"In the depths of every heart, there is a tomb and a dungeon--"
Who: Terra, Riku, Joe, Aslan, and Master Xehanort
When: Late evening, progressing throughout the night
Where: Dead Horse Cove
Summary: The culmination of the events that began with the theft of Terra’s body - or, arguably, with Xehanort’s arrival in Siren’s Port - that will once and for all put an end to the villain’s reprehensible plans. A goal ( Read more... )
“--though the lights, the music, and revelry above may cause us to forget their existence, and the buried ones, or prisoners whom they hide.”
Emotion. The sword, the shield, the greatest of flaws. So long he’d spent in its study and its use, only to again be stalled, even hindered, by its unexpected and ever-powerful presence and complexity. How often would this circumstance repeat, as though in that span of time between one instance and the next he had forgotten all the hard lessons learned?
No more. No more.
This would be the last.
In the peripheries of his vision the city's darkness churned, a primordial cauldron not of his own making. They came simply because he was, because like called to like and mindless and formless and directionless as many of them could be - Form without reason, parts without wholes; a pitiful, powerful existence whose parallels were not lost on him - they knew him. Minimal effort was necessary to keep them at bay, but he let them be if they kept their distance, as though the idea of witnesses somehow pleased him. So there they stayed, shivering masses that occupied the spaces beneath the rocks at his back, keeping well away from the water.'
The irony of the location was not lost on him; when not otherwise occupied, he had spent much of the day watching the water. Most of the evening had passed in a similar fashion and now, as the sounds of the city dwindled to a low hum, the sea itself retained its resonate thunder.
In his mind, he fancied it the first quarter of the hour.
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Days had passed. People had been hurt. Riku felt an undeniable weight on his shoulders, one he recognized as loneliness. All of the others had gone ahead and had gotten themselves in trouble. He and Joe were the last of their group who hadn't been injured and even he had suffered a few blows from Vanitas. But maybe it was fitting for him to be the one to destroy Master Xehanort, to finally confront him at long last. Maybe it was right of him to take on what Terra had tried to. (He still remembered Xehanort's offer on that one cold evening. He remembered his promise to begin the war with him. And he felt betrayed that no one was there to help him.)
The feeling passed. It was unimportant. What mattered was that this man would finally be stopped and would pay for what he had done. (Terra's words: "You have to be the last life ruined by Xehanort." And he agreed.) That was all that was needed to keep him on his resolute walk to the beach, prepared to take the man on himself.
He passed through the Darkness with little difficulty. When he reached the shore, he saw them massing around the rocks and watching the man with curiosity. He could not feel the power beneath the shell that was once Terra but he knew it was there. He knew it could easily be provoked. He approached with caution and a determined gait, one step at a time, his head held high. "Xehanort," he called when he finally came close enough. He stopped some distance from him, eyes on his back.
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When he gave his mind to idle thoughts, he knew that he hated this tiny city on its tiny island on its presumably tiny world. He remembered quite clearly the distaste, the slow, growing anger and coldness in his chest when he had learned of his fate - his capture. More maddening still that there was neither a party nor a person to blame but a force instead, nameless and mindless and entirely beyond his grasp. After a lifetime of choosing his own roads for himself, to be stalled at the final hour, to have what was rightfully his stolen-
“A prison, and the sea as the jailer.” He slowly turned, the raucous wind catching in his hair, at his clothes. It smelled of brine, and storms, and memories; all unfathomably bitter on his tongue. “I have wondered from time to time if it is this and only this that drives the heart to other worlds.”
A light, faraway smile touched his lips and went just as quickly. “I am glad that you have come, Riku.”
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He knew. His lips almost moved with the words, a chain in a far off memory that lingered every now and then in his mind. Xehanort looked so much more like the "Ansem" he knew so intimately well and he couldn't help the tension in his shoulders. His eyes scanned the figure before him, an old man turned young, his hair caught in the wind. His clothes were far from what Terra would normally wear and his lips almost twisted in disgust.
No, he would push those emotions away. He wouldn't show the anger he felt.
"Why? Are you really glad?" Riku began to draw closer, slow, showing no animosity for the moment. "This is it, isn't it? This is where you want to be begin it all." He frowned. "You can't. Almost everyone here will die." But Xehanort knew this. They all knew it. "You won't succeed."
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He would have them - he would have Riku - know the reality soon to be laid before him. “The veracity of my feelings? The deaths of untold numbers of innocents? Or my inevitable defeat?”
At the last, a sharp mockery entered his words and his expression. They were both well aware that despite unforeseen hurdles and costs that he would have preferred to do without (there would likely be no others like Ventus and Vanitas for many a year, if at all; so rare were the people that were truly dichotomized in equal parts in their heart of hearts), still he remained. Powerful, unbeaten, standing before Riku at full strength.
“We have some little time; ask whatever questions you wish.”
Then he smiled, as a kindly father smiles at the naïve posturing of his children.
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It was a cocky answer, one full of youthful defiance and disrespect. It was all a show. Riku tried to imagine what other Keybearers would have done in his place. Aqua may have demanded his answers. Terra would have just started swinging his blade. Even King Mickey might have implored Xehanort to do something different and to rid himself of this calamitous plan. Perhaps Mickey had the right idea. Riku, however, was young and selfish. He knew this man, knew his heart for a long time. The essence of his darkness and his own greed had rested in Riku's heart for such a long time, after all.
He was bitter and he was angry. He disliked this man. He hated what he stood for. And most of all, he hated that he wanted some part of who he was. He wanted to be the great Keybearer, the traveler and the stronger man. But he would never want it like this. He had learned his lesson.
"At least you recognize that your defeat is, in fact, inevitable." Could he destroy this man? Could he end him as Xehanort had helped to end so many worlds? Did he have the strength? He had to.
But some part of him did have one question that needed answering. "Do you know me? Does your heart know me?" All the unspoken questions from that night in December when their darkness touched.
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In this, there was no dishonesty, no disdain. There were perhaps very few in all the world that could craft the silvery lies that Xehanort did to ease into action the events he so desired, but that made it all the more significant when his words were spoken without them.
His eyes were locked with Riku's own. "I know my own heart, whatever weakened and changed form it may take. One day, you will, too, should you bear the weight of your station rather than buckle beneath it."
Xehanort began to walk, his Keyblade left plunged into the sand behind him. His words grew in significance, in intensity, with every slow step. From his tones alone, it was as though the man truly believed, truly knew, that he was capable of shaking the foundations of all that was. If his prior actions were any indication at all, this was a faith not entirely unfounded.
"But it is a future that we are still capable of changing."
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He can't take back the past and he can't rid his body of the dark stain it has. It will always bear his crime and, for that, he has no issue. But listening to him, hearing the way he spoke about how he would be Xehanort's future... No. That was unacceptable. He was a body-snatcher, content to live out more lifetimes than he should be capable of affording by stealing the life of his host. And he would not give him another chance at that.
Riku walked carefully, solemnly, his eyes fixed on Xehanort's own. "You had your chance at taking this body and you failed." Twice, in point of fact. And with all three parts of Xehanort here - the original, the Heartless, and the Nobody - he expected a better attempt. He expected an attempt at true ownership. When it never came, even when he was at his weakest, he could only assume they had given up.
"You won't get another chance to have me again. I'll make sure of it."
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Xehanort stopped a blade’s length away, near enough now for every detail of this new man to be made painfully clear. Terra’s body had been put through new and unprepared for rigors in the past weeks and so a hardening was clear in the cut lines of his body, in the cheekbones just beginning to show. In time, the gap between their appearances would narrow, until the being that was now Master Xehanort would not be one heart possessing another but a pair merged into one, with the features and capabilities of both.
This was how it always should have been. This was how it would stay. “I will spare you all of your suffering. When Kingdom Hearts is mine and the foundations of the World are in my grasp, I will undo this wasteful, disrespectful splintering of my self. I will reclaim the constituent parts that belong to me.”
He held out his hand, as much a gesture of invitation as one of magnanimity. His smile was terrible and the sincerity of his words more so. Since the very first night, since the moment he recognized what his own future would be - fractured, lost, constantly at the mercy of memory and children granted power by careless heroes - he had known what his course of action would be. Even if tonight were to somehow end in failure (he would not allow it, he would not), there remained one last thing within his power to do.
“But if by some twist of destiny you rob me of what is mine, still I will spare you.” His chin lifted and his words turned cold. “When I return to my proper world and my proper time, I know which hearts to snuff out and where.”
Riku, Kairi, Sora - he knew of them now. He knew of all of them. And he would not forget.
“And so, you will be spared.”
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