Xehanort lay on his side on the old, musty bed, resting his head on his arm.
Gazing at the peeling, splintered wooden wall.
He heard the popping noise, familiar now - on a schedule.
He rolled over and pushed himself up on an arm, gazing at the small being standing before the bed. Cat-like, furred, with a cape - balancing a tray of food on their bulbous head, stubby arms raised to support it.
"Here's your dinner!" the being - Chirithy - announced, in a high voice that read as clearly feminine (yet the being had no other characteristics to suggest so beyond that).
Not that Xehanort cared, either way, what this little being identified themselves as...
"Is something wrong?" Chirithy spoke again, wobbling over to the nightstand and depositing the tray onto it. They hopped back, wiping an arm at their face. "I put a lot of work into this, you know...Amaya spent a lot of long hours teaching me to-"
"Leave me," Xehanort said coldly, gazing down on the creature.
Chirithy tilted their head at him. "...Alright. Clearly I'm not cut out for this kind of thing," they sighed, turning and hobbling away toward the door.
Xehanort watched them go, relaxing again.
The little being hopped up and turned the door handle, pushing it open. Then, they stopped.
"What?" Xehanort spoke.
Chirithy did a dithering little dance, before turning back to look at him. They raised a stubby arm and pointed straight at him, standing taller. "Look, I'm still not sure I know a whole lot about how humans work and stuff, but I know how Amaya works. I know her Heart better than I know anybody's. And do you wanna know what's in it?"
"I know what's in it already, thank you-"
"She cares about you," Chirithy cut across loudly, in that high female voice. "She cares more than I've ever seen her care about anyone before - not Ephemer, not Skuld, not even me. Her Heart persisted and came back across time and space, just for you!" The being paused, gazing at him with narrowed blue eyes. Then- "It's probably even more than just that, though. The feelings in her Heart, the stuff she says to me about you, even now, all the time...I think it might be all that love stuff."
Xehanort let out a soft snort, turning his head aside.
"It is!" Chirithy exclaimed. "I'm sure of it! She loves you. She's doing so much for you here, because of love. She sacrificed her existence for you - and then came back again!"
"And it did me so much good, didn't it?" Xehanort snapped out, his voice husky and harsh. "Yes, I'm so grateful to her - for leaving me alone like that, for leaving me to-"
"She came back! She's here now, and I don't think she's ever going to make the same mistake again. She's not leaving this time - so get used to it, buster! Get used to me, too!"
"Hmph. Not a chance," Xehanort retorted. "Now get out."
Chirithy held their hands to their chest, shaking their head furiously. "Grrrrrr...No, I don't think i will!"
"You-"
The little being raced forward and took a flying leap, landing sprawled on their face on the bed.
Xehanort pulled his legs back, glowering at them. "Your presence is nothing but a nuisance!"
"I'm sure Amaya thought that about me too, once or twice over the years," Chirithy replied, pushing themself up and turning to face him. "But I stuck with her to the end - and I'll do the same for you!"
Xehanort longed to just kick the little being across the room - but he knew it would only cause him problems. Problems he didn't need. Not that he didn't have plenty already, but...
He schooled his features, turning his head away. "Well then, be my guest," he said flatly. "I won't be doing anything interesting. You'll get very bored, very soon."
"Oh, I don't get bored," Chirithy replied.
"Hmph...we'll see, then, won't we," Xehanort stated, smirking.
Silence fell on the room again.
Xehanort did his utmost to ignore the creature's presence.
"So are you going to eat that or what?" Chirithy spoke again, gesturing to the nightstand.
Xehanort scoffed, keeping his gaze on the wall. "This vessel doesn't require sustenance."
"Neither does mine, but I still enjoy a good stick of ice cream!" Chirithy said, exasperation in their voice. "Even I know food's about more than just keeping you going - it's about the taste, the flavors! And I know these are some of your favorite fruits to eat."
Xehanort continued to stare at the wall, crossing his arms and leaning back now against the headboard.
"Well then, don't mind if I do..." Chirithy murmured, hobbling past him across the bed and bending over the tray. They straightened up and turned back to him, an orange fruit held between two nubby limbs. The creature stared at him as they brought the fruit up and bit into it with a tiny mouth. They tossed their head, and made...exaggerated eating noises.
Xehanort slowly turned to look at them, raising his eyebrows. "Did you...actually just do that?"
"What?" Chirithy said, through a mouth full of food. "I can't hear you over the sound of all this- delicious- crunchy- fruit. Mmmm..."
"You're a cruel little thing, aren't you," Xehanort remarked.
"Well then I guess we've got that in common, don't we?" Chirithy responded.
Xehanort scoffed. "When have I ever done anything cruel?"
Chirithy buried their face in the fruit again, flecks and pieces flying everywhere. They stopped, looking up again. "Good point. I guess you haven't really done anything yet - but you want to, don't you? You want to go on to do cruel, horrible things for the whole rest of your life."
Xehanort gazed at them. He uncrossed his arms, letting his fist curl...and then uncurl again. "I don't particularly want to do anything - it is simply that I will do what I will do."
"Well then what about what you want to do?" Chirithy questioned. "I was created to guide and protect my partner, but even I didn't just go along with everything without questioning it, or doing anything on my own - for myself, or for her. Are you really that dumb?"
"Excuse me?" Xehanort said sharply.
"You heard me."
"Get out!" Xehanort snarled.
"I guess you didn't hear me then, either. I already said no. Deal with it."
Xehanort took a deep breath...then exhaled. "Just be quiet, at the very least."
"Why? is that what you want? I thought that didn't matter to you at all?" Chirithy said, drawing the words out. "I'm confused. Help a cat out here, would ya?"
"Now you're simply being obtuse."
"An obtuse cat with a yummy, delicious fruit, all to themselves." Chirithy bit into the fruit again viciously. "Nom nom nom nom..."
"Stop that!"
"Why? Sorry - did you...want this after all?" Chirithy bent forward, extending the fruit out to him. "I could give it to you, if you wanted..."
Xehanort seethed, sitting up straight and glowering down at the creature.
Chirithy turned away, stooped down over the tray, then turned back around with a whole, new fruit in hand. They looked at him, then gave it a small toss; it landed on his lap. "Here you go. Enjoy it...if you want to."
Xehanort picked the fruit up, still glaring at the little being. He was, again, very tempted to resort to immature, physical violence to vent his emotions - to simply throw the fruit as hard as he could, right at the thing's face - but...no, he wasn't so childish, was he? He looked down at the fruit, inspecting it. Testing its firmness. Its ripeness.
He slowly brought it to his mouth and took a bite out of it.
It was perfect. Sweet and rich, sudden and powerful - the flashes of hazy memories came back to him, of days on a beach, of a voice of warmth and sweetness so similar, of arms around his form-
He turned away from Chirithy as he began to devour the fruit in earnest now, savoring every bite of it.
"My friends aren't my friends - my dreams were never my dreams - everyone I knew and came to care for is dead and gone...and I am now out of time. My entire life was orchestrated by those who lived long before me, in the ancient past; I wouldn't be shocked to learn Luxu cultivated the Darkness within Baldr himself, all to cause the tragedy meant to guide me to be the one they wanted me to be for them! To do as they wanted me to do! So what is there for me? There is nothing! There was always...nothing."
After leaving her work and world for the day, and returning to check in on Chirithy and Xehanort, Amaya was surprised to be met with a tirade of tumultuous emotions, upon her entry into the room, by Xehanort. Surprised - but also...perhaps...
She watched him as she moved to sat herself in the chair by the bed. A familiar scene. A familiar place.
Xehanort seemed to have recovered himself - the mask was in place again, as he sat there. Vacant. Emotionless.
Amaya let the silence sit for a long minute. Then another. And a third. And then, she spoke at last.
"If that's true, then prove them wrong," Amaya said softly. "If you say they manipulated you, trying to mold you into the person they wanted you to be, then deny them that - defy them. If they wanted to guide you down the path they desired, then stray from that path. If they wanted you to be terrible, then be better; if they wanted you to be evil, then be good; if they wanted you to be darkness, then be the light. Spit in the face of them, and do not become the person they want you to become - instead, be nothing but your true self."
"And who would that even be?" Xehanort said flatly.
"The person I know you are - the boy I knew before they got their hands on you, and began their work on you," Amaya responded. "You are not a cruel, uncaring monster; you are not a killer, or a destroyer of worlds. You are kind, caring, compassionate, and above all, a deeply empathetic person. You are intelligent, and thoughtful...and that is why I know you are strong enough and wise enough to break free of this path they wanted you to walk down. You may be out of time, child, but your existence here still affects everything and everyone as truly and permanently as it does in your own present. Because this is our present. It is mine, and yours, now. And what we choose to do here still matters. You are as free here to make your own choices, your own road, as anyone else is. And no one can ever take that from you. Not the Master of Masters, not Luxu, not even your own, present and future self."
Xehanort gazed emotionlessly into the distance.
"And not even me," Amaya finished quietly. "I can say everything I can think of, I can try anything I can...I could hold you here to the end of time itself - but in the end, if you decide to return to your present self's side, if you choose to help him do whatever terrible things he's going to do...I cannot stop you. Your life, your destiny, is truly your own, and none other's, Xehanort."
He looked at her, blinking, surprise on his face.
"You don't have to be a scapegoat or a hero. You don't have to be your future self, or your past self," Amaya whispered. "You can be all of it, or be none of it. Child of Destiny or not, Xehanort, I loved you because of who you were - the boy I knew - not whatever man you might become. It didn't matter to me, as much as seeing you grow, and learn, and find friendship, and love, and happiness did. And I know that Moreth felt the same way. She never would have given you to me in the first place if she didn't. Made that sacrifice for you. She didn't care what you became, or who you came back as...just that, one day, you would come back to her."
Xehanort dropped his head, long, silver hair falling to shadow his face.
Amaya slowly leaned forward, and she slid her arms around his form. She held him - just held him. Silent, breathing...
Xehanort remained as still as a statue.
Then, she let him go.
She sat back, gazing at him. Then, she raised a hand, her palm facing outward.
Xehanort turned his head, staring at her in confusion and wariness. "What are you doing?"
Amaya's hand swirled with magical circles and symbols - her eyes furrowed in concentration - then, a purple light burst around Xehanort, and an aura dissipated, like heat waves off the sun. She moved her hand forward, placing her palm flat against the middle of his chest, gazing into his eyes...
"What did you-"
She drew her hand back, slowly, fingers curling - drawing out a thick tendril of silver and gold energy. She pulled and pulled...and then the mass of energy broke free of his chest. Amaya stared at it, raised her free hand, and ran it along its length.
In a wash of golden light, the energy melted and twisted apart, splitting into strands and winding around each other...arranging itself into solid mass and matter. A long, metallic Keyblade. A thin, simple, bone white weapon, with an "M" shaped guard hilt, and a dangling keychain with a bright white symbol of a Heart.
Amaya turned the weapon around in her grasp, bent forward, and brought Xehanort's hand up to rest on the handle. She let the blade go, sitting back at last.
Xehanort stared at her, disbelief and bafflement written on his face. He gazed down at the weapon, looking it over. He ran his fingers across its length. He looked back up at her, into her eyes. His free hand turned upward, and flames sparked in his palm. He gave a soft gasp, then shut his fist to extinguish them.
"What is this?" he said slowly. "Some sort of test?"
Amaya shook her head. "No."
"Then what? You've handed me a weapon - undone that binding magic of Luxu's. Why?"
"To allow you to choose," Amaya replied. "Wherever you want to go, whatever you want to do - if you want to leave...then go. Or stay, if that is what you want instead. I told you: your life, your path, your choices, are yours alone. I will not...I cannot make them for you."
Xehanort gazed at her for an eternity. His fingers closed on the weapon's grip. He slid forward across the bed and slowly rose to his feet. He gazed down at her in the chair. He looked at his weapon, held before him...
Amaya gazed up into his face, blinking slowly.
Xehanort's weapon vanished in a flash of silver light, and he flashed his palm out before him. A swirling portal of darkness materialized in the room. He gazed at it - then back down at her. "You...are truly not going to stop me?"
Amaya shook her head. She looked to him, smiling sadly. "I wish I could, child. But this isn't about me: it's about you. Make the choice that's true to you, nothing more or less than that."
Xehanort lingered, for an agonizing, silent minute...
Then, he reached up, pulling the black hood over his face, hiding it in mystic miasma of blackness, and strode into the portal.
The Dark Corridor evaporated in his wake, leaving the room silent, and empty.
Amaya bowed her head, closed her eyes, and allowed her tears to fall freely onto the dusty old floor.
Xehanort emerged from the other end of the portal in the vast, empty Keyblade Graveyard.
He gazed around himself, at all the keys, rusted and broken.
The image of the place as it was in ancient times came to him - from the memories of hers...
A stormy night, lightning flashes, voices screaming, shouting, blades clashing, magic flying...an endless stream of Hearts rising into the heavens...
A lone girl, laying in the crossroads...
He shook his head, curling his fist.
He thrust it out to conjure a second portal - to another place.
He quickly moved through it, emerging on the other side in the familiar location: his present self's secret base of operations - an old laboratory, on an abandoned island, in a technologically advanced world. A rather impressive one, honestly.
Xehanort stood in the vast, rusted chamber, with its walkways and pillars. The raised platform in the center, with the broken arch. He glanced around-
And stopped as he felt a metal blade pressing into his back.
"Reveal yourself," came the harsh, deep tones of his present self - issued and morphed through the body of his vessel, once belonging to the Keyblade Wielder, Terra.
"Obviously, it's me," Xehanort responded, reaching up to throw off his hood, looking back over a shoulder.
His older self gazed at him. Then the weapon retreated, and he nodded. "Our connection was severed."
"Yes," Xehanort agreed. "It was removed after they grabbed me."
His older self's yellow eyes inspected his face. They narrowed a moment. Then relaxed. He turned away, vanishing his weapon and putting his hands behind his back. "It will be restored, then."
"It will."
"How did you escape them?" Xehanort's older self questioned absently, as if asking the weather.
"I - did not. Amaya- she- let me go-"
His older self whirled around, startling him. "Were you truly so taken in by their illusions?"
Xehanort shook his head, holding his older self's gaze. "She was not an illusion. She was real. I was provided with irrefutable proof."
"Were you? And then, after giving such proof, they saw fit to simply...let you go?" His older self raised his eyebrows.
"She went against Luxu's intentions, in lifting a binding spell of his and setting me free," Xehanort responded evenly. He raised his hand, conjuring his new weapon to hand. "She even forged this from my very Heart. An illusion could not have done so."
His older self strode forward, staring down at the weapon. His mouth curved. "Dispose of that immediately."
"Why?" Xehanort said.
"I didn't think myself so foolish at your age as to not realize that they may be using it to track you - straight back to me," his older self growled. "Clearly this was all some clever ruse to uncover my location - to track our movements! Destroy it, boy, now."
Xehanort glanced down at the weapon-
His older self snatched it from his grasp and hurled it out away from them. It skittered across the floor, stopping. His older self's hand rose up, surrounded by dark energy. The mass of thousands upon thousands of pulsing cubes descended from the ceiling like locusts, swarming the Keyblade, as they turned from green to bright red. They moved over themselves repeatedly, a stationary mountain layering over itself-
Until there was a great flash of silver light from within.
The cubes withdrew, revealing shattered pieces of metal and magic on the ground. And then those pieces evaporated, disappearing on the air.
His older self let out a sigh, satisfaction on his face. "Hmph."
Xehanort eyed his older self, a strange feeling in his chest. He breathed in and out. "I learned much from them - valuable information," he began. "Would you like to hear it?"
"Whatever was said cannot be trusted," his older self dismissed.
"This information came in the form of memories - shown to me by the memory witch, Namine," Xehanort stated calmly. "She does not have the ability to falsify images - merely to convey them, yes?"
His older self glanced at him. Examined him. Silent. "Yes...Very well, then. What information have you acquired?"
"The full and complete truth of the Keyblade War," Xehanort said quietly.
"Did you now?"
"Yes."
"And from whom did these memories originate?"
"From the Heart and mind of the ancient Keyblade Master, Luxu."
"Bah. I am sure his selection of memories was carefully chosen - designed precisely as they should be to mislead you in some way."
"No. I saw a great deal. Far too much, too plainly, to simply be-"
"Think, boy, think!" his older self exclaimed, throwing out an arm, his face filled with frustration and anger. "This is the same man who has manipulated our life since our school years! A fellow classmate, a comrade, whom we fought side by side with - whom we mourned - and yet...all of it was deception! You can trust nothing that comes from that man's mouth, mind, or Heart!"
"That may be true of him - but what about her?" Xehanort said, an edge to his own voice now.
"Oh? Did she show you her memories as well?" his older self countered, challenged. Mocked.
"Yes! And I saw the truth in them. I know the truth - of our dreams, the friends we had longed to meet-"
"They were merely that: dreams. I have long-since let them go. You must as well."
"The girl from our dreams, the one with the dark hair, like our mother's-" Xehanort pressed on.
"What of her?"
"She is our ancestor. We are a descendant of hers. As we are also a descendant of the Founder of Scala Ad Caelum, himself!" Xehanort said loudly. "We are a Blue Blood - we have been, all along."
His older self's eyes widened...then, they narrowed. He turned away, clasping his hands behind him once more and striding away a few feet. "Regardless of the validity of the information, it does not matter to us any longer."
"Doesn't...matter?" Xehanort repeated. "It was all that mattered! It was what we sought after, what drove our desires in the first place. Without it, we would not have-"
"I am decades removed from such a time and feelings," his older self cut across sharply. "And I had thought you were many years enough to have given up on them as well. But perhaps you are still a child after all, compared to myself."
Xehanort clenched his fist, his fingernails digging into his glove. A simultaneous, burning, yet hollow feeling was working its way through his chest.
"It is time to move on, boy," his older self said roughly, glancing back at him over a shoulder. "Now, let us-"
"Our mother's name was Moreth."
"Irrelevant information."
"The girl's name was Skuld."
"Irrelevant!"
"She exists - here - now," Xehanort persisted. "I saw a glimpse of her in Radiant Garden, before! We could simply-"
"Simply what?" his older self sneered. "Waste our precious time indulging in foolish fantasies? Pining for a person you do not even know? What, exactly, would you do, boy? Go to this woman and say hello? Do you think she would be at all receptive to such a thing? She aligns herself with our enemies. And the feelings in her Heart for us would only be dark, spiteful, and angry. Even if you would possibly delude yourself into believing this fantasy girl could be a friend, she would never see you as such! LET. IT. GO. Cease obsessing over the past, and focus on the road ahead of us!"
Xehanort stood, silent, rigid, his shoulders trembling with a rage he had rarely known. Not since the tragedy, not since coming onto the scene, witnessing all of his classmates and friends being cut down at once, scattered like toys - since Vor...
"Have we truly become so lassitude in our old age?" Xehanort spoke, harsh and quavering. "I find that highly disappointing."
His older self straightened his head, hiding his face. "Life, you will find, boy, is full of disappointments."
"You may not be interested in finally satiating our curiosities, but I still am. I am not so old as to have lost that, apparently," Xehanort said coldly.
His older self snorted, shaking his head. His fingers curled tight around the fist behind his back...then relaxed. "Then go," he said, weary and quiet. "Meet this girl if you so desire. Satisfy your boyhood curiosity...disabuse yourself of fantasy and doubts...and return to me prepared to commit yourself to the reality of the road ahead."
"She is not a fantasy; she is real. And she is our blood," Xehanort said, quiet and intense. "She is- she is family. The family we never had - the family we longed for, more than friends. Does that truly mean nothing to you anymore?"
His older self remained still, and silent.
Xehanort turned and conjured a dark portal, a product of the rage he felt in that moment still, and stalked through it alone.
As he did so, the thought rose in his Heart that - beyond the obvious, physical differences - he did not recognize himself in the other man. Not much at all...
And such a thought...perturbed him.