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CHAPTER 47:
BENEATH THE LID OF THE BLACK LOCK
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Author's Notes: The pieces for this Chapter are, in order of scene: 'Antipyretic,' from the FINAL FANTASY TACTICS Original Soundtrack, Disc Two; and after it 'Orphanage Of Flame,' from the CHRONO CROSS Original Soundtrack, Disc One; and after it 'Dragon's Prayer,' from the CHRONOB CROSS Original Soundtrack, Disc Three; and after it 'Holy Angela's Theme Deluxe,' from the FINAL FANTASY TACTICS Original Soundtrack, Disc Two; and after this 'Reminiscence – Feelings Not Erased,' from the CHRONO CROSS Original Soundtrack, Disc One. All five pieces of music can be found on Zophar's Domain.
Kairi removed everything she perceived and could think of to feel outside of the drawn rush of hot longing that emptied open an absence inside her she'd never known was there, and relief so light she practically couldn't reminisce she had legs, or knees.
Even what Gula had just said about Sora and Riku was at her side now.
Because Kairi knew, if she let any of it get to her after what the new arrival had just said, whatever chances she still had left of protecting them from the trap closing around them with incisors of diamond would be cleared almost from transparency.
If there had still been any vitality left in Riku's face, Kairi couldn't see any remaining now.
But even now, he didn't react in any other way.
"I don't still feel that way."
What had she done to h–
Kairi pushed it back beside her.
"Welcome home, Mom," Kairi spoke.
She kept her voice steady, but let warm welcome into it.
"That is, of course, if you are who you claim to be," Kairi thrust the welcome and warmth from her voice, and edged it into challenge.
"If you're hoping for a welcome home sweet home hug, or kiss, or both, you'll need to convince me you're really my mother first.
"I'm very sorry, but your current choice of friends doesn't give me any reason to trust a single inflection, or silent period between sound, that you say; including anything you claim about your identity."
"Then I'll leave my hood up, in the hopes that preventing you from seeing my face, and our resemblance, will convince you of my sincerity; more than if I showed you red hair, and features, you have reason to believe are an illusion, or solid, but fabricated," the female voice responded, her words understanding, but steady.
Riku's expression shifted slightly.
Kairi kept her armor up.
"You'll also need to convince me that, even if you are telling the truth, it is what's really going on, and it's not just what you yourself believe to be the truth," Kairi continued.
"Your own memories will speak for themselves," the woman who maintained she was Kairi's mom replied, her own voice now nothing more than steady.
Riku's visage shifted a little more.
Kairi suppressed the urge to start.
"There is also much you can ask Sora, Riku, Lea, and the others themselves to verify."
Riku's visage lost any features.
Kairi emptied her own of anything that may be attempting to manifest on it, and she removed any sentiment seeking to burgeon inside her at the same time.
"And whatever can't be verified, everything you've learned about the World, and history, by now, will lend sufficient credence to."
"That's one of the groups of reasons you should know better than to believe I'll give any more merit to your words because of who you are, than I have anyone else's.
"Even if you are my mom, I don't care whether or not you approve of me.
"I am who I am because of who I chose to become; not because of anyone, or anything, that came before me, or created me.
"That's as true for ordinary people as it is for synthetic ones, such as Nobodies or replicas.
"If you don't care about me any more than Vexen initially did Xion, your opinion of me means nothing to me."
"Even if the New World of Synchronicity Perceptual would better enable Even to adopt Xion, or Riku Replica,"
Riku's face shifted a good deal at the confirmation Riku Replica was still alive.
Kairi did need to keep her legs, and knees, from becoming weak, at hearing that.
"or both, as a true foster daughter, or foster son, or foster children?" the woman queried, her voice unaltered. "Should they one day, sooner or later, wish to have a real parent?"
"Even, more than most, knows how one of the very last things the darkness is is helpful," Kairi returned, her voice now even and steady.
"It is your own experiences that should lend weight to my proof the light is no better," Kairi's purported mom spoke back, still unruffled.
"I don't want you to believe me because of our blood ties, or because I'm a parent.
"I want you to believe me because, due to how your grandmother, and my mother in law, shaped me once I met her, and how she raised you based upon what she knew of me and believed I would want you to be raised, we have led very similar lives."
"That still won't mean enough to me," Kairi's words were just as unruffled, but she let longing to know what kind of life the woman who might genuinely be her mother flood her heart.
"No matter who you are, you're wasting your time.
"If you really were a court mediator, and you lived your life reconciling disputes between people, you should also know a lot better than Dad did that there isn't a single sky, or destiny, that can be controlled. Every heart has different beliefs, and perspectives, and dreams, and the ability and freedom to choose them, and between light and darkness.
"Hearts, and people, connect if they're willing to learn to understand each other, and one another, and then compromise based on how they're aware the other person, or the other people, feel and think. I see Ursula's point about how understanding the other person's perspective can cause a disagreement to become worse, but that doesn't change how that is the sole way hearts can connect, and how power cannot help anyone solve his, her, or its problems.
"Whether people share the same light or darkness of the past or are just born into it, it makes no difference. Family, loves, friends, cultures, races, species, beings; it's the same for everyone. Each and every heart is still an individual with a heart and mind of his, her, or its own, and all of these hearts and people are their own selves, with the same capacity to feel joy or sadness, understand or reject, give in to the darkness or soar to the light, love or inflict pain.
"So the truth is never what a heart sees with his, her, or its eyes; but the feelings and thoughts and memories and dreams hearts hear if they're willing to understand how they're extended through the words and actions of others.
"Many hearts and words share the same sky and destiny, they don't control one destiny and sky for all hearts.
"And, while I am willing to understand the darkness, and accept it; no light or darkness of the past, present, or future, or coagulation, or nothingness, or in between, can convince me to choose it.
"Nor can you coerce me into doing so.
"You stabbed yourselves in the foot when you began putting me through my rehearsal in Arendelle.
"I learned the same lesson Riku did in Castle Oblivion, and Roxas and Xion and Lea did in the realm in between and the Keyblade Graveyard.
"The darkness has no power over you unless you're so afraid it does you believe it does.
"The darkness cannot make me do it. Nor can how I was born, what I learned throughout my life, or anything else.
"Go ahead, turn me into another Nobody.
"Even turn me into a Heartless this time. I'm sure there's a way, even though I'm a Princess of Heart. Unlike Dad, or Ansem the Wise before he learned better, with their bigoted intolerance people are born, or created, different, with a destiny that is set for him, her, it, or them, and can be controlled; I know who people are is determined by their choices, and nothing but their choices.
"I doubted that, when I first found out who Dad was, but Platina showed me I was just as wrong to believe I was a puppet born with a part to play as Xion was.
"I still won't choose the darkness. My Heartless self may not remember the light, but if she doesn't remember it, then she still can't entirely choose the darkness. She can traverse it because that's all she can remember, but if she doesn't return to a greater heart and regain her light, she won't really remember what the shadows are because she'll have no light to cast them.
"Destiny is built by the feelings and dreams and hopes and hearts of each and every one of us, through a willingness to learn about others and understand them, and a willingness to learn about the World and understand it, and a willingness to learn about ourselves and understand ourselves, and then a willingness to decide between infinite trails of who to become and be, and how to live and love, based upon what we've learned about all three.
"I am who I am because I am my own heart, and I have people to be that heart around.
"And that will never change, unless I choose to change it."
The woman who said she was Kairi's mom sighed heavily.
"You misunderstand why we seek Synchronicity Perceptual," she spoke, and there was now irritation in her voice.
"Master Yozora does believe the truth is what you see with your eyes, and not what you hear, and he attempted to convince Xehanort of this, and initially failed to.
"However, unlike my late husband; who Eraqus taught to believe there is one single sky, and destiny, that can be etched for people, and mandated; Master Yozora seeks a New World by etching one sky, and destiny, because he learned that all things don't happen with a purpose, so he dreams of a New World where they do."
Riku jolted violently.
Kairi barely remembered not to blink in surprise.
This time, she couldn't justify holding away the fissure of fear that shrieked serrated jagged quicksilver through her.
How could someone believe all things didn't happen for a purpose?
However, as much as what was within Kairi's heart was now attempting to rocket spiraling giddy up into a lacuna along with everything inside her stomach to feel it and think it, that Kairi knew someone believed that meant that question needed to be answered, in order for her to understand M
the person who claimed to be her mother
and this mystery of the World, and not just look with blind eyes at a single sky and destiny.
"Do you know what the simply complex reason for that is?
"It's because understanding the pain that gives us valid reasons to kill, or hurt, others also means understanding more about what the pain is that we want to inflict upon others, or let others be hurt by; so that pain thus hurts us more."
M
the woman's
voice was now flooded with so much, and so familiar, exhausted resignation Kairi was no longer sure her walls keeping her sentiments aside were still up.
"You haven't been told why Xehanort believed me dead.
"It was because I could see what his hate and fury at Eraqus, and, to a lesser extent, Yen Sid, for their betrayals of him, was doing to him. The criminals who accompanied Luxu to mug me were people who disliked a settlement I'd made during an attempt to mediate a dispute with diplomacy, and not compel it to end with strength.
"I'd been attacked before by people who disliked the settlements I'd arranged, so I had every reason to believe I would be once more, but I knew telling Xehanort I was very likely in danger from people who disliked a compromise I'd arranged through negotiation would feed the darkness that he was struggling to find reasons to continue to reject after Eraqus attempted to strike him down in the back.
"So a belief in the light of warm love and peaceful understanding led me to believe I shouldn't warn him I was in danger, and then Luxu woke me up in the new body my heart was placed in after my death to tell me what choosing reconciliation over power had accomplished to reveal to me that my choice had to led to your death at his hands, and then his own."
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Whose voice was it that was now speaking, atnever distant past despair so absenting onyx opalescent it was too infinitesimal and young to have even died for neverlasting eternity?
"That… That can't be…
"If you'd just told him the truth…
"One who knows nothing can understand nothing, remember?"
"Can you say that with surety?" Mom
because there was no longer any reason not to believe it was Mom not in an existencerealityWorldcosmosinsanegougedgrotesquephantasmhallucination where it was true love and connections and hearth and warmth and home and soundness and not misguided broken love and care and bonds and protection that had ruined the cosmos for over twelve years
not in an existencerealityWorldcosmos where past nil potential or unrelenting measurement nothing truly could happen with a purpose
not if it was the warm of light of love that had began all this
not if understanding and acceptance broke the universe and the World
questioned, even more exhausted resignation, and now a ruined chapped understanding Kairi knew perhaps even more than the fatigue and resignation, in her voice.
"With how far Xehanort was willing to go even when he learned you were still alive; can you sincerely be sure he wouldn't have given in to the darkness to protect me if he'd been there when the muggers struck, you wouldn't have been born because he'd murdered all of the muggers but Luxu with the darkness, and he wouldn't have been just as determined to re-forge the Kye-Blade, if not even far more so, if he'd known both of us were alive?
"Can you honestly believe we could have lit his way out of the darkness if both of us had been there to shine a way out of it for him, and it hadn't been just you?"
Clearingblindingincandescentincinceratingnottruenothisisthemostblindinglyobviouslieanydenizenofthedarknesshastoldmeyet
"No one but Eraqus, the person who had fragmented all his trust in connections, could do that.
"And you're telling me that it's better to believe the purpose this happened was for Kingdom Hearts to shine more of the light of love upon the World, and not freeze it with the dark cold of power?
"That I should have gone on believing there's hope for the World as it is, once I learned this?"
but even though Kairi had never been able to do anything more than murder or hurt Grandma or Sora or Riku or Tidus or Selphie or Wakka or her foster father or her foster mother or Dad or Lea or Platina or anyone else maybe she could at least love and care for and cherish and protect Mom
yes this was beyond doubt what the Foretellers wanted her to feel and think and the real reason they had scouted Mom but Kairi needed to do so somehow
this had to be Mom
Kairi had to be able to light her way home sweet home
"What is peace, and reconciliation, and diplomacy, and negotiation, anyway?
"You know that the World is filled with darkness, but you have yet to learn just how prevalent that darkness is.
"Hearts who value connections and understanding are enormously outnumbered by hearts who value hurt and strength. To most hearts, safeguarding others is not a matter of catching people's tears and holding them close, but of cutting down others with blades or perforating them with bullets and glorying in having more power than their foes. Violence is most often seen as defensive preservation of joy. While words are commonly seen as cowardly abandonment of others to adversity, or belligerent aggression that causes pain.
"Hearts who believe in the light are most often seen to be the ones in the wrong, merely because raising a fist appears impressive and radiant to others; lowering it or refusing to raise it at all appears undignified.
"When hearts plagued by illness, famine, poverty, or natural disaster plead to others for support, more hearts than don't refuse to even take the time to give them a single coin to improve their lot. You discussed with Lucca about hearts who run away from death and hurt without seeking happiness, but much more widespread, far more prevalent than hearts that run away from both hurt and joy, are hearts that run away from hurt to seek happiness. The hearts also refuse to lend a hand or ear to those in need of sanctuary or protection merely because they see it as too much trouble to help someone else. And it also discomforts them, or causes them stress, or inconveniences them, or causes them distress. But this kind of coward prefers to remain wrapped up in sheltered bubbles and turn blind eyes to people in torment not just in order to pretend pain doesn't exist, but happiness does do so.
"There are even people who call hearts that are against violence and stand up against wrongdoing with words, or quietly and wordlessly ignoring wrongdoing without saying a word to stand up against wrongdoing by example, by a paradoxical and nonsensical term known as passive aggression. To these people, because you're a threat to dignity itself, the more you're against violence, and the more outspoken you are against death and pain with words, the more aggressive you are. Merely saying the word no to someone, and then ignoring a person to go about your own concerns, or ignoring someone without saying no, because you're not acknowledging dignity in any way, is seen as the most belligerent way to act of all, even if what a heart is ignoring are the most childish provocations as can be, such as attempting to catch someone by surprise.
"Most people, and hearts, don't even accept responsibility for making choices that hurt other people, or even ones that help them. They see it as too undignified to admit they're capable of making mistakes. So they lie to themselves, and others, that the darkness, or even the light, made them say or do it, or their brains made them say or do it, or someone else made them say or do it, or another external force made them say or do it.
"Or, so they can appear more glorious to others, and to themselves, and even though all hearts can solely talk or act, or not do so, by their own choice; they create this deception because they want to believe, and they want others to believe, that the hearts around them are the ones that can be made to become unable to stop himself, herself, itself, lose control of himself, herself, itself, and then say or do something, or not say or do something. Or to justify asserting power over others, they lie that the other heart purportedly cannot stop, or control, himself, herself, or itself, and that heart thus needs someone to do it for him, her, or it.
"It is the darkness that is most often seen as shining light, and the light as flickering darkness.
"The World doesn't believe in love and acceptance, so what's the point in believing in it ourselves?"
This one, at least, Kairi could answer.
Because, whether things happened with a reason, or not, that didn't mean that there was no light.
Her once again steady voice was practically unrecognizable as her own.
"Even this doesn't deny there's still a light left in the darkness."
"Even so, in a reality and World where the light leads to as much hurt and pain as the darkness, all the light does is lure moths to break apart to ash," Mom said in return.
"This is why Master Yozora at last acknowledged that he was striding a dark trail himself.
"It's not for me to tell you precisely what event convinced him to admit to the darkness in his heart, but that event did teach him that believing the light could wash away darkness was no better than believing the darkness could drown out all the light.
"No, what Master Yozora has learned is that light and darkness don't balance each other out, nor is there an in between cleaving them.
"What he learned is that they're the very same thing.
"This is why you need to give in, with all your heart.
"You've learned that living for others is a greater sacrifice than dying for them, but you've yet to consider that living for others is still selfish. For people who do believe that light is the heart's true nature, hurting others never fails to injure a heart more than hurting the self.
"True sacrifice can solely be found by living for others with a willingness to say, do, not say, or not do, anything that needs to happen; no matter how they die, no matter how much pain they're in; and bearing the yoke of that pain."
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"This is something that you are in the best position of all the Princesses of Heart throughout history to know.
"This is one of the two reasons Master Yozora etched a Princess of Heart born to darkness as his leading actress, for two reasons. He needed that Princess of Heart to understand the folly of selfishness more than most hearts, and people, can.
"If you reject the feelings and connection I am extending you, you will be following in his footsteps."
"I refuse to believe that," Kairi replied.
She knew the voice was hers, and its steadiness hadn't decreased this time, but in an existing real World where even oaths
Sora's oath
could bring hearts to ruin
could drag Sora's heart to the reaches of ruin
and reasons of warm love brought boundless and forever despair, even after what Platina had said, Kairi was no longer sure she didn't believe that.
She couldn't believe it.
But she couldn't not believe it.
"What's the primary reason?" she queried.
"No one but a Princess of Heart born to the sooty night can create enough of a dichotomy of light and darkness to wield the Note Blade to weave Synchronicity Perceptual; whether or not Persona, Anima, and Animus smelt it, or Roxas and his own complements do so as our contingency," Mom spoke back.
Kairi needed to suppress the urge to clench her teeth at that.
If Mom was telling the truth, she should have been able to figure out that much.
"For the Note Blade has been smelted, and will soon be cast, from a similar dichotomy. Preferably Persona, Anima, and Animus, for it will be more challenging to arrange the other facets necessary for Synchronicity Perceptual if Roxas, and his own assistants, cast it. Either, though, will do as a team of chasers.
"The Note Blade is not designed to prevent darkness from devouring the light of Kingdom Hearts, for as Riku learned during the Mark of Mastery Exam, darkness cannot be held back by anything.
"The Note Blade is composed to ensure the light of Kingdom Hearts can be harnessed without becoming corrupted by intertwining light and darkness in an unbreakable connection.
"The Kye-Blade is incapable of wholly channeling the power of Kingdom Hearts because, although all hearts are born from Kingdom Hearts, are connected to it, and return to it, Kingdom Hearts itself has no form of its own. It is nothing more than a coagulation of all the hearts of the cosmos, and as you know, hearts without forms cannot reflect other hearts or be reflected. And, without others to be themselves around, even though they cannot irreplaceably lose their hearts, they can still lose their will, if they are deprived of a form for long enough.
"Thus, Kingdom Hearts has no true will of its own.
"The Kye-Blade, whether forged from a combination of hearts of light and darkness, or as an artifact of its own, is its own mirror of this. It's nothing but a reflection of the distilled light and darkness from hearts. Unlike ordinary Keyblades, it cannot genuinely utilize the intent of hearts with wills.
"Thus, to entirely channel the power of Kingdom Hearts, Master Yozora needed an artifact akin to the Kye-Blade that can harness all the sentiment of the intent of a heart with will."
Kairi wished she could believe that caused the Note Blade to sound less dangerous, but she knew a weapon that could utilize all the potency of Kingdom Hearts under the total whim of the wielder of the Note Blade made that weapon truthfully the most dangerous thing in all existence, with the possible exception of what Yozora wanted Roxas to become.
"The sole way he could attain this relic, however, was to weave his own repository of innumerable sentiments, thoughts, reminiscences, and dreams. Then he played his scapegoat"
even through everything, inexplicably, Kairi couldn't breathe
gibbering terror was now clawing and wrenching faster than the jackhammer at the reaches of her memory
that meant she'd seen that word before
she knew it was in one, or more, of the Reports Sora had gathered during his travels
but from which set
and from which one, or ones
"to place this repository in the Black Box Luxu has been watching over throughout the millennia, where it would then begin storing these selves and hopes from all the Keyblade wielders who carried a Keyblade throughout all the millennia since the realm of fairy tales was broken and reconstituted.
"It stored these emotions and hopes from the wielders who strove and fell in the First Keyblade War, and from the countless worlds and cultures that sprouted in the shattered realm of light. From all these differing conditions, the repository was able to gain an understanding of the wills and regrets, doubts and wishes, of hearts past counting under a massive number of conditions. Thus, over more than eleven thousand five hundred years, the repository has come to understand light and darkness in a way Kingdom Hearts is incapable of perceiving it.
"We're now going to provide this repository with six hearts; one of its own unique kind of pure light, one of its own unique manner of pure darkness, a suitable in between, a heart of memories, a heart of data, and a heart of dreams."
"Then the repository itself is a seventh heart."
For the first time since Sora had vanished, Kairi heard true, undiluted terror in Riku's voice, now a flickering empty breath.
Everything was back, and it merely was.
For if something could terrify Riku this much, Kairi could think of no concepts to encompass it.
"It's a heart that allows light and darkness to live as friends, not adversaries.
"I know what's been in the Black Box all this time, and why the box didn't appear until after the Second Keyblade War.
"The Black Box existed for all those millennia, in order to somehow provide a means for the repository to travel into the past before the First Keyblade War."
even terror didn't define what was gibbering now
"But nothing else existed inside it until the scapegoat created the repository and sent it back to the past.
"And Xehanort was the puppet so important he was the sacrificial scapegoat, according to Luxu's Secret Reports, remember?"
Kairi's breaths didn't define their breaths.
"It hasn't been as much of a question of where Sora's true Heartless has been all this time, but rather when."
Anything but had never been.
The Shadows cascaded over them, drenching them both in inky night, but Kairi refused to loosen her grip on the Heartless she knew was Sora.
She'd spent too much time helpless to do anything for Sora or Riku inside Sora's heart to give up now, even more because she couldn't even be sure she'd have been able to give him the vitality to get up and defeat Ansem if Ansem hadn't already been attempting to remove her from Sora's heart.
Something warm flickered through her own heart, something she could just vaguely recall having known once before, and that reminded her of the surging and ebbing warm and cold tides of the Final Keyhole, and a giddy and eager curiosity to see a wonder.
Kairi had no idea why she was now on her knees, and not on her face and front, or how she could see anything through the tears causing her vision to ripple now.
The Castle That Never Was hadn't been the first time she'd wielded Destiny's Embrace.
At long last, and never, she understood how Terra-Dad had been able to open the door to the world heart of Radiant Garden when he hadn't recovered enough memories for Xemnas to wield the Keyblade, and how Terra-Dad had known how to find her when the time had come to send her out in search of new potential Keyblade wielders.
The hooded woman walked forward to Kairi.
But nothing could even whimper at Kairi now to get up and move away.
The woman put her left hand on Kairi's left shoulder, but Kairi could feel nothing.
No warmth, no softness.
Just the emptiness that was all of any lacuna itself.
Mom's voice now held a past dowsing depthless self hatred of her own.
"I didn't want to be the one to tell you, but if I'd refused, the core of the Note Blade would have been maneuvered into doing it."
Why hadn't that happened?
How could Mom, of all people, be willing to show her any forgiveness now?
"But you at last understand."
Kairi needed to say it herself.
She needed to admit it to someone, and after what she'd just learned, she could never even shift her mouth to open it to speak to Sora, Tidus, Selphie, Wakka, Lea, Platina, or anyone else once again.
And as soon as she could, she'd flee as far away as was possible, or not potential, from Riku, as well.
Whether they were willing to forgive her for it, or not, and still wanted to be around her, meant reverberating nil infinities less than nadir now.
If she could have done this to them, and all of the cosmos, when she'd been no more than four years old, she was the most dangerous heart, and person, who had existed in all of any space and time.
Even Ava had just been the last flashpoint that had fomented a war, while other fully sentient hearts had then ruined the cosmos.
The sole thing she wouldn't do this time was break it off with Sora a second time.
That would hurt him too much.
"I did it."
There was no inflection in Kairi's words.
Not even resignation.
"I opened the door."
Riku jolted violently, and his mouth hung slack.
"I'm the reason why Dad was able to begin implementing his second plan for re-forging the Kye-Blade, and its contingency.
"I'm the reason the Heartless, and Nobodies, burgeoned into a hurricane that all but drowned the realm of light, and did ruin centillions of lives, and worlds past encompassing.
"Merely because I was eager to see whatever amazing thing Dad told me was on the other side of the door to the world heart of Radiant Garden.
"I sacked my home planet.
"And I didn't just ruin Sora's, and Riku's, lives by feeding their own curiosity about the outside world.
"I broke them both, for all their lives."
"Just do it," Riku's words cut through nothing, because there had never been anything to break through.
"Shatter my heart."
On the edges of her perception, Kairi was able to feel her body starting slightly.
She wanted to say something furious about how Riku still hadn't learned about how wrong this kind of self sacrifice was, or how he was letting his own self hate and guilt and terror and hopelessness about what Young Xehanort had said, and what Kairi had said to him, cloud his judgment.
But she couldn't think of any words.
"Before you're hurt any longer.
"If I'm meant to be the Dream Eater In-Between, I'm not going to fall asleep like Ven.
"And whatever happens, it will still just be another new beginning through a birth by sleep.
"I won't die like Ven did.
"The Foretellers need my heart.
"So just do what they want, this one time.
"Give into the darkness enough to shatter my heart with it, and spare yourself any more torment."
Kairi wanted to disagree, but now she couldn't see through her tears another time.
It was just one time, and it wouldn't be enough to erode her heart that much.
Not when she was already so angry with Riku she wouldn't need to give into much more darkness than she could easily access, if any more.
It would hurt Riku, but this was what he wanted.
"You're wrong. Tidus, please, tell me something. Betraying some people's feelings while staying true to the feelings of others is one matter, but if you go through with this and die, you won't just betray some of us. You'll betray everyone's feelings.
"I mean literally everyone's. Your own feelings as well.
"Is this what you truly want yourself? Do you truly want to betray everyone and die? Doesn't this cause you to hurt, as well?"
Kairi discovered she was stiffening violently, and then something black and sick and coldly hard and sharply drawn prevented her from breathing once more.
What kind of a revolting jest was that?
Abandon the people she loved, and betray them, and flee and hide, and let them die, and be tormented, and the rest of existence along with them, was all she'd done all her life.
She was the one who was already dark.
Living for Sora and Riku and Tidus and Selphie and Wakka, giving up her legacy for Sora and Riku and Tidus and Wakka and Selphie, dying for Sora and Riku and Tidus and Selphie and Wakka…
None of it had once made the most infinitesimal difference for all of their lives.
But she did have one last hope.
As Mom had said, true sacrifice was carrying the worst pain possible, and she couldn't hurl herself into it with all her heart through any other way but murdering, or hurting others.
There was no other way to live for Sora, and Riku, and Tidus, and Selphie, and Wakka, and Lea, and Platina, and the rest of the hearts of existence.
In that case, if truly giving into it, and not just believing it was in her heart, but bringing it into her heart; in order to love, and care for, and cherish, and protect one of the five hearts that were the dearest to her; was what it took to be able to give Riku something he wanted, just once; she may as well have done with it.
Reality was back.
Kairi ignored the sickness in her stomach, and the shaking and trembling and shuddering that was now wracking all of her body, as she got to her feet.
Her voice was the steadiest she could recall it being in all her life as she spoke her next words.
"I'll at least promise this will be quick."
Sora strode onto the marble dais of the Altar of Naught, and then moved to the side to let Tidus, Selphie, and Wakka follow him out of the Lane Between.
He once more pushed aside his misgivings at letting them come with him.
A familiar molten jet incandescent agony flickered through his heart, one he'd at once never known before yet was here and unending distant more familiar to Anna's that he knew
No.
He didn't know whose it was, or what it was.
Something terrible had not just happened.
Something even more terrible was not about to happen.
"I guess you do need another demonstration."
Blinding, jagged drawn switchback concave fissures of horror cleansed through Sora at the familiar child's voice, unconcerned and mildly amused.
"Now that Maleficent has the worlds' data, she sent me to retrieve the Black Box.
"But I couldn't just let you leave me out of your reunion with Anna, Donald, and Goofy, could I?
"So I'll make you an offer.
"If you don't leave me out of it, I'll call enough Heartless, and other dark entities, here for you to fulfill your promise to Young Xehanort, and then open a corridor of darkness for you to Return To Mansion in.
"You'll still need to watch the new demonstration, though.
"We're in the realm of darkness; so if you attempt to keep the scene from playing out, you'll lose the last chance you have to fulfill your mission requirements, and Return To Mansion before Midnight at tonight."
.
"Do you have any clue how many people Scar has killed to create the Philosopher's Stone? Of all the soldiers that invaded Lior? Seven thousand of them didn't make it home. But don't fret. They're all right in here. Oh, I bet you didn't realize all the souls of the Ishbalans that were sealed inside Scar's arm are inside you now. Isn't that great? So now that you're fully aware of just how valuable you are to us, I suggest that you live!"-Envy
'There are so many moments when I should have died. Time after time after time. But I survived. And for what? Why was I their choice when so many others have died?'-Alphonse Elric
FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST:
Episode 49: THE OTHER SIDE OF THE GATE