.
CHAPTER 71:
DANCE OF THE DESERTERS
.
Author's Notes: The pieces for this Chapter are, in order of scene: 'X Versus Zero,' from the MEGAMAN X5 Original Soundtrack; and afterward, 'Awakening,' from the XENOGEARS Original Soundtrack, Disc Two; and afterwards, 'Banquet Of Transmigration,' from the VAGRANT STORY Original Soundtrack, Disc Two. All three compositions can be found in KINGDOM HEARTS Insider's MP3 section.
Kairi nearly didn't register the sight of her own face, with gray hair, darting at Elsa with
my
D
Mare's variation of No Name extended forwards.
"We can ensure Sora won't get stranded anywhere, to begin with, this time, unless you're the one to act like a reckless loon, and so, this time around, do it."
The remembrance of Mare's hypocrisy flickered through Kairi's mind's eye, and faded, at the same time as she was moving, herself.
The knowledge of what it might mean, due to the precise time, and question, Sora had vanished from within her arms, themselves, in response to, of the beyond fathoming more guilt Kairi may have just caused Sora to buckle under, or ho
was itself, to the side.
"You were correct, however, not to doubt we'd pull through.
"This time, you found all of us."
Kairi had known better than to remind Sora of the person, regardless of his origin, he was excluding, and not just because registering Sora had overlooked the present Riku Replica, if not the past one who might still be able to be brought home sweet home, or home, meant Yozora was very likely directing their endeavors away from Riku Replica, for a reason.
"So, let's think of a way to keep things like that."
Kairi didn't need to think about what she was doing.
Destiny's Embrace swung down to strike Mare's No Name into the ground.
Mare brought her feet below her, at the same time as her torso shifted and rippled, enlarging to that of the lower midsection of a Darkside to alter Mare's center of balance, and weight, so she could fall back into a roll without losing as much of her momentum, then drawing back together into its humanoid form as she vaulted out of the backwards tumble into a somersault.
She landed with her Keyblade raised nearly horizontally in a more offensive than defensive position that mirrored not Sora, or Kairi, herself, but Riku's preferred stance with Soul Eater before he went on the offensive.
"Who do you have the gumption to see yourself as?" Mare snarled with unfettered savage viciousness.
"After what you just almost did?
"To Riku, before that?"
Kairi was surprised, even after what Sora had said, she needed to suppress the urge to wince, at that.
Why hadn't she just done it?
It hadn't made any difference, that she hadn't.
"That's right," Mare sneered with hateful derision.
Good.
At last, someone was acknowledging it.
"It took Axel, who threw at Xion for drawing, not striking, at Roxas, to convince you to stop loafing off while Sora, and Riku, were wheezing their way through the mud of the trenches."
Kairi suppressed the urge to clench her teeth at the need to refuse to wince, at that one.
"You're worse than your father.
"How proud do you think Xehanort, in his deepest darkness, would be of you, for your life as Runeard?"
Mare turned her distilled glare of brimming hate, and now disdainful derision, on Elsa.
"As for you, lese majeste was Xehanort's style, but, while it's entirely possible, Hans, himself, is hypocritical enough to stoop to your version of it, for his own purposes, that is what he was going to execute you for."
Elsa met Mare's gaze with a steady stare.
"While I have much to learn about what it is to lead my people, as Queen, and just as much to learn about the many pitfalls irresponsible uses of power can trip into, I was raised to understand the yoke of lese majeste, and similar subjugations," Elsa said with measured reserve.
"As many as my failings were, at the time, I can assure you, I wouldn't have damaged my people's livelihoods, and endangered their health, merely for impugning my honor, if not for the guilt I'd been carrying about what I'd done to Anna."
Mickey's face shifted with understanding.
Larsa's did the same.
"Goodie' for you," Mare replied, sarcastically.
"I would have."
She sprang in Elsa's direction, shifting her No Name into an offensive position to activate what could have been an Ars Arcanum, Dark Aura, or Seven Wishes.
Mickey intercepted Mare, this time, sliding forward under Mare, and then jumping directly up in a deftly smooth vault to latch the prongs of his Keyblade into Mare's, and yank it to his own right, and downwards. As he did, magenta encased Mickey, and he bent backwards into a single Flowmotion, with enough torsion it yanked Mare off both her feet.
Mare elongated her legs, but Elsa flicked her left hand, and two thin light blue ice skate blades of the substance they were meant to travel rose below Mare, sending her onto her side.
By then, Mickey was up, and his Keyblade was aimed at her, a sphere of white glowing in front of it.
Mare sneered, with irritation, this time, as much as derision, even though her face was shifting with slight pain.
"That worked in the datascape because I wasn't a full fledged Heartless, and because one of your spare brooms had already sprayed me with his furniture polish."
Mare altered her legs back to her humanoid ones, as she spoke.
"I unshackled myself from fetters you can bind, long since.
"And, before you say anything, I'm not going to kill Elsa, or take her heart.
"I pledged myself, to Roxas, and Xion.
"I'm going to use the same properties in her ice spells she's learned to channel into photographs to stick her in a datascape of nothing but my Blox."
"That doesn't mean I can't beat you on my own, even now," Mickey responded, with contained challenge in his tones.
"I see no reason to believe that's necessary," Larsa interjected, and this time, there was quiet warning in his voice.
"I traveled all this way to prevent one flashpoint from burgeoning into a full scale war, not to become one of my own. Please, let us temper this with prudence, if we would?"
Larsa turned to Mare.
He inclined his head, and his voice was calming, and conciliatory.
"I have a tale to regale you, too, with," he said.
"Of someone named Genesis Rhapsodos.
"As Xion, he once believed all paths were closed to him save to cast aside what hope remained, and choose naught but the manner of his own death. Nigh unto the eve, though, he was about to fold his last cards, he attended one last theater of a play he held most renowned. There he first witnessed a woman named Jessie Raspberry, recently all but bereaved of her father by Memoria Auralith Crystal, wishing for nothing other than an ovation to end her career, perform as the altar before which he sought his forsaken encore."
"He was enraptured by her performance, as some Goddess, so much, he sought her autograph, and he discovered how much she shared his joy in the theatrical," Mare responded dismissively. "When all was said, and done, they were betrothed, and played an essential role in evicting Sphere from Ivalice Zodiac.
"I already know that dossier.
"I hacked it from the Data Olympus Coliseum's deeper memories, ones stored in the coding of the Data-Cloud's disfigured tree sap arm.
"Outside of the similarities between how Roxas, and Xion, are parts of Sora; and Sephiroth, and Tifa, are the parts of Cloud who, respectively, want to dish it out with every facet of a doormat consumerist society he can think of, for as long as he can think of, and who has confidence in Cloud as his own person; I fail to see any more relevance to this than any direct attempt at persuasion.
"Here's one I now have a better framework for.
"Cloud split apart because he believed it was his personal responsibility, for Aerith's sake, to save Scrooge from himself. Aerith, then Radiant Garden's ambassador to Ivalice Zodiac, was in an all but hopeless situation because, to outdo his chief business rivals one Christmas Eve, Scrooge was about to sell out. Cloud believed his sole chance to protect them both, and win the approval he'd never once lacked from Glenn, was to keep Scrooge from calling a Keyblade Scrooge was going to wait to see who he bankrupted first to give what he saw as a Christmas name to. If he put Luther out of business, first, he'd call it Soylent Vault," Larsa cringed, slightly, clearly recognizing what Mare was referring to, "For the Feolthanos, it would be Carol Hearth, and, for the Shinra, it would be Valve Star.
"But Cloud knew he was, almost surely, unable to safeguard them, it was nearly inevitable Aerith was, about to die, and, if she did, it was almost a surety Scrooge would give into the darkness. Cloud made the sole choice he saw before him that could protect them both, and he harnessed darkness himself to attempt to call Scrooge's Keyblade first.
"That kept Aerith alive, and brought Scrooge to his senses, but I, very possibly, know plenty of things about the price Scrooge forced Cloud, the two others he created then, Ivalice Zodiac, and worlds such as The Caribbean, to pay, neither of you two, Mickey, or Larsa, do.
"Including, a lot closer to firsthand, how much better things would now be, for William, and Elizabeth, Turner, if Cloud had been willing to keep his own business, and leave Scrooge, and Aerith, to be churned to canned produce by the invisible hand of commerce."
"As you know this much," Larsa replied, his voice unruffled, "Then you know Sephiroth's first death came about because, recognizing she could kill Sephiroth as well as Cloud could, had she but the means, Tifa sought to rescue him from his dark replica. She worked together with Aerith's Trees of Mana, giant bodyguard plants with leafy branches on their backs where the wings of Angel Stars some of them became extend, that Ansem the Wise experimented with in his laboratory as what he believed would be more humane soldiers.
"Tifa weathered her own first death, then, by refusing to dodge an impaling strike from Sephiroth to lure him into overextending himself, and leaving himself open, so he, in turn, would, for but seconds, become lethally open to blows from the Mana Trees. She let him impale her with the Masamune, at a time she knew, if she did, it would also get wedged in one of the thickest parts of the Mana Trees. When he attempted to pull it out, she tugged it further into her, without letting go of it, and, thus, her responsibility in his death, leaving him unguarded for the tiny segments of time necessary for both Mana Trees to connect with fatal strikes.
"Tifa's temporary death, and how it carved up Cloud, partially because both of them believed it was permanent, hurt Aerith so much she believed she should have taken Tifa's place, and spurred her to depart Ivalice Zodiac.
"Still, Aerith relented even before she learned Tifa's own death had been fleeting, merely by discovering Sephiroth's own recovery.
"She had no method of returning to Ivalice Zodiac, at the time, yet she set out to find Cloud, by that time on Sephiroth's trail throughout the realm of light.
"Have you aught of a greater reason than she, to stay relented to fearful despair, in the face of a mere looked for future?"
"Clearly, I should tell you, first," Lucca interjected, her voice filled with confident exasperation.
Elsa whirled to look at Lucca, and she struggled to breathe.
Mare whipped around, the rage gone from her face.
Mickey spun in her direction, appearing torn between holding his own breath, and keeping too much hope at bay.
Larsa's face shifted, so masked Kairi couldn't tell if he already knew what Lucca was about to say.
True terror brought reality back with it, within Kairi, and she became aware that, while it wasn't an effort to breathe, she was so terrified of what Lucca was about to say, she genuinely wished she didn't have the ability to, at all.
Lucca's expression was composed, most likely because, in order to show she wasn't D
Xehanort
notforthis
youopenedthedoor
youcorrodethelighthisheartbeganinandsoendedtocallhimthatnow
Even, Ienzo, or Ansem the Wise, she was taking what she was about to say as professionally as her field required, at least, to them.
Lucca's voice was professional, itself.
"I began what research I'm under the impression Xion trusted me to, by positing this.
"I've been researching discrepancies in currents of light and darkness.
"Such as how Sora was able to recomplete himself without erasing Roxas, and Xion, but neither of them are able to do the same thing. Another example is how, even though Nobodies are entities of body, rather than heart, a Princess of Heart was able to create a Nobody from an absence of a physical form with talents that are much greater than any other Nobody. Then there's the issue of how much less light photons need to be excited, even with world hearts working together with Keyblades, for those Keyblades to open paths into worlds through intact Gummi blocks, than it takes for Keyblades to utilize means to travel the Lanes Between by themselves, without Gummi ships. Mickey was able to break a motherlode of dreamstone, the substance that is the Gummi wall of Kingdom Hearts, into chips, while it can take throngs of Heartless years to do the same to ordinary Gummi walls; and Cloud can die at the hands of anyone, including his replicas, but he's the sole person who can, depending on his frame of heart, and mindset, permanently strike down Tifa, and Sephiroth.
"I've spent hours poring over what data have been measured, and otherwise recorded, about these currents of energy, and the discrepancies among them, however imprecise the information. I now believe I can theorize, with a sufficient degree of accuracy, that, even if Xion's energy siphon can't be shut off, it should, at least, be able to be redirected into a closed circuit."
"You, your heart, your mind, and your body, are not person or Heartless or Nobody or Unversed or Dream Eater.
"You are what all life, all existence, all reality, all of the World, all of the cosmos, all stars, all worlds, all people, all hearts, of light and darkness, most yearn and reach and fight brutally and ruthlessly and remorselessly and cruelly and strive and dream and long for.
"You are the Kye-Blade."
"As long as we don't fear it and thus give it power over us, there's no darkness that can fully break our hearts, or even break them a little, if we don't let it."
"Is that so?
"You learned long ago of one form of darkness that, though it can't stifle the light, the light itself can't overcome it either. A form of darkness that, like Xion's, will inflict horrible death and murder and torture and torment whether we will it to, or we don't."
Elsa staggered, and she repositioned her feet.
A genuine grin manifested on Mickey's visage.
Mare's brow creased.
At that point, at least, Lucca hadn't possessed any way of knowing what Kairi's decrepitude had sentenced Sora to.
To say nothing of what she'd done to his Heartless.
Kairi knew better than to believe Lucca's theory was as grounded as she believed it was, in the face of Sora's identity as the Kye-Blade, and his Heartless', as the Note Blade.
Kairi couldn't justify believing she kept any of what she couldn't have forever didn't feel off of her expression.
If Lucca, or anyone else, saw anything, though, no one commented on it.
Kairi refused to even acknowledge the far away flicker at the knowledge a similar method may be able to be applied to keep her alive, as more than just a heart, for what it was.
She'd stay true to what she'd said to Tidus, and what Platina had taught her, but that didn't mean doing so was required to mean anything to her, after all the unnumbered lives, and hearts, she now knew she'd extinguished, and ravaged.
Mare congealed her right hand into a sawdust yellow trapped Blox, while her left hand wavered into a gray hovering Blox platform.
Elsa staggered, her right hand shifting as though she wanted to raise it to her forehead.
Mare's eyes flew wide in drawn horror.
"Roxas! Xion!" she shrieked, in undecorated horrified terror.
Elsa's face drained into bony whiteness.
Most of Mare's tones were those of full and utter all encompassing terror, but there was still an angry hate for Elsa as she answered.
"Xion's on the run from Vanitas' true master, barely alive, while Yozora's Nobody has Roxas cornered above the atmosphere over your ice palace, in the Ocean Between!"
Nothing but reality existed now, needle laser singularity refined into such phantom white shaded sheet metal edged precision anything other the careening breathless giddiness of their anyclearingincineratingwashing crystalline kaleidoscope could no longer matter, and Kairi was practically unable to discern every of it had mattered, to begin with.
The set determination that had manifested on Elsa's face didn't matter.
The terrified doubt on Mickey's visage, as though he was looking at the shades of a ghost, also meant nothing.
"This heart belongs again to d"
That, if she did this, it could very well set off the interstellar war Elsa was risking, and sunder most, if not all, of what they'd all been fighting for for all these years, even decades, or centuries, meant the least of all.
Kairi had already fired the first shot in one interstellar war, and caused innumerable others to be fomented in Sora's, Riku's, and, above all, her, name, for well over eleven millennia.
By now, a full scale interstellar war on her conscience would mean less than every conceptualization of nothing that potentially hadn't been imagined.
If the Heartless had claimed enough worlds populated by sentient microbes, or other small living beings, such as grass, or, even if they hadn't, while infinity had no value, the amount of hearts, and lives, Kairi had claimed, or ruined, by opening the door, might literally be the closest calculable value to zero in every history of every single worldline, and realm.
Even now, this long after the heartshower, she'd left so many hearts cast into the ruination, if not worse, calculating that number, itself, might come in second, perhaps a close second.
Even that didn't lightly brush what she'd done to Sora, Riku, Tidus, Wakka, Selphie, Namine, and the others.
"I was wrong about what I said to you when Yen Sid told us about Aqua.
"I don't still feel that way."
"I'll at least promise this will be quick."
Kairi felt no guilt.
Soulless, empty genocidal mass deserters had no capacity to even understand the most remote horizons of what that meant.
"No."
Kairi practically couldn't recognize there was even absence, or steadiness, in her stable voice.
"He's mine."
She barely didn't process the unblemished hateful fury in that word, or the heft of Bifrost in her hand, and the weight of the twelve wings of Cantata Aeterna now extended from her back.
"After that, I'll trace his connections to his Heartless, and, of his recompletion.
"Then, any of it will be over."
A single thin pole of light rushed in the direction of the ice palace, as the large silhouette of a crown at the center of washing dark mists spread out below her, to bring the outline of a glimmering golden key into the air before them.
Kairi barely processed what was about her altering into Roxas standing on an invisible surface amidst the moving blues, and filaments of the skies of the realm of light, between Empyreal, who was holding Namine captive, and an adult Vanitas with his hood down who could solely be one person.
She registered this meant she wouldn't need to trace any connections to recomplete Yozora, and then defeat him, and she swept it aside as far as she could, without lowering her guard, while walling it off similarly.
She suppressed the impulse to sample her reserves for whether she could unleash Photon Lance, and, if she could, at what cost.
She'd worry about that, if there was a reason to.
She couldn't worry about Namine, when contending with this foe.
She needed to leave her to Roxas.
To defeat the opponent she was confronting, Goofy's tactic might be her best shot, while she still had any amount of element of surprise, no matter how much the Master of Masters had been maneuvering her into doing this, and how likely it was he'd perceived her opening the path from its first instant.
She brought Bifrost up above her head in a two handed grip, and swung downwards in an overhead downwards vertical two handed cleave.
Yozora's Nobody raised Void Gear in a one handed horizontal block
Kairi pushed away, and walled off, the flood of all searingconsuming hate as he rolled his eyes as he did so
She was reasonably sure this was a feint, so Yozora's Nobody could counter with another Keyblade.
So Kairi whirled Bifrost backwards, to bring its point up in an upwards diagonal slice at Yozora's left hand.
An orange No Name of energy intercepted it, but, by then, Kairi's wings had curled into their sickles of energy over her head, and all twelve of them had flared into an incandescent leaf green, as Kairi wove the conduits of her heart's tapestry in accordance with the idea hearing about the Trees of Mana gave her.
"Last March," she said steadily.
A copse of thick blue, and red, stalks, as thick as Maleficent's thorny vines, but with Keyblade prongs resembling the ones on Oathkeeper, all the Kingdom Keys of light and darkness Kairi was aware of, Braveheart, Oblivion, Way to the Dawn, Destiny's Embrace, all the variations of No Name Kairi knew of, and Flame Liberator, in place of the thorns, and tips, arced up from the sickle halo, to both sides, at differing upward, and downward, slopes, and down into the transparent surface Kairi was standing on, to curl up at the true Vanitas' Nobody from many directions as though they were the bands of a compass Kairi was the central back support for.
Yozora snorted.
Within less than the fractions of seconds it took for any of the stalks to connect, existence itself appeared to separate behind, and around, Yozora's Nobody, as though sinking into a vast inside out eye, and then an immense unremarkably built figure of solid night without eyes of its own, about half the average height of a Titan, was standing atop a correspondingly featureless ebony Keyblade glider of moderate length, and width.
The stalks all impacted with the surface of what was clearly Keyblade armor, and its Keyblade glider, and shattered into a glittering rainbow of countless unearthly glass shards, before they faded out of sight.
Kairi sprang back, retracting her wings to their ordinary positions, and lifting Bifrost into a neutral position.
"Not this time about, you may not have a very nice day, thanks much," Yozora's voice echoed from around the center of the Keyblade armor's midsection.
Kairi refused to let herself feel any intimidation.
She ignored the urge to look back at Empyreal, outside of her guard for the sounds, or other evidence, of any movements from him, or Namine, even though she had no reason to believe he'd let Namine go.
"Let me keep you s"
"They're staying with u"
Kairi pushed it to the side.
She ignored the undeniable sick shift in her stomach, at doing so.
This was giving Namine the chance to protect herself, anyway.
Even with how badly she'd underestimated Empyreal, before, there was little current question the Nobody of Yozora was the greater danger, even before he'd clad his Keyblade armor, and Keyblade glider.
That was the sole thing that could, or maybe hadn't, matter.
"Leave this to me, Roxas," Kairi said, without turning her head.
"Sure thing," Roxas spoke back, but there was enough doubt in his shaking voice Kairi could tell he was unsure whether he should be the one saying that to her.
Kairi ignored it.
Vacant of a cavity further than one thing mattered, any fornevermore longer.
Kairi curved her wings into sickles over her head, another time.
"Empress Massacre!" Kairi cried, twirling in the adult Vanitas' direction.
The surface of the Keyblade armor in front of Kairi shifted, and a single pitch black Keyblade extended from it to intercept the first carve, curling into its blocking position with what appeared to be an effortlessly light movement, but that impact Kairi's wing sickle with such torsion breath was gone, and Kairi was terrified, from the pain washing up her neck, it had been cleanly snapped as though it were a brittle twig.
Kairi suppressed the urge to clench her teeth, against the physical anguish, and the block, and forced herself to breathe, whirling into the second strike in the sequence, with a red sickle wing.
Another pitch black Keyblade was in a position to block that one.
Kairi let her eyes widen, as she became aware of what Yozora's Keyblade armor was.
She curled to her left, and discontinued the Empress Massacre to somersault diagonally to her right, and backwards, and then she twisted into a backwards vault to land on her feet, Bifrost back at the ready.
She couldn't perceive whether the Keyblades were real, or ghostly.
Kairi registered a shift in the ropes of light and darkness about her that told her Roxas was beginning a Formchange, and not the one that had morphed him into a Heartreaver.
"You haven't even gotten a chance to test that," Kairi spoke.
There was no reason for her to bring any sentiment into her voice, so she didn't.
"That's not the kind of risk you should be taking, unless you can be sure you're calling to it with all your heart, so it will function the way we need it to."
Kairi heard Roxas emit a contained snarl at the reminder he wasn't Sora.
And, how they couldn't know how much of Sora's ability to cause dreams to come true, prior to him learning how to harness the power of waking, and, even after he had, for anything but the power of waking, and Sora's other most heartfelt accomplishments, had been brought about by who Sora was as a person, and how much had been brought about by how he was the Kye-Blade.
Kairi refused to consider the most mote of a miniscule possibility Sora had actualized a single one of his most magical achievements for any other reason than because he was himself.
He didn't need a weapon; he connected hearts, people's and worlds', without waging battle; and Sora had, never once, needed to find something that had always been inside the brightest reaches of the rainbow that was his heart.
For all that good any of that had done when Kairi had weighed him down with all of those burdens, in among the worst possible ways, anyway.
She pushed the hate, for herself, and Yozora, down.
She needed to wield both the darkness, and the light, to do it, not the other way around.
That meant she couldn't act on the hate, or much, or particular forms, of the rage, or anything similar.
A derisive snort emitted from the core of the Keyblade armor.
"You'd be sparing yourselves the rest of the trouble I've been storing up for you, if you'd just admit hearts are overrated," Yozora sounded disdainfully amused.
"If you really believed that, you wouldn't be making any effort to protect, and avenge, Faerie, and your other comrades in arms," Kairi responded, with contained challenge.
Kairi pushed away any sentiment at how she heard no reaction from Empyreal, or Namine, if he was still restraining her, far less anything that gave her an idea where his true loyalties, and goals, lay.
"Who says it's their hearts I'm attempting to uphold?" Yozora responded.
"Making this distinction is getting even older than the first realm was. I've been doing it since I first told Luxu the people I combated the first denizens of darkness with don't matter.
"I'm attempting to vindicate the uprightness of their causes."
Kairi suppressed an urge to clench her teeth, at that one.
"While I can't just leave Faerie a prisoner, when she'd otherwise be totally capable of upholding her own causes, by herself.
"I stopped believing their hearts, and our connections, mattered waaaaaaaay back when. They're entirely indistinguishable to me, now, from the rest of the hazardous hearts causing the cosmos to decay into sludge as the faceless water waiters the Nobody of my long gone secretary keeps forming as his own wasted effort to preserve my other former companions' legacies."
So that was who Demyx was, and part of, if not the essential, reason he left so much of the work he was supposed to do to his water familiars.
Kairi was truly surprised at how she was surprised, at all, by now, to discover Demyx was as old as Lauriam, Elrena, and Luxord.
Xemnas didn't scout his Nobodies through fogged over glass.
"Faerie's the same.
"The causes they lived for merit liberating them, and my apprentices, from the netting of connections, at the same time as I do so myself.
"That's a separate issue from them actually mattering, though.
"With that in mind, how are we doing this?"
Kairi would ask Luxu for his version of the conversation Yozora was referring to, and attempt to discern what the truth was from Luxu's own version of the answer, as soon as she had a valid chance to.
"You're wasting your time asking," Kairi responded.
She altered her hold on Bifrost into an offensive position, and shifted her stance to charge.
Before Kairi could do more than see it, star flecked globes of black, with many pebble sized comets of differing shades traveling through their insides at various velocities, and equators of asteroid belts of varying colors at different haphazard slopes ringing their inner circumferences, drew together in front of the featureless obsidian hands of the Keyblade armor, and surged forward in her direction as twain tsunamis.
Kairi responded with Apocalypseza, releasing three beams from six of its clock's numerical hour positions to hold the tidal waves back as she traced the other blasts in front of the miniature comet stones, and asteroid pebbles, rushing at her within the waves, evaporating them.
Almost before the Apocalypseza had dispersed, she reversed part of the process of weaving Empress Massacre. She brought the six light blue wings extending from her left back together into an oblate skate board of concentric circles in front of her feet, while she threw Bifrost to be caught along the shaft in a grip at the tips of her red right wings, facing forwards, and leaving her hands free.
She propelled herself into a jump on the back of the effective skateboard with as much momentum as she could call into a Flowmotion without risking overextending herself, to simultaneously hurl the wing skateboard in a rising slope forward to increase her speed, and she sailed in an ascending direction at the midsection of the Keyblade armor while reaching with both of her hands to grasp the back of Bifrost.
Yozora scoffed with light derision.
"Zetta Guided Shot," he spoke.
Kairi's eyes widened as the tips of countless legions of solid black Keyblades pointed forward all over the torso of the Keyblade armor, and a green wireframe grid with every surface shaped like a tightly woven chain link fence appeared as a giant cube in front of the Keyblade armor, and around her.
Every single last one of those wires arced inwards at her, throngs of them simultaneously, other swarms at different rates, to avoid intercepting one another.
Two could play the treadmill game.
Kairi refashioned the skein of her blue wing, altering it into an around vertical dagger edge thin version of the clock her oldest brother had once utilized as the closest thing he possessed to Keyblade armor of his own, and it parted around her as though it were semiliquid in a Reality Shift as she fell sideways into it while she accelerated to the highest speeds her ethereally boosted senses could process, for her to send the clock spinning vertically up onto one of the closest wires of the grid approaching from behind.
She ignored the urge to wince in worry, as she felt the energies of the wire push against the phantasm of the clock, and she kept it rolling forward down the wire, increasing its momentum, to then throw back, and up, to her right, onto another wire that was arcing up, rolling partially down it, and further increasing its momentum.
She threw the spinning clock forward, and down; and, after rolling down that rising wire, she then somersaulted onto the top of the clock and sprang up, and to the right, rolling upside down along a swinging wire from the top to build up more momentum; after which she hurled herself at a low rising jump to her right to skid sideways down a wire slicing in from her left; then she sprang up to skid upside down a wire cutting down from above; then she sprang to her right to a wire swinging in from that direction; then right side up to her left down another wire; then upside down to her left onto a wire slicing diagonally down from that direction.
She accelerated, and accelerated, leaping, and vaulting, and spinning, and somersaulting from wire, to wire, and she added more torsion to her strike, and more torsion, as the wires crowded in on her with fatal peril.
Kairi didn't stop the mad dance until there were too many wires, too close, for her clock to make it through the wires surging towards her from before her.
It was then she continued her spin down one last wire, until she calculated the wires rushing in her direction from in front of her would leave too little room to sail through, and she hurled herself through the narrowing cleft to ripple out of the clock, and back onto her wing skateboard, holding Bifrost positioned with six crimson wings, and both her hands.
"Phoenix Blast Prime, Version Five!" she cried, as she connected with the torso of Yozora's Keyblade armor.
Thirty-eight wings of distilled opalescent white washed into existence at each side of the back of Bifrost's shaft, totaling seventy-six, each one adumbrated by a corona of light orange feathers, to contract inwards into a counterclockwise whorl of shifting shades of white and orange that pulsed in a brilliant beam down Bifrost's shaft, and impacted with Yozora's Keyblade armor point blank, propelled by all the momentum Kairi had accumulated.
The Keyblades shifted, parting to reveal an entirely unobstructed cylinder to the back of the armor Yozora must have been raised, or moved to the side, away from, and the ray of incinerating pearl passed harmlessly through the open space, and out the back.
Kairi let herself clench her teeth, as she flipped backward off of Keyblade armor she barely registered was yanking its unearthly, or real, keys, or both, inward to cause her to lose her purchase, but she landed in a ready stance.
Photon Lance now appeared to be the far more viable option.
If she used it, though, in her condition, there was almost no chance she'd survive it.
It was, also, far too possible the Nobody Master of every Keyblade Master would have no problems defending against, if not countering, an ability even the Angel of Sin, the heart of the world of Olympus itself, couldn't shield.
Searing hate cleared anything but the self she mostly felt it for, and every reality.
She was not going to be defeated by the Nobody of the leader of a faction of dark denizens, once again.
And this time around, there was no power of waking to give her a second chance at standing against him, far less emerging victorious.
By measures of sensibility, even though Sora now knew what he was, both he, and Riku, had given up their ability to use it, at least for the time being.
"Aww, are you done already?" Yozora's Nobody's voice dripped with derision.
Kairi swept all sentiment aside.
She knew far better than to let Master of Masters Yozora get under her skin.
"That's rich, coming from as much of a cowardly quitter as you," Kairi shot back, without any contained annoyance, far less anger, in her voice.
Yozora scoffed, drawn out, and amused.
"You have got to be joking," he replied, with biting humor.
"So you let your sword do the talking, now, rather than your speech.
"What difference does that make, when it's your heart that still quails?"
Kairi didn't even need to suppress an urge to clench her teeth.
"Terra, and Riku, and Roxas, and Xion, by now, all have, on some level, but you've yet to acknowledge Xehanort didn't have any specific vision of his own for the World if he rebuilt it as he saw fit, and he wanted Kingdom Hearts to tell him what it was."
Kairi let anguish through, for Dad.
She let herself call him that, this time.
But that was all.
"To say nothing of things such as your refusal to acknowledge what you needed to do to restore Arendelle's hearts."
Kairi didn't need to suppress anything.
"You, who fancy yourself a lantern in the deepest darkness, are in no position to say that to me, when you won't even confront what that darkness is.
"Tell me, does it still keep you awake, in the quietest hours of the night, that Selphie, and Wakka, could reach Jecht, and convince him not to drink his grief for Tidus' mom away, while you couldn't?"
"You require motivati"
Something translucentkeening with filmyshrieking desperation reverberated inside the vacuum that Kairi knew was her, because if she didn't perceive her self, there was nothing keeping it away
no
nono
don'tpleasedon'tno
"You're the fire that fe"
"No… So"
"Let me keep you safe."
She'd followed Sora onto the battlefield, for a reason.
No matter what kind of warfare was waging, on this one, or how large it might burgeon, that was still the case.
Kairi pushed the recollections to the side.
It still took no effort to keep her voice steady.
"This, coming from the person who wants me to nod as a teacher's pet before your laundered door to door business suit?" Kairi scoffed.
She suppressed the urge to clench her teeth at how she didn't hear Empyreal, or Namine, shift.
"Say what you will, about anything else, I didn't once discount Dad was driven by dreams of learning, as much as by dreams of glory.
"He'd lost hope in this World, so he was fixated on finding, and adventuring in, another one he could trust would be better, at any price, no matter the realm it existed in, even if it didn't exist yet, in part, or full.
"His blind belief in the darkness, or nothingness, or the progression of time, or freedom from fetters, or Kingdom Hearts, flies in the face of scientific scholarship. He was, yes, also spurred by hateful greed as much as inquisitiveness. But, even his Heartless, who let himself be ruled by his dark sentiments with the same exhilaration Riku traveled the realm of darkness, the second time, was as much of a scholar as the real Ansem, Even, and Ienzo.
"Don't gloss over how, while he was wrong about the inability of Heartless to feel, and he lied about the Nobodies, or he lied about them both, he, at least, knew how to make a convincing case they didn't, and how to conduct experiments based on his polar opposite of scientific inquiry.
"He was also an old timer of his own."
"I don't need to learn about a lack of consideration for others from you, and your seasoned practicality that the best way to fight, or flee, is to do it with as much utilitarianism as you think will expedite a mission."
"Is that supposed to be for real?" Yozora rejoined with dripping sarcasm.
"In that case, does that mean I can take it you can tell me, given all the intelligence you've gained, and I've leaked, and planted, about us, what it's most logical the lens of the Gazing Eye photographed, for the Book of Prophecies, about what happened to the World, and the realm of light, due to how Xehanort completed his Kye-Blade?"
"Let me keep you safe."
"You require motivation."
"Let me keep you safe."
"You're the fire that feeds Sora's anger."
"Let me keep you safe."
"Yeah, sure. And what makes you think there'd ever be any way we'd help you with that?"
"Let me keep you safe."
"'These memories are too painful. Handled the wrong way, they could damage Sora's heart – even break it.'"
won'titdoSoradon'tnoitIsworeaneverythingoathdon'tdestroyforworthnotitmeeveryonewithpleaseapoapufruitpleasenodon'tdothisitI'misn'thappeningnotleaveworthmeplease
"Let me keep you safe."
"No… Sora's in danger because of me…"
"Let me keep you safe."
"Sora, when Namine's words are passed on to you, when the day comes that you learn of this great unknown and mysterious adventure, it's important that you understand, whatever you feel in your heart, that's what 'he' felt in his."
"Let me keep you safe."
"'I'm ready to accept them, no matter how painful they are.'"
"Let me keep you safe."
"Now, Sora. Darkness and light's final clash."
"Let me keep you safe."
"You're the fire that"
"'no matter how painful they are.'"
"in danger because of me…"
"'could damage Sora's heart – even break it.'"
"Cog got your tongue, as the attempt by Riku's present replica to warn Sora, by fusing his heart with the Hunter X Sora flew by, was unheard, and Yen Sid's efforts have been unsaid?"
"Let me keep you safe."
"You're the fire that feeds Sora's anger."
"Let me keep you safe."
"No… Sora's in danger because of me…"
"Let me keep you safe."
"Yeah, sure. And what makes you think there'd ever be any way we'd help you with that?"
"'Handled the wrong way, they could damage Sora's heart – even break it.'"
"Let me keep you safe."
"So that's how."
Empyreal's
unfeeling voice
"In that case, Namine, if you're willing to accept my conditions to hold up your end of things, right here, as soon as I accept yours, I'll agree to your terms."
Roxas' voice, brimming with anguished terror, was entirely present.
Reality was now sharper than edges, without any greater, or lesser, clarity, at the knowledge Empyreal may be teetering on the precipice of plunging wholly into the darkness, and Namine might be about to do something else ill advised.
"Namine, hold on!"
Kairi shifted her feet, to whirl around, even as the knowledge rushed through her it was a practical certainty there was nothing she could say, to stop Empyreal, while, with Riku as ravaged as he was, Kairi couldn't be sure she could reach Namine.
"I was wrong about what I said to you when Yen Sid told us about Aqua.
"I don't still feel that way."
Kairi's stomach heaved, and her insides knobbed in slack eddied self hate, and sheen sheeted terror, at the awareness, if she hadn't said that, it might have made a difference
you don't know this why do you care
but she couldn't risk stopping herself from potentially retching.
Her feet, and legs, refused to move farther.
Ava's voice sounded, crying with a set determination, and angry terror, divest with the rubble of chalk powdered soot.
"I won't let you have him, too!
"Photon Lance!"
Black spots danced into expanding light dizziness, and Kairi's awareness she couldn't cause her lungs to work fell into pitch, along with everything else.
.
'The opposite of love is not hate. The opposite of love is indifference. You are there inside me. Am I there inside you?'-Lacus Clyne
GUNDAM SEED FREEDOM