I sigh- and it has been so long since I could do that.
I let myself fall backwards, spralling onto the crag. The Light of Kingdom Hearts bears down on me like a warm summer day... And the Darkness feels like a cool breeze.
I close my eyes, features fading away for a moment. I simply let my senses expand, filling the area around me...
And, for the moment, relax.
...
Hah... Really, this wasn't what I was expecting at all, when I came down here. Everything was just...
All this time, that was my history... All this time, I was a part of the χ-blade...
The other twelve pieces had been absorbed, and I escaped that fate so thinly... Lucky me. In all senses. Both me as a Fragment of Darkness and me as a Keybearer, a Mage, and a Warrior... If I'd just been absorbed like the rest, it would have all been for nothing...
I wonder where the other Fragments went...
After a few seconds, I opened my eyes, and sat up.
Because, really?
That was a stupid question. A stupid question I already knew the answer to.
Like calls to like, so I held a hand out and called.
Twelve motes of Darkness shot forth, appearing from the Darkness. They were tiny, infinitesimal things... Consumed so completely that only the core idea of them remained.
Where else would those Fragments of the Darkness, purest of them all, go, if not the deepest part of the depths?
Where else would the Fragments of the χ-blade, the protector of Kingdom Hearts, go, if not as close as they could to Kingdom Hearts?
They came to a stop above my hand, hovering in a rough circle. I reached out, and took them into myself.
It was a simple act. No different from consuming any other piece of the Darkness... Easier, even, since they were so little, and so tiny...
And yet, I felt something within me shift, and change. Something that I had not been aware of until that very instant. And yet, something I knew very well.
I reached, and pulled It forth.
It appeared instantly, no flashes of Light nor bursts of Darkness to show it. There in a moment, as if it had always been there.
Ah... That presence.
In a way, it had.
That sacred thing...
It is only half of the real thing. The shape of it is whole, but the colours...
To think it would appear...
The Dark half of the χ-blade was immediately and obviously different from its full self. The filigree, and the blade itself, had the colours inverted into dark purples and blues from the full one's greens and yellow. The two Kingdom Keys that made up its body maintained the original's colour scheme, gold guard and silver blade, but were obviously a darker shade to the true thing. Reflective, still, but not as much as it should have been...
Nevertheless, this was still half the χ-blade. I held in my hand one half of what had once been sought so much that The World had been consumed in the attempt to take it.
I WAS it. And it was me.
All this time...
I laughed, again, just from the sheer absurdity of it all. The Dark Part of the χ-blade, me... Literally me.
You were a fragment of what we were made in the image of.
I paused, again.
Could we call you our ancestor?
'Dark Part of the χ-blade' was really, really unwieldy.
I thought about it for a few moments, tossing names around in my head. Shorthand ways to name such a thing.
Dark Partition. That was a good name. A lot less unwieldy, and still kept to the truth...
I smiled, and let my mouth fade. Then, I let the Dark Partition disappear, falling back into that place within myself, hidden even to the other Keyblades I wielded...
I stood up.
Guardian.
The Word slams into me, halts me more completely than anything else ever had. Time itself could have stopped, and it would have had less effect.
I turned, slowly.
I can feel it, the attention of the Heart of All focused on me. Gods had captivated me less. Worlds were nothing to this... "What do you desire, Kingdom Hearts?"
Unity.
Again, the Word slams into me, writing itself upon my entire being. I know, wholly, completely, and truly, what Kingdom Hearts wants. Just as I know what, so too do I understand why.
"I see." I say. I take a moment to consider it, and find, to my complete lack of surprise, that don't have a problem with it. What Kingdom Hearts wanted, and what I had already been doing, were not incompatible. "It will take time... Quite a long time, but I will see it done."
There is a sound, like the beating of a Heart. It is more than that, so much more than that. How can one describe the sound of the greatest Heart of all beating? You couldn't, save with those words alone. Kingdom Hearts beat, and the sound is the most hallowed thing I've ever heard.
I hold my hands out, and a drop of pure Light falls into them. It's a tiny thing, a mote, yet even so... A mote of Light, coming straight from Kingdom Hearts itself, could not be called meagre. Far from it.
I tuck it away, deep within myself, and bow. A gift such as this is the most precious of them all.
Kingdom Hearts' attention passes off of me. Is it, at once, both a relief and a disappointment.
Still, I waste no time.
I step away, back into the Infinite Darkness that surrounds Kingdom Hearts. It welcomes me back, feeling like a cool swim on a hot day...
I let it brush against me, but I don't linger. There are things I must do, after all. I'm whole, in more ways than I thought I would be. Kingdom Hearts itself has asked me to do something.
And there is so much work to be done.