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CHAPTER 30:
VECTOR TO THE ABYSS
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Author's Notes: The pieces for this Chapter are, 'Vector To the Heavens,' from KINGDOM HEARTS: THREE HUNDRED FIFTY-EIGHT DAYS OVER TWO; and then 'Rood Inverse Tattoo,' from the VAGRANT STORY Original Soundtrack, Disc Two. The former piece can be located in its KINGDOM HEARTS: THREE HUNDRED FIFTY-EIGHT DAYS OVER TWO GameRip MP3 section with the name 'XionBattle,' while the second piece can be found on KINGDOM HEARTS Insider.
The first thing that Mare was aware of as reality returned to her was that she was sitting up so rapidly that her vision was swimming.
Hands were on her shoulders, and then everything was back at the sight of Roxas' gentle, reassuring smile and concerned, worried eyes.
Tears clouded all of Mare's vision, and she wished that she could just give herself into nothing but the warmth of Roxas' hands on her shoulders and drown in it until she knew nothing but his love and that warmth and care and kindness and refuge and shelter and sanctuary.
But she remembered clearly what had woken her up.
That would need to wait.
So she settled on just sagging against Roxas' hands, and letting him hold her up.
"How are you doing?" Xion asked from where she was sitting to Roxas left at the side of a cot in what Mare now recognized was Hayner's, Olette's, and Pence's Usual Spot in Twilight Town.
The other three teenagers were standing on Xion's left with varying degrees of relief, and worried concern on their faces.
To Mare's surprise, Isa was sitting in a chair at the foot of the bed along with Lea.
But, on second thought, that wasn't unexpected.
Isa must be determined not to make the same mistakes with her that he'd made with Xion from the beginning.
But the slight amount of new warmth that filled Mare that another current, or former, Nobody cared about her caused Mare's stomach to heave so violently and sickeningly that tears flooded her eyes for a different reason.
She submerged herself in the warmth of Roxas' hands to steady herself, though she knew that if she tried to look into his eyes, even now, that she would almost certainly retch incommunicably more violently than he had at Arendelle.
"Namine is asleep in another room," Roxas said.
He squeezed Mare's shoulders with kind, soothing reassurance, and all of the sickness vanished.
"The other guardians are with her, and I asked them to ask her not to see you herself when she wakes up."
"Thank you," Mare said, but her tear-choked throat cracked her voice.
"You're welcome," Roxas answered.
"Can you sit up now?"
Mare wanted to lie, something, anything, to keep him from letting go of her shoulders and her.
But she'd be letting his belief and faith and trust in her, and her ability not to murder or hurt other people, down if she did.
So she just forced herself to nod brokenly.
Roxas sighed heavily with understanding, and Mare's eyes flew wide as he shifted to sit at her side, wrap one arm around her back, and take her left hand in a secure, protective hold.
Xion stood up as he did this, climbed onto her cot and to Mare's other side, and, careful not to touch Roxas as she did this, she wrapped her own arm around Mare's back below Roxas', and she took Mare's other hand in a similar clasp.
Mare smothered the surge of blinding onyx and obsidian ivory washing and cleansing and scouring and clearing fury and jealousy that Xion was preventing her from sharing this embrace with just Roxas, and that Xion was indirectly participating in a hug with Roxas herself.
She barely knew Roxas, and she wasn't Anna; or even Aurora and Cinderella and Snow White, who had understood love and the hearts of others enough to truly bond with people who cared about them soon after they'd met them.
She had no justification, or capability, to seek any different love than as much friendship as possible from Roxas.
And as the abyssal anathema demon abomination who had synthesized her had remembered Xion, Mare had known who she was, and how Roxas felt about her; as soon as she'd gained her first shards of awareness when Mickey had forged the Journal datascape from Jiminy's first sheaves of the early prototype versions of the refined tree bark that, when smoothed into their finished form, the words and illustrations of the Books of Prophecies had been inscribed upon.
So she just let herself become immersed in the warmth of Roxas' arms and hands and the knowledge that she hadn't lost them, and try to focus on the warmth of Xion's arms and hands and submerge herself just as much in them.
"I can't show…"
Mare wished that she could bite off her own tongue and die permanently, even from the afterlife, if the concept wasn't just an insane revolting deranged and demented feverish delirium, by swallowing it and suffocating on it, for hesitating to say, 'either of you,' rather than, 'Roxas.'
"…either of you my thanks for this, or the rest.
"But Lea, Isa, I've met Skuld, the girl who you two apprenticed yourselves to Ansem the Wise to find."
Isa jolted violently and his eyes went wide, and Lea's mouth opened in shock.
"How is she?" Isa asked, contained disbelief and worry in his voice.
"If she remembers her name, does she remember anything else?" Lea questioned.
Mare pushed down another, weaker surge of blinding ebony and black pearl fury and jealousy that Lea and Isa were now focused on another friend, and thus not as much on her.
"All she remembers of her past is her own name, and that the name of the person who rescued her from Terra-Xehanort, known as Strelitzia, belongs to that past.
"She, Strelitzia, and Sora's true Heartless," Lea's jaw dropped at hearing who the last member of their group was, "Are currently searching for Ephemer, someone named Blairn or Braine or some other name that I didn't hear clearly, and the recompleted Nobodies who you knew as Demyx, Marluxia, and Larxene.
"But this isn't the time for that.
"I don't want to worry you about precisely what Sora found out until there's no way for you to avoid fully being aware of it, but Sora has just learned a truth that I would have said or done almost anything to spare him from uncovering.
"Now that he knows this, he's about to discover what this means for all seven Princesses of Heart, and all of the New Seven Hearts, as well.
"The ripples sent washing into the ocean of stars when Xehanort first set out from the Land of Departure to search for the Kye-Blade have at last fanned into a tsunami, and that tidal wave is about to swallow him whole and drag him to floor of the vortex of despair, loss, rejection, and hatred that has engulfed all of reality from the beginning of unstarting time."
Sora couldn't comprehend how he could tell that he was still standing.
But then his ashen and charred black glass sand Station of Awakening couldn't beat, and he couldn't breathe, as the implications of what this meant registered.
This might give Kairi false hope, but he had no choice now.
He knew that he shouldn't be letting what Ursula had let them continue to hurt him this badly when he said this, but Sora had no idea how he could justify not letting this revelation hurt him right now, so he didn't have time to understand the answer to that, as well.
Sora shouted nearly so swiftly that he almost wasn't aware that he'd chosen to do so.
"Young Xehanort, please, listen to me, if you're still out there and you're watching this!" he cried.
Kairi jolted violently, and she appeared to have become aware of reality once again.
Riku's jaw dropped, Goofy's eyes flew wide, and Donald clamped his beak together tightly and he snarled.
"Kairi is your future self's daughter!
"I won't let you wield me, but you know that I never break my promises!"
This vow was bound to risks of its own, but they weren't any different than the ones that had been tied to finding the other guardians before the Second Keyblade War.
It meant nothing at all that, if Sora swore this oath, he would very likely be condemning himself to a life of ceaseless imprisoned torture as a laboratory specimen and a research sample for who knew how long.
All that mattered was that he try to lessen Kairi's pain, if merely a minute bit.
"I promise you now, with all my heart, if you come to see her right now, without any delay, I'll surrender to you and let you study me for a while as a laboratory sample!"
Kairi's head whipped in his direction with unexpected total, utter, full, complete sharp and drawn shock and horror and terror on her visage, and when Riku whirled to look at Sora, true horror and terror of his own had at last manifested on his face.
Donald's beak now opened slackly, and Goofy gave off a low, anguished howl.
But, if this worked, Sora wasn't afraid of Kairi, Riku, Donald, or Goofy stopping him.
Even if they were willing to try to force him to break a promise, they knew that even if all four of them worked together, he could still evade them long enough to leave through a dark corridor with Young Xehanort of his own volition.
But Sora just waited for several seconds, not daring to even begin to feel the chaotic, desperate, wild hope that he never should have learned the definition of, or its meaning.
Then an ellipse of shades of black and shifting purple appeared to their left and in front of them, and new tears came to Sora's eyes.
But when the familiar figure of Young Xehanort walked out of the corridor of darkness, an irritated grimace on his face and his basic light blue energy bar Formchanged version of No Name already summoned into his right hand; Sora started to see Xehanort's Heartless' and Terra-Xehanort's familiar, its face now shifting back and forth between its familiar bandaged maw and night black horns and Terra-Xehanort's face and pale hair, extending from behind his back and hovering.
Surprising, but not unexpected, lightness almost caused Sora's legs to give out, as awareness of reality returned to him as well and his vision almost vanished.
The heart fragment that had created the second Terra-Xehanort had survived as well.
Two members of Kairi's family had survived.
Why hadn't Sora realized that Terra-Xehanort might also be alive, as he'd been nothing but a heart fragment, and not a portion of one of the other seekers of darkness, as even Xion's Xehanort tainted digitized heart had been?
A mostly indecipherable mixture of countless emotions manifested on Kairi's face, but Sora could see desperate hope of her own, and an uneasy guardedness, among them.
"Welcome home, big brother and little brother," Kairi spoke, but the love and warm welcome in her tone were fully genuine and sincere.
Sora almost collapsed, as he sighed heavily in relief to know how Kairi felt and thought about them, and that she was willing to call them her brothers openly.
Riku's face swept itself clear of all emotion, and Goofy's face became a mixture of worry and wariness while Donald's visage went fully neutral.
Young Xehanort's grimace became even angrier, and more irritated, however.
"For your information, you're not bringing us back home, or giving us anything new," he said.
"Our so-called 'father' knew your identity as soon as he discovered that you were a Princess of Heart."
Kairi jolted violently, and her mouth opened.
"Was he trying to wield the darkness to protect me, then?" she asked without any uncertainty, however. "Even when he killed me, as he preserved my heart in seven pieces?"
"He, and Ansem, and the current Terra-Xehanort, were," Young Xehanort replied with even more irritated anger.
"All I care about is carrying out the fate written for me," but Sora was relieved to hear a small undercurrent of uncertainty in Young Xehanort's voice, even if it had nothing to do with Kairi and was just resulting from the doubts that Sora had given him that fate could be defied by defeating the Lich and vast Demon Tide, "And Xemnas believed himself so absent of emotion that he made the pragmatic choice for the greater good, and he wanted you dead until Axel's first betrayal convinced him that you might be useful as a potential bargaining chip."
Kairi flinched, but she responded, "If that's so, then Dad wrote you that script to teach you how to look out for me.
"It's still the same thing."
Young Xehanort scowled now, and he opened his mouth.
Ursula, scowling with black rage herself, spoke first.
"This is my symphony to conduct this time, you pompous twit."
Young Xehanort repositioned himself, and though he didn't alter No Name's position into a combat stance, Terra-Xehanort hovered into Xehanort's familiar's usual neutral position where he could decide between striking or defending Young Xehanort or himself.
"Sora's promise notwithstanding, I have better things to do with my time than be talked down to by a haggard witch who makes a fool out of herself every time that she tries to do anything but follow her script.
"That you've learned how to control both Anti-Aqua's darknesses, and Dreamreapers, to a limited extent," terror consumed Sora utterly, "And that you understand the darkness, and hate isolationism, enough, that you can continually bridge the two realms no matter how many times you're cast into the realm of darkness, are all irrelevant.
"With Terra-Xehanort's heart fragment joined with mine, I've learned how to wield No Name even more adeptly than both versions of Terra-Xehanort, and myself, combined, could."
"We're not gonna' lose to you."
Childhood's Laughter was in a defensive position within a matter of seconds, and Kairi was back on her feet with Destiny's Embrace in a similar one, while Braveheart and Save the Queen Plus joined it, the latter weapon positioned to cast another Zettaflare if Donald felt that he had no other options.
Shortly afterwards, Goofy was in front of Donald and to his left, near Young Xehanort and Terra-Xehanort, Save the King Plus at the ready in front of him.
Ursula now looked a little defensively uncertain, though Hans' expression was neutral but wary.
Young Xehanort sighed deeply with exasperation.
"Sora made me a promise that I intend to hold him to.
"I'm not here to fight you this time.
"Maleficent and her mockery of both of our Organization Thirteens are another matter.
"I've been looking for a sufficient reason to give them my impressions of their sorry attempts to do us tribute for months now."
"Like we're going to believe you," Donald retorted with angry skepticism.
Young Xehanort shrugged dismissively, and this time he just addressed Ursula and Hans.
"Perhaps your snare honestly will catch Luxu."
Sora started at the awareness of what that meant.
Maleficent had known they were here the whole time, and what Yozora's intentions for playing them to face off here, were.
She'd just been playing them herself to capture Luxu
"Yozora's Nobody, and Luxu, particularly; as well as the other Foretellers; though they don't underestimate their enemies and they pay close attention to their doings, see everyone else's plotting as petty scheming, and beneath them. This is because of how long Yozora's selves and Luxu have been engaging in shadowplay."
Sora traced his connections to Young Xehanort, and he wasn't lying about how he believed that Yozora's Nobody, Luxu, and the Foretellers saw the guardians of light and their companions this way; and he wasn't willing to lie through any means but omission, as long as the discussion remained directly bound to Sora.
If Young Xehanort was right, that gave Goofy's strategy a lot more of a chance of succeeding.
But although, for the first time since Lauriam and Elrena had revealed Yozora's and Luxu's roles for Anna and Elsa and Kairi to them, Sora now knew that they had a real chance of protecting the three of them, and all of his other friends and the people of the World, from them; after what Ursula had just told Sora he was, even this knowledge just caused Sora to feel a tiny amount relieved and lighter.
"Bernard and Bianca believed that, because Cody had been lured into a trap himself by Percival with Marahute as the bait and he took both onto Monsternova, and Monsternova is just drifting in the sky of Endangered Sapiens, that Cody and the lack of movement from Monsternova were bait to lure them into a trap. So they didn't see the triple blind coming."
Bernard and Bianca must be the two mice or rats that Sora had traced in this world, apparently named Endangered Sapiens, Cody the boy, and Marahute the bird. However, Sora would need to trust that Kairi, Riku, Goofy, and Donald could protect them.
"But Terra-Xehanort and I did pay a lot more attention to the specifics of your tricks than the Foretellers and the Rescuers have," Young Xehanort was proceeding.
"You have no traps that you can fall back on at this time that we're not aware that you can potentially set up, or might have already set up, that will capture us or kill us; or upfront tactics and strategies that will defeat us, unless Maleficent is willing to risk not being available to reinforce Christopher and the dark seekers if their ambush of Luxu goes wrong."
That Christopher was otherwise occupied meant almost nothing to Sora, now, as well.
"Sora wishes to speak with me, so I will take over this discussion.
"If you object to that, feel free to reacquaint yourself with the scant comforts of the realm of darkness for the fifth time, and introduce Hans and anyone else who you ask to back you up to them simultaneously when you do."
Ursula snarled furiously and viciously.
"You just added yourself to my scroll of people who owe me a price that I'll exact through vengeance," she spoke.
But she turned away.
Hans glared at Young Xehanort, and he looked as though he wanted to do one or more things, but he didn't move in any other way but to glare.
"I want you to talk to Kairi," Sora corrected Young Xehanort.
"Then you'll need to be satisfied with her listening in, and with the knowledge that, by surrendering to us, you've made it that much easier for her to get out of this alive, whether or not we need to kill her temporarily again before this is over."
Sora forced himself to keep breathing.
"I said that I'd allow you to research me," Sora said.
"I didn't say that I wouldn't stop you if you try to murder your sister once again."
"It's less likely that we'll need to, unless you become willing to break a promise."
Genuine anger rushed through Sora at the implication that he might, for any reason, do so, and he glared at Kairi's two brothers himself now.
Young Xehanort matched it, but Terra-Xehanort just ignored it.
"We know all too well what the definition of protection that Xehanort and Ansem taught me through Maleficent entails," Riku spoke up.
"Whether turning himself over to you will keep Kairi safer or not," Sora winced at how Riku wasn't even showing more than a little terror and horror and concern and anger about even these two matters now, "You aren't causing us to feel better."
"The situation is different than when Kairi lost her heart," Young Xehanort replied with dismissive irritation.
"As things stand, if the Foretellers aren't defeated, whether or not Kairi, Anna, and Elsa discover a way to evade their scripts, all seven of the New Seven Hearts will descend into oblivion beyond any chance of recovery regardless."
Sora felt experienced most of his blood drain away.
Where would it end and cease!?
"And if they do, all of them but Kairi won't just die permanently, the other six will be cleansed from all creation and even the hypothetical afterlife, and all seven will be erased from all memory and even its absence."
The void of even horror and terror and absence and uncertainty was back, and this time, he didn't even have the drive for tears to push against the backs of his eyes.
He could barely even register that Kairi had just gone ghostly white, though clearly for Anna and him and Riku and not as much, if at all, for herself, and she needed to catch herself with one foot before she fell to her knees for a second time.
Sora also barely registered that Riku didn't even stagger this time, although he clenched his teeth tightly and his legs shook violently for a minority of seconds.
Goofy stepped back violently, but he remained on his feet.
Donald's feathers were far whiter than usual, with a mixture of horror and terror and rage and fury.
Sora at least now knew for sure that it was possible to be entirely uncreated from reality if there was an afterlife, but that meant nothing, as well, at this time.
Could he do this himself, as the Kye-Blade, to Kairi and Anna and Elsa and Rapunzel and Jessie and whoever the last two New Seven Hearts were?
Without the most minuscule doubt.
It wasn't the least bit unexpected to discover that he could.
"They'll have fulfilled the purpose for which they were created, so the World will no longer require them, and in order for the true Kingdom Hearts to return to its original unblemished form through any means other than the ones that it itself had put in place to do so, it will need to reacquire all seven of their lights.
"It can't do that as long as the slightest trace of them or connection with them remains within any form of a heart, living or dead or known or remembered.
"And the sole reason that Kairi will survive as a heart in the current life is that the entity known as Domain of Tales, the Creator God from which all existence spawned, resides within Ava's heart inside Kairi."
Kairi started, as that clearly meant something to her, but Riku just shifted slightly, Goofy blinked, Donald just grimaced, and Sora went along with his urge to shift a little more than Riku did.
That Kairi would survive enabled reality to return, but Sora now ached everywhere all throughout and all over himself, and he didn't understand why he had enough strength to stand.
A small number of tears blurred his vision.
"So when she dies, her heart will become the vessel for Domain of Tales, and though she'll have no means of regaining her natural form, she'll thus live on forever with Him, with the two of them as part of each other.
"One of the central reasons that our supposed 'father' was so determined to consign the realm of light into a second darkness, and bring about a New World, was to create a world where Kairi would survive as a natural person, and a regular human.
"Sora's vow to let me research him will make it that much easier to accomplish this."
"Okay, I won't argue with this one," Riku responded.
"But we know all too well by now what the cost of Kairi living on will be.
"Kairi told us about the alternate timeline that you might know about, so your future self did at last understand that, by attempting to take care of Kairi by just trying to protect her without caring about how she felt and thought, he was hurting her terribly in different ways.
"Did you find out that Xehanort returned to the light when he discovered that he'd forced Kairi to give into the darkness against her will even further than he had?"
Young Xehanort scowled, but this time, Sora could tell that there were the barest edges of defensiveness hidden within its most profound depths.
Young Xehanort was denying it to himself, and all but smothering it and blotting it out entirely, even from his own heart and mind, but he did still love Kairi himself, on some level.
And Terra-Xehanort now appeared to be trying slightly too hard to ignore them.
Sora forced himself not to feel that surprised that a small amount of true hope rushed through him, and a little amount of more tears came to his eyes.
"We know of it," Young Xehanort spoke back.
"But as I told you, it doesn't matter.
"There are many hearts and worlds under this sky, and that share the same destiny.
"I have more than just one person to give birth to the New World for.
"That said, you will be keeping Kairi safe, and Xehanort even requested you to do as he died forever.
"And if you become convinced that you need to finish the Note Blade, the outcome will be no different.
"Among other issues, the Note Blade was conceptualized as an artifact that can control the primeval light of the true Kingdom Hearts, and fully harness its light and darkness at will whether or not the wielder of the Note Blade is channeling the powers of Kingdom Hearts for darkness or light."
Sora shifted less at this, Kairi started slightly, Riku shifted less than Sora, Donald blinked, and Goofy grimaced a bit.
"Domain of Tales will enable Kairi to become the Note Blade in the same way that you are the Kye-Blade, and Ventus and Young Vanitas have the potential of becoming the Kye-Blade themselves.
"Thusly, when Kairi fuses her purest person's heart of light and darkness, and all the energies of Domain of Tales, with the full distilled purity of the light and darkness of the true Kingdom Hearts at the heart of all worlds, and she channels the Note Blade to harness all three; as well as each of the other factors that Yozora has been putting into place for millennia of which I'm still looking into; she'll be able to create the New World of Synchronicity Perceptual.
"The other six Princesses of Heart will die as I just told you, as the brightest light of Kingdom Hearts will have been liberated after eons of imprisonment and the World will no longer need them; but as Kairi will be one with Domain of Tales, though Ava will die, Kairi still won't.
"But a Princess of Heart will be anathema to Synchronicity Perceptual, so she will be imprisoned within suspended stasis within it for all time.
"If the Foretellers fail, and Maleficent or Mare succeed, Kairi and the other New Seven Hearts will fall into the void in the ways that I first described.
"I extremely highly doubt that, after everything that has happened this week, I need to argue for the merits of darkness any longer, and convince you why the light has no chance of defeating the Foretellers.
"If Terra-Xehanort and I don't accomplish Xehanort's failsafe, Kairi will still have a friend who she can forge a close connection with, but the rest of her life will be ruined even more than it would be if we turned from the path that we have been instructed to stride."
"But the concept of a failsafe means that one or both of you will most likely die irreversibly yourselves when your version of the New World begins," Riku responded.
"That's why Xehanort saved this contingency for last, and as a posthumous one."
"I will without a doubt die, but I'll just lose all of my memories and return to my past self for certain then.
"Terra-Xehanort isn't a full heart, however, so there's a small chance that he'll endure the devastation."
"You'll still lose your individual identity," Riku spoke back.
"And that Xehanort wasn't willing to go this far unless he had no other choice all but states that this is isn't about all hearts and all worlds plummeting into darkness this time.
"It tells me that this isn't related in any shape to addressing requiring everyone and everything in the total realm of light to drown in darkness. In order to ensure that the Kye-Blade will create a New World in place of the old one through your failsafe, you're referring to accomplishing an apoptosis of the realm of light and forcing every heart and every world and star in the realm of light to vanish and die into The Final World, beyond even the potential of the power of spectral, or the methods that the Dandelions applied to the full realm of light, to bring them back or create new worlds and stars."
It wasn't a question, and Sora could perceive from his awareness of Young Xehanort's heart that it was the truth.
A little bit of sickness churned his stomach.
"The New Worlds that Yozora, and Mare, and arguably even Maleficent, wish to establish are even worse.
"Maleficent won't even give the World the chance to have known anything but darkness, nor will the New World begin in distilled light and balance its darkness with light.
"Mare won't even allow the realm of light to linger in The Final World.
"Yozora?
"If I tell you this, it might aggravate Luxu and bring Maleficent here, and I can do without that, so all I'll say is that the state that the World will be in if Synchronicity Perceptual is actualized isn't all that you need to worry about.
"Sora dwelt at the bottom of the abyss for approximately a year, however.
"And you resided there for a much shorter period of time, Riku.
"You two possess the ability to understand what the realm that you drifted in, known as Lacuna, the Gap Amidst Transparency, is constructed of.
"Your new friend, Lucca, has a theory, Kairi.
"But she believes that having faith in nothing but survival composes the great abyss, and trust in survival still constitutes trust in a form of selfless or selfish joy, so faith in survival doesn't even descend below the realm of darkness.
"What Anna believes; and from what I've uncovered, I agree at the present; is the overarching tenet of Synchronicity Perceptual, a New World where even dark dreams of dismissal and rejection have no place, belongs in the great abyss.
"Mare understands the depths of the Gap Amidst Transparency.
"But at the most profound fathoms of Lacuna, and the final surface of the foundation of unending and eternal singularity of the void itself, drifts the world within the realm of the Gap Amidst Transparency where the two of you dwelt.
"The last foundation of the vacuum of color is as essential to Synchronicity Perceptual as the great abyss.
"If you want to understand better why we're so set on bringing about our own New World, the answer lies there.
"Or perhaps Ursula can figure it out."
Ursula started.
"She knows more about how understanding connections, and light and darkness, intermingle than any of us save for the Foretellers themselves.
"That's why she has been able to restore herself from the realm of darkness so many times."
"I'm not flattered in the least," Ursula sneered.
"But since you gave me an opening to reclaim the spotlight for a little, so be it.
"Yes, that's why I was able to connect myself back to the realm of light without any outside assistance.
"Most people, such as Anna and Ariel, believe that understanding each other, and one another, and our different dreams and beliefs, can enable us to stop rejecting each other and other worlds and cultures."
Oh no.
No.
Now Sora even had reason to doubt the hope that Anna, Anna, had given him.
"But even understanding how each other, and one another, feel and dream and remember and think, cuts both ways.
"Idealistic fools have maintained that the source of war and violence, and intolerance and discrimination, and all other manners of adversity, originates from people's refusal to accept and understand each other and one another, and their feelings and faith and wounds and torture.
"And for what?
"I hate intolerance more than almost anything,"
That Sora now might have a means of shining Ursula's way back to a warmer, kinder reality meant practically nilnadirnilnadirnadirnadirnilnil now.
"But people have argued that understanding and acceptance will lead us to salvation as much as they've argued that any other path will, and this has changed just as little as every other road to a brighter tomorrow has."
No way.
No.
Sora wasn't putting Anna on a pedestal.
Even Anna couldn't be wrong.
Nothing could be more wholly and totally and fully and utterly and complete boundlessly distant from all potentiality and the lack of potentiality and possibility and the absence of possibility than that.
"Do you know what the simply complex reason for that is?
"It's because understanding the pain that gives us valid reasons to kill, or hurt, others also means understanding more about what the pain is that we want to inflict upon others, or let others be hurt by; so that pain thus hurts us more."
"And because the pain of being here in existence is so harmful, there's no end to the people who reject and dismiss each other and give into the darkness in order to cling to what scraps of happiness they can keep or acquire, for others or for themselves, and refuse to support each other and one another, or understand each other and one another and other people's feelings and thoughts, or even their own. They thus perpetuate the pain, and spread it further, and the hearts around them and elsewhere and in future generations react the same way to the pain and perpetuate it and spread it themselves, and the cycle continues.
"No matter how sweet, all dreams must eventually fade into the remorseless, relentless light of day.
"But you're different.
"Because your loved ones and friends and other people need you, you refuse to let anything keep you from trying to cherish and support others, or trying to understand them; you won't reject anyone, no matter how determined the other person is to reject others and how deeply he or she or it has given into the darkness to do so; you refuse to allow any pain or ruthless lesson about how painful existence is to cripple you and prevent you from trying to care for people; and you never fail to find a light in the night, even when it's so faint and distant it can barely be discerned.
"If anyone can break the never ending spiral of death and hatred and pain and rejection that Lauriam and Elrena talked about, and light the World's way to a realm where connections and hearts are simple and clean sanctuaries where facing your fears without thinking twice will enable people to realize their dreams of a better tomorrow together with each other and one another more often than not; and where people can learn not to reject each other and one another, and understand and support each other and one another and their feelings and thoughts and hearts and minds and overcome hardship and attain love and hope and warmth and laughter that aren't fairy fantasies and that will last; it's you.
"Just by being yourself, you enable people, and their hearts, to receive or fulfill their dreams.
"Can you please believe that yourself?"
But even this was real.
Even Anna had been deceiving herself.
Why had Sora even wasted this much time trusting that Anna had an answer?
If anyone could heal hearts and existence and reality and the World through love and the refusal to reject a single person or fiber of existence, and through acceptance and understanding, it was Anna, not him.
This, too, was something that Sora had never had the capacity to say or do.
Sora just wanted to lie down somewhere where might stop aching with total, all engulfing, imperceptible and indefinable exhaustion, and fall asleep, and never wake up again until he did disappear from the entirety of creation, when no part of him would be left to be able to do so.
They hadn't yet restored Roxas or Terra or Namine, or discovered who Xion was, but most of them had united; even Riku's replica had been saved; and Kairi and he had pledged their lives to each other and at last shared a paopu fruit together, no matter what came to pass.
It should have finally been over then.
So how could everything have gone from so right to so wrong?
But, after so many months of heartbreak after heartbreak, and one horrible disaster after another terrible catastrophe after another horrific calamity, finally, finally, finally, at last, at last, at last, Sora knew the answer.
It was because it had all been over from the very beginning, as soon as Kairi and Riku had traveled into the storm while he'd just been sound asleep and let it all happen, and Kairi had been consigned to Sora's heart, before he'd even taken up the Keyblade.
It was because Sora was the Kye-Blade.
He'd never had the most infinitesimal, microscopically minutely minuscule chance of loving Kairi or Riku or anyone or giving Kairi or Riku or anyone warmth or lighting Kairi's or Riku's or anyone's way home or caring for Kairi or Riku or anyone or cherishing Kairi or Riku anyone or keeping Kairi or Riku or anyone safe or protecting Kairi or Riku or anyone or taking away Kairi's or Riku's or anyone's hurt or carrying Kairi's or Riku's or anyone's pain or crying in Kairi's or Riku's or anyone's place from forever never before the not endless unending start.
Sora had been right to tell Anna that there wasn't a point of no return.
There was never a point from which to pass beyond to begin.
"And who knows: Starting a new journey may not be so hard or maybe it has already begun."
Not when time itself had no beginning or end, and it couldn't even be eclipsed, and it was just blinked out.
Whether or not Ursula had realized how Sora felt, and how he was thinking, she echoed Young Xehanort's earlier words.
"The more that we understand, and share, the same sky; the more than we need to reject each other's, and one another's, destinies, or knowing what that road is and walking it together will hurt us."
"But if you create your New World, won't I just end up stranded with Domain of Tales, while Anna and Elsa and Rapunzel and Jessie and the other two Princesses die, anyway?" Kairi asked.
Ursula clenched her teeth and fists at her awareness that she'd almost certainly just been dismissed from their conversation once more.
"You're not setting the first light free, or reuniting the Worlds, in a way that Kingdom Hearts didn't create the other Seven Hearts, and me, to do it.
"But you are still letting that light shine into the realm of light.
"What Sora did with oldest little brother's Kingdom Hearts demonstrates that."
"Have you forgotten that Xehanort had a keen mind, and he was a sharp researcher, himself?" Young Xehanort responded.
"Ansem didn't believe that light existed within a Kingdom Hearts, real or fabricated.
"The rest of us knew better.
"We won't let any of that light out.
"The Foretellers, Mare, and Maleficent, and even Sora, as the Kye-Blade, are dangers to you."
Sora didn't even have the strength, or the willpower, for his stomach to heave now, though a number more hot tears pushed into his eyes.
"We aren't; though I won't deny that we don't have your well being in mind in a lot of other ways.
"Sora himself isn't doing anything such as siphoning you, or Anna, or Elsa, or any of the other Princesses, but as soon as he became the Kye-Blade, Kingdom Hearts became convinced that you were about to fulfill your mandates, and began preparing to recapture your pure lights.
"You yourself aren't exempt from this peril, as Domain of Tales lacks the ability to react to all but the most clear cut concepts of the heart; it can't understand long running processes.
"And by now, as this isn't energy absorption, and six of the Seven Hearts who Kingdom Hearts first prepared to reclaim passed on their powers, the procedure has reached critical mass and proceeded past that.
"Even if Sora returns to himself, or dies, the procedure is now irreversible.
"And as this involves the true Kingdom Hearts, not an energy siphon, as Ursula said, no love or acceptance or connection or bright light can undo this.
"The sole means by which we can guarantee that you, and the other Princesses of Heart, will all live, is for us to successfully achieve our own New World this time.
"All seven of you have gradually begun to wither away as Roxas once did, and Namine and Ventus as well as Roxas are now, and after a few more months, the seven of you will begin to feel this yourself, after which all seven of you will die as they are and be unmade from all existence and memory."
And now all that remained wasn't even despair or absence or uncertainty or fear or joy or hope.
All that was left was nothing but broken, aching fatigue everywhere and anywhere that was and wasn't him that was so tiring that he couldn't even feel exhausted; and ruined, shattered tears too fragmented and fractured to even know whether or not hope and despair weren't just one and the same thing.
Whether Kairi or Riku or Donald or Goofy reacted to this, Sora didn't pay any attention to it.
He didn't even have the justification to share any number of skies and worlds with them.
And for the first time since as long as he could recollect what having a heart and being able to feel and think and dream and remember were, Sora wasn't fully sure that he even cared about whether or not one, or more, or all of them, disagreed.
"Your heart? What good will that weak little thing do for you?"
Maybe Riku had been right.
Maybe if Sora did have a heart, and not just unending black fragmented and fractured switchbacks of shatterpoints inverted labyrinthine glass sand, it would have made a difference.
But in every other way, maybe all love and friendship and warmth and kindness and home and sanctuary and connections and feeling and thinking and dreaming of each other and one another were just nothing more than hallucinating deranged and delirious and demented feverish illusions that vanished away and faded into the night and the relentless, remorseless light of day as much as all dreams and hope and faith and wishes did.
Sora still refused to believe that, but he couldn't be certain that it was the right thing to do any longer, or that even that wouldn't cause him to murder or hurt Kairi and Riku and Donald and Goofy and Anna and Tidus and Selphie and Wakka and everyone else who he knew, and who resided in reality and existence.
As he had Jiminy.
He'd made a promise, so he wasn't pushing anyone away as Riku or Elsa or Kairi had, but he still needed to leave before he hurt Kairi or Riku or Donald or Goofy even more.
"Do you have anything else that you're willing to discuss with Kairi at this time, or that you're willing to warn us about?" Sora asked, though for some reason, he couldn't believe that the broken and chapped, hollowed out exhausted ruined voice that was speaking was his.
Kairi or Riku or Goofy or Donald might have said something, because Young Xehanort didn't answer right away.
Or maybe Young Xehanort, and Terra-Xehanort, were considering it.
Sora was no longer tracing Young Xehanort's heart, so he couldn't tell.
Nor did he have any reason to try to tell.
"If you want to learn Maleficent's and the Summation Organization Thirteen's role in Yozora's play, locate the Oathkeeper Keyblade of Darkness and and the Oblivion Keyblade of Darkness in the realm of darkness."
Sora didn't feel anything other than a string of minute discomfort.
"Other than that, I doubt it," Young Xehanort answered.
Faint, distantly far relief filled Sora by a bare string, and though he knew better than to dismiss Childhood's Laughter until he was gone, and Ursula or Hans, or both, had less reason to attack Kairi and Riku and Goofy and Donald to hurt him, more tears burned his eyes.
"With all my heart, thank you very much for saying and doing this for me, Sora!
"I love you!"
Was that Kairi shouting and crying?
"We both love you!
"And we're both glad to have you for a friend!"
Was that Riku crying and shouting?
"We need to think of a way to stop them without it requiring Sora to break his promise!"
Was that Kairi, or Anna, screaming now?
"We can't stop him, and there is no way."
Was that Riku's, Jiminy's, Donald's, or Goofy's voice, this time, or two or three or all four of them?
"However, just calm down.
"You don't need to worry about Sora as much as you believe. Whether I have too little faith in Sora myself or not, the same thing is true of you.
"Sora is a sponge, and he soaks up everything that comes at him and bounces back a lot more resilient than when he first absorbed the hits.
"The Xehanorts won't kill him."
Why was that any comfort?
"So Sora will soak up anything that they do to him as little the worse for wear as usual.
"If you stop doubting Sora as much as you are yourself, then you'll be able to trust that things will work out again, and not put yourself through more worry than you need to while we think of a way to enable Sora to bounce back again."
"My faith in Sora, for worse or for better, is beside the point.
"You're thinking about how you yourself feel about Sora sacrificing himself, and not thinking about how Sora is going to feel when he's tortured for days or weeks or months, so you're looking at what's about to happen to him as okay.
"What Sora is about to go through is much worse than him dying.
"If he died, and even gave up his legacy for us to know that he was a part of us and our hearts, and that he had been a part of us and our hearts, we would feel Sora's absence. But Sora himself would just go through a brief period of pain and then it would be over, and he'd no longer have the capability of remembering what he'd just gone through, or he'd be safe in an afterlife and he'd know that he'd never need to go through it again.
"Death is a terrible sacrifice, but it's not the ultimate sacrifice.
"People just call it that to turn the death of people who they love or like into a good thing, so they can selfishly try to feel better about losing those people.
"They aren't thinking about how the people who sacrifice themselves feel. They're just thinking about their own grief and loss.
"It's an immeasurably larger sacrifice for you to hurt yourself for someone, and then to keep hurting yourself for that person without end."
Something very faint and mysterious flickered through Sora, and then it faded.
"Perhaps you have a point about this, too.
"But Sora is willing to surrender.
"If the issue is how Sora feels about this, and not us, then the matter that Sora made the decision to do this is a silver lining.
"Sora isn't being forced to suffer.
"He's deciding to suffer, so this still isn't as bad as it looks."
"What is wrong with you?
"Are you honestly saying that whether you're hurt or die freely, or whether you're forced to do so, is more important than whether you're actually hurt or die?
"What difference does it make whether you're willing to sacrifice yourself for someone if you go through with it?
"Saying that; because he or she or it is willing to be tormented or die for someone, or for family, or for a lover, or for one or more loved ones, or for one or more friends, or for home, or for residential area, or for nation, or for a planet, or for the cosmos; it's somehow better than if you're unwilling to be; is another way to try to cause sacrifice to sound good. In this case, so we can feel better about what the person went through, the person is going through, or that we've lost the person.
"And looking at torture and death that way doesn't just not care about the feelings of the person who sacrifices himself, herself, or itself, but it distorts how much he or she or it gave up for us; forever with little pain or with a chance of it stopping after a lot of lasting pain; by causing what he or she or it did to appear to be something positive.
"If someone is actually willing to suffer or die for another, or for others, or for a location, small or large, that makes the sacrifice more terrible, not better.
"Because then you aren't caring about how much the people who love you don't want you to be hurt, or even about yourself."
Something a little larger flickered through Sora, but he still couldn't identify it.
"Even if that's also true, the topic of believing in Sora better is itself a silver lining.
"Sora has made it through a lot worse then this, and he can do it again this time.
"A good minority of your fears and worries are the result of not knowing how tenacious Sora genuinely is.
"You weren't there with us most of the time for the majority of our adventures before Sora faded. You've been able to keep both of us safe every time, but as you weren't a part of it and you didn't protect us unless you were the only person who we knew that we could turn to, or until we'd already been through a lot until you did so, you didn't see what we endured.
"You didn't see what Sora endured.
"No matter what Sora went through, he kept smiling and laughing; so this proves that Sora can rebound from even this, even after what Ursula, Mare, Christopher, and Luxu did to him.
"You've just lost too much hope because of what Luxu said and did.
"In this case, if you believe in Sora, he genuinely will stay true to your faith in him."
"So that's how it is, huh.
"In that case, excuse me; for not being able to keep either of you safe, and for being unneeded and unwanted, unless you didn't have anyone else more dependable who you were willing to ask for support and protection; and for not being able to carry either of your wounds and tears until it was nearly too late to take them away, since you kept shutting me out because I was a liability.
"But since when does trusting in Sora's ability to pull through mean being okay with him crying?
"I thought that the idea was to keep him from shedding tears in the first place.
"You don't believe in Sora.
"You're just worried about having faith in yourself.
"You haven't learned anything from giving into the darkness.
"You just want Sora to tell you what to do with his example, and follow behind him as the shadow that he casts and the greatest Nobody of all, no matter how much pain you let Sora go through in the process; so, just like before, you can continue to trust yourself over your best friend.
"I was wrong about what I said to you when Yen Sid told us about Aqua.
"I don't still feel that way."
Sora had no idea what the first voice was referring to, or why he heard the second voice inhale in horror and terror, but neither voice spoke once more.
As that meant that Sora had nothing else to listen to, he positioned Childhood's Laughter to intercept anything that Ursula and Hans endeavored, and he walked on aching legs that he couldn't comprehend the reason for their ability to move up to Young Xehanort.
Another ellipse of flowing indigo and shifting black rose behind Young Xehanort.
No Name shifted into its light blue mostly energy whip form, and Sora knew that he was about to be knocked unconscious.
Thank goodness.
But that awareness wasn't blessed or blissful, as well.
"I'll return Sora to you if you bring the three other New Seven Hearts who you know who Maleficent isn't currently holding captive, Ventus, Young Vanitas, Aqua, and Roxas; and Joshua, Rhyme, and eleven other people by the names of Schala Zeal, Larsa Ferrinas Solidor, Kid, Ellone Leonhart Loire, Luther Lansfeld, Alma Beoulve, Mydia Feolthanos, Mewt Randell, Ashley Riot, Sydney Bardorba, and Genesis Rhapsodos, to Scala ad Caelum; and all twenty of them perform a prisoner exchange with me."
Sora felt an impact against the back of his head, and then he knew nothing.
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BOOK THREE: OUT BACK IN THE SAVING FIRMAMENT
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Fin
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Begin
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BOOK FOUR: SYMPHONY OF THE STARS
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"The thing we feared the most these last fourteen years. The key… The wheels have been set in motion. They can't be stopped."-Juli Mizrahi
"This is it. The Key to the Abyss. The gospel that will awaken Miltia. Rubedo. Are you looking at it? Come… let us share our new world!"-Albedo 'Piazzolla' Yuriev
"Junior, what's wrong?"-Shion Uzuki
"My chest… My right side… This pain… It's Albedo's. His heartbeat is fading."-Rubedo 'Gaignun Kukai, Junior' Yuriev
XENOSAGA: Episode 2:
JENSEITS VON GUT UND BÖSE