.
CHAPTER 55:
A TRANSIENT ROLE IN THE SPOTLIGHT
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Author's Notes: The music for this Chapter is, in order of scene: 'A Crisis,' from BREATH OF FIRE II; and afterwards, 'Depths Of the Night,' from the CHRONO TRIGGER Original Sound Version, Disc Three; and afterwards, 'Organization Thirteen,' from the KINGDOM HEARTS II Original Soundtrack, Disc One; and after it, 'Integral Body And Imperfect Soul,' from STAR OCEAN: THE SECOND STORY. The first two Tracks, and the fourth one, can be found on Zophar's Domain, while the third Track can be found in KINGDOM HEARTS Insider's MP3 section.
As soon as she became aware of the impulse to strike, whoever, or whatever, she once more pushed aside whatever was tugging and dragging at the sides of her awareness through the white sheens of coursing obsidian storming all concepts away anywhere about her.
She called upon the absolute vacuum of molten lava practically searing away anything, and she discovered she was somersaulting over the head of the human, and in front of Mickey, once more almost so fast she couldn't even register she'd moved before she needed to swing a deft cut at his neck.
Before it could connect, however, the human in front of her had already completed a Dodge Roll backwards, and he was now vaulting out of it with a forward hand spring that altered into a double upwards diagonal kick with his Kingdom Key Starlight attached to the soles of both of his shoes as though it were a surfboard.
The Kingdom Key Starlight whirled in a single cut, this one impacting with her own Kingdom Key with an adroit precision she couldn't even recall Xehanort's blows possessing during the brief combat refresher he'd run her through, and the kinetic energy it delivered with its impact didn't just send her Keyblade to the side, it shifted to an incredibly awkward angle in her unwieldy grip and fell out of her hand.
So she followed the impulse to spare the attention to the weight pressing upon her from all directions, and she swung the rippling swords in the two gauntleted hands extending from the sides of what she simultaneously recognized, and couldn't understand, was surrounding her, down at her opponent.
A solid tongue of fire, in the shape of a Keyblade itself, intercepted the right sword, and a large blue claymore intercepted the left one.
At the sight of the claymore, the howling in her ears burgeoned.
However, a memory passed behind her eyes, along with another impulse she no longer saw any reason not to act upon without identifying it.
Knowing doing so would quiet the howling in her ears, she did.
Black, gray, and white thorny vines traced up in a coil around the sword pressing against the claymore, while a similar spiky snare curled up the right sword, altering it into a giant facsimile of past Riku Replica's Soul Eater.
For an unknown reason, however, the howling just burgeoned a large amount.
So, this time, she ignored it, and she gave voice to a single phrase.
"His'try's skein, tear asunder!
"Vortex of the Eclipse!"
Within a minority of seconds, a massive, onyx, whirling spiral discus with the same arrangement as the gold one silvery lances ripped through her head as she remembered casting, preventing her from discerning whether she'd last unleashed it just minutes ago, or a large number of months, manifested below all of them.
The bending gravity didn't affect her balance, and within seconds, two large silhouettes of the Kingdom Key Starlight had extended out from the sides of the silver haired Keyblade wielder as he leapt into the air and began to hover, two platforms his two companions quickly jumped up onto themselves.
However, pale blue white meteorites then began to fountain upwards out of the discus.
Mickey, standing behind it, leapt low and back, but she was already darting around the people in her way, also ignoring the inexplicable relief as the roaring in her ears quieted slightly, and she cut now with the Keyblade of Hearts in what might have been her
realfakerealwasthereadifferencediditmatternowshecouldcareless
hands at his forehead, high enough the blow would impact with his brain.
The sound of rushing air registered, and she sidestepped, and spun, ignoring another surge in the howling beside her ears to bat the moderately sized stone of ice that Elsa had fired at the back of her head in a slightly different direction, at Mickey's own forehead.
Elsa clenched her teeth and dropped her hands, and the chunk dissipated before it impacted with Mickey.
This time, it was the silver haired human who moved so fast she could barely react in time to curve the Keyblade of Hearts to intercept an extremely swift somersaulting jump down from where he'd been hovering, the platforms holding the other two humans well to both sides of the still surging Vortex of the Eclipse, as he attempted to ram the back of the handle of the Kingdom Key Starlight into her forehead.
The force of the impact itself almost drove the Keyblade of Hearts back into her forehead, but she bunched her shoulders and kept it in place.
The next second, a Kingdom Key Starlight with a blue blade and a silver hilt had wound into the silver haired human's hand, and it was cutting up in what she knew was a deft chop at a pressure point on her neck.
Someone around her size, with blonde hair, and a wooden sword in one hand, was in front of her, batting the strike off just enough it collided with his stomach before the Keyblade wielder who had launched it could slow the momentum of more than partially, and he hacked blood out violently as he doubled into a fold over the Keyblade and then fell back toward her.
The howling in Xion's ears was gone, as she realized what had just happened, and who had just thrown himself before a blow that he'd been entirely aware, if Ephemer had pulled the strike even fractionally less quickly, might have compressed his ordinary human resilience into a literal morass of blood and flesh as effortlessly as a human could squish a bug.
"It's too late… for me to undo my mistakes."
Nononononononono
Reality compressed into a bubble suspended from history and presence as she let the Keyblade of Hearts drop and caught Tidus before he could land on the ground.
"It's too late… for me to undo my mistakes."
Nonononononononononononononononononononononononononononoitwassupposedtobemeagainthistimeforgood
Tidus' lips twisted in an attempt at the kind of confident smile Xion had learned blitzballers made when they accomplished a narrow save.
However, then his body spasmed violently, and he hacked up more gouts of blood.
"Staying true to my own promise to live for the people I love, and not die for them, or not," Tidus breathed out, his words fissured gasps brimming with desperate self hate, and despair so absent Xion knew its labyrinth of concave inverted switchbacks would most likely be unnavigable to anyone who didn't know their pathways as well as she did, "I'm the one who deserved to die from the beginning.
"I didn't tell you the rest.
"I know what role Xehanort was really intended to fulfill, so I know I'm the real traitor who you should be seeking to avenge what Roxas, Axel, and you went through on.
"All I'd needed to do was just not be as angry as I was no one but Riku was going for the goal the last day Sora, Riku, and Kairi were making the raft; and then Wakka, Selphie, and I would have been with Sora, Donald, and Goofy during his earliest travels the same way Hayner, Olette, and Pence were with Roxas.
"And then, Axel would have been deployed to back up Xehanort's Heartless to ensure the Door to Darkness was opened all the way, or it at least remained as open as it was already yawning, while Roxas, and you, would have been a dual host for Xehanort's Heartless.
"And in that one single potential future I unknowingly didn't choose, that's the one timeline where things really do turn out okay for all three of you."
The sickening distortions were contorting reality and perception once more, and the hot ache of the tears obscuring her vision could have been nothing separate from the searing agony inside and the aching seeking to drag her bones and body down and break them into a frozen, completely and glutted dry of even absence empty and lifeless desiccated wasteland parched of the last beams of hope she'd believed could warm it.
No.
She hadn't made the wrong choice this time.
Practically jabbering with hysteria gibbering keening rose in a pleading beg to drown out every any outside and within her with beam pinpoint drawn desperation.
This was the sole choice left!
There was no light left to look for anywhere else!
Green sprinkled over Tidus, and much of the blood flecking his mouth and lips and chin and face dried, or clotted, or both.
Though, Xion was too riveted on what had happened for the roaring to increase back into anything more than faint throbbing, or anything more than stark, anguished spasms of hate and rage, barely more than ordinary fury and anger, to lance through her.
Tidus turned his head slightly, so he was looking in Roxas' direction, and when he spoke next, his voice, while broken by coughs that now caused smaller amounts of blood to sprinkle out of his mouth, was loud enough Xion knew Roxas should be able to hear it clearly.
She couldn't think of a single reason to push away the slight lightness filling her as she recognized what Tidus was really doing.
If he can convince Roxas to even consider not fighting for me any more than he already refuses to, as long as Tidus can convince him to do it out of enough selfless light, and not guilt; whether I can convince him to reverse that choice later; in these conditions, that by itself should enable Roxas to thaw the curse all by himself, the same way Anna did hers.
Xion didn't, however, know why she still felt inclined to feel upset Roxas even felt the need to measure up to anyone, in any way connected to her.
However Kairi had made things worse, there was no way to avoid any longer that she'd had the right idea when she'd wanted Sora, and Riku, as far away from her as possible.
"I'm aware of a timeline where things didn't go as badly for the three of you, but Roxas still got stuck inside Sora for a short period of time, and in ways that were a lot less relatively peaceful, partially due to Axel recompleting himself, and then once more becoming a Heartless to attempt to rescue Roxas by possessing Sora the same way Xehanort's Heartless did Riku."
A
Lea
you don't deserve to think the name Axel any more, and you never did
because you should have known his real name from the beginning
Roxas, and Namine, are Roxas, and Namine
but Isa was, and is, Isa
and you are nowhere, and nowhen, at all, so you never had a name, nor do you
that is the one thing that should never be forgotten
by you, if by no one else
cringed slightly.
Isa rested his off hand on his shoulder, and squeezed it slightly.
Xion was aware of their reactions this time, and she wanted to say something, but she could at least know, beyond misgivings, there were no words left to say.
Not when there would never cease to be tears that could fall.
ALea gave Isa an edged smile that said the same thing was true of him.
"For all you did the icky delegation, while I actually did the work, you at least turned out to have been more than capable of leading Roxas and Xion by inspirational example," ALea commented with lightly sarcastic reassurance.
Isa rolled his eyes, but the corners of his lips curled up slightly, even if it was just for ALeaLeaLeaLeaLeaLea's sake.
"So, don't give up again," Tidus continued, and this time, he turned back to Xion, and gave her a blood chipped smile.
"No matter how hard I tried, I'm the one who was never able to score the goal.
"I wasn't there when Mom, and Chappu, died.
"I wasn't there for Dad when he needed me the most, and Wakka, and Selphie, were the ones to bring him to his senses.
"If they hadn't been there, he'd have most likely lost his reputation, and much of what he'd lived for, years ago; and he might not even have any job at all.
"And I lost my chance to connect Sora's, Kairi's, Riku's, yours, Roxas', and Axel's reality of hurt with a reality of warmth and kindness at the very beginning.
"You made your share of mistakes, but where Axel didn't try nearly as hard as he could have; and Roxas tried to do what was best for everyone to a lesser degree, and then really gave up after a brief instance of making up his heart and mind, and ceasing to think twice; for all your own failings, who was it who convinced Axel, and Roxas, and Isa, if not as much, to stop blindly trusting Xemnas to begin with; and who was it who kept Roxas from throwing his life away when Riku still wasn't totally willing to stop concealing the darkness he was feeling?"
What, exactly, did that mean, specifically, when she hadn't done that much more than Roxas, ALea, and Isa; and then Roxas wouldn't have ended up in the latter position if she'd tried harder when it at last became clear the radiance of Xemnas' Kingdom Hearts wasn't showing her a way home, it was luring her as a moth to its blinding candlelight?
"There is only one other person I'm sure I've met in my life who refuse to let their hearts break too much, when they're beaten down, that relentlessly, and that painfully, with as much diamond distilled determination as you have, and he held onto the sublimity of his Jecht Shot, but he still hasn't regained all the magnificence that belongs in the title Sublimely Magnificent Jecht Shot.
"I've spent enough time with Yuna, by now, to tell she really may have the same spirit Dad, and you, do, but she's so willing to take the easy way out by relying on riches to solve her problems, I'm worried that alone gives her as much to learn as Dad still has left to remember."
"Just because you aren't a winner doesn't mean you haven't tried harder than anyone I've met to be one.
"You honestly, really, sacrificed not just your life, but your chance at living on through your legacy.
"Can you identify one single other person you know who was willing to do that, at least when he, she, or it already had as many reasons as you did to just let your heart break, and fall down, and wait to die?"
Even if that's true, and there's solely one lantern left to show me how to believe that, all that proves is how much more your dad, and Yuna, need you to light their way home than I do.
"Listen to my story, the way it was supposed to go."
Xion should have pulled the storm and the roaring back around her awareness at hearing the star blitzball ace who unfailingly arrowed for the winning goal talk in terms of doing what Master Yozora, Luxu, the Foretellers, anyone else, destiny, and reality wanted for him.
However, with the blood still trickling down Tidus' lips right before her eyes, Xion couldn't be sure she wasn't violently retching her food, and the rest of her insides, herself.
Because she couldn't want to say anything, at all.
"Both of you.
"You think you didn't do enough, soon enough, too, Roxas, and Axel?
"Here's how many chances I gave up; because, as many choices of my own I made, I was dazzled by the destiny before my own sight; and because I didn't understand the light isn't what you see with your eyes, but what you hear, learn about, understand, and believe in; and thinking differently just inexorably leads you to see nothing but darkness."
No
YouarenotXehanort
YouarenotXemnas
YouarenotVexen
YouarenotYoungXehanort
YouarenotpastRikuReplica
YouarenotMaleficent
Youdidn'tjustbelievesolelyinthethingsyouthoughtcouldbeproven
You'vealwaysbeenyourselfsharingtheSunlightyou'retheonewhoIhaven'tmetanyonelikeIwishithadbeenyourlightguidingmenotXemnas'andIsa'sfirstlights
Xion could barely see through the tears now covering her own vision, as she realized it was far harder now to draw the shroud of storming darkness back around her
Tidus' speech sounded from a never off precipice on the other side of a chasm with depth plunging past all reaches, and farther than the horizon dividing the surface of those tears from presence.
"Why Wakka, Selphie, and I were supposed to be in a position to accompany Sora, Kairi, and Riku off the islands is beside the point, but I'll add that it was intended to set events into motion that would have put me in a position to make a difference from the very instant Roxas, and Namine, were created.
"If we'd made the effort to go to the play island when the Heartless struck, and see if the raft was okay, and bring Wakka, and Selphie, along with me, Wakka would have been so scared of losing Riku, as he had Chappu, he'd have attempted to pull Riku away from the corridor of darkness by force. The ensuing scuffle would have prevented me from rashly plunging in there myself. Sora would have fought even harder to protect both of them from the darkness, but with the distraction of Selphie to worry about in addition to the rest of us, the result would have been the same, and he'd have claimed Riku's Keyblade as his own.
"Wakka would have thus been stuck on Radiant Garden with Riku, and Selphie would have been thrown to Wonderland, and that alone was intended to make a major difference; she was fated to meet Alice shortly after her arrival, and draw Maleficent's attention to Alice a lot faster by meddling with the world order there as though it really was just mud she could scoop up, and throw around, at will.
"This isn't to say the Queen of Hearts deserved to be spared the large amounts of well worded mudslinging Xehanort rewriting his script didn't give Selphie, and Alice, the chance to tag team her with, of course."
Enough slight lightness filled Xion at hearing how Tidus could still joke, she felt too guilty not to let the corners of her own lips curl up, a little.
"By that time, I'd been fated to arrive at Traverse Town, badly injured, as the result of successfully making a reckless idiot out of myself the second time I had the chance, when the Darkside first struck at Sora. Sora himself would have been even more injured, due to needing to shield me from the Darkside, and the storm.
"Sora was supposed to wage a continuous fall back to protect me, until Leon, and Yuffie, intervened, and identified his Keyblade as the Heartless' primary target while keeping the Heartless from claiming my heart. Sora was then fated to, rather than attack Leon, flee to attempt to lure the Heartless away. Then he'd be rescued by Donald, Goofy, and Jiminy,"
Xion forgot not to cringe, and the hot aches in her eyes increased,
"When the Guard Armor cornered him by himself, thus giving them, particularly Donald, misgivings about whether, or not, Sora would turn out to be anything more than a liability as they searched for Mickey.
"Thusly, I'd end up needing to assist Sora into sneaking on board their Gummi ship, and while Sora attempted to hide my presence, once we reached Wonderland, Goofy would have seen through what was going on, and the resulting arguments over what to do with me was intended to delay Sora's journey through the demesne long enough that, by the time I agreed to stay on the ship out of trouble, and convinced them they could trust I would, Selphie, and Alice, were both about to be decapitated.
"By this point, while Riku still had his doubts about Maleficent, she was intended to have all but snared Wakka, playing on his need for a glorious savior to tell him how he could have protected Chappu, and through asking him to back her up in convincing Riku to take any measures necessary to regain his Keyblade from Sora.
"So, while the Trickmaster poked its nose into the execution attempt, Wakka intervened to protect Selphie, and, as he saw it, rescue Alice from the Trickmaster, and the Queen of Hearts.
"He was so angry with Sora, he refused to answer Sora's questions about where he'd ended up, and if he'd seen Kairi, and Riku, but he said enough while taking Alice from the court, over her protests, and battling Sora at the same time.
"Thusly, after Sora dropped us both off at Traverse Town and he returned from Deep Jungle with the firm beginnings of a true friendship with Donald, Goofy, and Jiminy, albeit in different manners from how it was established, Donald put the pieces together as soon as he saw Riku retain the Keyblade when he reunited with Sora without Selphie, and I, there.
"Riku admitted to having met Maleficent, but he refused to give up on Maleficent without proof she wasn't what she appeared to be any more than he refused to trust her, and he also felt responsible for Wakka's attitude at Wonderland, particularly to Alice. So, in the script Sora was intended to follow, it was Donald attempting to convince Goofy, and Jiminy, they should leave Sora and travel with Riku that caused Riku to run, determined to knock sense into Wakka, by fisticuffs if necessary, but certainly without a Keyblade; and either mediate between Alice and Maleficent in a way both would be happy with, or seek to discern who was in the right, and then side with that person.
"Maleficent all but won Riku over by faking Alice's return to the world she'd come from before she'd arrived at Wonderland and placing Wakka on house arrest in his quarters, then telling him she'd found Kairi, while distorting things to cause it to look like Sora was a pawn of Donald's, and Goofy's, who she lied they were using, for his Keyblade, to attempt to locate King Mickey, currently in the realm of darkness and seeking to open the Door to Darkness by forcing its shadows to seek escape with light."
The storm in Xion's ears screamed into a hurricane, but she still couldn't justify doing anything but ignoring it.
"If Riku worked with her, she said she was confident she could convince Wakka he'd misinterpreted her intentions when he'd abducted Alice, and then they could recover his Keyblade from Sora, Sora himself, and also protect Kairi by opening the Door to Darkness from this side with darkness, thus reinforcing the shadows already inside it and giving it no reason to flee into the realm of light.
"Riku was still skeptical, but Maleficent then went to Wakka, told him she was worried Riku was falling for Mickey's maneuvering, and convinced him to set Riku up, supposedly for his own good by telling him to ensure Jafar claimed Jasmine, after which she'd throw Wakka in a cell and return Jasmine, thus convincing Riku to trust her.
"Wakka intervened when Jafar, as a Genie, was tying Sora down, but this time, when he told Selphie, and I, what had happened, we refused to stay behind.
"So we were all there when Riku attempted to seize Pinnochio, with full knowledge Jasmine hadn't been returned to Agrabah by the time Sora had left with Genie.
"Riku believed Sora about Maleficent, but she'd cast enough doubt on Donald, and Goofy, he couldn't trust them either, so Selphie attempted to mediate by offering her heart in place of Pinocchio's as a means of restoring Kairi.
"Riku accepted, I attempted to mediate, but an increasingly desperate Sora, having heard more than his share of accusations from Donald he might be a liability, reached his limit at that point and said he'd defeat Selphie, just as much as Riku, if anyone attempted to return to Maleficent; they'd protect Kairi, but after what he'd seen Wakka do twice, he'd give anyone who attempted to utilize the darkness to do so a major pounding.
"At that point, Xehanort's Heartless then intervened, telling Riku there was a safer way to wield the darkness, by becoming darkness itself.
"Riku bit right away, hoping this would give him the power to beat both Maleficent, and Mickey, on his own, but at that point I reached my fill at being seen as a liability myself and gave my heart up first, telling Riku that, if anything happened to me, he'd know it wasn't safe.
"I held onto my heart the same way Riku did, and Mickey rescued me in the realm of darkness shortly afterwards, before he found Aqua, but Xehanort's cat was now out of the bag.
"Riku still didn't want to risk trusting Donald, and Goofy, however, nor would he accept the Keyblade after what he'd almost done, so he headed back to Radiant Garden to attempt to defeat Wakka himself. He discovered Maleficent had broken Wakka by informing him even Riku had now given up on his responsibility to follow the teachings of the Keyblade, and telling Wakka he could keep his history with Chappu from repeating for his five closest friends if he accepted the darkness in the same way Riku did when Xehanort ad libbed, and then opened the Final Keyhole to discover how to obtain a Keyblade himself, and wield it in accordance with the teachings passed down about it.
"Thus, by the time Riku discovered what had happened to Wakka, Wakka had set out to capture the other Princesses, and Sora arrived at Radiant Garden to discover Riku, and Beast, facing off against Wakka.
"Selphie, for her part, understood even better now why she couldn't interfere with Sora, but she refused to twiddle her thumbs, so she convinced Cid to teach her how to fly his Gummi ship, after which she then set out in search of a safe way into the realm of darkness, to attempt to rescue me.
"Not Mickey; Riku didn't identify precisely where Mickey was, although Sora, Goofy, and Donald speculated he was in the realm of darkness.
"By this point, Wakka had accepted the same powers of darkness I had, and he beat them both.
"Riku then gave up on defeating Maleficent, and Wakka, himself, accessed his darkness the same way Terra did, and opened a corridor of darkness in search of Mickey. This caused Sora to lose so much faith he attempted to force Riku to accept the Keyblade then, but seeing Beast's refusal to give up still taught Sora the lessons he learned from Xehanort's edits.
"Mickey had by then perceived Aqua's light, and both of us were traveling towards her, but once he perceived Riku, I realized who had most likely entered the realm of darkness, and convinced Mickey our best chance at salvaging things, if I was correct, was to trust I could utilize what little survival training Mickey had given me to hole up somewhere I could intercept Riku.
"I did so, but all discovering what had happened to me accomplished was to convince Riku not to use any more corridors of darkness after the one he called to send me into Radiant Garden just as Sora was about to confront Maleficent.
"Sora had beaten Wakka by now, but Xehanort's Heartless didn't see him as potentially useful as Riku due to lacking the ability to wield the Keyblade.
"He didn't reveal where Kairi's heart was, but he didn't want to dispose of Sora, knowing his last chance at a decent body was if Sora created a Nobody.
"Without the Keyblade of Hearts nearly altering her into a Heartless, Maleficent retreated to the Final Keyhole to attempt to defeat Sora as her ordinary Dragon with Kairi's body as hostage, and Kairi then revealed where she was to Sora herself when this tactic nearly defeated him.
"Sora had no idea the Keyblade of Hearts could unlock hearts, but he knew enough about its connection to the Princesses to hope that joining it with his own heart would return Kairi to her body, and enable him to complete, and thus lock, the Final Keyhole.
"As soon as Maleficent saw what it did to him, broken and faced with being thrown into the realm of darkness, and perhaps even death, she threw herself on its separating prongs to free her heart from her body by her own choice, and then sent herself to the past."
Was Xion seeing Tidus cringe violently, and stiffen, and then hack up blood?
Or was this another phantasm of memory?
"But I knew.
"Without access to Sora's heart, or Riku's, the Kingdom Key vanished as soon as I picked it up to lock the Final Keyhole, but I'd been in the realm of darkness.
"When Xehanort's Heartless showed up and threatened us, and Roxas then briefly reclaimed control of his body merely because, the zombie Axel called him then, or not, he still didn't care for someone else attempting to prevent him from walking around and figuring out where, and who, he was, I had no idea who the blonde haired boy was.
"However, as soon as the Shadow began chasing us, I realized what had almost happened to me, and that it was Sora.
"And, by this point, Selphie had found Twilight Town, met Hayner, Olette, and Pence, and convinced them to assist her in investigating the Old Mansion.
"She was there when Roxas appeared out of nowhere in Twilight Town, along with Pence, Hayner, and Olette, and they saw the same robed figure show up and talk to him as the one who had spoken to Riku.
"They didn't hear the whole conversation, but they saw him give Roxas the Recusant's Sigil, and Sora's name show up along with the 'X.'
"Selphie met up with us when we returned to Traverse Town with Sora back in his human form, and it didn't take much then to put two, and two, together.
"While Xehanort's Heartless couldn't introduce Roxas to the other Nobodies now; or they'd at least learn Nobodies could be directly given hearts from Heartless, and that might be enough to convince them not to assist Xemnas in combining hearts into his own Kingdom Hearts.
"Xehanort's Heartless thus went to Xemnas, Xemnas ordered Vexen to create Vexen, and Xehanort's Heartless then used her tie to Roxas to erect a channel for shifting back, and forth, between the two of them as needed. At the same time, he lied that he was able to inhabit Roxas solely because Xion was a replica.
"You didn't know what you were, just that you weren't a Nobody, but Sora had a general idea that Roxas was a duplicate from him since before he left for the End of the World, even though he knew the specifics.
"So he understood you were a duplicate of Kairi when he met you then, at the play island that was submerged in the dark.
"Most of all, if I'd fulfilled my role, you wouldn't have needed to become so proficient with the Keyblade you'd have become even close to at risk of siphoning Roxas, one single time."
Xion couldn't even process the delineation between hurt and tears; imagination and reality; presence and separation; the way she remembered others and her past, present, and with a fornever notomorrow self.
"So I buried my nose in books about airship engineering and construction when Dad wanted to teach me how to provide for people other than myself, and as a result, one day when I was eight Mom, Lara Mustadio Ashtear, got one of the necklaces that she was wearing imprisoned in one of Dad's inventions while it was on. I was right there when it happened, but because I'd just cared about my own feelings and thoughts and happiness and dreams, I had no idea how to turn the invention off. I'm not saying what happened was worse than what you went through, but unlike the rest of you, who were in virtual no win situations and feel guilty for making the best of them that you could and coming up short doing better, I hadn't been in a virtual no win situation. I had had the power to make a difference, but I'd been too selfish and apathetic and irresponsible and uncaring to wield it.
"Mom got dragged into the invention at her neck, and it shut down when she jammed it, but before that happened, it ripped her neck apart. She barely survived, and since then, she's needed to live confined to a wheelchair, her spinal cord severed at the neck, paralyzed from the neck down and unable to move any of her body below her neck or feel anything with it."
"This isn't a flight of whimsy refined from guilt.
"I really could have forestalled almost everything you three went through if I'd made one single different choice."
But she at last understood.
She really had found the light by unlocking the chamber of her heart that believed in everlasting war.
She should have known better than to believe it would take much effort.
As usual, the light had always been at her side all along.
And now everything was totally quiet, and there was no selves, or gones.
Within less than a second, Tidus was carefully on the ground, and her Kingdom Key was crossed in an X with the Keyblade of Hearts, Oathkeeper and Oblivion careening into them and clanging into them with concussive force in the grip of the two icy hands of the statue that should have been Roxas, that had darted at Tidus as she'd now known it would.
Something far off passed through Xion at what she'd just done, but she didn't even attempt to recognize it.
The shifting, almost amorphous sculpture leapt back as soon as the blows connected, but he still assumed a defensive stance.
Xion ignored whatever was passing through her once more, and altered her own stance to match it.
Tidus hadn't been calling out Roxas' light to break his ice curse in a way that would return him to himself.
Because there hadn't been any darkness drowning it.
Not as they understood it.
It had never been an issue of discovering a road that led to the light.
It had been an issue of accepting searching for alternative paths themselves turned her into nothing but an aimless moth.
And that must be what Christopher had done to her.
Lea raced to her side, but Xion gestured once with her head.
"No," she said, and she didn't need to try at all to cause her voice to be nothing but an ordinary statement.
"I'm Xion now, and I always have been."
Wary energy appeared on Lea's expression.
"Retrieve Sora after I'm done, if you believe that will make a difference, but otherwise, can you please stay back?"
Lea's hands fisted so tightly they were clearly digging deeply into their palms as they drew blood.
Something else passed through Xion, and she left this, too, unidentified.
"This is my mess to clean up, myself, the way I should have over two years ago.
"And, if Roxas is a Heartreaver once more, and he's thus a Heartless with a body that won't reject its heart, from how well he contended with Maleficent, that means he's even more out of your league."
Lea's mouth opened, and all his blood drained away.
"You don't even have the dimmest glimmer of a chance of beating Roxas this time.
"But I finally understand, and I have the Keyblade of Hearts, so I know what to do.
"The deepest darkness isn't a shadow cast from a combination of the darkest cause, and the least scrupulous methods of seeing it through," Xion spoke on.
"As long as you have any cause at all, you have a light to guide you, even if it's nothing but a selfish one, and your light shines solely for yourself.
"To wield the lowest layer of night, above Lacuna, the Gap Amidst Transparency, you need to be willing to harness the darkness, without any cause at all, selfish, or selfless; to see all causes, slaughter, conquest, defense to prevent harm from being inflicted, rescue from current harm, or anything else, as pointless; but to strive for them anyway not out of a belief in, or a dream of obtaining, anything, for others, or reality, or yourself, but merely because you have nothing else left, and no reason to walk any other road than the one you're already on.
"This is why Xehanort's heart became pure darkness naturally; his Heartless, Nobody, younger self, and Terra-Xehanort were resigned to an existence with no light to guide them, or anyone else, but Xehanort himself honestly believed there was no light to guide anyone anywhere.
"There is always light left in the darkness, of course, and I'm acting from it.
"But, although I have a cause of light, I've still finally learned what it really means for all worlds, and hearts, to be tainted by darkness."
Lea opened his mouth, but Xion didn't let him interrupt,
"And understanding where paths lead at last enabled me to figure out part of what Christopher did to me.
"He attempted to turn me into a sinkhole of memories stretching throughout all space and time, and I'm currently a Portal meant to sift through all the currents of recollection eddying throughout the astral tapestry of all the worldlines' space and time. This will carve a pathway leading through recorded history to Kingdom Hearts' recollections of the one single First Keyhole, and the First Door, that shut before the worldlines began dividing. Then, when this pathway is sent into the Kingdom Hearts of the past through whatever method Maleficent has in mind, it will somehow open a doorway similar to the one Merlin did through which Maleficent can travel back to the instants it was still open."
It was now Xion realized Vanitas was standing to the left, and he clenched his teeth tightly.
"And if she opens it then, my true self must have a waypoint in place to send that path curling right back into the past's future, and our present, and do the same thing in this time.
"Opening the First Door in the past won't be enough for the New World he wants, that much I can clearly reflect on myself."
That was one of the largest pieces of the puzzle Xion couldn't place.
Xehanort, Maleficent, Mare… Maybe Xehanort's final contingency required it, and his methods had risked causing it as collateral damage, but his initial goal, and contingencies, hadn't needed him to reconstitute the majority of the cosmos in very precise ways to create his New World.
Maleficent, and Mare, didn't appear to have any goals more ambitious than that.
All they needed to do was open the door to Kingdom Hearts, the way it had naturally been set up to be done, or through artificial means that weren't that different from how the tides of light and darkness typically washed.
Master Yozora was attempting to alter those very currents themselves, to not break the World down and let it rebuild itself on Kingdom Hearts' own terms while grasping the reins of how that happened, but to ensure, when it was recomposed, the foundations for how that happened had been specifically laid before the reconstitution even began to take place.
Xehanort, Maleficent, and Mare, in one way, or another, sought the easy seconds it took to take hearts, and reality, apart.
Master Yozora had chosen the far more challenging route of reconstructing reality itself.
He didn't dream of abiding by the mandates of Kingdom Hearts, or even Gaes, or the nothingness outside it, or Domain of Tales.
He dreamt of, not a pure and bright empty World where life had a new start by Kingdom Hearts' divine Godhead mandate, albeit on the terms of the entity arbitrating between Kingdom Hearts, and all other hearts, who brought it about, but to accomplish nothing less than surpassing, and replacing, Kingdom Hearts, as the Godhead himself.
What kind of a New World could possibly require that much effort?
However, once more, even though she could tell by now the answer to this mystery had also always been at her side, this answer remained as blindingly apparent as it was just out of reach beyond an impenetrable wall of black.
The frosty sculpture of Roxas spoke, but unlike Xion, his words weren't even quiet.
There was nothing present in them but unremarkable enunciation, at all.
"As usual, we've been so unwilling to face how caked in darkness Xehanort really was, we missed the point the whole time," he said.
"Xehanort didn't have a specific plan for the New World, and it's anyone's guess how much of one he even has for his failsafe contingency, a failsafe even he wasn't willing to resort to, or not.
"Xehanort was so broken he literally wanted the realm of light empty, and for Kingdom Hearts to give hearts a new beginning, and he also believed how Kingdom Hearts did so would tell him the solution to all the World's problems that he could then compel everyone to live by in a cosmos where light didn't hold sway over darkness."
Xion felt something far off pass through her once more, and she paid no attention to it.
"People like DiZ, who want to both carve hollows in reality, and who have a specific goal in mind for how to remake it, are the really dangerous ones.
"As much trouble as Xemnas caused us, and even though I left too late, I at least shouldn't have quit the first Organization Thirteen until I'd dispatched DiZ."
New tears pushed forward to blanket all of her vision, and for the first time since she'd unlocked the last chamber of her heart where the answer had been buried, she couldn't breathe.
Not if it meant knowing Roxas was now even convinced he should have become an even worse assassin for Xemnas than Lea, and Marluxia, had been.
It was already well over two years too late.
She needed to end this now.
Roxas wasn't a near pure light to offset the pure darkness she should be able to combine with the Keyblade of Hearts and temporarily bolster its abilities.
She wasn't sure what to call whatever he was now, but she at last recognized the reason nothing, not freezing him the first time, or the light Tidus had attempted to convince him to feel, had reversed the curse, and his Formchange, at the same time.
And why Master Yozora wanted him to become the empyrean Kingdom Hearts.
There was nothing that could bring him home out of the nightmare she'd thrown him plummeting into, so there was nothing left for him to lose, and thus nothing left for him to hate, or even to be mildly annoyed, with.
Empyreal was the same.
Both of them had descended so far into the great abyss, they'd plunged beneath even the foundations of night itself.
Or even that of a hollow rift, or the realm in between that it was very possible offset hollow rifts.
That was what Lacuna, the Gap Amidst Transparency, was.
A realm of night so drenched in soot, there was as little darkness to guide anyone there as there was light.
And that meant, without any tides of darkness holding back this light, Xion could feed it into the Keyblade of Hearts, and thus into Roxas' heart.
Along with, if she was able to harness this correctly, all of the memories but the ones she'd been given that had turned her into the absolute puppet weapon.
She'd drown him in all the best memories she could recall them sharing in a way he couldn't avert his awareness from, while ensuring she retained the only things she needed to be herself.
I did it.
Roxas.
Axel.
Namine.
Isa.
Sora.
Kairi.
Olette.
Pence.
Hayner.
Tidus.
I truly, honestly did it.
I found that answer that is best for everyone, that I've been pursuing all this time.
And it turns out I've always been me, because there was nothing to choose between.
It turns out the light that was showing me there's no difference between what I wanted to do, and what I'm supposed to do, was always at my own side, so I've never even been useless, for even one instant.
She brought sparks of ruby red dancing down the Keyblade of Hearts in an outer casing in counterclockwise arcs, and threads of ruby red swirling up it in clockwise strings in an inner casing.
Then a new, male voice, spoke, and before she could react, someone reached around her and dragged the hand holding the Keyblade of Hearts slightly backwards, so its tip touched one of the openings in one of the plates of her armor Portal self.
Silvery anguish coursed out of her heart and up into her head.
"That needs to wait on our convenience.
"It wouldn't do for the rightful ruler of Arendelle to be denied our long anticipated reunion with our literally inhuman monster of a granddaughter who usurped what should never have stopped being ours; and our opportunity to introduce her, and the banquet hall of Ahtohallan, and to the repast that was just laid on the table of its deepest sound by her new squire, Arthur; now would it?"
.
"They spoke of sadness, and regret, but also… hope. They're begging for their suffering to end. But… No matter how much pain they feel, none of them asked to be destroyed. Not a single one. Being amongst them is like drowning in tears… But there was hope there, too. They want a new future. They want to live again."-Oerba Dia Vanille
"The sound of true despair is silence. When all hope is gone, that's when people stop raging against their fate."-Claire 'Lightning' Farron
LIGHTNING RETURNS: FINAL FANTASY XIII