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CHAPTER 1:
DREAM OF THE SHORE FROM THE WORLD OF HOME
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Author's Notes: The pieces to listen to when reading this Chapter are, in order of each scene: 'The Girl Who Stole the Star,' from the CHRONO CROSS Original Soundtrack, Disc Three; and after that 'Orphanage Of Flame,' from the CHRONO CROSS Original Soundtrack, Disc Three. However, KINGDOM HEARTS Insider's MP3 section doesn't have a CHRONO CROSS Original Soundtrack segment, so I don't know where you can find these MP3s. I'm sorry about that.
Sora braced against the pulsating, throbbing headache and the weakening dizziness, and smiled elatedly and happily.
He was going home.
He recollected this from the last time he'd left The Final World, when he'd opened a path out of it himself with the power of waking and the Wheel of Fate. The headache and the dizziness were much worse this time, because the last time he'd departed The Final World, even though this time he'd arrived in it fully as himself, he hadn't cascaded into it wholly bereft of a form in the cosmos.
And he'd put that fragmented form back together before leaving.
Unsure whether or not he'd return where he'd vanished and faded, and thus sitting down, Sora kept his legs and feet braced firmly beneath himself so he wouldn't fall.
He didn't even know whe–
No.
Sora was no longer aware of the headache and the dizziness.
Yet once again, Sora attempted to push aside the all-consuming existence-numbing terror that stole all the breath from his lungs, stopped his heart, and froze his entire being into absolute zero solid frigid ice.
If Kairi or Riku or anyone else could have restored him by using the power of waking, one or more of them would have done so long before now.
Kairi or Riku or Roxas or Xion or Ven or Mickey didn't abuse the laws of nature.
Kairi or Riku or Roxas or Xion or Ven or Mickey didn't reverse space-time and undo me bringing Kairi back.
No one abused the laws of nature or reversed space-time.
They're okay.
They're all okay.
It wasn't all for nothing.
However, even though Sora knew this was most likely the truth, now that he was at last on the laser beam thin margin of discovering whether or not Kairi and Riku and his other friends had sacrificed themselves for him, or reversed space-time as he had the first time he'd abused the power of waking and unraveled Kairi's salvation, Sora couldn't even begin the most minuscule, most infinitesimal amount to keep the terror anywhere near as far enough away as he'd been able to the countless other times that it had consumed him wholly before.
Sora still believed in Kairi and his other friends with all of his heart.
After first Xion, then Roxas, then Lea had died for him; after he'd revived Xehanort by defeating Ansem and Xemnas and brought about everything that had occurred because he'd done those two things; after he'd been completely and totally helpless to protect and be there for Anna and Elsa; and after this Goofy had used himself as a living shield to protect Sora from Terra-Xehanort even though he was almost certainly in horrifically deathly danger and hopelessly outmatched, and then after this Donald had exhausted himself into a coma from which he might never awaken to drive Terra-Xehanort away; and after this then Riku, then Kairi, had died for him, Sora was no longer sure that he believed in himself.
Had he murdered Kairi and Riku and Roxas and Xion once more, this time beyond any hope of recovery?
Had he murdered Donald and Goofy and Anna and Elsa and Mickey and Ven and Aqua and Terra, this time, too, beyond any hope of restoration themselves?
The Final World faded from Sora's sight and Kairi appeared, pointing Destiny's Embrace in his direction with silver and gold and all the colors of the rainbow spiraling and intertwining around it and coalescing before it into a spherical orb comprised of innumerable threads of silver and gold and rainbow radiance, a strained, tear-filled smile of desperate hope and desperate terror on her face.
Almost before he was even aware he was moving, almost before he was aware that Riku and Donald and Goofy and all of his other friends – Thank goodness. Namine and Isa and Pence and Olette and Hayner were there as well. Was that Luxord standing with them smiling too? – were standing around Kairi, almost before Sora was aware that they were clustered in front of the fallen paopu tree trunk on the play island, Sora was launching himself into the air in a tackle and colliding with Kairi and wrapping his arms around her to hold her to him close and warm and securely and tight to send both of them falling onto the sand below, Kairi wrapping her own arms around him as well in surprise and unimaginably immeasurable welcome and incomprehensibly unfathomable relief and indescribably fathomless joy and incomparably measureless warmth.
"You're still alive," Sora cried through tears blinding his eyes and spilling down his face so hard he could barely see her. He could feel Kairi's heartbeat against his chest. This wasn't a two-fold dream or a dream or a Sleeping World or an illusion or a fabricated memory. This was real. Kairi was real. "You didn't use the power of waking. None of you did. You're all still home sweet home."
Kairi's embrace became close and secure and tight of its own, losing none of its warmth.
Kairi sounded as though her voice was cracking and breaking, and Sora wished he'd vanished and died from The Final World, and whatever distorted nightmare fractured mirror reflection of the Station of Awakening that Yozora had briefly pulled them into, as well.
"I'm the one who should be welcoming you home s–"
Once again, almost before he was even aware he was moving, Sora leaned his face down and pressed his lips against Kairi's in a reassuring, soothing kiss.
He waited until Kairi's surprise was over and she'd begun to return the kiss with welcome and reassurance and soothing and warmth of her own.
Sora spoke against her mouth without breaking the kiss.
"No," Sora said. He wanted to shake his head to further disagree, but if he did that would mean breaking the kiss, so he didn't. "I never left home sweet home. I never stopped keeping you and Riku and everyone else in my heart and in my thoughts and in my dreams, so we remained connected and I never left home sweet home."
Kairi pulled her lips away and pulled her head back, though she didn't change her embrace, and though she attempted to conceal it, Sora could feel her recoiling against his body and from him, and he could see her do so as well.
Sora wanted to kiss her on the lips again to attempt to further take away and carry her pain and hurt, but he wasn't sure now if Kairi would be comfortable with that, so he just tightened his embrace so he was holding Kairi closer and more securely and warmer and tighter.
Kairi's embrace became more secure and warmer and tighter, as well, but, though it became closer, it didn't become nearly as closer as it became more secure and warmer and tighter, as though Kairi was terrified that she'd injure him terribly and horrifically if she brought him too close to her.
Yes, he should have vanished and died from The Final World and Yozora's Station of Awakening, too.
Sora released Kairi as quickly as he could and sat back on the sand, but he remained alert in case Kairi became comfortable enough for him to kiss her or hold her once more, or, at worst, take both or one of her hands in his.
Kairi sat up and shifted over to the side so she was sitting between him and – yes, it was Luxord, and he was smiling, though there was now worry and concern and fear on his face, too.
Sora cringed and his lips twisted down in a tight, deep frown.
Not Luxord. He was a disgusting monster. Whatever the person's real name was now that he'd been recompleted.
"His name truly is Luxord," Kairi said quickly. "He's in the same situation as you and Roxas are. He's Ven's Nobody."
Even through his terror and worry and concern and disgust, Sora's eyes widened in surprise.
"A lot has happened," Kairi continued. "Xehanort himself was a puppet whose heart was treated as though it's a bottle on a shelf," Sora's eyes widened further, "And his strings were pulled by Vanitas," Sora kept his eyes from widening even more. It was likely that was going to keep happening repeatedly if he let them. " – not the Vanitas you know, the Vanitas you know is a child version of the genuine Vanitas with his memories gone – and Xigbar, who is actually a Keyblade Master named Luxu from the ancient age of fairy tales before the First Keyblade War. Xehanort's No Name originally belonged to Luxu, and to Vanitas, whose true name is Yozora," Sora let his eyes widen once more at that one, "Before him.
"No Name is the first Keyblade, the test bed Keyblade upon which all later Keyblades, including Yozora's Omega Weapon of pure energy and light, the culmination of Yozora's research, were based. Yozora is the creator of the first Keyblades, but he broke the laws of nature as you did by creating them," Sora let himself cringe, "And vanished as a result.
"I don't know how he did it, but he somehow survived vanishing by hiding his body – which is an adult version of the Vanitas you've met – inside Ven, who is also from the age of fairy tales." Sora let his eyes widen a fourth time. "Ven…" Kairi cringed herself and squeezed her eyes shut tightly, her face contorting in despair and guilt and anguish and agony, and Sora was barely able to stop himself from bringing a hand up to reach it toward Kairi in time to keep his hand from moving.
What had he done?
What had he become?
What had he abandoned Kairi and Riku and Donald and Goofy and Roxas and Xion and Anna and Elsa and Lea and Mickey and Ven and Aqua and Terra, and apparently Luxord as well, to?
What had he been helpless and powerless to prevent from happening?
"Still doesn't have his memories back from before Xehanort removed Vanitas from him. So he doesn't have any memory of his life in the age of fairy tales, or how he, Yozora, and Vanitas survived a number of millennia into the future.
"But what Riku a…" Kairi's voice cracked, "And I…"
Sora was certain he was about to retch violently or pass out.
"…did learn was that Yozora was somehow able to briefly separate from Ven to meet Xehanort and string him into giving his heart to darkness. Then Yozora returned to Ven, and when Xehanort removed Ven's darkness from Ven in the form of Vanitas and Yozora thus lost his heart…" Kairi's voice broke wholly, "As I did when"
Blackness rose up to enclose Sora, his stomach and his esophagus heaved, and he did need to concentrate and to strain violently to prevent himself from throwing up or passing out this time.
"You freed my heart from yours and I created Namine, Luxord was fashioned as Ven's Nobody as an adult form of Yozora as a result.
"The Vanitas you have met is Yozora's Nobody." Sora cringed. Another Nobody who was he himself. "That's why Vanitas can create Unversed." She kept her head and body from moving at all as she said this to attempt to keep from calling too much attention to her words from Roxas, Xion, Lea, and Luxord, but Roxas and Lea winced and Xion cringed. "The darkness from the heart of a regular person forms a single Heartless. The darkness from the heart of a Nobody creates a lot of Unversed, and can keep re-creating them.
"Yozora's heart, now his Heartless, traveled into someone else's heart as Ven's did into yours," so that was what the Nameless Star had meant when she'd said that Yozora's heart was no longer his and what Yozora himself had meant when he'd said that the form Sora had met wasn't how Yozora genuinely appeared, "But Yozora was able to remain the heart in control of his new body by assuming the memories of the heart of the body's original owner at the cost of most of Yozora's memories."
Sora suppressed the urge to frown again.
He should not have let Yozora get away once he'd defeated him.
He should have fully disabled Yozora and somehow forced the other Keyblade wielder to tell Sora everything that he knew.
If Sora had, maybe he'd have been able to return the recollections of the original heart whose memories and body Yozora had stolen to their true owner.
And, if he had, he might have recompleted Vanitas and Yozora in the process, even though that would have probably meant resubstantiating a far more horrible peril as Sora had accomplished with Ansem and Xemnas and Xehanort.
"Riku and I," tears again blinded Sora so much that he could barely see Kairi. Her voice hadn't cracked or broken this time, "Don't know what Yozora's goal is, but we're pretty sure that it's at least as harmful to the people of the realm of light as Xehanort's was."
Sora forced a confident, ready smile that he didn't feel, raised his right arm in a fist, and closed it.
"It doesn't matter precisely what Yozora's goal is," Sora spoke with an assuredness and a confidence that he could barely experience the most miniscule amount of. "Now that I'm back, there are ten guardians of light and three more seekers of darkness."
Causing things to be even worse, Chirithy had told Sora that he'd lose his powers as a Keyblade wielder once more if he abused the power of waking again. He'd been able to fend for himself at his best against Yozora, but it had been around a year since then, and even though Sora now had his body back, once again thanks to Kairi, there was no guarantee that she'd reversed the other penalty Chirithy had said Sora would pay for violating the natural order. Sora didn't feel any less physically in shape than he'd been when he'd returned to The Final World, but the powers of the Keyblade had nothing to do with the physical body and everything to do with the heart.
For all Sora knew, he was as frail in ethereal ability as when he'd returned to Olympus, or when he'd woken up in the old mansion in Twilight Town, or, worst of all, he was as feeble as he'd been when he'd first encountered the Heartless that stormy night on the play island what now felt like lifetimes ago.
But Sora hadn't let that stop him when he'd fought back against the Shadows with a wooden sword, or confronted the Dusks at the Twilight Town Station Plaza, or taken on a solitary Titan and then three more Titans at once.
So, even if he'd been crippled for the fourth time, Sora wasn't going to back down now.
"Seven, actually," Riku spoke up for the first time, smiling in warm and loving welcome home sweet home at Sora as he did so.
Sora returned Riku's smile with a warm and loving smile of welcome home sweet home of his own.
"Yozora and Vanitas themselves, Luxu, and four other seekers of darkness that call themselves the Foretellers.
"We haven't met Yozora and haven't encountered Vanitas again, as a child or an adult, but we've run into Luxu and the other Foretellers on a minority of occasions," And Sora hadn't been at their side to fight with them. But Sora couldn't let how he felt about that show in his face or on his body the tiniest bit when he was smiling at Riku, so he didn't. "And from time to time they've talked about another Foreteller named 'Ava.'
"But we haven't met her before, so we don't know whose side, if anyone's, she's on."
Sora shrugged and reassumed his earlier smile of readiness and confidence.
Sora shrugged dismissively.
"So what?" he questioned. "We pulverized Xehanort, both Organization Thirteens, Ansem, Maleficent, Pete, and their accomplices. What's seven more creeps at this point? Yozora is still split in half, but even if he's recompleted, they're just icing on the cake now."
"We're not gonna' lose to you."
Sora was partially able to force away his memory of how wrong Terra-Xehanort had proven that conviction.
"Hopefully," Riku answered. "We haven't battled any of the Foretellers save Luxu himself at this point, but Mickey and Aqua and I have engaged Luxu in combat twice by now when he was wielding No Name and not his arrowgun. He's a force of nature when he's wielding a Keyblade, probably a lot more capable than even Xehanort was."
"We're not gonna' lose to you."
Sora dropped his smile, taking this as seriously as the situation merited, but he didn't lower his arm or unclench his fist.
"But Mickey and Aqua and I were able to fight him to a standstill both times," Riku went on, "Even though Luxu clearly wasn't putting his full effort into the engagements."
"We're not gonna' lose to you."
"So we can probably take him if he does," Riku went on. "And all four of the other Foretellers who aren't Yozora or Vanitas were there during both skirmishes, and they all appeared to trust Luxu to be the best Foreteller to deal with us. So that likely means that the other Foretellers aren't as good as Luxu and that we can take them, too.
"But we have no idea what Yozora's Heartless and Vanitas, if he's regained his memories by now, can accomplish."
"We're not gonna' lose to you."
"I dueled Yozora's Heartless when I first arrived in The Final World," Sora told Riku and Kairi and Donald and Goofy and the others.
Donald's beak curled in a smirk of glee and pleasure, and Goofy gave Sora a worried expression.
Sora smiled briefly at Donald and briefly tightened his fist in a victory sign, before ending the smile and returning his fist to its previous clench.
Donald quacked a dismissive snort at Yozora's Heartless.
"Yes, I beat him," Sora continued to Donald and the others. "It was a close thing,"
"We're not gonna' lose to you."
Sora did not want to remember precisely how extremely close it had been at the present.
"But I beat him. Vanitas is almost certainly a ridiculously greater threat if he has his memories and all of his Nobody abilities back now, and that doesn't even touch on what Yozora might be able to do if he's recompleted, but if we defeated Xemnas and Xehanort, we can trounce them too."
Sora lowered his fist and picked himself to his feet, while keeping his eyes off of Kairi. She might take it very badly if he even looked at her.
Something sick and asphyxiating and strangling and choking and pitch night black consumed Sora's heart completely, burning blinding white hot and freezing a senses robbing pitch ebony night at the same time.
He'd suppressed much of his anger towards Ansem when he'd believed it had been Ansem who had been there for Kairi, and Sora made it a point to forgive anyone who hurt the people he cared about or Sora himself right away even though he'd keep holding what they'd done wrong against them.
Sora had empathized and sympathized with Xemnas, even after everything that he had said and done, and had attempted to reach Xemnas and take away his pain, and Ansem's as well when he'd reunited with Xehanort's true Heartless, not Riku in Ansem's shape.
Sora had attempted to reach Xehanort and had been truly happy and truly glad and truly relieved and truly content that Eraqus had been able to give Xehanort back a measure of happiness and peace in the end.
But Sora wasn't sure if he had any justification whatsoever to suppress any of his anger, or to forgive Yozora, Vanitas, and Luxu for this.
Sora let his eyes shift to Riku while attempting to remain unobtrusive about it, but as Sora had known that Riku would, Riku caught the gesture and his face became a mask.
That told Sora all that he needed to know.
"Time for my reve–"
Sora suppressed the urge to recoil and stagger back violently, and pushed the thought away with all his heart.
Was it with all of his heart?
Sora didn't want to think about that.
"Okay," Sora addressed them all, and Riku's and Kairi's and Terra's and Aqua's and Ven's eyes and faces showed varying degrees of surprise and dismay, and even terror and horror, especially Riku's and Terra's.
Had they caught something in his voice?
Sora shrugged it off mentally. It didn't matter.
He'd had a thought he didn't care for, but everyone possessed darkness in his or her heart except for the Princesses of Heart. It wasn't as though he was considering giving into the darkness as Riku and Terra had.
Besides, if it helped someone, as giving up to the darkness and becoming a Heartless again would have resurrected Roxas and Xion sooner without putting them through as much more pain as they'd gone through before they'd returned to themselves during the Second Keyblade War–
–Sora twisted away from Roxas and Xion, and Riku inhaled sharply and breathlessly.
What was Riku upset about?
Sora probably should have given his heart to the darkness then and there in Twilight Town and brought Roxas and Xion back to themselves, before they'd suffered any longer.
It wasn't darkness if it helped someone.
Riku had nothing to be upset about.
Roxas and Xion were the ones who should be upset, and who probably were, even though they were hiding it. Roxas and Xion probably hated Sora with all their hearts, and were just pretending otherwise.
Riku walked rapidly forwards and put his right hand on Sora's left shoulder.
"This is how Ansem and Maleficent first got to me," Riku said sternly and firmly. "You know that. Ansem and Maleficent played on my love for Kairi and for you and convinced me to wield the darkness to save Kairi, and to find a new place for myself since–" Sora almost violently ripped himself out from under Riku's hand, but he didn't for the same reason that he wasn't going to kiss or hug Kairi again. That would hurt Riku.
Riku's grip became more reassuring and comforting.
"…Since you were on a journey of your own.
"I know that you don't believe Kairi or I are on journeys of our own, but you're still considering the precise same thing that I considered, and that Terra considered.
"It doesn't matter if it helps people in the process. It's still darkness."
Kairi's face drained of all blood and went deathly ghostly white, Donald scowled blackly, Goofy sagged and slumped in terror and concern, Namine's face paled almost as much as Kairi's and tears brimmed in her eyes and fell down her face, Mickey started violently, Roxas' jaw dropped, Xion's mouth opened, Lea clenched his hands into extremely tight fists at his side, Ven reached up an arm and a hand in Sora's direction before lowering it, and the others had varying reactions of shock and surprise and worry and fear themselves, save for Terra, who just nodded to acknowledge that he agreed with Riku.
A surge of anger at Riku for upsetting Kairi and Donald and Goofy and the others rose up to consume Sora, and he began to raise his right hand to swat Riku's hand off of his left shoulder.
Then Sora started violently himself as he realized what he was about to do.
Blackness closed around his awareness once more and his stomach and esophagus heaved anew, but this time Sora was ready for it and concentrated through the sensations.
Sora sighed heavily and sagged into Riku's grip.
Riku shifted his stance and grip so he was now supporting Sora's weight, and his grip became gentler and even more reassuring and comforting and warm.
Kairi's right hand twitched as though she wanted to walk up to Sora herself and touch him herself, but she stilled it with a look of absolute and total disgust at herself.
Anger surged again, but this time Sora forced it down as soon as it started to rise.
"I understand how you feel," Riku spoke. "All of us took–"
The guilt was another matter.
Sora let that consume him and let the tears blind his vision so severely that he could barely see beyond them.
Riku squeezed Sora's shoulder briefly, but Sora ignored it.
"–you disappearing very badly. Kairi and Donald and Goofy and I especially, and," Riku forced anger of his own out of his voice as he said the following name, "Namine," the anger was gone, "And Roxas and Xion and Lea and Ven nearly as much as the five of us. We've all blamed ourselves for causing this to happen by letting Xemnas take Kairi and Xehanort strike her, and we've all wished that we could have done something different to prevent it from happening.
"But we," Riku attempted to keep his gaze from shifting to Kairi, but Sora caught it, and his chest tightened so much that he wasn't sure if he'd be able to breathe again for the rest of his life, and for all eternity afterwards if there was an afterlife, "Learned the lesson Namine wrote in Jiminy's Journal."
Riku turned his head in her direction and gave her a warm, praising, loving, approving smile. Namine forced a smile back, reached up, and rubbed her tears away with her fingers, and the tightness in Sora's chest vanished and he could breathe again. Riku and Namine were talking and acting like Rapunzel and Flynn, and Anna and Elsa, and taking away each other's pain and hurt. That was completely and totally wonderful, and a relief so inexpressible even saying it couldn't be expressed failed to encompass how inexpressible it was.
For the first time since Xehanort had murdered Kairi and shattered her into fractured pieces right before his eyes, Sora felt truly light again, and he knew that he could honestly believe in himself once more.
Jiminy Cricket hopped into view from within the left side of Goofy's shirt collar and smiled at Sora.
Jiminy was here too, welcoming Sora home sweet home.
Sora felt even lighter being aware of and witnessing that.
Jiminy sprang down from Goofy's shoulder and up to Riku, and then he sprang up Riku's legs and back until he was standing on Riku's left shoulder.
"That's right," Jiminy said, attempting to keep his own gaze from shifting fearfully and concernedly in Kairi's direction, and the tightness and terror and guilt and anger returned, but this time Sora pushed them away fully.
They'd gotten through plenty of scrapes in the past.
As long as they had each other and kept each other in their hearts and minds and dreams, they'd make it through this, too.
"If you can't bear the pain of hurt by yourself," Jiminy spoke in a tone that was simultaneously a friend and a teacher, and Sora became aware he was grinning without having intended to.
Jiminy Cricket was a conscience, all right.
"Then turn to someone close to your heart to support you in carrying it, and carry that hurt together.
"His Majesty told me that he wrote you about that lesson, and everything Data-Sora and Data-Kairi and Data-Riku and Data-Namine and Data-Roxas went through to teach it to you."
Sora blinked in surprise and frowned.
"Data-Kairi?" he asked. "Mickey didn't tell me anything about a Data-Kairi."
"What Data-Sora and Data-Riku believed was Data-Sora's Heartless was Data-Kairi," Jiminy explained.
Sora frowned more deeply, and briefly the tightness and terror and guilt and anger were back before they receded and disappeared.
Nevertheless, Sora gave Namine a kind questioning look, but a questioning look nonetheless.
Kairi needed an explanation for this.
According to Mickey, Data-Sora's Heartless had been an entity immeasurably more horrific and terrible than regular data Heartless or even than regular genuine Heartless, willing and fully capable of singlehandedly obliterating the whole datascape and annihilating everything that made up the people within it, hearts and memories and identities and bodies, before substantiating itself in the realm of light and attempting to feast on the hearts there.
Something else that it had been so horrifically and terribly potent, it had actually been capable of doing, when it defied all the laws of existence to be able to manifest from a datascape unto reality as a genuine entity.
Additionally, according to Mickey, although Data-Sora had defeated Data-Roxas in a duel without that much trouble, Data-Sora had waged an all but futile uphill struggle against what Jiminy had just named Data-Kairi, and Data-Sora would have been defeated without barely even leaving a scratch in Data-Kairi if Mickey hadn't arrived with his genuine Keyblade and used all of his and its power to restrain Data-Kairi and force it to partially resubstantiate its initial regular Shadow form, giving Data-Sora the time he needed, and an opening to, defeat her.
The sole entities that Sora had encountered in reality that were that terrible and horrific had been the gigantic Demon Tide and the Lich that Xehanort and the Real Organization Thirteen had unleashed on them.
Sora's brow furrowed.
Had Xehanort and the Real Organization Thirteen been behind the gigantic Demon Tide and the Lich? Terra-Xehanort and Xemnas had both said that Xehanort required their hearts to re-forge the Kye-Blade if Xehanort couldn't incite the Second Keyblade War to its conclusion, and Riku had confirmed that Terra-Xehanort's victims in the original timeline had still possessed their hearts.
But the gigantic Demon Tide and the Lich had consumed everyone's hearts but Kairi's and his.
Had those two nightmarish Heartless not been Xehanort's doing, but Luxu's, in his guise as Xigbar?
Just as importantly, Namine had named a data-Heartless as terrible as that after Kairi?
Kairi didn't look bothered by any of this at all.
She appeared as though she truly believed that such an entity was a suitable representation of her.
The tightness and terror and guilt and anger were back, and this time Sora needed to force them away once again, and he wasn't sure that they were gone completely.
Namine didn't meet Sora's eyes.
"It's not something that we should be talking about now," Jiminy answered for Namine in a tone that said that the topic was closed regardless of what Kairi or Sora said or did. "Soon after Namine attained a body, she came to me about this for my advice, because she felt that, as someone who had been entrusted to be a conscience by the Blue Fairy, I was the sole person who had received her message in the Journal that she could talk to about this matter."
The anger didn't return, but the tightness and terror and guilt were far more present anew. How bad could something that involved Kairi like this be?
"I…" Jiminy looked uncertain for a few seconds, and Sora lost the ability to breathe again and he needed to force himself to resume doing so. "…Thought this over, in-depth and at great length, and I arrived at the conclusion that this is not something that needs to be discussed until the Foretellers have been defeated, particularly not in Kairi's presence.
"I shouldn't conceal as much as Namine and I have spoken about, because Kairi deserves to know at least a little about this, but this is as far as these matters go.
"Drop them," Jiminy said strictly. "Now."
Sora's eyes widened in terror and horror, and the night and the throw up consumed him once again.
Sora concentrated past them.
Jiminy had never taken that tone with anyone in all the time that Sora had known him.
How terrible could this be!?
"It's all right," Kairi said, sounding like she fully believed that, and Sora barely remembered to suppress the urge to go over to her and kiss her and hug her once more in time to keep from moving a little.
"I mean it," Kairi went on, and Sora wondered why he was bothering to not retch or faint, because Kairi genuinely sounded like she meant it.
"Just cheer up," Kairi continued, "And let's go show Yozora and the Foretellers what happens when you trifle with hearts when… we're…" Yes. There was no true reason not to pass out or throw up. "On the job."
"Chin up, Sora," Riku spoke. "For all we know Yozora and Luxu want you to fall into darkness as Xehanort and Maleficent wanted Terra and I to. If you give up now, you might become a puppet yourself, and lose most or all of what you've become and how far you've grown since we set out from here."
Would that really be so ba–
Sora forced the tightness and terror and guilt away, and he was determined to prevent them from returning another time.
All of this hurt had brought Riku and Namine closer together, so the hurt wasn't that bad.
They just needed to carry the pain together with each other, and with one another, clobber Yozora and the Foretellers, and then Namine and Jiminy would explain what was going on with Kairi and Data-Kairi, and things wouldn't just be all right again, they'd be better than before.
Namine had taken care of Sora for around a year, and Jiminy was a conscience.
They knew what they were doing.
Sora was the one who couldn't be trusted, as much as he knew that he could genuinely believe in himself again.
Jiminy was right.
Sora needed to let it go.
Sora was able to smile again, and he reached up with his left hand, squeezed Riku's hand, and then extricated himself from Riku's handhold.
Sora glanced over at Roxas with a questioning look, and when Roxas nodded in permission, Sora raised his right hand to summon Oathkeeper.
"Okay then," he began, and he met Mickey's eyes. "Mickey, Aqua." He shifted his glance to include her in it. "Where was the last place that you saw Luxu or at least one of the other Foretellers?"
Donald jumped into the air indignantly and planted his hands on his hips.
"Hey!" he protested furiously. "You don't get to give His Majesty orders! For that matter, when was the last time that you got to give me orders!?"
"Are you sure we should be heading out so soon after you just got back?" Goofy pitched in to the discussion.
Sora gave Goofy a grateful smile.
"No time like the present," Sora answered. "We're striving to live this moment, and in the future. We can't drag out the past. We can reflect on that later when we have time to carry each other's pain at our leisure, not when we're on a tight schedule."
Am I correct? Should I honestly be making decisions for the others?
I'm not a true Keyblade Master. I'm not even a true Keyblade wielder. I'm just a worthless, insignificant piece of something so much greater than I am that I can't even begin to wrap my head around it, much less my heart.
But Kairi and Riku and Donald and Goofy needed him, and the others did, as well, so Sora had no choice but to submit to the role destiny had assigned him and make a choice of his own.
Sora bent his face toward Donald with a pout.
"I'm not leading," he protested in a rising moan. "I'm advising the lot of you. His Majesty is the King. I'm just the serf and the slave."
Kairi went completely white again, and this time Riku and Goofy and Namine and Xion joined her, and maybe Donald, though it was difficult to tell under his white feathers.
Lea scowled and Roxas strode forward towards Sora angrily, not stopping until he was nose to nose with Sora.
Sora didn't look away or back away.
Why should he?
It was all completely the truth.
"Say that just one more time and I'm returning to your heart," Roxas warned him. "You're no more an it or a puppet than Xion or I were. It took Xion and I sharing our hearts and warmth with each other and with you to teach Xion otherwise, so if necessary, I'll do the same to y–"
Xion began to step forward, but Roxas, as though anticipating this and anticipating her, looked back in her direction.
"Don't even think about it," he rebuked her immeasurably more gently than he was admonishing Sora, and Xion stopped. "If you return to Sora's heart, everyone will forget you again, and you don't need to go through that again, or lose your identity once more."
Xion looked as though she wanted to object, but she composed her face into an expressionless mask.
Roxas clenched his teeth in frustration and anger and turned back to Sora.
"I'm different," Roxas continued. "No one will forget me if I return to your heart." He looked apologetically at Axel, whose face was also expressionless. "And this time you'll have Xion, so you won't be without both of your best friends." Roxas glanced back at Sora. "So do it. Say that one more time. I've learned how to use the Keyblade myself well enough to shift my heart back into yours, and once I do, it doesn't matter what you say or do. I won't leave you again until you put a lid on this nonsense."
Almost against his will, Sora found himself wanting to smile once more, and even more of the lightness returned.
"I'd do the same thing if Aqua and Terra hadn't been alone for so long and didn't need me to be there for them," Ven put in, and Sora saw no reason to hold that smile back.
He didn't just feel even lighter now, he felt lighter than he could recall feeling before at any time in his life.
"I don't know how to shift my heart myself," Ven continued with an apologetic look back at Terra, whose face was a mask of his own. "But Terra felt and saw Xehanort do it, and then you did it to him yourself," Sora felt little to no guilt, and he realized that the sick white and ebony was wholly gone too. "So I'm sure Terra can figure it out and teach me how to do it, or, at worst, do it to me if I can't be there for you that way myself."
Kairi opened her mouth, and completely horrified and terrified alertness drove away whatever tightness and guilt and other terror that were left as he realized what she was about to say.
"Okay," Sora said rapidly. "I won't say that again. I'm proud to be a little piece of something much greater, and you're all my power. I remember that now, and I believe it again with all my heart."
Did he?
Did he even believe those things at all anymore, after what Kairi had just been about to say?
Of course he did.
His friends were his power.
They had the hearts, and did the feeling and the thinking and the dreaming and the believing for him.
He was just an empty weapon of serial genocidal murder and cosmic mass destruction for the Keyblade to wield, not the other way around, and he had no heart and mind and feelings and thoughts and dreams and beliefs and wishes and faith and hope of his own.
Now Xion looked as upset as Roxas, and she began to walk in his direction herself.
Sora began to open his mouth to assure her that he was feeling a lot better now, and far more free and exhilarated than he had at any time before in his life now that he'd at last let it all go–
A terrible, serrated and saw-toothed twisted dagger sharp pain, slicing remorselessly as though it was comprised of innumerable acidic and corrosive blades, ripped into his heart and inverted it inside out like it was at once swallowing and consuming itself and at the same time simultaneously turning it into a wrought stained glass many-colored crystal clear window pane and a photonegative.
Sora doubled over, Roxas stepping back quickly out of his way in concern, and contorted his hand together in front of his heart, all of the blood now draining from his face and leaving it ghostly deathly white.
He'd only felt this pain one time before in his life.
"Anna," he breathed in terror and horror he had no words or sounds or expressions or body language for.
He was barely aware of Kairi's and Riku's faces taking on expressions he'd never seen before in their faces, and Donald and Goofy making it a point to not look at Kairi and Riku, but that didn't matter as much now.
Moving faster than Sora could recall having shifted his body in his life, still once more moving almost before he was aware that he was doing so, Oathkeeper manifested in his right hand in twin spirals of white and he pointed it to his side.
Intertwining white burst from it and twirled about each other to shoot through the air and form a roughly semi-circular sphere of pulsating and shifting and flowing and moving purple and black and blue.
Sora hadn't been aware in the slightest that he'd known how to open a path that way. Unlike when he'd first used the Keyblade in new ways uncountable times before, he hadn't even felt what to do before and as he'd done it.
Did he know how to do this due to Ven's heart having rested inside him for so long?
"The Lanes Between!?" Ven shouted, a different terror and concern of his own on his face. "Don't! You don't have any Keyblade Armor or any other protective garments!" Sora ignored how everyone else was reacting save for Ven. "We just got you back! Don't do something reckless a–"
"There's no time for that!" Sora cut Ven off, not caring if there was any of the near hysteria–
Was it just near hysteria?
–he was feeling in his voice or visage or body language, and not caring that his vision was so far gone that he couldn't even tell if he was blinking or closing his eyes or squinting them against the tears spilling down his face or if they were fully open.
Anna was all that truly mattered now.
No no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no nonononononononononononononononononononononononononononononononononononononononononononononononono I promised her that I would never let her go through this again
"Kairi, Riku, Donald, Goofy," he went on without looking behind himself. He rethought that for a second, and hoped that one more person wouldn't push things, but he had no choice. One true Keyblade Master might not be enough. "Mickey, as well. Can you please follow me as soon as it's safe for you to do so?
"Can the rest of you please stay here, or, at the least, far away from us in Arendelle? Elsa isn't comfortable around people."
Without waiting to see if, or how, Kairi and Riku and Goofy and Donald and his other friends responded, he broke into a sprint and leapt into a low tackle into the Lanes Between, summoning up every last thread of his belief in his friends and in Anna in particular to trial glittering pixie dust and transform the tackle into flight.
He trusted Kairi and Riku and Donald and Goofy and his other friends would follow.
Trust was the sole feeling he had left that hadn't been fractured.
But that didn't matter now.
Anna did.
Sora hoped with whatever he had left in him that could do so that this time he wasn't too late
.
"I've followed this far in search of
That glimmering light
Clasped in the hands of a child
Wandering the brink of time
.
"I have continued searching for you
Though I know not your name
Because I wanted to share
This feeling with you
.
"Time envelops both love and pain
Until they fade away
But I still remember them
And always will
.
"Though I cannot remember when
A whisper began echoing
Deep within my heart
Fainter than drops of evening dew
.
"May this prayer I spin
Weave through the darkness of the frozen stars
And reach the skies above you
So far away"
'Radical Dreamers ~Le Tresor Interdit~'
CHRONO CROSS