Kingdom Hearts: The Girl Who Stole the Star Chapter 59: Tow of the Northern Lights, a kingdom hearts fanfic

CHAPTER 58:

TOW OF THE NORTHERN LIGHTS

Author's Notes: The music for this Chapter is, in order of scene: 'Dead Sea – Ruined Tower,' from the CHRONO CROSS Original Soundtrack, Disc Two; and then 'Sorrow – Imperial Version,' from the FINAL FANTASY XII Original Soundtrack, Disc Three. Both of these compositions can be found on Zophar's Domain.

Sora registered, after several seconds, he could feel cold air brushing against his exposed skin, and he was also breathing.

For a number of seconds, all there was was that awareness drowning out anywhen, and all he wanted was to just crumple sagged and fall boneless into the safe and restful protected security of Kairi's arms, there and warmly sure around him, where he could just close his eyes and none of the pain would, or could, touch him once again for forever eternities.

Then his eyes adjusted, and he could see the silhouettes of Elsa, now standing with the ice skates no longer on her feet and leaning back against the closed surface behind them, while Roxas, clearly of the belief his own vision had adjusted enough, was tensing to careen into the darkness of the gently curving tunnel of ice Sora could see stretching out ahead.

"But if you didn't believe in your dreams of a reality of warm love, a secure hearth, bubbling grins, and verdant laughter as incomprehensibly as you do, you wouldn't be able to cry when other people are cast away from it into the darkness."

"Carrying around a little hurt can't be all that bad. Hurting is part of caring."

As long as he could cry, he could still understand the tears of others.

Even in an existence that was all too horrifically and distilled suspended there, where he couldn't even trust in promises, he still had a purpose to give him direction in which to head.

Robert.

He needed to find a lawyer named Robert.

"We've all got this together!" Sora cried with quick terror, and much feeling was now aside.

At the same time, something receded from Elsa's face Sora couldn't identify, and then she shouted, "All of us need a friend this time, if we want to lessen any further hurt!"

Roxas broke his stride so quickly he fell forward.

A curtain of solidly scintillating diamonds of sparkling and crystallized water burst into the air in front of them, and Sora reached out and grabbed Roxas' shoulder to pull him back instants before the diamonds hardened enough they would have torn cuts into Roxas, if not worse, depending on how potent the means of forging them was.

A thick and impenetrable wall of gray fog roared up in two whirling funnels at the sides of the diamonds to then send somewhat thinner, but still shifting, shades of gray out from the inner walls of the funnels to meet approximately equidistantly between the two columns, columns which themselves continued to twist in place as the fog now hid the diamonds from sight.

Elsa's brow furrowed, something about what she was seeing clearly reminding her of something important.

But then she took a slow, deep breath, and whatever emotions were on her expression composed themselves.

She gave Roxas a bright and warmly encouraging smile with empathetic understanding and sympathetic knowledge in her eyes and face.

Sora attempted to draw vitality and sustenance from it as well, calling upon every memory of Elsa and how phenomenal and engulfed with wondrous awe every single glimpse of her constructing her ice palace, and her talents, were.

"Look out!"

"That's amazing. You can control ice."

"Wow. I don't know what we just saw but… wow. That… was Elsa?"

"She looked different."

"And a lot happier, too."

Elsa didn't even need to cry for her heart to brim with light.

"Would you please attend us all, if you would do the honors?" she requested.

Childhood's Laughter was already in Sora's free hand before Oathkeeper and Oblivion were back in Roxas', for although he was fairly sure Roxas knew a lot more about Maleficent's goals than he did at this point, Sora knew Maleficent, or her allies, at least, could still seek to claim Oathkeeper as soon as Roxas brought it into his hands.

No corridor of darkness appeared when Oathkeeper had totally solidified, however, and Runeard didn't strike from the other side of the barrier, so Sora realized he was aching so much he wasn't sure how long he could stand as he sagged.

"They're Darkballs.

"I can afford to be careless."

"Who says that I want you overly taking care of me?"

"All right, I'm sorry."

"We're all a lot tougher than Jiminy.

"We're not so easily sl"

But Sora didn't need those aches to remind him of just how many times Jiminy, as well as the rest of them, had fallen off a precipice the last time they'd attempted to protect Elsa, and Anna, when the four of them had attempted to give Elsa friends, and how ruthlessly things could go wrong this time around if he did the same thing.

Whether they were still on the planet where Arendelle resided, or not.

A familiar white ray shot from the tip of Oathkeeper at the curtain of fog.

It started parting to both sides, and then the diamond droplets began spreading to the sides as well.

Sora started at the sight of Merlin partially hobbling, partially staggering down the tunnel on the other side of the barrier, although Sora couldn't tell whether the coatings of frost upon him were any thicker, or larger.

"They're Darkballs.

"I can afford to be careless."

"Who says that I want you overly taking care of me?"

"All right, I'm sorry."

"We're all a lot tougher than Jiminy.

"We're not so easily sl"

An echoing roar reverberated in both directions, down the passage away from them, and up it into the frost surrounding the doorway that remained behind them, causing their surroundings to shake violently and yanking Sora out of the reverie at the same time as he himself forced it aside, while the yowl itself howled with a cacophony of what sounded like washing fire and the rapids of water intermingled with the rush of air.

Elsa's eyes flew wide as she at last clearly placed whatever she'd been remembering.

Then Merlin called out, a desperate guilty terror Sora was far too familiar with by now flooding his voice.

"Sure, adventuring's fun, but it definitely has its ups and downs."

"Here, go play hero with this."

No.

He wasn't Riku.

He couldn't do what Riku, and Elsa, had done, and push anyone away.

Or is it they shouldn't have done it, because you're the one who should have done so all along?

You've never even needed a wooden sword to play knights and dragons with.

Kye-Blades need no weapons.

They're the keenest, and most sanguine slick, blades of all.

"Let bygones be bygones!

"I'm not from Arendelle, but one of the reasons I visited was still to attempt to mediate between you and the trolls, and to arrange for you four and Granpabbie's clan to join hands at the same time as Northuldra and Arendelle!"

A flicker of intermingled pleased, and scared, sentiment rushed through Sora.

"I have a debt of my own to repay to you!

"And even in the condition these old bones are now in, I'm no more ready for a shawl and gruel than Yen Sid!

"There's no need to be edgy with Sora and the others.

"Please, in the time I have left, give me a chance to see what I can do about the Northuldrans."

The rumbling lessened, along with the other sounds, taking on a rhythm as though the acoustics were currently having a conversation.

An unfamiliar voice laughed derisively from farther up ahead.

"None of you will be doing anything, least of all a bunch of moss overgrown rocks and filth without any form at all who don't even know what getting along means."

The blood drained out of Elsa's face, and even though Roxas' expression clearly said he wanted to barrel in the direction of the voice, he reached over and gripped Elsa's hand in a secure squeeze he held.

Sora moved in front of Roxas, dropped Childhood's Laughter, and then rested a hand on Elsa's shoulder, squeezing it himself.

"But I'll give this to you granitehearts and spooks.

"I once wanted you all, spirits and trolls and Northuldrans alike, either off our acreages by any means necessary, or indentured to us, if that was what it took to smear your self satisfied grins in the mud for all the times you've spent lounging on your cushions, laughing at us for all our centuries of effort tilling the soil."

Ice consumed all of Sora, even though he was simply too fatigued to lose sense of reality at this time.

Oh no.

No, please don't.

You're not

you can't be

Whoever this was just held, or had held, a high political position in Arendelle.

He was not related to Anna and Elsa.

No one akin to Jafar or Scar shared their blood.

"I recognized you as the threat to our prosperity you were, and saw you dealt with accordingly."

Whoever this was, held, or had once held, high political standing in Arendelle?

"But if you hadn't at least demonstrated you had backbones, as miserly and stiff as they are, I'd never have learned you'd been attempting to hoard the greatest treasure of all.

"It doesn't matter what you do now, you barbarian circus performers!

"Without the darkness, you can't plunge all the way in!"

Terror Sora couldn't identify passed over Elsa's face.

"But I am bound by no such restrictions!

"And once I have Ahtohallan, none of your services will even then be required!

"Not you, not the trolls, not the Northuldrans, not the Weaseltowns, not the Treaty of Flames.

"Not even Hans.

"I have no use for absent headed revolutionaries like Hans, or Xehanort, or anyone else who believes people like the Northuldrans, and the Weaseltowns, have some kind of grand role to play as long as they keep in line, and they also ensure they pull their weight as assets."

Roxas' mouth opened.

Elsa swept every single trace of sentiment from her face, turning it into a mask so absent of anything it hadn't even been that hopeless when they'd first met, while, as wasted and ruined as the parts of her face he'd been able to see had when she'd believed Anna had been frozen for all time, there had at least been life in them.

No.

Not even this.

When will it stop

No matter what I do or say it doesn't stop

No matter how hard or long I try it doesn't stop

Why won't you make it stop

Kairi

Riku

Goofy

Donald

Jiminy

Roxas

Anna

Please

Why won't you make it go away

I'mbeggingyouohpleasepleaseKairiRikumakeitstop

"Luxu knew how it works, but he himself was here for no reason other than to ensure I didn't lose what is solely rightfully mine.

"As he himself told Aqua and Ventus, minions and slaves who remain in their place have no role to play whether they remain obedient and loyal to a King to the letter; or they do become our enemies, or they at least give us enough reason to believe they're on the way to becoming our foes.

"Hans and Xehanort also had, and have, spines, I'll grant them that much.

"But they let their hearts become misted over by the long curly fluffed thoughts of addled pates, and they became convinced, as long as the darkness kept them in place, that would ensure everyone but their enemies had a place.

"Both of them forgot; when famine, plague, natural disaster, or destitution comes knocking at the gates of a King, loyal serfs and property or dangerous; even the most loyal get left to asphyxiate in the cesspools that are all the northern forest, and the trolls' glade, have been since the weeds there first began sprouting, and worm perforated and decrepit bags of flesh and stone, if even that, they are."

Reality passed in and out of awareness, and any other form of perspective.

Sora realized Elsa had let go of Roxas' hand to place her hand over his in firm and secure reassurance.

He repositioned legs that he became aware had just given out, and that were falling.

"Crowns don't sit on the heads of the mighty.

"They rest on the heads of monarchs who understand, when we've reached the top of the stones leading to our thrones, and we're sitting on them for the first time, or we're back where we belong, we don't crush those stones.

"Whether they obey our will or not, we dump the rocks that never had a role to begin with into the swamps where they belong until they crack into brittle chalk and their last breaths stop gasping for the air even merit and servitude can't give them a place in.

"I stand at the core of Ahtohallan now, with all of the power over darkness the one genuinely active provocateur of the Second Keyblade War who didn't care which side won has taught me.

"Feel free to throw all your penitence or puissance, negotiation or warmongering at me you want, it won't make a difference any longer.

"For soon, so very soon, for the preservation of our green and verdant land, the trumpets of Arendelle will once more resound their clarion paeans to herald the return of its one true and undoubted, eternally and forever indisputably renowned King, Runeard the Magnificent!"

The ice broke beneath Merlin, and he fell out of sight in the direction of faint whinnying Sora could hear rising from among churning waves as the cacophony ended.

Roxas broke into a sprint in the direction of Runeard's voice before the last traces of crystals had liquefied and vanished.

Anna

how did she know her name?

she couldn't not know it now

what she couldn't understand was how she could distinguish there were arms wrapping around her and pulling her against a body

or the name of the person holding her and keeping a body that entirely refused to move at all from falling to the surface below her

Kristoff

but she'd abandoned him to the silent and empty forest too

at least she could be sure those weren't neverfarfornot distant traces of surety and warmth seeping into her from

here

neverwhen

notwhere

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

a conflagration of howling and roaring flakes of snow and frigid clouds engulfed the entirety of the chamber Anna held her mittened hands and arms before her face straining desperately in vain to see through the monsoon to Elsa but she could barely see her body and face agonized and contorted and contorting with her dress and cape blowing and flapping to the side as her magic ate her entire existence from the inside out she could barely hear Elsa's footsteps through the tornado

Elsa grabbed both sides of her hands and clutched them and screamed, whirling around to attempt to keep her magic from dragging her as it would and Anna's eyes widened in complete and total all-scouring starfire horror and absolute zero frozen ice terror as she realized where Anna had just directed Elsa's terror and her magic now Sora was wrong Kristoff was right they had all been right she hadn't had the power and the strength and the capability and the ability to love and to protect and to cherish and to help Elsa she should have never gone to Elsa's side she should never have set out on this journey she hadn't just hurt Elsa and driven her from her home she'd obliterated Elsa and all of Elsa's awareness of what warmth and home even were this time and as it always had been since foreverneverneverforeverneverforeverforeverforeverneverneverneverneverforeverforeverneverforeverneverforeverforevernever since before Anna had been born and always would be for neverforeverneverforeverneverforeverneverforeverneverforeverneverforeverneverneverneverneverneverneverneverneverneverforeverforeverforeverforeverforeverforeverforeverforeverforeverforeverforeverforeverforeverforeverforeverforeverforeverforeverforeverforeverforeverforeverforever it was all her fault

Elsa's magic dragged her back around in Anna's direction like a marionette roped constricted to and asphyxiated against a wildly tilting and whirling gyre and she flung her arms and hands before her face and bent her head in one last denying desperate effort to keep her magic from turning her against Anna but Anna knew it was no use Anna should attempt to evade what was coming but she knew that would be completely and wholly futile as well Elsa was too skilled and powerful and Anna had no chance of dodging or otherwise defending herself

"I can't!"

Sheets of ice shrieked and erupted from her hands and arms and body as her magic spun her around again and Anna felt one plunge through her chest and into her heart and everything was deathly cold

"Let me deal with this," Ephemer's

how did she know his

voice sounded

Hans stood over Elsa, sword naked and unleashed in the air and a triumphant smile on his face and Anna was the one who had fallen for his pretenses and let him distort and twist her into a puppet toy weapon for him to wield against Elsa she was the one who had led him to Elsa she was the one who had abandoned and betrayed and deserted and left and failed Elsa and stabbed Elsa in the back and strangled Elsa from behind and cut off Elsa's head from behind and smashed Elsa's head from behind and shattered Elsa's trust and fragmented Elsa's faith and fractured Elsa's belief and broken Elsa and Elsa's will to defend herself against Hans and now Elsa was going to die and Anna was going to die and Arendelle was going to fall into the grasping clutches of someone who cared nothing for the hearts of Arendelle's people and who just exploited and distorted and warped and twisted their feelings and dreams and wishes and hopes and belief and faith and trust for his own selfish gratification and it was all Anna's fault and Anna knew why Sora wasn't here to kiss her and just Kristoff was because it was all her fault and even Sora didn't believe in her love for Elsa any longer or her ability to protect and be there for and cherish and help Elsa and now Elsa was going to die broken and abandoned and betrayed and alone and it was all Anna's fault

"Empyreal might be hanging around, so he'll feel better if I do it."

this voice was unfamiliar, spoken by a woman around Kairi's age with orange hair in two long ponytails

how could Anna see her clearly

"Wait!"

Not in this starscape!

Anna kept jumping from snow spire to snow spire, picking up her pace.

"Whoo-hoo!"

"Slow down!"

Elsa wished!

This was far too much fun; and Olaf was watching her; and Elsa was a whiz with ice, so there was nothing to worry about; and, most of all, Elsa still hadn't cheered all the way up after the sad story Mommy and Daddy had told them about the magic forest weeks ago, so Anna needed to smack her negatude upside the head by having as much fun as possible now, and showing Elsa just how awesomely radical she could really be with her ice talents when she put her mind to it!

No way was Anna going to slow down!

She leapt once again, and then again.

Elsa repositioned herself to attempt to keep up with her, but she misplaced one foot, slipped, scrambled for balance, and then fell on her back.

Undeterred, knowing Elsa would catch her, and refusing to let this turn into a literal wet blanket that disheartened Elsa, or just as literally dampened the good time they were having, Anna jumped, crying out in glee.

"Whoo!"

"Anna!"

Something solid and icy struck her on the left forehead, and then the stars out the window were replaced by full black.

what was the point of even still remembering

no matter how many memories she had

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

"I can't!"

no matter how many times she relived them

"I can't!"

no matter what she learned

"I can't!"

there wasn't even a lock in the door to Elsa, and her brighter tomorrow to light up with love, a Keyblade, Note Blade, Kye-Blade, Keyblade of Hearts, or the warmth of home

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

"Elsa told me what you did in Scala ad Caelum," Kristoff's voice sounded.

"If that wasn't you showing all of our crazy trust exercises in you are warranted, what is?"

Anna didn't want to answer.

"As soon as I see him again, even if you or Kairi break it off again, I'll choose Kristoff."

But shimmers of orange and red fire was swirling in a funnel up around Ephemer as he looked at the orange haired woman.

And for whatever it meant now, Anna could at least set this right.

Sensation returned to her arms and legs and body, and she shifted to pull away.

Kristoff deserved better than a half measure, where she turned a hug between friends into a different kind of embrace.

She couldn't just let him part of the way in.

Not after how long she'd kept him waiting, since she'd told him she trusted him, and didn't see him as the monster and brute most people did, yet all she'd done was bring him part of the way to the home, in many ways, he'd had far less than Elsa.

"The ice wall isn't a single surface," Ephemer spoke, turning his head to her with an expression that told her to stay taking cover, "But a chain reaction in progress that keeps drawing in new moisture from the surroundings while letting excess moisture evaporate.

"With the wall this thick, this is going to take a lot of careful work even for me."

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

"I can't!"

What a surprise.

So much for that.

Who am I kidding?

The only reason there's light in the darkness is because it's part of the black that devours all colors.

She sank back against Kristoff, sensation vanishing once more as she sagged boneless back against him.

This time, she wished he could some way, somehow, freeze her heart.

Elsa's ice chunk should have struck her heart the first time.

Anna had already known what warmth was then, as much as Christopher

even with reflection this vivid, how could Anna reminisce about who someone was

But if you lived without the ability to seek it, you wouldn't hurt anyone else.

And there was still time to give him a short kiss on the lips once she pulled away, before she ran after E

Sure there is.

And the way things are going, even if you get the chance, as soon as you do Kairi will be lethally struck down.

How many times does the darkness need to beat you down before it sinks in?

Wasn't Jiminy enough?

You just saw what Elsa did.

All your unflagging refusal to understand the light in the darkness has still been devoured by black does is just give her even more reasons to close the door on you.

"Sergeant Calhoun told me about you, Ephemer," Vanellope

Anna even remembered her

addressed the older Keyblade Master as the flames stopped funneling up around him, and he turned to aim his Keyblade at the wall of ice, eight moderately sized circular sigils around the diameter of tables to place lamps on moving haphazardly over the wall as Ephemer probed for weaknesses.

"But how do you know him?"

The orange haired girl cringed, with an expression that caused her to appear as though, if she could somehow fold in on herself with a combination of the self hate and guilt Anna now knew was even more intermingled with night than blackbodies, and inseparable in all ways from the puffy clouds and daffodils she'd once believed in.

Sora could separate them.

He'd believed she could bring Elsa home, and she'd be able to reconnect with her sister and regain the hearth of her loving warmth, as effortlessly as though all of the night was nothing more than the insubstantial mists of morning through which he danced in every blindingly brilliant kaleidoscopic shade of an incandescent rainbow.

Anna was the black that devoured all colors.

"That's the problem," the other girl replied.

"I don't, with one exception, and I wouldn't have even spoken to him then if I'd had a way around it."

This must be Strelitzia, then.

how did Anna not just recollect who Strelitzia was, but what she'd been told about her

"I spent weeks just watching him from afar while, without knowing about it, ripples from a number of earlier mistakes I'd made when I had believed I had the ability to stand up for others were continuing to fan into more and more fierce rapids. And partially because I didn't have much confidence in myself to begin with, partially because I'd made those mistakes the first time I attempted to genuinely be someone's friend, I didn't gain enough confidence in my ability to be his friend until it was too late.

"It took me discovering he was in danger to attempt to become his friend, and I wasn't even able to meet up with him; a lot less look out for him.

"You're special, Vanellope."

So special the people you most want to love and protect are the ones who believe they need to push you away, you mean.

"Most hearts can do nothing more than just run as shadows through labyrinths chasing our guiding lights, wishing on a star we can never grasp.

"Plenty of people can make their dreams come true, yes, but there's a reason they're still referred to as dreams. That's because, while a decent number of people can realize them, most people spend the totality of their lives doing nothing more than pursuing them.

"There's just one kind of heart that has the reserves to realize its dreams, come what may, and it's not mine."

Vanellope frowned in protectively irritated anger.

"That's why, even though they can come true, they remain dreams, and they're not bad."

Semantic poetics.

In the end, all communication was nothing more than different words for acknowledging, or denying, that there was no crazy eternal darkness everywhere, because there was no light to cast those shadows, and thus no shadows to delineate the presence of light, and thus all that there was left was the distillation of infinite zero preserved for boundless endlessness.

She'd shattered Elsa's life into motes at the lightest brush of the most weightless string of silk, without any effort, before reality and history had even had meaning for them.

The question now wasn't if there was any light left to seek, but why she even now, still, whywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhy couldn't she just accept it before she did any more damage when would it at last and long finally be enough to satiate the gluttonous absent of even the lack of a bottom or fathomless measurement singularity that was ordinary and not even was black glass sand

This isn't a matter of concealing, or feeling, any longer.

You need to give up.

Before it's too late.

Before you cause anything else to go wrong.

"If all you needed as a push to talk to him was discovering he was in danger, even if you'd already messed up before, that tells me, when it comes down to it, confidence isn't even a factor for you," Vanellope continued.

"While I can't say the same for myself."

Strelitzia smiled with pained thanks, appearing as though she wanted more than she could express to believe Vanellope, but knowing better.

"From what I've heard, though, you stayed at his side any time you were in a position to. And you fought for different dreams at the same time, and not even just ones of safeguarding, but of improving things.

"I couldn't even do that.

"My first attempt to do so just put the person I sought to safeguard at risk of dropping into the darkness, repeatedly, and in order to at last find a way out he needed to give up his memories.

"And even then, all that achieved was; while I was traveling elsewhere investigating people like Vanitas, and adversaries of his, in no position to back him up when he had nowhere left to turn; he lost much of the remaining trust in himself he'd had remaining.

"If you haven't met Sora yet, I have no doubts you'll hear about him before long, but one of the essential trusts Sora lives by is that his friends are his power.

"The first time I attempted to be a friend to someone, the Ventus Empyreal himself may have told you about, when all was said and done, he ended up with the same kind of odds against him you confronted, on the track before you learned how you'd been programmed isn't who you are, and who you decide to be is.

"When the real Sora faces those odds, he retains his trust in his connections, and they pull him up from when he dangles at the end of the thinnest threads with the thickest, most smothering night closing in on him.

"Ventus had the same chance, yet while he did acknowledge his friends were his power, where Sora would have just trusted the people he was closest to to come through for him in the end, Ventus felt so inadequate he still turned to the same power Turbo himself sought to protect them in turn, and he thus fell deeper into darkness, and he lost the chance to bring another friend of his home he otherwise could have retained had he not resorted to contesting against power with power."

"While I was backed against a wall by viruses who didn't even have the intelligence to know what programming, and decisions, were, far less games, and my other first friend almost needed to throw his life away to beat a virus who did have that intelligence, but who willingly gave it up for even more power," Vanellope shot back.

"The only reason I met Empyreal is because I was so wrapped up in forging an identity through pecking order I stole something from said other first friend."

Strelitzia smiled with the wistful longing and regret of as many years as Ephemer.

"At least you met them.

"When Empyreal needed me the most, I didn't just miss my chance to even introduce myself to him.

"I was virtually lying on the floor of an abandoned warehouse, bleeding out and all but dead in the literal sense, not even aware Empyreal's other two best friends, Ephemer and a girl named Skuld, were about to cast him aside for the good of the many to weather the nightmare of the horrors of one of the fiercest, and most lacking quarter and mercy, battles in all of history; and literally witness almost all of space and time, and everything and everyone he'd loved and known, break into fragments right in front of him no matter how hard he attempted to hold onto them."

Vanellope stiffened violently, her face becoming bone white with a mixture of horrified terror and fury, and the green cubes reappeared in place of her at differing locations with no pattern once more, shifting back and forth between the cubes and Vanellope's own features.

Ephemer's eyes were closed, the fatigued weight of ages of exhaustion on his expression.

Tears appeared in Strelitzia's eyes, and then spilled over.

"You saw the depths to which Turbo and Vanitas attempted to descend, but as selfish as their dreams were, they at least had dreams.

"You were the only person who was truly there for Empyreal when he needed someone.

"Me, Ephemer, Skuld, even his Chirithy I know you met; no one else was, not in the ways that mattered.

"And now the wellspring of the first Nightmare Dream Eater is the sole person who doesn't even have any dreams at all.

"He wants to stem the divine edicts that whorl from Kingdom Hearts, the wellspring of all the cosmos, in the hope that by doing so, there will no longer be any more victims of the chiaroscuro of light and darkness that has drowned existence since time began in this dimensional continuity."

Ephemer started violently, shocked and surprised horror appearing on his visage, so much the glyphs all faded for a few seconds, and then returned.

why was understanding anguish passing through Anna

"To him, Kingdom Hearts isn't imprisoned.

"I abandoned him to nothing but an endless corridor of abattoir after torture chamber, slaughter after treachery, of conflicts over Lux, droplets of light sprayed from Kingdom Hearts, and from this, I taught him Kingdom Hearts itself is the bars.

"To him, if there had never been any Kingdom Hearts to spray the World with light, no one would have fought over it to begin with, and none of the nightmares he lived through would have engulfed us all."

Anna blinked.

She hadn't accounted for that.

Was that the best way to keep Elsa, Sora, Kristoff, and the others, and the people of Arendelle, and Arendelle, and anywhere, safe?

"But severing our connections with it is no dream, or even something he's truly striving for.

"Don't you understand?

"I left him at the bottom of the abyss, in the realm where Kingdom Hearts itself was brought into being," Strelitzia's voice was now a ruined, cracked and chapped broken whisper.

"He can't behold light anywhere, even in despair itself, as a means of happiness, or merely a means of something to hold onto, for himself, any longer.

"And he doesn't even truly believe what he's doing will make things better for anyone, or anywhere; others, one or a number of places, or himself.

"After what we did to him, severing all ties everyone, and everything, has with Kingdom Hearts is nothing more now than the last thing he intends to do, because it would hurt even more to find another way for even his afterself to die in any other way than the warfare of cutting all our ties to Kingdom Hearts at the same time as he cuts himself from making.

"Tell her, Anna.

"Ephemer and Skuld and I, all of us who were there to witness the end, in some form or another, saw it.

"You yourself first saw it long ago, and I can tell you're at last becoming able to discern the maw of its abyssal depths."

"'Emptiness empty of even emptiness.' Emptiness so empty it doesn't even have the lack of the happiness and joy and sadness and pain. When you're empty there's at least that lack, that knowledge that you're missing something that you can't afford to let go of. There's at least a beginning and an end, a first and a last. But when you don't even have that lack, there isn't even the knowledge that you're missing something. There's the absence of no beginning and no end. Time doesn't have a starting point and a stopping point, but it's not just eclipsed. It's blinked out. And you can't even dream of what you're missing because you don't know that you're missing something so not even dreams can save you. You're just entirely alone in the darkness, abandoned and betrayed past the point of no return."

"Even those of us who were there for the end have no way of knowing if you, or any of us, have perceived its foundations.

"But I'm sure, by now, you must have at least learned the same thing Roxas and Empyreal have.

"The epitome of infinite darkness in its truest and unending endless font, too indomitable for any light, however bright, to pierce the vise of its walls.

"The wellspring of Lacuna, the Gap Amidst Transparency.

"The irrefutable corridor where even trust in despair as something left to grasp, or a lack of anything to aspire for, comes to nothing, and all roads lead nowhere but incontrovertible futility."

"If that's how you all feel," a new voice interjected, "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't sic' a new buddy of mine on all of you but Vanellope, if you don't back off from her, on the jiffy."

"It's been one thousand years since this world was created after the War of the Swords and Shields, but people haven't evolved in the meantime. They have been caught in the web of conflicts between the True Runes. I've witnessed them. And I've experienced the other memories held by the True Wind Rune."-Luc

"So…"-Hugo

"The world is really a prison controlled by the True Runes."-Luc

"We are not prisoners! We live, fight, and die of our own free will."-Hugo

"Then your definition of freedom is the ability to walk around in a giant cell with an invisible leash around your neck."-Luc

"Don't even think about leaving! You have to defeat me first!"-Hugo

"No time for that, I'm afraid. I'm done preparing for the ritual. The four True Runes are already inside the vessel, waiting. I just have to enter the center. That will crush the True Wind Rune, and my soul along with it."-Luc

"Stop right there!"-Hugo

"I once entrusted my dream to a person with your eyes and your heart. A very long time ago. Farewell, Hugo."-Luc

SUIKODEN III