her fingers.

"If you could even convince me to pull through and find a solution, finding one yourself should be a piece of cake.

"And I have two of the best friends I could hope to have now, thanks to you.

"Thank you, with all of my warm heart.

"I love you."

Elsa replaced that hand on Anna's shoulder.

Anna could tell her smile was totally genuine this time.

But her words sounded forced, even to her.

"You're welcome."

This wasn't the time to bring up the reason Elsa even had Roxas and Xion for two best friends.

Elsa had almost certainly figured it by now anyway, if she hadn't as soon as Anna had been as much of an idiot as she had the first time she'd believed she could solve Elsa's problems at the flick of a wrist.

"At any rate, who are you worried about this time?" Elsa questioned, her voice once more a whisper.

"Now it's Kairi," Anna whispered in return.

"She's going to attempt to rescue Sora herself this time, as soon as she thinks we're not looking; to attempt to bring him out of the darkness this time before Xehanort can do anything to him, and maybe before he even wakes up from how he was most likely knocked out."

"And you're worried, if this goes wrong in the way it did a year ago; she'll break up with him once more, this time for a lot longer."

Elsa's quiet whisper wasn't a question.

"That's one of the relatively least bad things I can see happening as the fallout of this, yes," Anna replied, her words still a whisper.

She had no intention of raising her voice until this conversation was over, and she knew Elsa wouldn't.

Elsa's brow furrowed a second time.

"After how sharp and skilled Mickey told us they are; I know better than to believe that I can defeat even one Xehanort myself without practicing my talents a lot more, much less two of them. They'd outwit me so easily they'd run more circles around me than the most ancient trees in the trolls' forest have rings in their trunks.

"And I haven't forgotten how many Heartless and Nobodies they can deploy against their enemies at one time, as well as a small number of Demon Tower Dreamreaper Heartless, and any Unversed left behind in the Keyblade Graveyard or Monstropolis they must have brought back to their current base of operations.

"Even if I had enough time to recuperate from defeating Maleficent; unless you have a better plan than Ven's, I have no idea how you and I, or just me, can face them without the conclusion being almost foregone."

"I'm not sure you'd call my idea a plan, rather than another instance of Anna believing she's a knight in shining armor who can ride a white horse all the way up the North Mountain," Anna replied, unsure if she kept all of her bitter self hatred out of her voice.

If Elsa heard it, she knew better than to even acknowledge it by altering her clasps of Anna's shoulders.

"As long as you don't give them minds more intelligent than an animal's, you've learned how to create beings out of snow or ice so well by now you can replenish them for a long time; right?"

Elsa's eyes widened, in a mixture of surprise and wariness.

"You believe I should offer the two Xehanorts refuge from the Foretellers and Maleficent in Arendelle.

"Under the condition they attempt no acts of war or sabotage against its people or the people of any of our allies, and study Sora in painless ways that do no harm to him and that are you oversee; in exchange for me creating creatures of ice and snow for them to pit against Sora to test his abilities in the place of Heartless, Nobodies, Unversed, and Dream Eaters.

"And you believe we can actually negotiate a truce sufficient for us to trust them to uphold their end of it.

"Or, at least, one that puts us in a position where we're reasonably sure Vanitas, and the Nobodies familiar with how the Xehanorts operate, can keep enough of an eye on them they won't be any true danger to any of our people."

"Not just that," Anna responded.

She suppressed the urge to brace at what she was about to say; knowing many of the ways in which Elsa was going to take things, but barely even the surface of enough of the ways she could come to terms with what she was about to ask at all.

"Nobodies aren't creatures of darkness, but entirely sentient living beings who follow the Xehanorts willingly; so they can reinforce Arendelle's troops and perhaps deter the Alliance of Flames from invading, or at least delay it."

This time, Elsa's face shifted, because she knew if her eyes widened too much it might alert Kairi.

Anna barely kept new tears from pushing forward into her eyes as she spoke the next portion, or her voice from cracking or breaking.

"I told you Sora felt my pain in his heart."

Elsa's blood drained out of a face that was now whiter than her most solid spell of cold.

"If Sora agrees to this; and the Xehanorts prove, beyond any reasonable doubt, we can trust them to station Nobodies in Arendelle without attempting to occupy it, and also stay true to their end of the truce; I'm going to offer to let them study that bond, to further accelerate their studies into how to re-forge a third Kye-Blade of their own."

As well as to begin to learn how to wield it yourself; so if it looks like there's no other way to keep Sora from giving into the darkness and fulfilling the Foretellers' prophecy, you can convince him to join you in it on your own terms, and use his abilities as the Kye-Blade to bring a New World of nothing but love and warmth into reality.

That's what you really want, isn't i

Anna pushed the thoughts away.

"Y"

If it came down to it, she'd create a Kye-Blade from Ven and Vanitas.

If Sora gave in, she was not going to yank him even deeper into it.

She'd do something such as suspend him in time as the same kind of ice statue she'd briefly become; one that she'd ensure could never be damaged or break so he would never truly die.

Then she'd discover a way to turn his Station of Awakening into a miniature of a Sleeping World as Xehanort's Heartless' World of Chaos and Xemnas' World of Order Formchanges had been miniatures of real ones; so he'd know nothing but happy d

If Elsa hadn't been holding her up, Anna knew she very will might have thrown up at the realization of what she was now thinking.

She was actually starting to make specific plans for what she'd do if she believed she needed to give in now.

She was genuinely beginning to scheme.

"Y"

"I promise you that I'm not going to stop arguing about this with you until I've convinced you to change your mind. And if you do tell me that you've made a self-destructive choice, I won't strike at you, but you will need to strike me down, or otherwise go through me, in order to hurt yourself, or anyone else."

It didn't matter what kind of bond she had with Sora.

It didn't matter who she chose.

Or even anyone.

All that mattered was he needed love and warmth.

All that mattered was that she loved him.

She wasn't going to take that love and warmth from him.

So she could take every single memory Elsa had of all love and warmth from her, or let her die?

"Y"

"You kind of se"

Now Anna couldn't see through tears that were so hot and stinging ice and lava were one and the same reality.

Don't make me do it.

Anyone.

Please.

Don't make me choose between Elsa, Sora, and Kristoff; and everyone and everything else.

Maybe she should just resign herself to one, or both, of her fated scripts.

Then she wouldn't need to choose.

She could just recite her lines and acts and like her destiny tell her everything to do.

And then she'd never need to make another choice until she either no longer knew what choices were; or she was so frozen and dead not even the concept of decisions remained within what was left of her heart and mind, because she knew now there weren't even the faintest breaths of hope to be found if she just took things one step at a time and did the next right thing until she found her light in a reality without Elsa.

What do you mean, make?

Isn't this what you want?

The ability to understand and accept and love and cherish everyone and everything forever, so no one will once again suffer behind a closed and locked door alone in the darkness as Elsa did?

Or are you saying you don't want to be forced to protect Elsa from despair or death?

Or Sora and Kristoff?

Anna pu

She couldn't push the last two questions away.

Because they weren't even questions.

There was solely one way Anna could even perceive the concept of letting Elsa or Sora or Kristoff be hurt that horribly, or die.

If it happened when she didn't know it was coming about.

Otherwise, it wasn't even fact she'd do anything she knew and didn't know to stop it from happening.

It was the most indelible reality of existence.

"You kind of set off an eternal winter… everywhere. Well, it's okay. You can just unfreeze it."

"I can't!"

This time, Anna couldn't even begin to think of a way to justify pushing the memories away.

"I"

"But she didn't, and do you know why?

"Because, since you kept coming back and endeavoring to reach her with all your heart and bring her into the warmth and home of your love and light and heart and arms no matter how many times she pushed you away from her, or how many years she did it for; she knew, no matter how bad things became, no matter how hopeless things looked, you were still right out there for her, feeling for her and thinking of her and not forgetting her and keeping her close in your dreams; and that no matter how deeply she fell into the darkness, you would always be there to light her way out of it to love and warmth and kindness and home."

The memories were gone almost before Anna was aware she'd pushed them away anew.

Anna registered that Elsa had brushed her tears away with her left hand once more; and this time her sister's hand hadn't returned to her shoulder, and it was on her right cheek.

Anna let herself sink into it a little.

She didn't know if it was warmer or colder, or its temperature had altered at all.

"If I agree to this, can I trust you to ensure the conditions you offer yourself up under are as painless as the ones you'll ensure Sora is given?" Elsa queried, her tone filled with contained worry, but reluctant determination.

"Without a doubt," Anna confirmed.

Elsa sagged for several seconds, although her hand on Anna's cheek didn't loosen, but then she straightened.

"If Vanitas believes he can keep them under observation enough to ensure they pose no threat to the people of Arendelle, I'll agree to give it a shot.

"But you know what I'll need to do if Vanitas alerts me he can't contain them."

"Y"

Anna pushed the reminiscence away.

"I know," she said.

But she couldn't keep all of the fatigued horror and terror, about what would happen to Sora if Ven and Vanitas hadn't finished setting up their deception by then, out of her voice.

Anna started as she realized Vanitas had walked behind them, and he was now concealed on the other side of the prism from Kairi.

Vanitas rolled his eyes, but there was a small relief in it that hadn't been there before Ven's death and partial recovery.

"I still have enough ties to Ven's heart I got a decent measure of your abilities when we sent Maleficent packing," Vanitas informed them in a whisper of his own Anna knew he'd keep speaking in.

"I figured out what you did, and used Void Gear to scry through it.

"The real Xehanort taught me very well.

"Yes, I can keep an eye on them.

"And after everything they put me through, you have no idea how much I'm going to enjoy being the one pulling the strings for once.

"For that reason alone, I'm pretty sure Isa will be all too happy to assist me in doing it."

"With that in mind; can we," Elsa's voice was now partially official, so Anna knew her 'we' was now royal, "Trust the two of you to abide by the terms of the truce yourself, including by not just letting the Xehanorts leave when the truce has ended as Roxas promised to Mare, but giving them the traditional one day's head start they will undoubtedly demand?"

"Isa appears to be as much of a stiff as he used to be when he went by Saix, so he'll most likely be offended if you even ask him if he can be trusted."

Vanitas shrugged.

"That's fine by me.

"If it wasn't, I wouldn't agree to this at all.

"Besides, I have my own ideas about what happened to Brain; and whether or not he, or whoever is blundering around with Skuld, is a Young Eraqus in some form or another.

"And, if he is, if he really did lose his memories.

"Young Xehanort may be able to confirm or deny one or more of my hypotheses; or at least provide more pieces to the puzzle."

"If you intend to discuss them with a known enemy of Arendelle, you will inform us of their nature first," Elsa said, still officially.

Vanitas' face shifted into an arrangement that said she could suit herself.

"They focus around the issue Eraqus was able to separate his heart from Terra's in order to ensure Xehanort didn't die alone, without anyone utilizing a Keyblade, or him separating into a Heartless and Nobody first, that could have allowed him to do it.

"What I believe is the case isn't that Brain is Eraqus.

"But that, for a reason that must be linked to how he was able to bring the other Union leaders to the future at the cost of Lauriam's and Elrena's memories without any waypoints; Brain ended up needing to send his heart into Eraqus' shortly after he arrived in Scala ad Caelum.

"And the Brain traveling with Skuld is a Lingering Spirit that was able to survive not just as Keyblade armor, but an actual body.

"Unlike my progenitor, Ava, Yozora, and Ven, however; who just rested, or rest, inside the hearts the found refuge in, Brain spent a lot of time with Eraqus, Xehanort, and Yen Sid while never leaving Eraqus' heart.

"Or, at least, Eraqus.

"Whether or not he told them anything, or much, about who he was is up in the air to me; as no Xehanort talked about him at all when I was around.

"Brain is thus very likely inside Terra's heart now, and he's the person who sent Eraqus out of it when Eraqus requested him to do so."

Anna let her eyes widen a small bit at that.

"Before you ask; yes, I'll break it to him, as soon as he'll be able to take the news better.

"This pertains to more than just Terra, though.

"I never once believed the heart fragment Terra-Xehanort survived while retaining his own identity because all the other heart fragments returned to Xehanort once they lost their vessels.

"Brain's presence in Terra's heart must be the reason why.

"And this leads me to something I'm not going to get into detail about at this time, because Maleficent has caused Namine an–

"Namine enough problems for now, so there's no reason for me to make it even worse.

"I don't know if Maleficent knows this, but I left one minute but pertinent fact out about how perilous hollow rifts are.

"When a heart is engulfed by darkness; it loses its sense of self and becomes a Heartless, Heartreaver, or Nobody, and by extension Unversed.

"When a heart is bathed in light, it morphs its dreams into reality and becomes a Dream Eater.

"When a heart is devoured by a hollow rift, which possesses neither light or darkness; it fractures into as many heart fragments as there can be feelings and thoughts within which to reside.

"So many it's all but unfeasible to be able to find enough of that heart's chambers to put a sufficient amount of the fragments back together the initial heart can regain any of its sense of self, by taking their vessels apart or one or more other means. While each fragment possesses so little awareness it's all but unfeasible for each fragment to be able to learn the ability to develop a sense of self.

"Thusly, under regular conditions, no heart should be able to hold onto its identity within a hollow rift.

"But if Young Xehanort has learned how to enable a heart fragment to survive intact without a vessel, it's very possible he can travel into a hollow rift without his mind literally coming to pieces.

"If he can do it, the Foretellers almost certainly know how to do it a lot better.

"And that will give them a virtually limitless ability to reshape literally every solitary facet of the identities of the hearts that have been consumed by that hollow rift as he sees fit; allowing him to reshape one or more hearts, as themselves or ethereal entities of darkness itself, into entities comprised out of a bunch of random heart fragments that feel darkness within which resides what genuinely constitutes the smallest traces of light possible."

Most of Elsa's blood drained out of her face another time.

"Y"

Even as exhausted as she was, Anna felt a sick chill ripple through her at hearing this.

"This may or may not be a key facet in how Yozora intends to turn himself, and the other Foretellers, into vessels of empyrean darkness.

"What I am sure of is that this must be a core weft in how Yozora is aware of an obscure morsel of interest I'm aware of from a memory I can't take more than a little hold of.

"If the pieces for fashioning Synchronicity Perceptual aren't patched into their places in the jigsaw in the way he wants them to be, especially the Note Blade; he may end up vitalizing a being that even he sees as almost too much of a risk for Synchronicity Perceptual to be worth it, an anathema known as the Princess of Fracture."

Elsa's mouth opened in a face clear of all blood.

"Y"

"Yo"

It would never end.

There was no escape at all from this crazy eternal darkness everywhere.

It just unfolded and unfurled and unfolded and unraveled endingly and never without horizons.

And Yozora was tampering with phenomena so terrible he was risking fashioning a nightmare that was abominable even to a New World both light and darkness saw as the uttermost foundations of the abyss?

Forces that could distort Elsa into this Princess of Fracture?

Anna discovered that her vision was swimming with blackness.

Elsa's face became calm and resolved.

"Are we in agreement then?" she questioned.

"As much as I'm willing to agree with anyone but Namine a–"

Vanitas cut himself off, his mouth shifting as he attempted to keep himself from scowling inwardly.

Anna felt a little lighter at the confirmation, from how Vanitas had now almost directly admitted he was concerned for Ven twice now even though he appeared to be too walled off a person to let things slip that easily, particularly more than once; he wasn't just worried or concerned about Ven, but genuinely terrified because he'd almost lost Ven entirely and eternally.

Which might very well still happen to him, because she'd let Sora walk off a second time and

"Y"

Her vision was obscured by new stinging water.

This time, when she felt one of Elsa's fingers on her face, she reached up with one hand and held it there with gentle desperation.

Elsa stopped moving it, and curled it a little to clasp her hand back reassuringly.

"I can't think of anything to add to my idea at this time," Anna put in.

Was her whisper broken and cracked, or was she just having too many problems hearing it clearly?

"Then you should enable to sleep for at least one or two hours, before we need to leave to try to preempt Kairi."

Anna suppressed the urge to cringe at the knowledge this meant, if Sora had been knocked unconscious, he had more time to wake up alone and separate from the people who loved him.

The coldness vanished, and Anna knew the prism had been dropped.

"I'd like to remain in Twilight Town until Mare finishes erecting the virtual space, even if Ven stays in Halloween Town for the time being," Elsa told them all in a fully audible voice.

Mare didn't even acknowledge them from where the holograms and Blox were still twisting.

Donald scowled.

Elsa just ignored it.

"With that in mind, does anyone know of a place we can stay for the night?"

Roxas turned to acknowledge Elsa, and whatever he was currently feeling disappeared from his face behind a mask of propriety as he bowed at the waist.

"I'll show you all to the clock tower loft.

"If you will follow me, Milady."

"Anna?"

Anna didn't recognize the voice, or know what had just happened.

"It's Roxas.

"Kairi was still asleep in the Usual Spot when we left, but we still need to hurry."

All of her remaining sleepiness faded at those words, and Anna was aware she'd chosen to sit up in her sleeping bag before she was even opening her eyes to look at Roxas.

He was standing at the side of her sleeping bag, on the floor of the loft in the clock tower at Station Heights.

Vanitas was waiting on the balcony; the place Mickey must have been referring to when he said Roxas, Xion, Lea, Isa, Hayner, Olette, and Pence often ate sea-salt ice cream together.

An oblate violet and black morass was already open at his left.

Elsa was standing on Roxas' right, now looking at him in surprise.

Kristoff was at her own right, with Olaf in his arms.

Marshmallow was positioned near the trap door, watching for anyone to follow.

No one else was in the loft but them.

"We don't have time to argue," Roxas told them both, genuine set determined resolve in his speech.

"But I'm not letting anyone else I care about walk around at the base of a Xehanort without me close by once again."

Elsa opened her mouth, but Vanitas interjected.

"If one of us walks at the front, and the other at the back, now that Roxas can create Unversed, I can weave together a ward to keep the darkness back out of the negative emotions in both of our hearts.

"This is a corridor of darkness, and traveling through them unprotected can damage hearts."

Elsa closed her mouth, but she gave Roxas a look that told him to remember his station when he was willing to bother Anna in any form.

Roxas nodded.

Anna felt a little lighter at hearing Elsa stand up for her.

But she pushed her emotions away for the first time in this new period of being awake.

"How is Xion?" Elsa asked, her words quick.

Too many feelings passed too fast over Roxas' face to identify any of them.

"She's asleep in the Usual Spot.

"But we have another new problem.

"Hayner, Pence, Lucca, and Olette didn't return to the Usual Spot after you left, so Lea and Isa went out looking for them.

"And they found a note saying Tidus called them on the Gummiphone warning them someone in an Organization coat, most likely one of the Xehanorts, had been snooping around Destiny Islands; so Lucca's en route there in the Epoch to drop Pence, Hayner, and Olette off to back him up in watching Schala.

"But for all we know, the Xehanorts have already made one or more moves of their own by now, because they have Sora."

Anna knew, due to how Tidus felt about Xion, Roxas was worried about more people than his three other closest friends and Lucca.

Without any delay or hesitation, she bent to pick up her gunblade where she'd placed it at the side of her sleeping bag before climbing into it, still in her regular clothes.

"In that case, we may have more of a need to make a hasty retreat, so I recommend we leave the dark corridor open and Marshmallow standing guard at this end to keep any potential civilians out on a misadventure in the clock tower from plunging into it over their heads."

Vanitas nodded once, wordlessly.

Marshmallow frowned.

"Elsa," he pleaded in part reproof, part moan.

"I've had plenty of rest," she reassured him.

"Even with their adeptness at tactics and strategy, I should be able to hold the Xehanorts off long enough for us to escape if anything goes too wrong."

Marshmallow inclined his head.

Olaf opened his mouth, but he said nothing.

"It's probably as futile as trying reach a certain other feisty Princess we all know," Kristoff said, "But if Kairi hasn't left by the time I reach the Usual Spot, I'm going to at least make the effort to talk some sense into her."

He obviously wanted to say more, but all he did was turn and run for the trap door.

It was open in seconds and then closed over him.

Wetness tried to push forwards into her eyes when he was out of sight, but Anna kept it back.

"Where are we going?" Anna queried Vanitas as she put her holster on and sheathed her gunblade in it over her shoulder.

"Scala ad Caelum itself," he informed them.

"As we all appear to be ready now, I'll take point."

Roxas walked swiftly behind them.

Anna intended to move first, but Elsa took a step forward before she could, and in a number of seconds they were at the dark corridor.

Vanitas moved in front of them, and then solid black wisps flowed out from his back to twine as though they were the swirling whorls of an interlocking fence to both of their sides, where they curved to gather behind Roxas.

Without any wait, he then walked into the dark corridor.

Elsa followed briskly, and then Anna strode after her, and last came Roxas.

Vanitas led the way down a space akin to a short vaulted hallway that was a little wide, with a floor and walls and a ceiling of amorphous blacks and dark blues and violets and threads of crimson and other colors, to a white haze Anna could see shining through another oblate space at the opposite end.

Vanitas passed into it, and after Elsa exited through it, Anna walked after her.

She stopped in mid step and placed one foot down early at the sight before her.

It took several seconds to make sense of what she was seeing.

"Do the Xehanorts have any concept of the idea of architecture at all?" Roxas commented in mild sarcastic exasperation, clearly upset enough by what he was seeing to imitate Lea.

"That's The Castle That Never Was hovering over the core residential area of Scala ad Caelum; the districts themselves have been altered into the grays and whites and blacks of the Timeless River; and the residential areas aren't floating in an ocean any longer, but among the same kinds of white and black clouds and volcanoes and rainbows that reside in Symphony of Sorcery."

"You dare to believe this atones for anything? For terrorizing the entire world?"-Dark Knight

"I… I am sorry… Forgive me… Cecil…"-Golbez

"You dare to believe this atones for throwing me aside!? Isn't this what you wanted? To die at the hands of the brother you abandoned!?"-Dark Knight

FINAL FANTASY IV: THE AFTER YEARS