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CHAPTER 15:
THE DOOR TO LACUNA
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Author's Notes: The compositions for this Chapter are, in order of scene: 'The Girl Who Stole the Star,' from the CHRONO CROSS Original Soundtrack, Disc Three; and then 'Sealed Door' from the CHRONO TRIGGER Original Sound Version, Disc Three. None of these compositions can be found in KINGDOM HEARTS Insider's MP3 section.
"I'm sorry, Sora," Kairi moaned in her sleep, face contorting in an expression of agony and tears spilling down her face from beneath her closed eyelids.
Lea and Xion were now standing side by side, Xion's right hand close to Lea's, though not touching it, in the event that she needed to hold it.
Tidus was standing behind Xion and to her left, and looking at her and Wakka and Selphie and Yuna.
"I'm sorry, Riku," Kairi went on moaning.
"For everything. For all of it.
"It's always been my fault.
"If I'd just remembered Radiant Garden and fulfilled your dreams of seeing other worlds, you wouldn't have suffered as much as you did through all the years we knew each other, or opened the door to the heart of Destiny Islands, or become Keyblade wielders, or become a Heartless, or fallen asleep, or vanished and died, or given into the darkness.
"I know that you'll never stop hating me for it, and that you'll never forgive me, and that all the times that I've protected you two, and all the powers that I gave Namine and Xion over memories; can never even begin to repair how much I've hurt you, and how horrifically I've ruined your lives, since I met you.
"But I at least protected Tidus.
"Maybe you'll at least believe that that makes me an infinitesimal bit less of the abominable anathema to you, and to everyone and everything else in all existence, that I always have been.
"But please, Sora.
"I'm begging you.
"Please, reject my refusal to return to you, and accept Anna's heart.
"I understand that you see her as everything that you believe I'm capable of becoming, but I can never be like her.
"I've never done anything more than hurt you, and I never will.
"If you accept my heart once again I'll just hurt you once more.
"Anna brings people warm love and life and home and refuge.
"All that I've done my whole life, and all that I'll be able to do forever, is bring you, and Riku, and everyone and everything else in existence, cold pain and death and drifting and abandonment."
Aqua saw Tidus shift as though he wanted to stride over to Kairi, wake her up, and tell her precisely what he felt and thought about what she'd just said, but he didn't move from where he was standing, for he knew that she was still asleep and that she needed rest.
Aqua wanted to wake Kairi up herself, but she didn't have the slightest justification to do so.
Much of Kairi's pain was partially her fault.
As soon as Kairi had told them what she'd learned about creating the Demon Tides, the Lich, and the Demon Towers, the last of Aqua's fragmented recollections of their initial defeat by the vast Demon Tide had returned to her; and she'd recalled seeing the Phantom Aquas and the Anti-Aquas comprising the writhing, morphing, shifting, contorting shadows of the enormous Demon Tide, and Aqua had known.
Kairi had fed off of the darkness within Aqua's heart to create the enormous Demon Tide, and the Lich, if not the two Demon Tides that had tried to stop her and Mickey from helping Sora close the Door to Darkness, and the two Demon Towers that had assaulted Mickey and Riku.
"But I'm sure it's not a problem. I've been feeling this way off and on, to lesser extents as it's gradually gotten worse, since Sora gave Roxas and Xion their hearts back."
Terra started violently, but Aqua wasn't sure whether or not he had or whether or not she'd just imagined it.
She wasn't sure whether or not she'd imagined her whole life from the instant of her inception until now, or all existence and unending time as they would forever stretch and unfold.
Xion went white, Lea stiffened, and Tidus jolted.
"Excuse me," Tidus said to Yuna. "I need to talk to Xion about something."
Why did he believe that there was a reason to make the effort?
No matter what you said or did, it was all for nothing.
Yuna nodded in uncertainty, and Tidus turned to Xion and sprinted towards her, but Lea walked between them.
"I'll deal with this," Lea said. "I've got promises to keep, remember?"
That word didn't exist in Aqua's vocabulary.
Promises were the most comprehensibly and incomprehensibly infinitely and expressibly and inexpressibly endlessly immeasurable lie of all.
She'd promised to love and protect and care for and cherish Ven and wake him back up with her love for him and belief in him and trust and hope, but she hadn't been able to keep that promise and had left him behind to virtual eternal silent death because she'd needed to love and protect and cherish and be there for Terra, and then she'd struggled to continue through everlasting hardship when it appeared as though she had no hope for herself so that she could sooner or later return to Ven's side and recall him to love and warmth and life and wakefulness and home sweet home, just to discover that she'd abandoned Ven for about a decade and Terra to a virtual everlasting noisy death of his own.
Now even at last bringing Ven and Terra home sweet home, and even Master Eraqus, in a sense, had been all for nothing.
Nor had it even been she who had achieved those three matters.
In the end, when she had at last and finally been on the margin of overcoming the obstacles keeping her from Ven's side and Terra's trust, she'd given up anyway, and Sora and Riku had literally needed to beat sense back into her.
Then Sora had been the wayfinder who had protected Ven and Ven had protected her when she should have been the one who had protected them both, and lit both of their ways out of the darkness and home sweet home; and then Ven and Sora, and not her, had lit Terra's way out of the darkness and home sweet home; and then Sora and Donald and Goofy, and not her, had lit Master Eraqus' way out of the darkness and home sweet home.
She had loved and protected and cared for and cherished and been there for no one.
Now Ven was going to gradually going to waste and collapse away to an excruciating, relentless, feeble, frail death, and even overcoming most of the hardship and obstacles between them had been totally pointless and totally meaningless and totally in vain and totally futile.
She'd done the right thing by giving up when she was on the edge of returning to Ven and Terra and, without knowing it, Master Eraqus.
They weren't better off without her, she shouldn't have even existed in reality while they were in it in the first place.
Nor did they need her, or want her.
She was Keyblade Master Aqua of the Land of Departure, heir to Master Eraqus and the Mark of Mastery?
That was a hysterical and hilarious farce and deception.
She was Keyblade Master Aqua of the Fractured Spun Transparent Glass Mirror of Broken Promises.
It was even possible that Aqua had fed those Demon Tides, the Lich, and the two Demon Towers so much darkness that, if Kairi hadn't siphoned Aqua's darkness to fashion them; the three Demon Tides, the Lich, and the two Demon Towers would have given up and fled without battling back much, as the one that had attacked Sora in Twilight Town had.
Because Ven had just been terribly wounded once again right in front of her by Terra because she hadn't trusted Terra and cast into a pallid slumber once more, and it was Aqua's fault once again and Aqua had been completely and absolutely powerless and completely and absolutely helpless to keep it from happening once again and completely and absolutely inept to not have caused it and to have stopped it or slowing it down or lessening it and completely and absolutely capable of having caused it and sped it up and increased its torture and completely and absolutely incapable of having stopped it or slowed it down or lessened it so she needed to die Terra-Xehanort needed to die Terra needed to die Xehanort needed to die the Real Organization Thirteen needed to die Yen Sid needed to die Mickey needed to die Kairi needed to die Riku needed to die Ansem the Wise needed to die Sora needed to die everyone and everything needed to die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die and get away from Ven before she or they hurt him once more and no one was going to stop her from ensuring that happened this time no matter what it cost or what it took
The Demon Towers that Aqua had encountered in the realm of darkness, the vast globe of darkness that the Darksides had been improving, and the unusual number of Darksides who had visited the Forest of Thorns, were the same.
They hadn't just been born of the darkness in Snow White's, Cinderella's, and Aurora's heart, or attracted to that darkness.
They'd been born of, and drawn to, the darkness in Aqua's heart, too.
"Aqua?" Ven queried from where he was sitting, looking up at her in worry.
Aqua shook her head to ask him not to worry about her, but she didn't say anything back to him.
It would be a lie.
Furthermore, she wasn't the one who he should be worrying about.
As soon as she'd remembered seeing the Phantom Aquas and Anti-Aquas, Aqua had done as Riku had and as he'd taught Terra to do, and accepted her darkness and looked beyond it to her light. But, unlike with Terra and Riku and Kairi, Aqua wasn't sure that it would be enough to keep her darkness from acting on its own and murdering or hurting Ven or Terra or anyone else she loved in the future.
Aqua had barely been able to feel or think of even the concept of light, much less see it, so she had no idea if she'd successfully looked beyond her darkness.
After what the Angel of Sin had said, Aqua was no longer sure that she could believe that she even had a bright light left in the darkness.
She might very well mostly have become what Yozora no doubt was by now, for it was obvious after what the Angel of Sin had told them about Faerie, if his revelations could be trusted, that Yozora's darkness had been born from the same feelings and thoughts as hers had been.
Part of the reason that she might have, and that she wasn't sure that she'd even been able to feel or think of the concept of light was, as much as she didn't want to admit it, now that she had all of her memories back, she wasn't entirely convinced that, if it became absolutely necessary to do so for Ven's or Terra's or Mickey's or Riku's or Kairi's or Ansem the Wise's sake, she could justify not giving into the darkness a second time, of her own free will this time.
Aqua was barely bothered by her awareness that she was hardly discomfited at that knowledge.
Not with Ven gradually wasting inexorably away to a lingering, agonizing, decrepit, exhausted death.
If Aqua had enough reason to believe that it was the right thing to do to give into the darkness once more, this time fully of her own free will, she knew that she wouldn't even be Yozora then.
From what Kairi had relayed that Luxu had said, Yozora had still remained devoted to Faerie.
He'd most likely given into the darkness as soon as he'd discovered that Faerie had died and become imprisoned in endless infinite torment, and become determined to wield it as much as, and to whatever extent, necessary, to protect Faerie and set her free from her nightmare; because he hadn't been naïve enough to believe that there was always a way to surmount the darkness as long as you kept your eyes on a bright light.
Aqua had believed that, and what had happened?
After she'd destroyed Ven and Terra and Master Eraqus, she'd abandoned them to a fathomlessly longer torture abattoir for well over eleven years.
If Aqua had enough reason to believe that she needed to give into the darkness of her own choice, she wanted to believe that she'd at least be willing to not abandon Ven or Terra once again, though she couldn't even be sure that she'd care about that.
But whether she did or didn't, whether she gave into the darkness or remained in the light, there was no such thing as devotion to anyone or anything but herself left in her.
Not after what she'd done, and failed to do.
Not after she'd spent over eleven years worrying about how much pain she'd been in in the realm of darkness, while Ven's and Terra's lives were still living nightmares.
The Angel of Sin had miscalculated.
He hadn't tried to kill Tidus because he'd been afraid that, if he did, Tidus would try to take control of his situation and choose to die himself by stealing Deifacted Selection, rather than be murdered by the Angel of Sin.
Aqua needed to point that out to Kairi.
Kairi had paid little, or no, attention to ethereally and physically shielding Tidus from the Angel of Sin, so Kairi must have assumed that the Angel of Sin hadn't tried to kill Tidus due to arrogance at how much more lethal and talented and skilled and strong he was than Tidus. Kairi had underestimated the Angel of Sin, so Aqua needed to bring that up to try to prevent Kairi from making a similar mistake in the future.
But the Angel of Sin had been wrong.
Tidus cared nothing about controlling his situation, or anyone else's.
He just wanted to protect, and connect them, and their feelings and thoughts and memories and dreams.
Aqua knew that the same thing was no longer true of her, if it had been at any time since her inception.
If Aqua had enough reason to believe that she needed to give into the darkness, she knew that she'd fall far further than even Yozora had.
She still couldn't remember her time as Anti-Aqua that well, but she hadn't forgotten what Mickey and Riku had told her that she'd sought to do to them, because she'd been furious that, and hated that, they were capable of knowing happiness while Ven and Terra and Master Eraqus and she had been tormented.
Now that she had all of her memories back, Aqua couldn't justify not trying to put at least the people nearby, save for Ven and Terra, through that once more, after everything that they'd put Ven and Terra and Master Eraqus through, or let them be put through.
Perhaps everyone else in the realm of light, and the realm of light itself, and all of the living beings, and realms, outside of it, in addition.
That had been before she'd learned what was happening to Ven, and that there was nothing in any fashion, way, form, or shape that she could do to stop it, slow it down, or lessen it at all.
So Aqua knew that, if she had enough reason to believe that she should give into the darkness wholly from her choice, she wouldn't hate, or want to exploit, anyone; or, far worse, like Invi, not care about them one way or the other, not positively with love and commitment like Ven and Terra did, or negatively with exploitation and hatred like the Angel of Sin and Xehanort had.
She'd just want to eternally torture everyone and everything in all the realms of reality, not out of hatred as Xehanort had, or to exploit them as the Angel of Sin had, or because she didn't care as Invi did; but for no other reason than that she wanted them to suffer as much as possible for her own sadistic amusement.
Maybe, just maybe, herself, too.
Though Aqua was all but certain that she didn't have enough of a capability to love Ven or Terra or Master Eraqus, or to feel guilty, left, to even want to sadistically torture herself as much as possible without end.
That was what Xion was willing to do to herself, if she needed to live for Ven and Young Vanitas and Kairi and Roxas and Namine that way.
Aqua wasn't Xion.
She couldn't die, or give up her legacy, or live, for anyone.
Aqua's life, and legacy and the proof that she was here in existence and had existed in reality and memory, and her death; were that she was the avatar of pain and despair.
So she needed to cause as many people as much torture and sadness as she could before Kairi or Sora or Anna came to believe that they, not Aqua, were the embodiment of endless suffering, so that she could prove to them that they hadn't once been, weren't, and would never be, entities of darkness.
As long as Ven didn't become too weak or sick.
If he did, or if he died, Aqua would discover how to become darkness itself without becoming a Heartless, not even wholly destroy Kingdom Hearts and the Earth of Maaseh Beresheth and Domain of Tales and the void that it drifted in beyond all potential of recovery, but ensure that everything, especially and most of all and totally inescapably and wholly unendingly and completely incontrovertibly and absolutely undeniably, didn't just suffer as much as possible forever, but that they and the totality of existence and she herself had literally never known anything but infinite and endless torment and despair transcending all potential or lack of potential concepts or lack of concepts of potential or lack of potential comprehension or incomprehension or existing or not existing comprehension or incomprehension.
Aqua couldn't have a light left any longer.
She wasn't Hades, or Xehanort, or the Angel of Sin, or even the Foretellers or Luxu or Yozora.
As the Angel of Sin had said, black swallowed all colors.
And Aqua was the blackness who swallowed them.
"Can you please give us more credit than that?" Terra asked from where he was standing on Ven's other side, a reassuring but knowing and understanding smile on his face. "Ven and I are more than familiar with how you're feeling at this point. You're no more of a dark being than Ven and I are."
Aqua saw no reason to bring up that she believed that it was possible for her to be convinced to give into the darkness all by herself, if it became necessary for her to do so.
"Look at it this way.
"And it's fully the truth.
The Foretellers believe that they can turn us against each other, and ruin our faith in anyone and anything but Yozora's destiny for us, but you kept your eyes on the light and beat them just by loving us. Like Xion drains energy without actively doing anything, you came to understand us merely by being yourself. You fell to the darkness briefly like Ven and I did for a lot longer, but that wasn't why you understand our pain now, and you're taking it away.
"You understand our pain now, and you're taking it away, simply because you're you."
Aqua didn't smile.
"Thanks," she replied anyway, however. "But Ven's dying a slow death.
"And even before I left him and you, I refused to understand why you wanted the power to protect Ven solely because Master Eraqus didn't approve of it and left you to Xehanort's trickery, and I treated Ven as though he was out of his depth and left him to Young Vanitas'.
"Driving you to seek refuge in darkness, and Ven to seek refuge in suicide through murder at my and your hands and then everlasting sleep, weren't 'mistakes.' Nor was anything else afterwards."
"If you're about to say that I'm the one who Anna should love rather than Sora," Ven interjected, "As opposed to Sora rather than Kairi, you'll kid us. You didn't treat me like Elsa and Kristoff treated her, and I don't need to point out why."
Aqua hadn't been going to say it, though Ven was right that she was thinking it, but that he'd brought it up of his own volition gave her a way out of this topic.
She looked at Zack, who was still sitting in a chair at Kairi's bedside and now looking at both of them with an empathetic and sympathetic and understanding visage.
"You don't need to apologize," Zack said, waving one hand. "I knew from the beginning that you weren't interested in me. I asked you out because I hoped that would cause you to feel and think about what it might be like if someone you one day did love did so," Ven's eyes narrowed slightly and Terra glared at Zack a little that he'd maneuvered her as Yozora and Luxu and Xehanort and Young Vanitas had, but Aqua didn't care, "In an effort to try to encourage you to not keep that person at a distance and hide behind rules, as you'd been doing up until then, and ask him on a date yourself.
"I took how embarrassed you became when I asked you on a date as evidence that I might have succeeded, as well, not as evidence that you might have been willing to accept.
"In addition, I wasn't interested in you myself. I make it a point to flirt with girls and women to keep a close childhood friend of mine, named Lucca Ashtear, who I'm in a similar situation with as Lezard and Alicia," Ven was now glaring a little himself, and Terra looked at least slightly angry, but Aqua still didn't care, "From becoming interested in me and focused on gaining the heart of someone named Squall, who I know for certain, unlike with Alicia and Rufus, she genuinely does love."
"You still asked me on a date, however," Aqua disagreed. "And I turned you down.
"Whether you meant it or not, that was hurtful and inconsiderate.
"So I'm sorry."
Zack waved it off. "Water for a frog to slurp up, as Cloud's younger brother, Glenn, likes to put it," he replied.
Tidus was glaring at Zack angrily himself.
"If you're really trying to be considerate of how Lucca feels, I recommend that you not exploit the feelings of other girls and women to do so," he said.
Zack glared slightly back. "Can you please mind your own business?" he inquired firmly and pointedly, but not angrily himself. "You're not in a position to know what can of worms you're talking about."
Tidus met Zack's glare for a few seconds, but then he looked away.
"On those lines," Yuna put in, "The last time I saw him, Glenn wanted me to tell you, if I saw you once more sooner or later one day, that he doesn't care whether or not you convince Sephiroth to give him the Masamune back, or otherwise recover it from him."
"I don't buy it," Zack spoke back. "And even if I did – which I sure as heck do not – I turned myself into Hades because Sephiroth told me that he'd return the Masamune to Glenn if I gave Hades permission to wield me as his own sword."
Tidus resumed glaring at Zack, furiously now.
"I'm not letting over eleven years of captivity amount to zilch.
"I'm getting the Masamune back for Glenn, whatever it requires."
Yuna shrugged noncommittally.
"Be that as it may," Yuna replied, "I don't know how he pulled it off, but last month, Professor Odine somehow convinced Ellone to work for Luther and Sphere once more."
Zack's eyes widened in horror and terror and anguish and concern and he jumped to his feet so quickly that the chair behind him fell over.
Aqua pushed her feelings and thoughts about Ven to the side, and she could tell that Ven and Terra and all of the others, save for Tidus and Wakka and Selphie and Lea, who were still mostly paying attention to Kairi, were now focusing on Yuna.
Scrooge still hadn't told any of them specifically what lengths Luther and the Sphere Company were willing to sink to in order to make a profit, but he'd told them enough, and with what they now knew about Yozora and Luxu and the other Foretellers, there was too much of a chance that the Foretellers were pulling Luther's and Sphere's strings, too.
If not Rufus Shinra and the Shinra Company's in addition.
Yuna smirked, though angrily and disgustedly and sickeningly and worriedly.
"Scrooge knows about it," Yuna continued, "And he has Gizmoduck and Launchpad investigating what's going on. Squall, Aerith, Yuffie, and Cid are investigating this themselves, but we all know that there's not much that they can do.
"Cid advised them not to, but Squall, Aerith, and Yuffie actually asked Rufus Shinra for help about this. Cid is convinced that it's a trick, but Rufus honestly agreed to lend them his aid, and, on the condition that Scrooge stops trying to outcompete him in thirty three point thirty four percent of his inroads into harnessing world hearts as an energy source," Aqua didn't like how that sounded, but if Scrooge had had reason to believe that Rufus' idea was a potential problem, she knew that he would have alerted them. She hoped that Scrooge had made the correct choice, "He's going to, or already has, assigned Reeve and Vincent and Cissnei to resume their corporate espionage on Sphere, and the five of us know what that means."
Zack gave a worried smirk of his own, but Auron had his lips pressed together tightly in disapproval.
"We need to know more about what's happening," Aqua spoke up. "We have a lot of reason to believe that the Foretellers might be involved with Sphere."
Zack went white. "Then that's even more reason that you need to stay out of this," he objected. "If the Foretellers are who I think they are, that time might actually be nigh."
"Kairi told us that Mickey referred to a 'that time,'" Terra reentered the discussion. "Can you at least please tell us what 'that time' is?"
"All I'll say is that it's imperative that you not let a single Keyblade wielder other than Mickey himself onto Ivalice Zodiac, especially not with a genie or djinn," Zack answered. Zack looked at Hercules, Phil, and Meg. "And if you're thinking of getting into this yourselves, the world order is the least of your concerns if that time might genuinely be at hand. If a single alien deity shows up on Ivalice Zodiac, that will have just as much of a shot, if not much more of a shot, of making things worse than Keyblade wielders other than Mickey visiting, or genies or djinn.
"I'd argue that you, Yuna, Rikku," Rikku glared at Zack with a pout, and Paine's face smoothed itself into a mask, "and Paine should keep off of Ivalice Zodiac yourselves, but you're not Fairy Godparents, pixies with ties to Neverland, or any of the other ilk.
"I can deal with this myself, though." Yuna and Auron gave Zack skeptical looks. "I recommend that you return to looking for Schala."
"She's an upperclasswoman acquaintance of ours at our high school," Tidus revealed.
Zack's jaw dropped open in shock, disbelief, and wild, explosive, desperate hope.
"Then maybe it's not that time, after all," he answered. "You said that you wanted to be friends with Yuna, so here's your chance. I recommend that you work together with her, Paine, Rikku, and Auron to keep Schala safe.
"They'll tell you what you need to know to do so.
"If things go to the nether regions, Lezard will be the least of your worries.
"I will tell you this.
"Schala, of course, has the ability to choose to reject how she was sifted, nice and neat."
Aqua felt all of the blood drain from her face, and Ven and Terra paled similarly.
She knew what Zack was going to say.
Every one of them did.
"And she, of course, has the ability to choose the light, or to choose not to wield her powers.
"But she already is darkness itself, without losing her human form or heart in the process, and she has been since she was a baby."
It took Aqua several seconds until she was certain that she could speak.
"You need to tell us how Vayne, or someone else, accomplished this," she requested Zack. "Even with all you know from the past, and Mickey, and from what the Angel of Sin and the rest of us said while it was controlling you, you still don't fully know what's at stake."
Zack's visage hardened. "I know enough to know that, if I do tell you, and one or more of you try to do something stupid, it can cause gargantuan, and I mean gargantuan, problems.
"Leave this to Larsa, Lucca, Cloud, Tifa, Glenn, Angeal if he's still alive, Sephiroth if he's willing to stand with us, Squall, Scrooge, Aerith, Yuffie, Cid, Queen Marle Nadia Atkascha of the Kingdom of Dalmasca of Ivalice Zodiac, six people named Kid, Ashley Riot, Alma Beoulve, Sydney Bardorba, Mewt Randell, and Mydia Feolthanos; Mickey, Minnie, our other friends and companions; and me."
"Before we argue that and while you're still more inclined to tell us, perhaps you can, at the worst, give us visions into what the Angel of Sin meant when he spoke of black swallowing all colors," Lea joined their discussion. "I can't figure out how it works, far less get it memorized."
Zack gave Lea a reassuring, but apologetic, smile.
"I'm pretty sure I know what that one is about," Zack told him. "Hades and I talked about a lot of issues, including the presence of a great abyss below the realm of darkness."
Mickey and Riku had told her that she'd fallen into that abyss when she'd given into the darkness, and Jiminy had told her that Young Xehanort had informed Sora that the price for abusing the power of waking was to be cast into the bottom of that abyss, which had most likely been a reference to whatever the dream version of The Final World was, or Gaes, or both realms.
Was this further evidence that she was right about possessing darkness deeper than Yozora's?
It meant nothing, not even relevance.
"He's never been there himself, though he's considered visiting it, and then returning, to spite Maleficent's egotistical belief that she's more powerful than a God or Goddess.
"But, from what he understands about it, most people who give into the darkness, by choice or due to an external force, retain an amount of light, and talk and act partially from that light, at times, even while they mostly live in darkness.
"Hades' cohorts in Maleficent's initial conclave are good examples of this.
"Oogie Boogie gave into the darkness because he hated how he was excluded from the rest of Halloween Town's culture of providing festival cheer to the people of other worlds, due to how he was seen as inept at contributing to that culture. He was envious and aspired to glamor, but he actually sympathized with, and cared about, three children who he employed to assist him at times; Lock, Shock, and Barrel, who were similar rejects of his civilization, though not as badly as him.
"Jafar hated how his advice, as the royal vizier of the Sultan of Agrabah, was often dismissed by the Sultan. A lot of times because he gave immoral advice or amoral advice, but the Sultan discounted a lot of his moral advice as well. Jafar was angry about being discounted and envious that he didn't have the power to put his own beliefs into action while the Sultan did, but he was also honestly furious that the Sultan hurt his people when he dismissed Jafar's moral advice, so one of the reasons that he became a usurper was because he wanted to see his moral advice implemented as much as his immoral advice and moral advice.
"Hook and Peter Pan were, or, if Hook is still alive, are, kindred spirits. Never Land gives anyone who lives there agelessness and immortality, so Tinker Bell helped Peter Pan escape to Neverland when he overheard his parents talking about their expectations for him as an adult as a newborn baby and, even though he didn't understand it, their tone of voice upset him. Hook was a successful captain of a merchant ship, but he became fed up with his superiors' expectations for him and eventually decided to strike out on his own and make his own money on his own terms, so he became a pirate, searched for the riches of the legendary Neverland with its promise of eternal youth so he could enjoy those riches forever, and then sailed there and ran into Peter Pan. Peter Pan cut his left hand off due to Hook's immoral desires, but the two of them recognized that they were alike in their initial face offs, so the two repeatedly clash with each other as much to connect as to try to take each other down for good. Hook also genuinely loves, and feels responsible for, his first mate, Smee. Hook sought Neverland not just for his own benefit, but equally to keep Smee from dying of old age and losing his chance to enjoy wealth on his own terms, and for all time.
"Ursula was, or is, the same kind of victim of Triton's isolationism and intolerance of other civilizations as Ariel was. He banished her from his court because she believed in informing the land dwelling species of her world that merfolk and their brethren existed in the oceans, so she wanted to dethrone him and humiliate him for humiliating her so she could try to connect the civilizations of merfolk and their fellows with the cultures of humans and their fellows, though she'd by then given into the darkness and developed a warped idea for how to rule merfolk and reach out to humans. She valued staying true to contracts, as long as she made the contracts on her own terms, at least as much as Hades does, if not more, because she still cares about loyalty as long as she can approach the concept of loyalty in a way that doesn't offend her ego. She loves her eel servants, Flotsam and Jetsam, and hates it when they're hurt. In addition, Hades told me that, when she tricked Ariel for the second time, this time to enable Ariel to approach a human Prince, Eric, who Ariel had fallen in love with, Ursula offered a written contract to convince Ariel that Ariel could trust her this time, because she'd proven false the first time she'd offered to help Ariel with her problems. Ursula honestly wanted Ariel to trust her, even though she intended to betray Ariel's trust a second time from the start, because she saw herself in Ariel, and the price for Ursula's help was Ariel's voice with its potential as a songstress, which had damaged Ariel's life by causing Triton to want her to live up to that voice and its potential and not as she wanted to live. Ursula truly wanted Ariel to gain Eric's heart, but she wanted Eric to love Ariel for herself and her personality, not her musically talented voice.
"Other immoral wielders of darkness who Hades has known or heard of are similar. Snow White's stepmother Queen hated how her parents raised her to live a pampered life even though she embraced it, so once a magic mirror of hers gave her evidence that Snow White was becoming a good looking, pampered noblewoman as she'd been forced to live as, she tried to kill Snow White; partially out of envy of Snow White's appearance, yes, but partially because she believed it was better for Snow White to die than be corrupted into a pampered noblewoman. Once she discovered that Snow White had befriended seven hardworking dwarfs, this assured her that Snow White might not become as corrupt as she had become enough that, as much as the Queen still envied her, she was willing to give Snow White a chance to live on, as long as she'd fully, as she saw it, severed her connection from Snow White as her stepmother. So she poisoned Snow White and tossed her into an indefinite sleep to destroy whatever of Snow White's trust in her might remain if she was one day awoken of it by someone who genuinely loved her, and she was even willing to temporarily cast off her looks and disguise herself as an old, crippled crone to do it.
"Judge Frollo hated his pampered life as a noble official and the expectations and requirements that his position entailed, and how he was never able to gain his fellows' approval, so he devoted himself too much to worshipping his God because he believed that, if he went to drastic, warped lengths to worship his God, while he had no chance of gaining his fellows' approval, he could at least gain his God's approval. He targeted the gypsies of the city he oversaw, Paris, who didn't care about anyone's approval and just wanted to give others their approval, because he hated them and was envious of them for living carefree lives where it didn't matter to them what others thought of them; and he ruined the life of his adopted son, Quasimodo, because he was a disfigured hunchback, but he did love Quasimodo in a twisted way and wanted to keep him separate from the rest of his world because Frollo didn't want Quasimodo to be exposed to the same cruel requirements that had ruined his life. And, in addition, Frollo oppressed the gypsies because he believed that, by doing so, he could force them to give their approval to him as they gave it to others, and because he believed that they were better off dead or banished from Paris, where they wouldn't need to suffer from the requirements of their fellow city dwellers.
"Cinderella's stepmother, the noblewoman Tremaine, was jealous of Cinderella's refusal to lose hope in the kindness of her world and dream of happiness, and accept that the reality, and the class system that had destroyed Tremaine's life and caused her husband, Cinderella's blood father, to become sick and die before he was old, are the remorseless truth of existence. So she virtually turned Cinderella into her and her two blood daughters' enslaved servant to hurt her for being all that Tremaine was too broken to be, but she also did this because she was terrified that, if she didn't force Cinderella to work as much as possible, she'd become a spoiled noblewoman like her two daughters were. When Cinderella had a chance at happiness when the Prince of her Kingdom, Charming, was hosting a ball to choose a potential wife, Tremaine was willing to let her attend as long as she finished her chores and she didn't get to attend the ball by having her participation in it spoon fed to her, and she was truly relieved when Cinderella completed her chores and showed up with a dress until her daughters exposed Cinderella's dress as stolen, and that Cinderella had just done become corrupted and was partially giving up on her dreams now that she had an opportunity to know joy. When Cinderella's Fairy Godmother presented Cinderella with a better dress to congratulate her for not losing hope and dreams while still being willing to work to live and not exist as a spoiled noblewoman and then Cinderella didn't abide by the conditions of the enchantment, created to ensure that Cinderella still needed to work to obtain her dreams and return to her life of responsibly working to realize them; Tremaine tried to keep Aqua from proving that she was Charming's favored potential wife because she was now furious that Cinderella had stolen the initial dress and didn't want Cinderella to attain a better life, so she was trying to exact vengeance. But she was also holding onto hope that Cinderella's second dress hadn't been stolen, and that if she kept Aqua from proving Cinderella had worn it, Cinderella would put in the effort to do so herself and free herself from the darkness that had started engulfing her. Cinderella did, and as a result, Tremaine called the Unversed Cursed Coach that killed her and her blood children partially to endeavor to keep Cinderella's hopes from being fulfilled, and partially to ensure that she and her spoiled daughters were removed from Cinderella's life.
"The Queen of Hearts of Wonderland is a puppet weapon of an ethereal being known as the Cheshire Cat, who loves toying with the people of Wonderland, and anyone who journeys there from another world, for his own amusement. She's selfish and spoiled, yes, but that's because she's been toyed with so much that she endeavors to assert her identity as an individual through the darkness, and when she met a world traveler known as Alice, who asserts her individuality when seen as a puppet weapon by her family and fellows for social status by empathizing and sympathizing with similar living toys, caring for them, and trying to convince them that they're people with hearts and minds of their own, she rejected the connections that Alice extended to her, but she was genuinely thankful for them.
"The Cheshire Cat is similar to the Angel of Sin; a predator who just cares about himself, and who uses his world as his personal playground, often by showing up to people there and telling them things that appear to make sense but don't, or that do but that he just said to hurt them and cause them to become uncertain. Though the Cheshire Cat, unlike the Angel of Sin, who was a deity, is a genie who escaped his lamp by giving into the darkness and set about granting his own wishes afterwards. He actually created all of Wonderland from the darkness in his heart, as a world close to a Sleeping World that isn't itself a Sleeping World, as Maleficent in her Dragon form in Radiant Garden when it was Hollow Bastion was an entity close to a Heartless without being a Heartless."
Of course that was what Wonderland was, and why people could journey into it without intending to from other worlds without Keyblades or Gummi Ships.
Aqua had no justification to have not figured this out earlier.
"But even the Cheshire Cat and the Angel of Sin possess bright lights in their darkness. They're selfish predators who toy with, and prey upon, others, but they still believe in something; themselves.
"Even Maleficent, who almost became darkness itself without losing her heart while doing so, believes in herself, though not that much. She's convinced that she just cares about herself, but her feelings and thoughts are solely for herself and what she believes that she wants because she feels that, if she never cares for anyone or anything outside of herself any longer, she can bring her daughter, Borealis, who died in Maleficent's womb before her birth as the result of Maleficent battling an army invading her world to protect her husband, her friends, the Enchanted Dominion's hearts, and the Enchanted Dominion.
"But Maleficent doesn't genuinely even care about, or even believe in, herself, and this is why she was able to nearly become darkness itself without becoming a Heartless.
"The dwellers of the great abyss below the realm of darkness wholly believe in nothing."
Aqua was surprised to experience a shifting of unease.
"Hades said, and I agree, that you might not even be able to call the great abyss darkness," Zack was going on. "It's not light or darkness, and it has no opposite or horizon, as the realm of darkness has the realm in-between and the realm of light. Nor does it possess different worldlines, as many people believe.
"Hades told me about the worldlines himself years ago, and that there was a Creator God named Domain of Tales drifting outside it beyond even a realm within it outside of life and death that drifts just above its bottom; though he didn't know that that realm is Gaes, or what Domain of Tales is. When Hades talked about five realms earlier, he was considering Olympus' Realm of the Gods as one of the five realms. The great abyss is a single World, and many people are wrong about how The Final World has separate worldlines, too. Though Hades isn't sure about how the bottom of the great abyss functions, just that it's a realm all its own.
"He knows nothing about it, though. He tried to trace its connections once, but he refused to tell me what he experienced. All he said was that barely brushing how it felt before he pulled his heart from its connections practically literally reduced his heart, mind, and body to an empty vegetative catatonic coma from which he was almost certain that he'd never have awoken."
That boded extremely badly for what Sora had been through, and Aqua winced.
The others showed expressions of fear or worry.
Thank goodness Kairi was still asleep.
Aqua could tell from Kairi's breathing that she hadn't just refused to open her eyes, because she'd woken up or because she didn't want anyone to know that she was awake.
Kairi was truly still unconscious.
"The great abyss has no complements or opposites," Zack went on. "There is no concept of beliefs at all in the great abyss, light or darkness, morality or immorality, life or death, Gods or demons, ethics or atrocities.
"You don't even believe in yourself as having meaning or value or worth or point, or seek to live for yourself and your own wishes and dreams while sadistically toying with, or not caring about, or exploiting, or hating the hearts around you.
"It's not darkness, it's an oblivion empty of even the void.
"There is no life or death, ethereality or matter, dimensions or dots, electricity or data, laws or promises, civilization or culture, governments or people; or even love or pain, happiness or sadness, laughter or torment, light or darkness, dreams and imagination and memories and creativity or cold hard space and time and facts and data; within and inside and beyond and outside others or existence or yourself or the absence of others or existence or yourself. Even fanatically devoting yourself to another or others or a greater being or a greater cause or reality, or nihilistically living solely to selfishly survive without even endeavoring to improve yourself or your life while you're convinced that existence is just an infinite and endless imprisonment in a corridor or chamber; is wholly pointless and purposeless, and there's no reason to do so and living that way proves nothing, to yourself or to reality or others. It's the total and whole endless death of all hope and faith and belief and dreams, and a life of complete and absolute despair. Nothing whatsoever, even nothingness, has meaning or value. Hearts and minds, life and death, existence and reality all always have been, all are, and all always will be, no more than haphazard particles and random wavelengths, and everyone and everything everywhere always were, are, and always will be the products of ruthless causality and accidents of remorseless chance."
Even after everything that Ven and Terra and Master Eraqus and Aqua had been through, Aqua had trouble breathing.
Tears were falling down Lea's face again, and Xion, though white in the face herself, did take Lea's hand now, squeezed it reassuringly and protectively and comfortingly and tightly, and then gripped it in a similar way.
Tears were falling down Tidus' face as well, and he looked as though he wanted to move in Xion's direction, or Selphie's and Wakka's, or Yuna's, but he stayed where he was, though he forced a smile that he clearly meant for all four of them to see.
Wakka and Yuna smiled back, forced in different ways, but Xion and Selphie didn't.
Aqua now did hope that she had been wrong about how far she believed that she'd be willing to go for Ven or Terra or Riku or Mickey or Kairi or Ansem the Wise if it looked like there was no option but to give into the darkness, even as a full last resort if even giving into the darkness wasn't enough.
What Hades had told Zack about still caused Aqua to feel a little sick to her stomach.
"In the great abyss," Zack finished, "Light doesn't shine in the darkness, and darkness isn't cast on the opposite side of the spectrum from light.
"The Angel of Sin understood the concept, but he was just bragging that his darkness could swallow all colors because he was full of himself. He felt the light of love for himself, so he was just a denizen of darkness and he still possessed light, though a very small one.
"A real being of the great abyss has no legitimate light or darkness, just a black space that engulfs the whole spectrum of particles and wavelengths. So you don't have a light in the darkness because you're not a darkness within which light shines. You're something so ebony that you engulf all the colors of light and darkness, and anything in between or rejected by them, such as the horizon of the dawn and the horizon of the dusk, or the vacuum of the void.
"If light shines in nothingness or the night, you can show up with colors when you've disappeared into transparency, or the light holds back the black shade.
"But if it shines in an absence of everything, light or darkness or a mixture of them or transparency, it will fade into the darkness of that absence and vanish no matter what you feel or think or say or do, because you can't have a light that doesn't go out or a darkness that enshrouds it if light, or darkness, or gray, or clarity, don't mean anything to you.
"All of the colors of the spectrum just vanish into a night like that, because as far as that kind of darkness, or whatever you want to call it, is concerned, there is no such thing as light or darkness.
"I'm pretty sure that's at least part of what the Angel of Sin meant."
"Is this what Schala is, if you'll answer that?" Ven queried.
"No, this is what Dream Eaters are," Zack replied. "Nightmares and another kind of Dream Eater Hades just knew the name of, called Dreamreapers, as well as Spirits. The first two aren't light or darkness, just embodiments of torment, and the latter are kind, but they still feed on the ones that aren't, so they're avatars of despair in their own ways."
Ven stiffened a bit at the insult to Chirithy, but he stayed quiet.
"Vayne transfigured Schala, and attempted to transfigure Larsa, into darkness itself to keep them safe, though he had the wrong idea about how to protect them.
"I saw no reason to tell Hades that Vayne revealed the name of the realm at the bottom of the great abyss.
"Lacuna, the Gap Amidst Transparency.
"Vayne once visited a location on Ivalice Zodiac known as Time's Eclipse, and though, to my knowledge, he didn't tell anyone, not even Larsa, what happened when he did, he learned something there. A matter that informed him of a number of issues that terrified him so much that he believed that taking moral measures to keep his brother, his wife, his daughter, and the nation that he ruled, the Empire of Archadia, safe from danger were childish and futile. Vayne believed this so much that he fomented false pretenses to declare war on the rest of the nations of Ivalice Zodiac other than the Empire of Archadia that he was Emperor of, and a number of other worlds, such as the Disney Kingdom, in order to bring enough military power under his control that he believed he could defend his family and country, and exploit the war itself and a number of other things that I won't get into to transfigure Schala and Larsa into incarnates of darkness.
"Schala is darkness itself, and Larsa would have been, but she is, and he'd have been, just darkness.
"Vayne wanted to keep Larsa and Schala from becoming something a lot more horrible. Ethereal entities that are among the first of an entity that figures, who Vayne called the Undying Ones, and who must be Yozora and Luxu and the Foretellers, want to populate Lacuna with.
"According to Vayne, they name them the Nilihils."
"The Nilihils are vital puppets to set off something called Synchronicity Perceptual," Aqua supplied. "I wouldn't question me what that is, though, because I don't know."
Zack looked as though he was thinking back.
"I'll help you with this, as you appear to want to keep Synchronicity Perceptual from happening.
"Glenn told me that he heard that name from Harle once," he replied. "According to her, Vayne had trusted her with a prophecy of a potential future.
"This is all that I can remember about Synchronicity Perceptual. I'm sorry that I can't be of any better assistance.
"'When the ocean of stardust and currents is stayed of her memories, be calmed, for it will be time for the advent awakening of the hounds of the recusants. Their mournful howls and guilty braying will call the chasers of the past and the bearers of the future to the concert of Synchronicity Perceptual, and they will draw the stanzas for our savior's orchestra while her champion will write her notes. The blueprint will teach the infirm one that he is an emulator,"
Aqua suppressed a surge of anguish and terror. Zack could only be referring to Ven and Terra, and that meant that one of the reasons that Vayne had heard this prophecy had no doubt been so that Zack would unintentionally try to turn Ven, Terra, and her against each other and their other friends, but they needed to hear this
Especially because, as this might not just be lies, or this at least might be lies with rings of truth, they could attempt to figure out how the Foretellers planned to try to do it
"the emulator that acceptance of rejection is crippling,"
What did that mean?
Did the Foretellers want her to doubt that she was right or wrong to be afraid of herself, Ven, Terra, Mickey, Riku, Kairi, Ansem the Wise, and others?
"and the blueprint that he is no instructor. The foxes will track the supernal scarecrow who supplants sisters and sleep of memories to the door of the barn of her cattle."
Aqua clenched her teeth.
She should have seen that coming.
Even had told her that he'd lied to Isa about improving his replicas so that they could replace, not merely replicate, regular hearts. Unlike Xion and Roxas, Namine was still very insecure about being a Nobody, so one of the best methods for the Foretellers to endeavor to turn her against them and lose faith in anything but Yozora's role for her was to try to convince her that she wasn't inferior to regular hearts due to being a shell of a person, but superior to them due to possessing traits that regular hearts couldn't.
But that was too obvious an interpretation of that line.
There must be more to it, or it didn't mean that method in any fashion.
Or the Foretellers wanted them to believe that they shouldn't take that line for what it looked like, and it was their tactic for breaking Namine's heart so much that she'd resign herself to their fate for her.
Which was it?
Or was it more than one of, or all of those, possibilities?
Could she, or any of them, decipher anything worthwhile from this, or would this just end up doing what the Foretellers had implied that Ava's Nightmare Chirithy and Ira had achieved, and do no more than cast doubts?
"The hand glove shall mime her pets and herself,"
Xion thinned her lips tightly together, and Lea scowled and gripped Xion's hand back tighter, but Tidus didn't move, "And they shall join their hands and pantomime her in turn, and they shall cavort and prance and leap and amble and clamber the dusk and night and day and aurora and eclipse in glee until they drop bereft of bones beneath a sanguine sackcloth."
Whatever that meant, Lea or Roxas was most likely next.
And, even if Lea was left out, that told them nothing about whether or not the Foretellers had given him a destiny that they hadn't initially written for him once he'd become a Keyblade wielder, or whether Meg was wrong, and he, at least, if not Isa or one or more of the other members of the two Organization Thirteens, had had a destiny of his or their own, while he, or they, had been puppet weapons.
Xion removed all emotion from her face, and Lea composed his.
"When the cheetah stays the glass sculpture herself of her memories and vacuum, he shall toll the bells that let slip the foxes and the hounds, deluge the firmament with irons, and with his two summations of the swords, he shall liken himself as the vortex of chaff and rapids, and be reborn once again anew as the most prodigious of all manufacted fervors to rewrite the days of old as scribbles with the feather of himself, for he will have become the throbbing empyrean throne of all celestial spheres and demesnes."
Lea's legs gave out, and Xion spun and caught him in her arms, and then she gently and carefully lowered him down to the floor as she knelt on it as well, looking as though she wasn't sure that she could stay on her own legs.
Tidus clenched his hands into such tight fists that the nails of both of his hands drew blood from his palms, while Ven's jaw dropped and his eyes widened, and Terra inhaled sharply.
Zack grimaced, but what he said was, "That's all that I remember. I'm sorry about that."
But Aqua was just aware of what was going on at the farthest edges of his perception.
If Zack's prophecy wasn't a lie, Yozora and the Foretellers wanted Roxas to not construct, but be transformed into, a third artificial Kingdom Hearts unimaginably superior to, and a replacement for, the true Kingdom Hearts?
.
"Your shield is shattered! Your oaths poison those you would protect!"-Judge Magister Noah 'Gabranth' Fon Ronsenburg
FINAL FANTASY XII