"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 ( ... )
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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 ( ... )
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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 ( ... )
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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 ( ... )
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