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CHAPTER 43:

AN OCEAN'S CROSSCURRENT BENEATH THE NIGHT SKY

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Author's Notes: The pieces for this Chapter are, in order of scene: 'A Glimmer Atop One Hundred Four ~ Yozora Boss,' from KINGDOM HEARTS III: RE MIND; and after this 'Dismiss,' from the KINGDOM HEARTS BIRTH BY SLEEP AND THREE HUNDRED FIFTY-EIGHT DAYS OVER TWO Original Soundtrack, Disc Two; and after it 'Fuse,' from the XENOGEARS Original Soundtrack, Disc One. All three of the Tracks can be found in KINGDOM HEARTS Insider's MP3 section; the foremost one in the KINGDOM HEARTS III RE MIND GameRip.

Kairi practically wasn't aware her eyes were open; as she saw a male figure around Riku's height, with his hair the same color as Riku's but with a red right pupil and a brown left one; appear out of the vacant air in front of Riku literally a minuscule shard of a second after a staccato swarm of crimson rays of coherent light thrust into him from different directions.

Riku didn't even have time to bring Braveheart up to guard before the beams stabbed into him, one after the other, ripping scorched and cauterized acrid wounds into his skin and his insides beneath.

The male figure himself, clearly Empyreal currently controlling his own body; held a glaring neon orange double Keyblade in the shape of the Ultima Buster in his left hand, and an arrowgun with a similar neon phantasm of orange in his right hand.

Flowing with a rapid fluidity Kairi had never seen before in anyone; not even in Dad's Keyblade armor, or Luxu the minority of times he'd engaged them in battle when they'd been searching for a way to bring Sora home the second most recent time; Empyreal cut his own body in diagonals through the air he was hovering in off of his feet, to slice and carving into Riku from one direction before a second direction prior to another one before a fourth, lunging so indescribably swiftly Kairi couldn't even keep track of how many times he'd cleft Riku.

Empyreal alighted on what Kairi just now registered was the white ground of a town square that could have been in Scala ad Caelum, with monochrome grays and blacks shading the colors of the stalls and buildings and trees and plants around them, as soon as his combination strike ended.

Then Riku crashed onto the ground motionlessly.

At the top of her peripheral sight, Kairi could see a full colored Castle That Never Was hovering far above them; a reverse engineered reproduction, or the real one.

"Even if that's also true, the topic of believin–"

At Kairi's awareness a very faint part of her was genuinely happy Riku had been this severely wounded, and for the second time in the space of less than twenty-four hours; all feeling left besides terrified horror and a maze of switchback self hatred.

This time, however, awareness of everything surrounding her and inside her remained.

Kairi was on her feet nearly before she was aware she'd decided to arise.

She didn't call Destiny's Embrace, though; knowing that she would need to use whatever time she had to defend herself to activate Valkyrie in Rainbow Bridge if Empyreal made the littlest motion in her direction.

Or both Sora and Riku would pay the price now.

For the sixth time for Sora, total; and the fourth for Riku.

That, however, was why she was here.

"Well, we still like you."

"I don't still feel that way."

Kairi blinked the reminiscence away with her tears.

Then she blinked back even more tears at a new flood of horrified terror and sick self hatred she couldn't even feel guilty about what she'd said to Riku after seeing him taken down with such systematic savageness twice now.

After everything she'd learned in Olympus, and everything she'd resolved when they'd traveled to Monstro; she really was letting it fade out of her once more.

Kairi knew better than to make any movements that Empyreal might decipher as threatening at all, so she didn't clench her teeth.

But she wasn't going to be able to keep it from happening this time if she didn't get a grip.

More tears brimmed and descended free when Kairi realized it was solely now, hours afterwards, and after getting an amount of rest, that she felt true aching and coiling guilt inside her at what she'd said to Riku.

She was barely able to keep her breathing steady.

Was she doing the right thing?

Because, after what Ephemer had said; she could hazard a very likely accurate guess about what had given Empyreal the determination he needed to take back his body, if perhaps just temporarily, and why Empyreal had attacked Riku upon sight.

"Would I be correct to assume you're here to stop us from potentially wrecking Ephemer's plan?" Kairi asked.

At least it took no effort to keep her voice stable, and neutrally calm.

Riku's breathing was even, so Kairi was almost certain he could recover from Empyreal's combination assault.

Her insides constricted strangling at the knowledge she wasn't even as terrified for him as she used to be once she'd gotten used to seeing him be badly hurt, or hurt at all, in combat.

She could very likely defeat Empyreal with the Cantata Aeterna Formchange, unless Yozora's Heartless took his body back and became World of Dismiss; but Kairi didn't know if she'd then have enough time left to beat her two brothers, even if she had a chance to return to her ordinary shape and let the photons of light and darkness in her heart replenish themselves a feather.

If she couldn't talk Empyreal out of attacking her, too, though; there would be no other option.

It was even more reckless than attempting to come here alone, particularly in the face of the knowledge Riku must have found a way to bring her here himself to ensure she didn't make the effort to keep Sora from even sinking into the darkness by herself.

But it wasn't an issue of whether or not she could do it.

As when she'd confronted the Angel of Sin, it was an issue of how Sora and Riku needed her to do it.

Therefore, she'd win; and this time, keep them both home.

That was nothing and just suppose and all there was to it.

Empyreal just nodded once, with curt silence.

"Unlike the Master of Masters' Heartless, I don't even waste time with a small number of words before I draw my weapon," Empyreal said in wary and guarded inflections.

Kairi concealed the urge to wince.

Empyreal's choice of Yozora's title confirmed he still hadn't learned the truth about the Foretellers, and the First Keyblade War.

"Particularly not where Ephemer, Skuld, and a new friend of mine named Strelitzia, are concerned.

"The sole reason I'm spending this much time talking to you is because you're the daughter of the Keyblade Master who enabled me to recover enough to protect them again.

"So leave the Foretellers' base at once, or I'll remove you with my own hands."

All Kairi processed was aching absence at her perception of what that meant.

Nevertheless; she forced herself to smile with friendly, and forgiving, understanding.

Lightness filled Kairi as she found it still wasn't too hard to sound that way.

"Sure thing," she spoke, keeping her tone easy and conciliatory and friendly and placating.

More lightness increased her aches at the awareness this was also easy.

"How about we all head back to see Ephemer together?"

Empyreal's face flickered, so briefly Kairi couldn't tell what he was feeling and thinking about her offer at all.

When he answered, his voice was unchanged.

"And give them a reason to attempt to sacrifice themselves for me again?

"Or the dark fragments another opportunity to lure Strelitzia into a second ambush?

"Forget it.

"The sole way I can keep them safe is to go it all on my own; and if I reunite with them and the Master's Heartless regains control of my body with them nearby, and then sides with the other dark fragments later; he may do so with information that can endanger them."

Kairi knew better than to risk clenching her teeth even now.

"What about the reverse side of the scales?" she asked.

"You're not considering how Ephemer will feel knowing you're the one who is sacrificing yourself."

"Better I be the one to do the sacrificing.

"I'm still trying to figure out what, but something very bad happened to Ephemer and Skuld before my fellow wielders and I moved our training grounds from reality to a datascape.

"Strelitzia knows what it is, and before she introduced herself to me she told me she'd been looking out for me without my knowledge without telling me she was; but as guilty as she feels about not offering me her friendship directly sooner, she told me it's better I hear it from them first.

"And that can't happen as long as a Heartless resides in my heart; and I refuse to hurt them, or Strelitzia, by letting anyone else tell me, or even investigating what it is."

Kairi pushed down another urge to wince.

"If I can't figure it out myself; I'll find out from them, or from no one.

"All that matter is that I don't let whatever happened to them in the past occur once more.

"I'll sacrifice anything and everything I need to to keep that from happening, including myself."

Familiar rising and shifting blacks and violets adumbrated Empyreal as he said that.

"I've been able to get in touch with Empyreal inside his own body from time to time when working with Yozora's Heartless, and you have no idea what you and Skuld did to him when you attempted to sacrifice yourself to enable him to escape the datascape to the future.

"I'm even more upset I didn't kill the two of you, or at least turn you into Heartless, before Ven sealed me away all those millennia ago.

"He lost everyone and everything he loved with the exception of you two in the First Keyblade War, and then when it was about to happen all over again you told him he was going to lose you two that time as well."

And now there are six.

Something sick dislodged disjointed inside Kairi.

Because looking at what she knew Empyreal must be feeling right now was like looking into an opaque Glance Reviver.

She couldn't even tell what sensations no words or any audible or inaudible expression could confine, and that despair and terror and agony and self hatred didn't even have the barest singularity of a chance of defining as even a labyrinth inversion or a possibility or an indelible volcano of incandescence; was his, and what was hers.

However, even now she couldn't feel sick enough.

Not at the darkness inside her, or the indefinitely measurelessly worse darkness she knew was vaporizing Empyreal's own heart to ice too hot to crystallize or melt.

What was she doing?

Her older brother and younger brother had redirected her to the Foretellers' base, or she'd been lured here, or both; and she'd known it was too risky to become Valkyrie in Rainbow Bridge to defeat Maleficent because she might need it later but that wasn't deterring her from exhausting herself with it now, for the same reasons she'd seen a cause to sa

Hurt Riku.

so terribly in Monstro.

And she was now distorting what Tidus had taught her to do it.

All there still was were more tears.

Once again, it was too late.

She had been right about one thing, though.

What she could choose was what other hearts needed her to do to transform their darkness into light.

And it was very unlikely she'd be confronting anyone she would need Valkyrie in Rainbow Bridge to defeat any time soon; so there were two darknesses in the here and now she could transform into light.

If the Foretellers weren't already aware she was here, they would almost certainly be as soon as she did this; but even though Empyreal had defeated Ephemer and Skuld simultaneously when outnumbered two to one, Cantata Aeterna should be enough to subdue him fast enough to then flee with Riku before she herself was dragged into the darkness for the fourth time.

Kairi knew Empyreal would react as soon as she said this, so she concentrated to call Bifrost to her grasp as soon as she performed the Formchange.

"Not when you're coming with me whether you want to or not, you won't."

Intermingled cerulean and crimson erupted outward all around Kairi in a corona, and the weight of her twelve angelic wings were once more on her back.

Bifrost was already coalescing in her right hand in a prism of shades.

Even as Empyreal's eyes widened a fraction, his Keyblade of energy was up and pointed at her.

However, rather than fire a spell or the forces of his heart at her, shrouds of gray mists burst outwards from its tip in all directions; and when they cleared Kairi discovered she was standing in a location with narrow pillars and gears Riku, still lying motionlessly nearby, had described to her after she'd missed her chance to fight at his side here once more.

This was the marble of the Sanctum of Time, or at least an identical twin to it.

"This will extend the duration you can remain in that Formchange to an ordinary pace; but as much as I dislike it, I can't risk Master Yozora knowing I'm here."

Kairi knew well enough that Empyreal's willingness to go behind the backs of the Keyblade wielders who he still saw as his tutors and Keyblade Masters in these ways would enable her to convince him to betray them without telling him the truth.

That was a time she couldn't prevent Ephemer and Skuld from sharing with Empyreal.

And she still didn't know what the truth was.

Kairi wasn't as confident the Foretellers had lost track of them, or couldn't locate them in whatever Sanctum of Time lay within this first or replacement Castle That Never Was; but Empyreal was severely underestimating her.

"That won't be necessary," she spoke evenly.

She'd dispatch Empyreal as swiftly as she could.

"Empress Massacre," she said.

She curved her twelve wings of angel energies into a halo of colored sickles and whirled on her feet at Empyreal.

The next instant, a blindingly swift and precise series of cuts and thrusts knocked all of her wings aside, and then Empyreal's Keyblade was plunging directly at her midsection to collide with it hard enough all of her breath left her lungs and her body folded over it.

Kairi was still able to retain enough presence of mind to see Empyreal was raising his arrowgun, however; and a multitude of phantom light blue target locks almost the height of her full body was surrounding her.

She hurled herself into an upwards backflip, but Empyreal was above her as she reached its apex; and before she could pull out or alter the direction of her somersault, when she was upside down with her head aimed at the ground; his Keyblade, now encased in a light blue shell, smashed with lethal precision against her neck at an angle that drove more breath and sensation out of her chest and nerves than she'd been aware a body could retain, with enough force she became a careening meteor barreling through the air at an askew angle towards the top edge of the nearest narrow pillar, with such out of control swiftness she could have been able to outrun a Gummi ship when it was just beginning to accelerate.

Her neck smashed into it, but she reached out a desperate hand to grip the top of the column and whirl behind the opposite side Empyreal was darting towards her on, and then behind its front when he skidded to a halt and turned to intercept.

This move caught Empyreal by surprise, forcing him to spend a precious few seconds correcting.

Kairi spent them shifting into a defensive stance.

Even then; she had the thinnest shard of a second to process that, while her midsection and neck were just stinging mildly, that they had been bruised at all by someone as rapid and precise as Empyreal meant she'd starkly overestimated her chances of victory; before Empyreal was upon her.

This time, Kairi was ready; but even senses heightened enough to intercept all of the strikes of an Insanity Prelude could barely register the direction each slice after slice was being launched from, or how Empyreal was changing the tempo of each cut as well as the potency behind it and whether it was being launched in an oblique or acute arc or thrust, while avoiding falling into any patterns as he did; in what shortly became a virtually endless thicket of Keyblade cuts that segued seamlessly from one slice into the following one, quickly enough and accurately enough to block or deflect or parry or push away each strike.

Soon one strike broke through her defenses to score another sting against her left side precisely enough to drive the air out of her chest once more, and shortly afterwards another impacted against the side of her right forehead at a location that sent sickness radiating through her stomach, and briefly after this a thrust rammed directly into her windpipe and this time it was her throat that couldn't bring in air; and then ache after sting was ripping through her as almost as many blows as she caught or deflected was breaking inside her guard.

This was the genuine skill, and power, or a Keyblade wielder from the time of the Unions and the First Keyblade War?

Or was it just Empyreal who was this adept and potent; due to how driven he was to protect Ephemer and Skuld, and perhaps Strelitzia?

If it was the former case, they had a very wispy chance of defeating any of the Foretellers if he or she saw enough reason to not hold back; far less Yozora's Nobody or a recompleted Master Yozora himself.

Photon Lance should at least be able to cripple a darkness as honed as Empyreal's enough for her to finish him off with typical measures; but Kairi extremely highly doubted Empyreal wouldn't figure out, or perceive, what the assault was as soon as she launched it; and then he'd easily avoid it.

"Give up and get lost," Empyreal spoke; his voice still wary and guarded without sounding as though he was exerting himself at all, and talking while performing a still continuing sequence without any pattern as adroit as the one he was continuing to unleash didn't slow it down to any degree Kairi could feel.

"If you push me too far, I'll even consider taking your heart or killing you."

Kairi was able to keep the surge of empathetic pain and draining sadness from affecting her own flawed efforts to defend herself.

"I don't know what really happened, but I can still remember enough of my dreams about it when I wake up to know it was terrible enough it didn't just hurt my current three friends, or a Chirithy I can't determine the whereabouts of.

"And no matter how determined I became not to give up hope I could keep it from happening, it was all futile."

At last, concentrated ferocity, even though it was guarded and restrained, appeared in one of Empyreal's words.

"There's nothing I won't do this time to keep it from happening again."

A familiar tremor of molten ice flickered through Kairi; and her eyes became slightly wide, but she retained enough of her wariness not to alter her ineffective parries and guards.

Empyreal's darkness cascaded so profoundly he was actually attempting to draw forth a Demon Tide from her all on his own.

Another new horrified terror submerged all of Kairi at the revelation of one of the most vital reasons, and very perhaps the most essential reason, why Yozora's Heartless had chosen Empyreal's body as his vessel.

Empyreal's heart could create Demon Tides, and other Dreamreapers, from Princesses of Heart without their willing participation.

That meant Ann–

Kairi wanted to retch.

Aqua had very likely done the same thing with the second greatest Demon Tide she'd brought into being, at the Keyblade Graveyard.

But there was no certainty Kairi couldn't have conceptualized that Demon Tide all by herself, and she hadn't just siphoned Aqua's darkness to do it because it was readily available at her disposal.

So Kairi wasn't sure if she felt lighter at all to know she hadn't murdered Sora all but permanently, and Riku and Lea and the others temporarily; and Aqua had contributed to much of how Kairi had done so.

All Kairi genuinely processed was the same sensations of living as an outsider she'd known for most of her life, from the time she'd met Sora and Riku and Tidus and Selphie and Wakka, to the time she'd at last truly become a part of their reality and existence and cosmos and World by standing at their side at the Keyblade Graveyard.

Until then, no matter how much love she'd felt for Sora and Riku and Wakka and Selphie and Wakka, no matter what form it had taken; she'd never been able to fully remove the knowledge she was from a different world from her perspective. After that, when Sora and Riku had confirmed the World they knew was even larger than they'd yearned for it to be, Kairi still hadn't been able to share their joys and tears because she hadn't been able to understand their burdens.

Because of this, and the knowledge that she'd be taking away from the mutual comfort her five closest friends carried together if she sought the same rapport with them Xion and Roxas and Lea, and Aqua and Ven and Terra, had with each other and one another; she'd never been able to justify entirely letting her walls down around Sora and Riku and Wakka and Tidus and Selphie; no matter how much it hurt watching how open and at ease other close friends, or romantic loves, were.

Even when she'd promised to Sora to keep him safe in her life, come what may; she hadn't been able to justify wholly opening her heart to him.

Not until he'd reconnected the shards of her heart, and she'd known without him needing to tell her that she'd brought him through their most abyssal peril thus far; had she truly been able to bring him all the way into her arms and her heart, and drown in his own and its warmth.

Now even that had been all for nothing.

Sora needed her in ways he'd never needed anyone before; and because she was the sole Princess of Heart who could entirely harness both the light and the darkness to Formchange at will, she had no ability to totally catch Anna's and Elsa's tears.

What point did any of it have?

No matter what she said or did, or didn't do or didn't say; no matter how much resolve or determination she strove with or how confidently or desperately she sprinted or staggered on; no matter who she longed to love and cherish and safeguard and bring home; no matter what she struggled for; any effort was always unmade, or futile.

Kairi realized something hot and sticky was trickling down her neck, and she knew its skin had been penetrated.

She was now in real danger.

She had a way to supplement her Formchange with a second skin, though.

She'd traveled through time along with Sora when he'd reconstituted her heart with the power of waking, so she was as much a portal as big brother; she was in the same Sanctum of Time as big brother had been when he'd armored himself with the giant clock while wielding phantom duplicates against Riku for offense; and she had all of her family's talents.

Young Xehanort hadn't given up his mobility for defense and the ability to mend his wounds until he had no other choice, so breaking the living clock he'd become had completed disabling him.

But if Kairi created similar armor while confronting Empyreal offensively from afar, and then lured him into giving her an opening by letting him wreck her clock armor, she should be able to land a strike on him.

It wouldn't need to be Photon Lance.

One impact should be sufficient.

So she just left Bifrost drop at her side and ignored the avalanche of blows now raining down on her, and she traced the connections inside her heart.

In response, Empyreal leapt back low and raised his Keyblade, pointing it above his head as though he intended to fire something from its tip if he believed whatever trick she was about to employ merited it.

"If I were you, I'd retreat now," Empyreal said, his tone what it had first been now.

"Sora could barely withstand the Master's Heartless' Nova.

"Ars Nova is in a league all of its own.

"Riku should have recovered enough by now, a Curaga should give him enough endurance his heart can cope with creating a second corridor of darkness in his human form without letting the darkness rule him."

Kairi almost lost her perspective on the connections.

Riku had brought her here how?

"I was wondering when you'd notice I've been waiting for an opening," Riku said, his tone even and bereft of pain.

"The important phrase being 'I've been.'"

The next second, a rope of glowing black coiled up out of the floor beneath Empyreal's feet and plunged into his left foot, the one most distant from both his weapons.

"I believe the ownership of your own body is also in contest."

Empyreal shifted to move, but then his whole body jerked.

Kairi knew Riku had just fired the power of waking through the floor while Empyreal was readying himself to respond to whatever trick she had up her sleeve.

A voice identical to Empyreal's spoke, but one with a reserved and removed kindness behind a less wary guardedness.

"I didn't improve Roxas' Omega Weapon for you to diminish its enhancements by refusing to even call your third Keyblade when faced with a Princess of Heart who knows her darkness as well as her light, and how to channel both."

Kairi suppressed the urge to stiffen violently from at last hearing the voice of one of the selves of the person who was the second most responsible for all of the death and torment Sora, Riku, Tidus, Selphie, Wakka, Lea; and countless other people she knew and loved and loved and didn't know, or just didn't know; had been wracked by for millennia.

"Or, for that matter, put myself through this much rigorous training to have my chance at defeating my most worthy adversary yet stolen from me by a loose cannon who can't put any of it into practice."

Kairi could tell it was Empyreal's voice who replied; due to how much warier it sounded, and the lack of most of the kindness in that of Yozora's amnesiac Heartless.

"That's rich; coming from the person I needed to teach to swing first, and ask questions later.

"From everything Gula told me about your original self, all you've done any time I've had the displeasure to talk to you was make a mockery of what it means to be a Keyblade Master."

"Since when do Keyblade Masters not even investigate why one set of the Union leaders who used to teach him how to carry the Keyblade is so determined to steal the Gazing Eye from the other?" Yozora's Heartless now moved Empyreal's mouth, his own tone unaltered.

"It's not the first time Ephemer attempted to infiltrate the Foretellers' residence."

It was a bit disconcerting to hear a conversation being carried out by two different people who were literally talking with the same voice, while moving the same lips.

"That is no more than additional proof you need to learn the lesson you wouldn't let yourself be taught then, when you attempted to avenge Ephemer."

This time, Kairi let herself wince.
"I learned that lesson very well.

"If I hadn't; I would have agreed to join the Dandelions, and abandoned the other five Unions to the war that was threatening to break out."

Self and reality fractured into so many motes of differences, and their absence, of concepts and imperceptibility and distances uncertainties and histories and terrified despair; the maze severing them was so labyrinthine it was a parched, cracked wasteland.

Empyreal hadn't just lost two relatively small Unions to the condemnation of two realms.

He'd refused to join the Dandelions to attempt to protect the initial five, much larger, Unions, and the Realm of Fairy Tales; and then lost everyone and everything he loved beyond Skuld and Ephemer from those hundreds of thousands or millions, and from the boundless cosmic World.

It wasn't until after that he'd just lost thousands of Dandelions and a datascape, and had been faced with losing Ephemer and Skuld at the same time.

No wonder he could draw Dreamreapers out of the Princesses.

Did even Roxas' darkness, or the darkness among Lacuna, plummet to the foundations Empyreal's did?

Did anyone's?

Could anyone else's, unless anyone else had refused to join the Dandelions; and then, unlike Ava, had given all their hearts and hopes and selves and effort and desperation and dreams and determination and tears to protect two cosmoses and homes of love's hearth; solely to see them both cascade broken into abyss' maw, and the second time practically devour the two people he, she, or it loved most at the same time?

If Empyreal had succeeded in murdering Skuld, or Ephemer; Kairi knew vaulting all question he would have been chosen to become the third artificial Kingdom Hearts, rather than Roxas.

As it was, for all Kairi knew; maybe he was the traitor.

Drawn, self hating guilt pulsated inside Kairi's heart, focused not on treason but on ringing bells; and Kairi knew, whether Ava or Luxu or Empyreal was the traitor, something else had ensured Ava had begun the First Keyblade War anyway.

Empyreal blinked, as though he'd just perceived Ava's reaction.

Then his red pupil lightened to blue, and his brown pupil assumed the redness the other one had held, and Kairi knew Empyreal had given his body back to Yozora's Heartless as opposed to risk learning anything from whatever he'd traced from Ava when Skuld and Ephemer hadn't yet told him.

Time's Sanctum rippled like a curtain, and then they were back in the residential square.

Kairi's heart and mind screamed not to, but she sifted the connections in her heart; and Bifrost morphed into Destiny's Embrace while she felt the weight of her wings disperse to be replaced by a throbbing fatigue her legs could barely support.

This left them much more vulnerable to Yozora's Heartless if he wasn't really on their side, or at least something close to it; but Kairi couldn't afford to risk maintaining Cantata Aeterna any longer.

"You need to pull back," Yozora's Heartless said without preamble, a bit more kindness in his own reserved voice.

"The first Castle That Never Was is up above," Kairi let herself start violently, "So we were in the actual Time's Sanctum, and the Foretellers now know you're here."

Riku partially clenched his teeth at that.

"No, Skuld's Heartless does," a new voice around Kairi's age interjected from their right.

A spire of betrayal and self hatred shot through Kairi's heart, and she knew it was already too late.

She turned to see the Foreteller she knew was named Gula standing at the side of the nearest stall.

"We've finally lured her out, and she's en route here ahead of schedule.

"We anticipated Strelitzia would accompany her, but I assume she needs to meet up with Ephemer.

"All three of them have become so adroit at smothering their hearts' energies they've given Luxu the runaround for centuries, so we knew we'd need to lure them out.

"Thusly, we dropped a minority of clues in the proper ears for you to hear; and even without the Book of Prophecies telling us to implement this strategy, it appears to be working."

"It's working better than you know," a new, female voice, joined the confrontation.

A new violet and jet oval burst out of the ground between Yozora's Heartless and Gula, and a girl around Lea's and Isa's age; with medium brown skin, dark brown hair falling to her lower back, and wearing a white zippered shirt, a black unzipped jacket, and black shorts; strode out of the dark corridor at a determined gait, a three pronged sai dagger gripped at the ready in both of her hands.

"I have enough of my original selves' memories back to know that I was right there with you when Luxu told Ava a lot about what he knows Yozora wants to implement Synchronicity Perceptual for; and Ava then attempted to strike him down and set off the clock tower bell alarm announcing one Foreteller had at last attempted to murder another, and we'd passed the point of no return.

"Ephemer had been busy getting the Dandelions settled in the datascape, so he was in no position to do that much without abandoning them.

"But I just walked off and let Empyreal's heart be broken; and I can never live with that.

"So, while I've been doing what I could for two new friends of mine I met over twelve years ago at Radiant Garden; I've also been setting up a trap of my own.

"Whether you like it or not, I'm going to contribute the darkness to the Note Blade that offsets Strelitzia's light, not Empyreal."

.

"Always giving, and then taking away. And why? Is it punishment for mankind's sins? Shinji. Everything in this world exists to be taken away. The human race itself will disappear in the Third Impact. When the curtain comes down on human history… …as Supreme Commander of NERV, I am charged with atonement to God. But… …I don't want to atone to God. I want revenge on him. Shinji… I don't want to be reborn as a child of God… …I want to become God myself… …so I never lose anything again. I think right now you understand how I feel. Shinji… Go to Unit-One immediately. There is no more hope for this world. If you hate the world as I do… …then become an avenger with me."-Gendo Ikari

"What… do you mean? What… …do you want me to do?"-Shinji Ikari

"Get away from him… …Shinji! Don't listen to a word he says. Commander Ikari… …you don't want to protect the human race… …and you have… …betrayed the will of the Committee. You want to use the Evas for yourself! What have we fought so hard for all this time?"-Misato Katsuragi

"The scenario was drawn up long ago. I merely altered it a bit."-Gendo Ikari

NEON GENESIS EVANGELION Volume Twelve:

Stage Seventy-Eight: FATHER AND CHILD