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CHAPTER 49:
XION TUTTAVIA T'APPARTIENE CIO CHE HAI PERDUTO
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Author's Notes: The pieces for this Chapter are, in order of scene: 'Abel's Ark,' from the XENOSAGA Episode Three Unreleased Tracks; and afterward 'Dismiss,' from the KINGDOM HEARTS: BIRTH BY SLEEP AND THREE HUNDRED FIFTY-EIGHT DAYS OVER TWO Original Soundtrack, Disc Two; and after it 'The Truth Revealed,' from the FINAL FANTASY X Original Soundtrack, Disc Three; and afterward 'Vector To the Heavens,' from the KINGDOM HEARTS: BIRTH BY SLEEP AND THREE HUNDRED FIFTY-EIGHT DAYS OVER TWO Original Soundtrack, Disc Three. The third piece can be found on Zophar's Domain, and the first, second, and fourth pieces can be found in KINGDOM HEARTS Insider's MP3 section. Once more, scrolling down any lower than 'The Harsh Truth (Piano Version)' in the XENOSAGA Episode Three Unreleased Tracks section will reveal two of the largest spoilers in the XENOSAGA trilogy.
Xion made a fast, single stride backward with one foot, giving Aqua more room to land from the Teleport Spike whose last scintillating orb was ripping the Kurt Zisa in front of them into gold grains of powder.
Behind them, the fourteen Rage Form style Anti-Soras Mare had separated into; in order to confront the Phantoms and Infernal Engines that had sought to catch them in a rushing pincer from the rear end of the gently lowering, straight, thick rainbow boulevard they were standing on, as a swarm of Spellicans and Kurt Zisas plunged and darted at them from the front; shifted into arcing fountains of gray the color of lunar seas and shot in long, mostly horizontal arcs to coagulate into a sphere that then became Mare in her human form.
Two Anti-Black Coat Nightmares sprang out of bursting clouds of blacks and dark blues, one facing Mare's back, the other Aqua's.
"It's too late… for me to undo my mistakes."
Xion suppressed the urge to tightly clench hands she knew she couldn't move, from powerless and helpless fury she couldn't join the battle.
She couldn't undo the most infinitesimal thing.
She was still boundlessly and never ending useless now.
Terra spun easily to the left of the one facing Aqua, and the right of the one facing Mare, a familiar thick and lengthy Keyblade Armor cannon barrel manifested in his hands, and within seconds, the roaring cyclone of an Ultima Cannon had melted them away into nothing.
Ephemer sprang into a backwards rising somersault from the thin rainbow bridge, curling through tightly arcing switchbacks at a moderately ascending angle up towards the right side of this rainbow suspension, where he'd just cut down the last of the lengthy line of Sorcerers seeking to pour onto this bridge he'd taken on singlehandedly; then he sprang back a second time into another with a Doubleflight and twirled to land facing Terra and Aqua.
"Not bad," he said with an approving nod, and smile.
"It's a shame I missed my chance to meet Eraqus personally.
"He taught you both better than almost any wielder I've met, before or after the First Keyblade War."
Aqua nodded composedly, and inclined her head in acknowledgment.
Terra just inclined his head.
Ephemer gave Terra reassuring smile.
But then his brow furrowed in uncertainty.
"This may not be my place to say, but as Keyblade wielders who gave into the darkness go, you rose back toward the surface long before plunging as deep as most."
"Roxas… I'm out of time. Even if I'm not ready… I have to make this choi–"
Xion rammed those memories as far away as she could think of doing, knowing these ones could cause her to falter too much.
"Yes, you wielded it against Luxu, Eraqus, Vanitas, and Xehanort, but you didn't once intend to do more than disable the former two, and defend Ven, and Terra, against the latter. And you're no Heartless lacking memory; had Maleficent attempted to keep you under her curse for long enough to do anything more than rob Aurora of her heart, you'd have regained enough awareness of what was going on around you to realize what was going on, and reclaimed charge of your body.
"Most of the wrongs you did were Xehanort's doing, when he used you as his vessel.
"You did little to nothing wrong yourself before he claimed your heart."
Terra's visage became nothing but neutral.
"I'm aware of that," Terra answered, his voice just as neutral.
"But if I didn't give in as far as Riku, why couldn't I remove him from it with far more ease than it took him to reclaim his heart on the margin of plummeting into a Heartless?
"He gave in a lot deeper on his own, yet he regained his heart all by himself. He still needed Sora's, and a Kingdom Hearts', aid in regaining his body, but he got his heart back all by himself.
"I couldn't even do that.
"And for all I know, Riku gave in in the first place because I inspired him to follow in my footsteps."
Aqua took Terra's free hand with her own, and squeezed it once.
But Terra didn't acknowledge her at all.
She made her own expression a shield and released it.
Ephemer looked like he wanted to say something, but he didn't.
Most likely called by Terra's guilt, an Invisible burst into being in a cloud of blacks and blues in front of Terra.
Axel rammed Flame Liberator down on its tail from where he was standing behind, and to the right, of it.
Ephemer then beheaded it with a single deft cut from his Kingdom Key Starlight.
Terra pivoted sharply on one foot, and led the way to a bubble of suspended rainbows interlaced like the crust of a knot at differing curling slopes around the beginning of a single, unremarkable bridge that ended at another hoop of clouds around two-thirds of the way to the rim of the volcano.
Knowing how far they'd made it, with little difficulty, didn't allow Xion to feel any better, though.
Mare strode fast to Xion's left, offering Xion her human shoulder.
Xion firmly pushed down a geyser of self hate and shook her head with a grateful smile, though.
Mare gave Xion a wan smile back, partially arranged gratefully at the thanks for seeking to do something other than cause death or hurt, partially in an encouraging shape.
Axel, however, gave Xion a scolding, greatly irritated frown that told her very clearly, if she didn't stop pushing herself, Axel was going to assist her in walking whether Xion wanted him to, or she didn't.
Xion let herself feel lighter, and warmer, this time.
Because it was Axel, and she at long last wasn't too useless to protect them all.
Isa gave Axel an amused 'I told you so' expression.
Then he broke into a brisk trot to weave his way between them, to follow Terra.
Donald and Goofy limbered after him next, and the others started following themselves, with the exception of Axel.
A relieved smile appeared on Ephemer's face.
"I can perceive Strelitzia with Alicia now, and I can tell she's no facsimile!" Ephemer called, turning to face all of them as he strode to give them all a better chance of understanding his words clearly.
Xion practically didn't reminisce she did have legs.
"All we need is the relic, and then we're virtually at our destination!"
Was Xion rocketing and soaring with less weight than heaviness itself, or standing?
"It's too lat–"
Was even that true?
She could make it all right now.
All of it.
She really could undo all of her mistakes, and cause them never to have been.
Xion refused to move until Terra was at six splitting narrow rainbows that led into the maze of the knot.
Knowing all of this, she needed to have this out with Axel before they got any closer.
"Why don't you have it memorized by now that we're three half-pints together again, as we always have been, and we're useful together, not alone?" Axel queried with a starkly worried frown.
Xion, though, didn't smile back even a little.
"I memorized that a long time ago," she answered, keeping as much sentiment out of her voice as she could muster.
"I'm worried about the part regarding how I'm just a"
Xion altered what she was going to speak before she could give utterance to the word 'parasite'
"not even a half-pint when we're not together."
However, from how Axel's lips were pressed tightly together, his face a hard, angry mask, Xion knew Axel was totally aware of the word she hadn't used.
So Xion began walking.
Mare was hanging back near the intersection, gazing worriedly at them both.
When Xion was within a yard of her, she bristled violently.
Xion clenched her teeth together tightly, knowing that meant a particularly dangerous Heartless had just perceived the word she hadn't spoken aloud.
A monsoon of blue and black congealed between herself and Axel, and it was a Dark Inferno that coalesced through it.
All the blood drained from Axel's face at the knowledge of what it meant that her heart had summoned one of the worst kinds of Heartless they knew of to them.
Mare's jaw dropped in acute horror.
She shifted as though to morph into something, but Ephemer was faster.
A meteor storm of Teleport Spike globules appeared in the air before him, and he darted among them to send them cascading down upon the Dark Inferno, keeping it staggering backwards on the defensive.
It disintegrated into wisps when the second to last one struck it, and Ephemer appeared just above the surface of the suspension to land lightly, the last globule coming to pieces without being fired.
Aqua gave an approving nod of recognition at Ephemer's greater skill with the ability, as she didn't have the skill to end a Teleport Spike combination strike in the middle of the sequence.
Then a large globe of morphing obsidian and amethyst night burgeoned in the center of the intersection, and Xion knew the darkness in her heart had called something even worse to them.
Mare was standing in front of her, No Name in an offensive guard position, and Axel was sprinting in their direction with Flame Liberator positioned to hurl in a Strike Raid if he believed he needed to, when Tidus, Selphie, and Wakka stumbled forwards out of it.
Horror ripped through Xion.
Then it was gone.
Tidus saw her before moving his head, or eyes, more than a little.
Then he was racing in her direction so swiftly Xion could tell he was risking becoming uncoordinated and falling, or running out of breath.
"We may not have much time!" he partially called to her, partially gasped.
There was something drawn ruined obsidian bitter self hateful in his voice Xion had never heard before, however, and he appeared to be attempting with all of his essence to look in Axel's direction a single time.
"I have good news, and bad news, you need to know!
"I'll tell you the good news first!"
Axel winced as though he was dizzy, and he shifted his posture slightly as though he was remembering receiving the Recusant's Sigil, swaying a little on his legs.
Without warning, tingling warmth pulsed through Xion's wrists, and her hands prickled all over as the blood within them woke up.
All that had never been anything vanished, for Xion knew.
Mickey kept his gaze primarily on Aced, but he didn't let his awareness of where the new Union wielders were moving as they circled him lessen at all.
Nor did he let what had happened to Yen Sid, Merlin, and Cinderella's Fairy Godmother when Maleficent had sprung her trap with Bernard and Bianca return his awareness to the aches everywhere in his heart and body.
What mattered, here and now, was that he stalled Aced, and the other Union wielders, here.
Worrying about whether it made any difference if he put helping others before asking others for help could come later.
The Note Blade could not be forged.
The Gazing Eye needed to be destroyed.
Further, even though they were more distant from him than at any time before, Yen Sid, Merlin, and the Fairy Godmother's hearts would always be connected to his.
That was what mattered.
In addition, while Mickey knew better than to believe he could match Aced in experience or skill, and most of all in brute strength, Mickey's small stature and lightness gave him a valid chance of casting Aced, and the thick and weighty Keyblade now arcing into his hand in silver and gray, Judgment Dipper; into the realm of darkness, disabling him and taking him prisoner, or, if there was no other choice at all, defeating him fatally.
"Whaddaya' say we put nonintervention against power through one justice to the test, shall we?" Mickey queried Aced, giving the ancient Keyblade Master a deceptively friendly and companionably challenging grin, while refusing to let any of his misgivings at how the impulsive Foreteller had called his Keyblade right away show.
Mickey didn't take the time to let Aced speak back, if he intended to.
He just sprang.
Aced brought Judgment Dipper up and sliced it at Kingdom Key White, in a simultaneous block and endeavor to send Mickey flying back.
Mickey knew Aced was as aware as the littler Keyblade Master of his own weaknesses against the smaller King of Disney Kingdom, and he must have encountered, or learned of, the countless tales throughout history of how overconfident giants could be undone by apparent small fry.
So Mickey was sure even the reckless Union Leader of Ursus was feinting now.
The younger Keyblade Master thus did precisely as Aced was hoping, and brought Kingdom Key White up to vault off the thick top edge of Judgment Dipper.
When the first Demolition planetoid appeared on an intercept course directly down at where Mickey's arc would take him, descending quickly enough that it would collide with Mickey before he was close enough to Aced to connect with a slash, Mickey didn't even attempt to alter his arc, or slow down his inertia.
The mouse King segued into a Flowmotion, whipping around the equator of the Demolition planetoid in a corona of magenta, and then rocketed into a corkscrew directly at Aced's forehead.
Aced turned it so his mask caused the blow to glance off at an oblique angle, but he still staggered a little back.
Before Mickey landed, though, Judgment Dipper was pointed down at the cobblestones and grass beneath the modern Keyblade Master, and giant spires of rock thrust out of the street and ground at him.
Mickey shifted to activate a Doubleflight–
–Aced was gyrating around the construct closest to Mickey in a magenta Flowmotion of his own, and then his feet collided into Mickey's neck and Mickey was flying back and then Judgment Dipper rippled and Formchanged into a scythe with the kind of scoop a piece of construction equipment used at its end where a tip should have been and Aced swept the curve of the scythe behind him to catch Mickey and smash his neck down on the tip of the highest erect, sturdiest, most jagged spike.
Rock and stone fountained apart around Mickey.
He struggled to take in air, and as he did, he heard two voices cry simultaneously.
"In the name of Her Majesty!"
"I condemn thee to oblivion!"
Stark, ice cold shock and recognition at the second voice left Mickey almost unable to Dodge Roll forwards and bring his right shoulder in front of him to twist around on it and watch as the two black coated Union wielders cut past him in dashes in the form of a X-Strike where Mickey had just been.
Then a phantom, giant apple with noxious green fog spilling from it jettisoned out of the ruined ground and street stones where the two dashes had met.
Knowing it was very likely at least as hazardous as the one Snow White's stepmother had deceived her into eating, Mickey jumped backwards–
–Aced was right behind him in the air, Judgment Dipper back in its true shape and in a two handed grip behind the Union leader's shoulder and above it and already whiplashing forward to strike the back of Mickey's head so hard he couldn't see anything but black as long honed training brought his feet below him to ensure he landed in a balanced stance.
Mickey then threw himself backwards, his vision clearing as Aced spun while landing to keep Mickey in front of him.
Mickey planted his free hand on the ground and vaulted backwards at the nearest wall with his feet facing it, hoping to be able to Flowmotion off of it back at one of his opponents.
Before he could reach it, though, Aced swung Judgment Dipper, and a tidal wave of Meteor Crash comets ripped horizontally through the air at the wall to reduce it to rubble.
So, before the dust could part to reveal the precise locations of the chunks, or too many could fall into a position that would be harder to move, Mickey brought the rotating and banded shape of a Magnega into the air between himself and Aced, and yanked the rock and glass pieces into the air and at the front of Aced's ankle below his weapon arm.
Aced sliced Judgment Dipper down in time to block a small number, and another phantom poison apple shot out of the ground to spill out a green cloud with a stench that caused Mickey's eyes to water and that turned whatever rubble struck it into liquid that splashed onto the ground, but most struck Aced's leg.
Mickey ended the Magnega with one last, regular sized chunk of stone wall in the air above him, and just behind him.
Then the King of Disney Kingdom was in the air, corkscrewing over the hazardous cloud at the off balance Aced.
Mickey judged his timing, and ended the Flowmotion right in front of Aced's right eye with Kingdom Key White aimed at it.
"Ultima!" Mickey cried.
The conflagration of searing light erupted out of its bands to howl over Aced's face, and directly into his eye, now squeezed shut reflexively.
Aced, though, was now braced against an onslaught even a squad of Armored Xehanorts couldn't endure, while the power of its resistance to Mickey's inertia slowed Mickey just enough.
He vaulted in a somersault over Aced's head and swept the Ultima pillar around at the tendon of Aced's right foot, directly behind the location Mickey had already strained an ankle now strained even more as it pulled out of its brace against the Ultima.
Aced's right leg jerked slightly, and while Mickey knew he hadn't broken Aced's tendon, he knew he'd still delivered enough of a shock to it Aced had now lost a small amount of his ability to coordinate the leg under the arm he moved his Keyblade with.
Then Ovelia Atkascha's voice rang out.
"Dangling Gallows!"
Mickey rolled to the side before the familiar rust colored phantasm of a spiked noose could seize his neck and drag him up to the plummeting rust colored silhouettes of two armored boots with spikes on the bottom.
A quick block met Judgment Dipper, and Mickey held it back with a shaking Kingdom Key White by bracing it with both hands.
A familiar sick, resigned guilt lanced through Mickey's heart.
Riku!
Mickey had no choice, then.
He stopped bracing Kingdom Key White for a slim piece of time, and as soon as Aced became unbalanced as Judgment Dipper moved forwards Mickey brought Kingdom Key White back up to lift the larger Keyblade up and bring it into the ground above and behind Mickey's head.
Mickey then rolled to his feet and sprinted into the street leading towards where he'd sensed the most cutting agony from Riku he'd been drenched in since Riku had poked him in the stomach in Castle Oblivion.
Anna, Roxas, Elsa, and Vanitas were well on their way to Sora.
Mickey needed to trust he'd done enough.
He was not going to abandon one of the people he loved the most for the overall realm of light this time!
couldn't be aware
couldn't nowherewhatme was
couldn't lacuna perhaps hadn't
couldn't potential no
couldn't tearsemptyoftransparencykaleidoscope
nowasn'tno
no
nonoplease
pleasenodon't
pleasedon'tme
pleasenotmepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseforeverofnoneverwherenotdon't
no concept of what to do with
mouth
heart
Three faces
Green eyes slack under a mantle of unkempt crimson hair with mouth and face slack with entire horror
Blue eyes under dark gray hair drawn with laser beam singularity terrified hate
Blue eyes brimming with desperate tears spilling down a drawn face under unkempt blonde hair
The tears spoke first
"Promise me you'll hear the rest of what I have to say out before you say or do anything.
"Promise me.
"If she doesn't, Mare, can you please take my heart and turn me into a Heartless the second I perform the Vegnablitz Formchange; on your Keyblade, that of a Heartless, to be on the safe side?
"Xion,"
thereisnosuchheartpersonasXionthereneverwasn't
"if you give into the darkness this time, you're not diving in there alone."
Mare nodded with firm wordlessness, her visage furious, but set with determination.
Tidus.
Mare.
Axel.
The next second, Xion twisted and cannoned into Axel's arms as though she was welded to them and him, drowning in their close and tight secure safe lulling warmth behind the liquid imprisoned beneath the blackness of her closed eyelids.
A second warm, smaller hand, a hand Xion knew belonged to Mare, started stroking her hair with gentle soothing movements.
Another warm hand, larger than Mare's but smaller than Axel's, that Xion knew was Tidus', began rubbing her back with light and soothing circles.
But this was no lullaby.
This was a dirge.
And because she was awake, nightmares must be the dregs of the foundations of even pitch opal night's dusk.
"You figured out part of the bad news yourself, so here's the good news."
Why was Axel still holding her?
Why was Tidus still talking to her through a tear broken voice?
Why did Mare love a parasitic murderous tapeworm herself?
"Heartless have no memories if they lose their hearts unwillingly, remember? And Nobodies begin without memories of their first selves if their Heartless regain their own selves fast enough, you know?
"So just turn Roxas and Ven into Heartless, or a Heartless and, if it's possible for Roxas, a second Nobody, and then lock your siphoning connection while they have no memories for you to pull energy out of."
Now there were so many tears in Xion's eyes the night was imprisoning them in weightless ripples.
Nothing but tears could escape that never everlasting night, however, because, even though, leaping, prancing, cavorting, shrieking, madly, past potentially, denying no and perhaps and might not have and any defined and not encompassed belief, singularity there wonderfully wonderfully wonderfully wonderfully wonderfully wonderfully wonderfully wonderfully wonderfully wonderfully wonderfully wonderfully wonderfully wonderfully wonderfully wonderfully wonderfully wonderfully wonderfully wonderfully wonderfully wonderfully wonderfully wonderfully wonderfully wonderfully wonderfully wonderfully wonderfully wonderfully wonderfully wonderfully wonderfully wonderfully wonderfully wonderfully wonderfully wonderfully wonderfully wonderfully wonderfully wonderfully wonderfully wonderfully wonderfully wonderfully wonderfully wonderfully wonderfully wonderfully possibility that might actually work on Roxas, and even on Ven
Xion was still siphoning Axel through the connection they'd empowered when they'd briefly reclaimed the Recusant's Sigil, not his memories, and Namine through the connection from which Xion had derived her own power over memories
and because Ven was deaddeaddeaddeaddeaddeaddeaddeaddeaddeaddeaddeaddeaddeaddeaddeaddeaddeaddeaddeaddeaddeaddeaddeaddeaddeaddeaddead
at Xion's own hands
and he might not be able to come back
even if that worked on Roxas even though he'd confirmed a Nobody couldn't discard his body if he, she, or it gave his heart totally over to the darkness
it might not work on Ven
and Xion could still be siphoning him even as a ghost
and if she was that might clear what hope he had of being restored
why couldn't she make it right
why couldn't she undo her mistakes
Riku and Sora and Donald and Goofy and Pete and Maleficent and Xehanort's Heartless had all reached the past why couldn't she
or could she
she was a Keyblade wielder
if Merlin can do it I can
don'tgiveup
there'salwaysawaybacktoeachotherandoneanotherourconnectionsareunbreakable
Maleficentseeksthestartoftime
Maleficentseeksothertimesindifferentworldlines
shewantsyoutobecomeherapprentice
thiswillplayintoherhandsevenmore
Idon'tcare
lookwhatnotcaringaccomplishedyesterday
sowhat
Istilldon'tcare
Imayaswellbecomeamanifoldrejectedtraitortophysicalhistoryaswellasetherealandphysicalspaceandetherealhistory
noneofitmattersnow
howeverperhapsIatlastreallydidprotectRoxas
thisisthesickestjokeofall
itstilldoesn'tmatter
"Which leads me to why I'm the one telling you this."
There was something that was purely and just dead and defeated in Tidus' voice now, and Xion wished desperately with whatever self she had left and may have regained at the knowledge Roxas, at least, might be able to become safe from her energy siphon for good that she could get rid of a heart for good so the breaths that were no longer coming would never resume
had she done it
had she wiped Tidus' determination to be a WINNER as she had Roxas' and Axel's
"I'm the reason you're siphoning Axel through the Recusant's Sigil.
"I kept it from fading, and warped the tie you three wove by directly bonding it to your hearts, because I saw faded writings of yours on the play islands beach, and though I didn't know they were yours, I didn't forget them."
Xion couldn't breathe, but now she wanted to stay exactly like this, in these instants, forever.
However, she could still retch, violently and through eternal dry heaves.
How could even a determination to be a WINNER make it okay to care about that at a time like this?
"There's one," for a number of seconds, Xion couldn't hear anything but Tidus' breaths as his mouth attempted to form words, although his backrubs didn't falter at all
Xion felt Axel tense with stiffness she could just fathom the barest crust of against her.
This time, Xion knew who she was, in addition to who Axel and Mare and Tidus were.
But that was all.
"other piece of bad news you need to know."
At last, vitality returned to Tidus' voice, along with a pleading desperation clutching hopelessly from the foundations of an abyss' lacuna she'd never heard from anyone before.
"Before I tell you this, though, please, keep this in mind.
"You are not the most rogue of all outcast pawns, knocked from the board the earliest in the game of anyone, useless and forgotten in every way.
"You have as many people rooting for you as Axel, if not more.
"Nor are you a traitor, rejected by all of reality and history.
"Traitors aren't so loyal to the people they love, and care for, and cherish, and keep close, they give all of their reality and history to those people.
"That you were synthesized by a scientist doesn't smother the verdure you brim with, by any means.
"You know why, on a lot of worlds, natural philosophy grew into science, and supplanted religious faith.
"Because a lot of religious faiths are based on incontrovertible trust in single truths that leave no room for alternative possibilities.
"The scientific method, though, as Lucca also brought up, is to search for hope from truth by questioning it."
Wherever the answer lay, Lucca was an incommunicably more measureless charlatan than Xehanort.
Xion was a walking, talking, biological and ethereal miracle who could give anyone vigor?
Solely if Lucca meant that in the sense that the opposite of Xion not even being a Nobody was that she was anybody.
"To ask questions about what truth is, and never stop, and keep asking those questions, and keep traveling from horizon to horizon.
"Hypotheses become theories if proven enough, and if theories are proven enough they become laws. But science, unlike the incontrovertible single truths of many religions, recognizes nothing can be proven. There's no such thing as fact in science. It's even theorized that people believe the sky to be blue because that's just the light pigments our eyes take in from the heavens. As soon as one single exception to any law is discovered, it's back to the chalkboard to draw up a new hypothesis or theory and ask a bunch of new questions.
"There's no such thing as fact in science.
"Throughout all of the worlds I've heard of by now, Even, and any other crackpot who believes otherwise, are referred to by two very well known words.
"Bad science.
"You're not a living fabrication, you're a fountain that can give hope to any blitz stadium."
Sick self hate and fury caused Xion's stomach to heave.
Roxas.
Axel.
Mare.
Tidus.
Riku.
Lucca.
Even Isa.
Why wouldn't they just give up themselves?
She was never going to give up once more herself, but that still didn't alter how she had no hope of even despair for denying her own existence.
"You're enervated potentialities in their most vibrant realities.
"All you need to do is stop throwing yourself away, and stop crying, and then you'll be able to see that, and those boundless potentialities.
"There's still hope, and a way out of the darkness, no matter how winding it is.
"I didn't forget you because I'm determined to be a winner who knows how to laugh, and that means that I'm telling you this from the heart and memories that didn't forget you."
There it was.
A genuine reason to let Tidus compete with Roxas for her heart, and consider returning his interest with the same kind of love he had for her if she refused to no longer give up on living as a winner herself.
Roxas, for all his own heartfelt and selfless determination to win, and his own ability to be upbeat, didn't have Tidus' vitality or optimism. He was willing to chuckle, but unlike his real self who held no interest in becoming a winner, Roxas didn't cherish giggles and grins the way Tidus did. Roxas was a reassuring, welcoming dawn, secure and there and sustaining and sure.
But Tidus' own drive to bring the win home was a just as heartfelt fountain of effervescent brilliant Sunshine that drove away the despair and black shady cold that was all she'd known for most of her life with warm ray beams and the laughter of bubbling brooks.
And, as much as she wanted to retch until she'd dry heaved for everlasting remaining history until no one was left to remember anyone at all, Xion couldn't avoid facing the reality she wasn't sure which warmth she preferred without giving up.
"You and Roxas found hope for me," Mare put in, an uncertain sincerity to the empathetic understanding in her voice Xion hadn't heard before.
"I have no proof, from natural philosophy or spiritualism, that I'm not deluding myself, and the beams of light shining in the darkness won't just blind me to an even deeper chasm hiding beneath their glow.
"Dreaming that light leads to the warmth of home, though, showed me a way to trust I can do more than just kill, and hurt, and then live forever to do it, or die when there's no more hurt left to afflict others with.
"Maybe I'm just imagining this hope out of thin air, and I'll discover it's all for nothing.
"But if it even offers a daydream of catching people's tears, and giving them a hearth, whether it comes to nothing in the end, or not, doesn't that still cause the light in the distance to become a dream worth chasing?"
The emptiness, and numbness, that had been there since Xion had murdered Ven vanished into fatigued, throbbing aches.
The aches weren't everywhere anymore, though, and Xion could feel that her feet were standing steadily.
"No matter why Tidus is so worried, can you please keep dreaming that light may still be somewhere yourself?"
"I already know what it is," Axel spoke, and there was a wire drawn tense horror and terror in his voice that sounded as though it was going to shake itself into cacophonous motes.
"It's obvious.
"Nothing else could have gotten to someone as determined to win as Tidus this much.
"As Anna needs to choose her script, Xion needs to make a similar choice, and one just as bad.
"I'm sure Roxas' will be even worse.
"Xion can't protect me without redirecting the siphon back at Roxas through the Recusant's Sigil; she needs to choose who to abandon and betray to a gradual, excruciating death through wasting away from between the two people she loves the most."
Axel's and Mare's and Tidus' warmths practically weren't not there
Roxas
Sora
where are you?
"Indeed," Ira's voice joined them from in front of them.
"But before the time comes for you to choose your destiny, another decision lies before you, Anima; font of spirit from which all vim springs, Alpha and Omega, first and last from which all light and darkness surges forth and cascades fated to bring a beginning and end to imaginary time itself.
"For, as we leave as little to chance as Xehanort did, so, too, do we leave as many roads open.
"The hour of the confluence of Persona, Anima, and Animus, is now over.
"Your separation from both light and darkness, existence and history, has granted you the singular heart that can catalyze its successor.
"As soon as the Persona, and the Animus, the geyser of rejection, have made their own choices; as soon as they have decided between themselves who among them, Sora, the Persona, or Roxas, the Animus, will smelt the Note Blade; it is up to you to siphon the warp and weft of light and darkness, recollected dream and data betwixt them all, into the conduit of tomorrow.
"Or, if both forsake their fated scripts, compel one, or the other, to forge it unwillingly.
"Even should Roxas refuse this fate, however, he cannot flee from his own scripts.
"As you must choose which person you love most to murder, knowingly, and without first ceasing to care for that person, as Maleficent and Xemnas sought to maneuver Riku and Isa into afflicting upon Sora and Axel, through treacherous intentional abandonment of that person to a drawn out death, Roxas must make the same choice, without severing his connection with those people first, but he must do it by intentionally and knowingly striking that person down."
anywhen perceived was Axel's drawstring taut warmth past the horizon of all present existing selves distant about and against and from
"All of the actors have at last traversed onto the final stage.
"'With a single stroke, toll the bell that foreruns the beginning, bringing peace and plenty upon us, as destiny did intend.'
"Now that you know what has been prophesized of Roxas, and you, it is up to you to decide whether to betray Riku's heart, as you have betrayed Roxas' and Axel's through untold reverberations in periods hence, and allow Kairi, the Pale Princess, to radiate the first shades of light upon the eve of dusk."
.
"Listen… You wanna' defeat Sin and keep Yuna alive… You don't want Sin to come back, ya? That is just not gonna' happen, brudda, you know?"-Wakka
"If you want everything, you'll end up with nothing."-Lulu
"But I want everything!"-Tidus
"Now you're being childish!"-Wakka
"I give up! So what would an adult do, then? They know they can just throw away a summoner, then they can do whatever they like. You're right. I might not even have a chance. But no way am I gonna' just stand here and let Yuna go. And what Auron said about there being a way… I think it's true."-Tidus
"'You'll think of something?'"-Rikku
"I'll go ask Yunalesca. She's got to know something."-Tidus
"You really think she'll help you?"-Rikku
"I don't know, but I have to try. This is my story. It'll go the way I want it… or I'll end it here."-Tidus
FINAL FANTASY X