Kingdom Hearts fic: Potentials - Chapter 15

[mistressofmuses]

In chapter 15: The final boss fight.

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The following is a cached version of a blog post by a blogger known as “SoundofLight”. The original has been deleted.

The Script Theory: Part 3

Hi again! This is the third (maybe final?) post I’m making about “The Script Theory”. In part one I talked about what The Script Theory is, and why people find it a plausible theory regarding organizations devoted to the superpowered. In part two, I tried to answer the question of why the existence of The Script Theory matters, and the potential ethical ramifications if it were to be true. Both of those posts sparked a lot of interesting input and discussion, so please go check them out!

This time I want to talk about a facet of The Script Theory that’s considered a bit fringe even for people who are hardcore believers in the rest of it.

Now, I’ll disclaim at the start that this is a bit more far-fetched, and a lot of people who discuss this aspect don’t genuinely believe that it’s currently happening, just that it could. Or that even if it isn’t within the realm of possibility, the fact that it would be desirable to those organizations is in and of itself concerning.

Basically, what could be a logical extreme of a superhero organization focused solely on marketability as the primary, or potentially even only, goal?

We already know that in reality, the Defenders of the Light do a fair amount of image control. And if we believe in The Script Theory, then that control goes beyond public image into their plotlines, alliances, friendships, rivalries, romances… potentially everything.

But wouldn’t the ideal, from the perspective of the Defenders of the Light or a similar organization, be having complete control from the start? There are potential problems with a script written after you have your “cast” assembled. What happens when someone stops following it? Not to mention the ethical issues of, say, forcing a pair of Heroes into a relationship based on popularity among fans, or forcing them into an action they disapprove of. We aren’t talking about on-screen roles, we’re talking about the actual lives of these Heroes, even after the masks are off and the costumes are hung up for the day.

So wouldn’t it be desirable for these issues to be circumvented entirely? To, instead of crafting a script for a team, craft a team to suit a script?

Obviously, this isn’t actually possible at this point, considering the rarity of Superpowered individuals. The Defenders of the Light and other groups don’t have the luxury of picking and choosing, when only a fraction of a percent of individuals display any powers, and not all of them are suitable for Hero (or villain) work. But what if?

This would be completely antithetical to free will, an extreme of treating Heroes like puppets, not people. It’s the same method used for casting a movie or television show, but applied to real life, for a role they can’t step out of. And what would happen to those who were deemed unsuited to the desired script?

As the Defenders of the Light put ever more resources and time into answering the question of how powers appear, maybe we should hope they never discover how to control their manifestation. Because as bad as the thought of them controlling their Heroes based on marketability and public reception already is, creating them solely to suit some test-audience-approved ideal would be far worse. But would we even know the difference?

---

The room on the other side of the portal was still white, but it felt like walking into an arena, with how empty and expansive the floor was.

At least true to Xehanort’s word, there wasn’t an immediate ambush.

Across the yards of empty space there were two… thrones was all Radiance could think to call them. One was occupied by Xehanort, now wearing the black coat that seemed to be the uniform of his new Organization. The idea of Xehanort styling himself as some kind of ruler made Radiance feel ill, though she carefully controlled her expression to keep the disgust from showing.

Behind the thrones was a small platform, with an object on it surrounded by swirling darkness, concentric rings inside moving mechanically. She’d be willing to bet that was the machine she was supposed to destroy.

And back and to the side—

“Sora!” she called out.

He was out of costume, pounding his fist against an invisible barrier. It was probably similar to the barriers on the cells that the other Heroes were being held in. Unlike those barriers, she couldn’t hear him.

He said something, but she was too far away to read his lips. He pointed toward the thrones, and then made their hand signal—a pair of outstretched fingers quickly pulling in across his chest—for “two.”

Before she could see the rest of the message he was trying to impart, Xehanort stood and stepped between them.

“I’m glad you received my message Radiance.” His voice was smooth and congenial, as if he’d just invited her to his office in Headquarters to talk about something.

“I did,” she said. “And I’ve learned what you’ve been doing here. Copies of the Defenders of the Light? Trying to replace us? You can’t hide that forever.”

“What’s been hidden? And did you consider why I would have been driven to do such a thing?”

She didn’t approach, and neither did he. She tamped down her nervous flickers of light, storing them up for anything she could use her powers for. Her fingers were sweaty on the knife, but her grip was firm.

In true supervillain form, he used her silence as a chance to continue speaking, now walking slowly forward, keeping himself between her and Sora.

“The Defenders of the Light should have been enough. So many ideal scenarios set up for them. We worked continually to give them—you—everything you could need. Storylines and contracts and income from merchandizing. If you could follow the rules, everything would be taken care of.

“But that was never enough. No, the Heroes balked at plotlines, wanted to make their own decisions, regardless of how popularly those ideas would test. We were building an empire, and you would have thrown public approval away in exchange for selfish, personal connections. Affairs of the heart.

“So isn’t the Organization an attractive, ideal solution? Its members all true Nobodies. Similar powersets, but without the history and baggage of the previous Heroes. No pesky hearts to split their loyalties. Tractable versions, willing to act out the roles and plotlines we have agreed are superior. Better, to do so gratefully, because it’s what has given them an existence.”

Radiance shuddered. “Some people just play with dolls, or write fanfiction to cope with characters not doing what they want. Because that’s what you mean, right? You wanted us to be characters, happy to do anything you wanted in the story you wrote for us, but us being people got in your way.”

He looked pointedly at her knife, and his brown eyes narrowed in clear disapproval. “You were one of the worst. You could have been set up as the princess of the Defenders, with one of the most compelling backstories, a search for your identity, and with so much potential to grow… but you chained yourself to Keyblade and Corridor, resisting anything all three of you didn’t like.”

“Corridor seems to be enough for you,” she snapped, pushing the emotional twinge away. “Important enough that you needed him, not some copy.”

Xehanort paced closer. The floor was wide enough that he still wasn’t within striking range. “Unfortunate necessity. His powerset could have destabilized our dimension when it was being created, if his cognate wound up with the same power and had trouble learning to control it. Uncontrolled dimensional holes are risky when the dimension itself is newly created. Besides, we needed a test case for the memory alterations. And if he was going to persist in being suspicious of the Defenders of the Light, better to bring him to our side rather than give him something new to be suspicious about.

“But you didn’t come here purely for a monologue. You came because I wanted to negotiate. Or at least make an offer. So here it is: if you will leave, go somewhere far away from the city, and ignore everything you know about the Organization, you can be ignored in turn. I’ll even give you Sora, and the two of you can start over somewhere else. You stay out of our way, and we won’t come after you.”

She winced at his use of Sora’s real name. She knew they were aware of his identity, and he had been captured out of costume. It still felt wrong. The offer itself was nearly identical to what Riku had suggested, the night he’d come to her in the shared apartment.

Her eyes flicked back toward Sora, in his invisible cell. He was still pounding on the barrier with fists and feet. And miraculously, it looked like it was starting to work. The barrier rippled in a way it hadn’t before, distorting the air like a heat wave.

She stepped forward to keep Xehanort’s eye on her. They were only a yard apart, now. Her answer hadn’t changed from when Riku had suggested it, but she tried to project uncertainty, keeping Xehanort’s attention.

“It will buy you peace,” he said, and she bristled at the gentleness in his tone that she knew was a lie. “You didn’t want to be controlled, this lets you be free of it. Live whatever life you want, just away from here.”

“And in this scenario, Corridor would still be with you?” she asked.

He looked almost regretful, another lie, when he said, “He would. For Sora we have Roxas, but Riku… At least for a time, he would have to stay with us. Perhaps eventually we could reach a point where he could join you… if he wanted to.”

The usual kind of poisonous promise, the kind she’d fallen for too many times when she’d believed in the Defenders of the Light as a whole. Promises of some nebulous later, when everything would be “ready” for the outcome they wanted. And now, when Corridor had been led to remember them as villains, of course he wouldn’t want to go to them.

The wavering of the wall around Sora had grown more pronounced, and Radiance glanced down, as if she were genuinely considering the offer. Keep looking at me, keep looking at me…

Eventually she couldn’t plausibly draw the hesitation out any longer. “No,” she said. “No, we aren’t going to just disappear and let you get away with capturing our friends, lying to the entire city. We aren’t going to be rewritten as villains just to suit your narrative!”

The carefully pleasant expression vanished from Xehanort’s face in an instant, but before he could reply there was sound, like glass breaking, yet muffled, and the barrier around Sora vanished.

Xehanort turned, one hand raised. Sora was already rushing across the floor toward her, his namesake weapon drawn. For a brief second, her heart froze in her throat, afraid he was planning to attack her, that he’d been functionally brainwashed too, but the pure rage on his face was focused solely on Xehanort. Before he reached either of them, a dark corridor opened, and Roxas lunged through, his own keyblade held up in a strike, ready to land.

Sora slid, redirecting his run into a block, and the keyblades struck each other, resonating throughout the room.

Radiance collected light along her arm, directing it outward down her fingers, planning to fling it into Roxas’ face. The light traveled true to the direction she wanted it to go, but instead of reaching her target, it deflected harmlessly off of another barrier, this one bisecting the room. Roxas and Sora battled on one side, while she was on the other with Xehanort.

Where the fuck were those barriers coming from? She bit back a curse and turned her attention back to Xehanort, who was far too close for comfort.

She wanted to get him talking again. If she couldn’t help Sora directly, she’d at least keep attention away from him, so Roxas didn’t have backup either.

There had been a question all but burning her tongue earlier, one that felt too small and petty to ask, and yet she couldn’t stop wondering. “What about me? Why don’t I have an alter, or a potential, or whatever you’re calling them?” There hadn’t been any redheaded women throwing bolts of light in any of the fights, and even the Potentials Project files hadn’t given an answer.

“You didn’t recognize yourself in Naminé?”

She felt the bottom drop out of her stomach.

“It’s true it’s a bit more complicated, when the original was a dimensional Hero to start with. It brings up all kinds of new variables, since the cognate isn’t being determined by a single dimension’s contents. The dimension you reside in, the dimension in which you originated, what caused your shift from one to the other. But with proper focus, it’s not impossible. Especially with you doing all that wonderful work on your memory.”

The knife shook in her hand. She should have recognized something about Naminé. From the moment she saw the other woman in her apartment, from the first time Riku said he remembered her... Doing all that work on your memory.

He smiled as he saw his words have the impact he’d been waiting for. “But it’s completely possible to create a new cognate of a dimensional Hero. For instance, meet my alternate potential, Xemnas.”

She spun, nearly stumbling in her hurry as she heard the footfalls behind her. She tightened her grip on the knife, but it suddenly felt pitifully small. More than she’d had before, yet still practically nothing…

Xehanort’s alternate looked strikingly similar to him, the same long fall of silver hair, though instead of brown, his eyes were an unsettling gold. Dressed identically in the Organization coat, it was like seeing double.

“Little light,” he said, acknowledging her in introduction.

“‘Xemnas’ seemed like a fitting name,” Xehanort said. “A tribute to the leader I took over for. Ansem never had quite the imagination that I did, and likely wouldn’t have approved of the direction we led his Defenders of the Light in. But still, if he hadn’t taken me on as an assistant, we wouldn’t be here.”

“How is your imagination, little light?” Xemnas asked.

She swallowed hard. Roxas and Sora were so evenly matched, there didn’t seem to be a clear winner in that fight, yet.

“What do you mean?” she asked, taking another step back, knowing it wouldn’t do much to save her.

Xehanort answered, “As I said in my message to you, it was a gross oversight on our part not to recognize how much potential you have.”

She licked dry lips, but didn’t know what answer could be expected.

“You displayed a level of resourcefulness we hadn’t anticipated. The fact you found out so much, and then made it here shows that you have more to offer than we realized,” Xemnas added.

“And I must admit to always having had a certain… affinity for you, considering you’re one of the only other dimensional travelers we’ve discovered. And I certainly respect everything you’ve proven yourself willing to do. So is it possible that your reluctance to follow instruction was related more to boredom than actual unwillingness?” Xehanort asked.

She looked back and forth between Xehanort and Xemnas. “What are you saying?” she prompted again.

Sora had the upper hand it looked like, now-silent blows of his keyblade driving Roxas backwards across the floor. She hoped he’d keep the advantage.

“You’d asked about Corridor, when I made my first offer. How he would remain here. Perhaps you’d like to remain here as well? To join the same side, to help us. Before, you didn’t know what we were doing, so perhaps it was natural that you would balk at orders, not understanding the goal behind them. A mistake on our part. But now that you do know… And if it meant being here, with your beloved Corridor—Riku—maybe you’d cooperate. We could use your talent.”

Another pointed use of a real name. She followed suit to ask, “And Sora?”

“With Roxas, Sora would be… an unnecessary redundancy. But he could be kept safe. Reasonably comfortable.”

Meaning imprisoned, at best. She wondered if they’d intentionally set up those two options to try and force her to decide between Sora and Riku. She wouldn’t ever choose between them, and she wouldn’t metaphorically sell her soul for them, either. Ignore the villains, or join them?

She pretended to consider, still trying to buy time for Sora. And then it paid off, Sora landing a strike that sent Roxas’ weapon skittering across the floor. With a flick of his wrist he summoned it back to his hand, but it wasn’t fast enough; Sora’s keyblade sank into Roxas’ chest.

Roxas seemed to bleed black vapor, the way Vexen and Zexion had, though this time the vapor seemed to travel towards Sora, rather than dissipating. And then there was a glow around both of them, the kind of thing that was more usual for her, as Roxas and his weapon vanished. No, not vanished so much as were absorbed into Sora.

If the Organization members were just alternate potentials for the original Heroes, it made sense that perhaps whatever seed had been taken to create them would just… return. That would explain what Grimoire had meant, about keeping the Heroes to make more copies, if Xehanort could use the machine to recapture that piece.

With another rush, his keyblade raised, he lunged at the barrier keeping him apart from Kairi, Xehanort, and Xemnas. Again, the dulled sound of something shattering, and Sora slid through where the barrier had been, joining Radiance. She shifted so they were back to back, and raised her knife, flickering with sparks, ready to fight.

Xemnas stepped backward into a portal.

Xehanort laughed, though he did put a few more paces between himself and the two of them. “The empty struggles of the already defeated.”

“Are you okay?” Sora asked, under his breath.

She gave a quick nod. “You?”

“Glad you came for me.”

“Always.”

Before they could take any action, a portal reopened, and Corridor and Naminé came through, followed by Xemnas.

Xemnas pointed toward her and Sora. “Corridor, these villains have come for Naminé. They’ve already killed Roxas, and will do all they can to destroy everything we’ve built here. Protect her! Stop them!”

Radiance couldn’t fight the wave of dismay. She couldn’t hurt Corridor, and she doubted Sora could either. And if Sora still felt like he knew Naminé, he might not be able to fight her either.

Corridor had already drawn his knife, the long blade glinting wickedly as he took up a defensive posture in front of Naminé. Because of course Xemnas would have brought her along, to make sure Corridor felt the supposed threat in an immediate way. And if he felt like he had someone to protect, there was no distracting him from it.

Naminé grabbed his arm, leaning up to whisper something in his ear. Radiance wondered what she could possibly have said, but Corridor’s eyes widened as he glanced at her, then narrowed as he focused back on Radiance.

Then he was rushing forward, holding Naminé’s hand in his. Radiance braced, unable to do anything else as he struck her, shoving her away from Sora, and through a dark doorway.

---

The feeling of falling didn’t stop, despite there being some type of solid ground beneath her feet.

Usually entering a corridor only meant going a few paces through the darkness, then coming out wherever the portal connected to. This time, there was no exit portal opening, leaving Radiance nowhere to go.

She sent up a flare of light, which illuminated her, and then was absorbed into the dark around her.

Then Riku was in front of her, in the dark. Naminé stood behind him, still holding his hand.

“Riku,” Radiance said, unable to keep herself from reaching a hand toward him, even though her heart felt like it was breaking against the icy look on his face.

The hand that reached toward him continued shedding sparks, sending them flickering around her, then around him and Naminé, providing strange, unsteady illumination around all three of them. The other hand still held her knife, though she knew she wouldn’t be able to use it.

“I have no idea why Naminé wanted me to bring you here, but she asked. Why couldn’t you just take my advice and leave? I can’t believe you would go this far, to come here, planning to kill—”

Naminé cut him off with a squeeze of her hand, then she stepped forward. “I’m sorry, Kairi.”

“I found your drawings. You said you were sorry there, too.” Her voice came out brittle.

She waited, but Naminé didn’t deny the sketch pages had been hers, so Kairi continued, “What did you do? Replace me in his memories?”

Naminé shook her head. “It’s more than that. I did take some of the memories of you from Riku and Sora, at first, as a test. But when that started to work, he wanted me to do it for the whole city. And… I did. For all of us in the Organization. I’m sorry, I didn’t know what else to do. We wanted to exist. I wanted to exist, and once I did, I didn’t want to stop. The only place I’d be allowed to take was yours. But that didn’t make it right.”

Her eyes filled with tears as she spoke, and Kairi could feel how badly she wanted to be believed. Kairi’s eyes shifted toward Riku, who was looking at Naminé as if he’d been struck. Like he didn’t know what to believe.

“It wasn’t right, but he said if I didn’t do as I was told, we’d all disappear. That it would be my fault. Can you understand?”

Kairi wanted to spit that no, she didn’t understand, that she would never understand it. But that wouldn’t be completely honest, would it? Hadn’t she done the same thing? Maybe not the same extreme, but she’d allowed Xehanort and the Defenders of the Light to control her. To make her keep her relationships secret. To wear certain clothes, say certain things, follow certain scripts. She’d rebelled, but only in private.

And she’d done it because it was easy, and because she felt like she owed her loyalty to the Defenders of the Light. She didn’t even have to be threatened with non-existence. Just a hint of a threat against Riku, not even to un-make him, just the threat to make him look like a bad guy, and they’d all fallen even harder in line.

Kairi nodded, not sure she could speak, throat suddenly thick with tears. She couldn’t tell if they were hers, or Naminé’s.

Naminé closed her eyes, and took a deep breath.

Suddenly Riku was closing the few steps between them. She didn’t have time to brace for an attack, but one didn’t come. He was hugging her, holding her like she was going to vanish if he didn’t. The knife fell from her hand, and she hugged him, fingers probably bruising his back as she held him to her.

“Kairi,” he murmured into her hair. “Kairi.”

Naminé was crying harder, though she brushed the tears away. “I’m sorry. I’ve let Riku go. Sora, too.”

“What about everyone else?” Kairi asked.

“I will, but an entire city of people… it will take time. And we don’t have enough of that. Time passes slowly in the dark between doors, but it is still passing, and Sora is fighting.”

And Kairi remembered what she was there to do. “Naminé, do you know what will happen if we destroy the machine that created the potentials? Grimoire said that was what we should do, but that it could destabilize the castle.”

Naminé nodded slowly. “The machine is what creates the Nobody copies, and what keeps them separate. Destroying it would probably get rid of the Nobodies, including me. I think that would fix the memory distortions, more quickly than I can do it on my own. But he’s also right, that it will destroy the castle.”

“So we have to get everyone else out first.” Kairi reluctantly pulled away from Riku. “Can you get me back to the room we were just in? I’ll try to help Sora. Then you need to go down to the dungeons and get the Heroes out of the castle. I’ll wait as long as I can for you to get everyone out, and then I’ll destroy the machine.”

Riku pulled her close and kissed her forehead, obviously torn about the plan. But in the end he agreed. “I will. But I am coming back for you and Sora as quickly as I can.”

She kissed him quickly, knelt to reclaim her knife, then grabbed his and Namine’s hands as he opened a new door.

---

This doorway let them out behind the twin thrones, close to the machine. Corridor squeezed her shoulder, and made a quick hand gesture, signifying that he’d be back. She smiled at him as he opened another corridor for himself, and stepped through.

She readied her knife, leaning out around the edge of the throne. Sora was holding his own against Xehanort and Xemnas, though she didn’t know how long that would last. They had to have given up on converting her, which meant any promises of leaving them unharmed were off the table, assuming they’d ever been genuine. With Roxas gone, they probably wanted Sora alive so they could remake their copy. Alive was a low bar.

Naminé grabbed her by the arm and pulled her back. She was shaking her head. “If you join the fight, they’ll know you’re here. They’ll do anything to keep you away from the machine. This is probably our only chance to get close enough. We should wait.”

Radiance bit her lip. Naminé’s point was valid, but not if it was going to get Sora hurt.

“Let’s give Riku time,” the other woman said, “And see if Sora can hold out that long.”

“If I go out there to help him, can you destroy it?”

Naminé shook her head. “I don’t think I can. If I tried, I’m afraid it would destroy me before I succeeded.” After a pause she admitted, “That might still fix the memory alterations, but I don’t know.”

Radiance looked over at her. Naminé sat, knees drawn up to her chest. She looked small and scared. Even knowing how many of their problems she had caused, Radiance felt bad for her. She did understand why the woman had done what she’d done.

Radiance settled in next to her. “I don’t think you’ll totally stop existing,” she said. “When we destroy the machine.”

Naminé looked at her.

Radiance explained what had happened when Sora defeated Roxas. “Roxas did fade away, but I think whatever he’d been made from returned to Sora.”

“So we won’t disappear. It’s more like we’ll become whole again. I’m glad.” Naminé gave her a weak smile.

“Me too,” Radiance said, and she found she meant it. The Nobodies of the Organization didn’t deserve what was happening to them. Being created based on Xehanort’s whim, threatened with non-existence if they disobeyed. No one deserved that.

She shifted so she could see the ongoing fight. Sora was moving faster than she’d ever seen. Faster, but also extremely efficiently, wasting no motion. She was used to flourish and flash from him, little opportunities to show off. In part it was for the omnipresent cameras, always wanting a shot at the spotlight, but it was also because it was fun. There was no joy in this fight.

Xehanort and Xemnas fought, predictably, like two halves of the same whole, seeming to work together in a way she almost envied. All the practice and training sessions and strategizing they could fit in still left her, Corridor, and Keyblade occasionally getting in each other’s way, or missing a cue.

It was difficult to tell the two men apart, since she couldn’t see their eyes from her spot on the floor behind the thrones. Their powers seemed similar, some kind of energy-based blade-like weapons that flickered in and out of existence, sometimes glinting like metal, sometimes defying description. She tried to focus on them and couldn’t. The keyblade seemed capable of parrying them, but she had no idea what being hit by one would do.

How had none of them ever wondered if Xehanort had some other power? Everyone knew that he was a dimensional “hero” (and the tang of that word applied to him was bitter enough she wanted to spit), one of the first examples of someone traveling between dimensions. But she’d never seen any of his bios mention this. He’d just been known as “the director” for so long, and an assistant and a researcher before that, never taking an active heroic role, never listed with a secondary power type.

Sora was wearing down faster than they were. His motions were still quick and precise, but just a fraction of a second delayed from what they’d been a few minutes before. The look on his face was uncharacteristically grim.

Understandable. The extraordinarily dangerous fight aside, he’d also seen Corridor grab her and disappear into the darkness, and they were still gone as far as he knew. And Naminé had finished freeing his memory. How disorienting would that have been?

She tried to figure out how long it had been since Corridor had gone. Had Yuffie managed to get the Heroes out of their cells? If not, Corridor could use the dark doorways to get them free. But how many Organization members would they be fighting? She hated not knowing. It couldn’t have been more than five minutes, and maybe not even that long. Not enough time. She clenched her hand around the knife hilt, and glanced toward the machine. Tauntingly close.

She looked back to the fight. Sora had been driven back into one of the barriers that Xemnas (or Xehanort?) seemed capable of creating. Too many of his moves had changed to pure defense, having to block or parry far more than he was able to strike out and attack. And next to none of those attacks were even getting close to landing.

Did she dare try and destroy the machine now? Regretfully she discarded the thought. If it was going to bring the whole castle down around them, she had to give Corridor, the other Heroes, and the vigilantes a chance to get out safely.

Sora cried out, and her attention whipped back to him.

A bright line of blood had bloomed down his right arm, the flesh around it smoking. The keyblade clattered to the ground. Sora called it back to his hand, but barely in time to block another strike from one of the flickering blades. His injured arm buckled, sending him to his knees to avoid another slashing attack.

She couldn’t just stay and wait. If it made it harder to get close enough to destroy the machine, so be it. She ducked out from behind the throne, and raced toward both black-clad men, knife drawn.

“Hey!” she yelled once she was within a few yards, more intent on just drawing their attention than saying anything clever.

It worked, at least at getting them to turn toward her. Sora took advantage, sliding sideways along the barrier at his back, getting out of immediate range, and switching the keyblade to his left hand.

Radiance slashed upward with her short knife. It connected with Xehanort’s jacket, though he twisted out of the way before she actually cut him. He jerked back, clearly still surprised by her arrival. She’d hoped to separate him from Xemnas, maybe allowing her and Sora to each take one of them on, but no such luck.

She kept the knife in front and to her side, ready to strike whichever direction she needed to. Sora was behind her, and she could see drops of blood on the ground from his wound. She wished she could have just a moment to talk to him, to tell him what had happened, what they were planning, that they just had to buy time… but of course she couldn’t.

“A disappointing choice,” Xehanort said, eyes flicking to her knife and back to her face.

“I know, it never tested well,” she said with something as close to a sneer as she could manage, deliberately misunderstanding. “Shame if my marketability took a hit.”

His eyes narrowed, and the strange, flickering blade reappeared in his hand. Xemnas matched the gesture. This close the blades weren’t quite identical, even as they seemed to shift in and out of existence. Xehanort’s had more of the metallic sheen, while Xemnas’ looked more like a pure energy construct. Both were strangely difficult to focus on.

Xehanort lashed out with his weapon and she forced it aside with her smaller blade. For good measure, she sent a bright flare along with it, though he turned away before it could blind him.

She’d barely gotten her knife back in position before she was having to fend off a strike from Xemnas.

Sora stepped up closer, wielding his keyblade left handed. It was his weaker hand, though he’d trained hard to ensure he was proficient with it. But this wasn’t a fight where “proficient” was likely to be enough. Still, he was able to knock away Xehanort’s next strike, giving her a bit more breathing room.

They shifted to keep her at his right, covering his weaker side the best she could.

They fell into a rhythm—not comfortable, and not even familiar, with him fighting wrong-handed, and her newly armed—but it was still easy to find. She desperately tried to count the seconds and minutes in her head. If it had been five minutes before she entered the fight, how many had it been since then? Had it been enough?

Her heart leapt into her throat when she saw a dark corridor opening at the far end of the room. She calmed slightly as she took in the smooth edges, but she forced her attention to stay purely on Xehanort and Xemnas. She wouldn’t give Riku away.

But Sora didn’t know. He did stare, shifting the blocking of his body, preparing to face a third threat if it became necessary.

Xemnas turned to follow Sora’s gaze as Corridor stepped through. “Was there a reason you abandoned your target to us?” he snapped.

There was a brief moment where she thought the two leaders of the Organization might fall back, expecting Corridor to join them. Some detached part of her thought it would have been a funny sight in its own way, with all that long silver hair and matching coats.

Xehanort barely glanced at Corridor. “Another traitor. His ingratitude will be dealt with this time.”

Another quick strike at Radiance before he even finished speaking, which Sora was able to deflect. Corridor rushed across the yards of empty space, where Xemnas was waiting to meet him.

“Is it done?” Radiance risked asking, loudly enough for Corridor to hear.

“Almost,” he replied, blocking Xemnas’ first attack, and then forcing him back. “It will be clear in the next few minutes.”

Of course he hadn’t waited until it was completely finished, because of course he’d wanted to make sure they were all right. Her gratitude and affection eclipsed her annoyance.

She deflected another of Xehanort’s attacks, trying to keep her awareness of where everyone was. Xemnas was getting closer, drawing Corridor in.

“Welcome back,” Sora called.

“Appreciate it,” Corridor answered. He danced backwards and to the side, starting an arc that would bring him around Xehanort and Xemnas, and end with him next to Radiance and Sora. Hard to say if that was really the better tactical position, but he’d certainly noticed Sora’s still-bleeding arm.

Xemnas attacked Corridor, trying to keep him away. Radiance saw a chance and made a lunge of her own, stabbing rather than slashing with her knife. This time she caught more than jacket, the blade sinking all the way into the back of Xemnas’ shoulder.

He twisted away from Corridor and toward her with a snarl, wrenching the knife from her hands. Wisps of shadow filtered around the hilt of the blade where it was buried, but the damage didn’t spread the way it had with other Nobodies.

“I have too much control over my form for that to stop me, little light,” he said, turning toward her, longer red energy blade flickering in and out of existence in his hand as it swept toward her.

She stumbled backward, shedding sparks in panic, but unable to quite shape them into anything useful. Sora managed to deflect Xemnas’ intended blow, but they were both driven all the way back to the invisible wall. A moment later, Corridor also slammed against the barrier on her other side.

Briefly, it felt like a relatively safe position. Both their opponents were in front of them, and the three of them were ready. But Sora had been fighting far longer than she had, and his breath was coming fast. She’d lost her weapon. Corridor was in better shape, but if he had to try and protect both of them…

He had to do just that, covering her and Sora’s weak right side. She did what she could, shaping and flinging daggers of burning-bright light into their opponents’ eyes, trying to keep them from being able to aim. It was better than nothing, but they were fully aware of that strategy.

It came down to exhaustion. Sora was just a fraction too slow getting the keyblade up. He still managed to avoid the worst of Xehanort’s blow, but the keyblade clattered to the ground, and he was knocked several feet away.

Before he could call it back to his hand, Xehanort was pressing the advantage, closing in on Sora and forcing him even farther back. Corridor raced to defend him, and Radiance ducked and rolled out of the way, trying to avoid becoming a target that Corridor would have to split his attention for.

Both Organization members narrowed in on Sora, ignoring her for the moment. Of course: she was basically a non-threat now, as far as they were concerned. And if they could get Sora out of the picture before he could get the keyblade back to hand, their victory was all but guaranteed.

Sora fell, overbalancing to avoid a slash at his throat. Were they really not even trying to keep him alive at this point?

The keyblade sat just a few feet away from her. Sora still hadn’t recalled it. Was he too weak? Too hurt?

Corridor crouched in front of Sora, long knife up in a protective stance. Of course she trusted him, even against two opponents, but he couldn’t keep it up forever. There was only one thing she could do to even the odds. She had to destroy the machine, and she had to do it now. Surely it had been long enough. Even if it hadn’t been, she couldn’t wait any longer.

She tried to meet Corridor’s eyes, and succeeded for just a moment. “Protect him,” she mouthed.

Then she got to her feet, grabbed the keyblade, and ran back toward the machine.

If a knife had felt strange in her hand, that was nothing to the keyblade. She’d held it before, and so wasn’t completely surprised at how light it was for its size. It was still incongruous, and felt wrong on some psychological level, because it wasn’t hers. The weapon had chosen Sora, and he could take it away from anyone else who held it, but he could also allow them to hold it. She just hoped he would realize she had it and not call it back before she was ready. Though if he did, she’d tear the damn machine apart with her bare hands.

The distance across the room was agonizingly long. She met Naminé’s wide-eyed gaze as she ran past, keyblade raised.

The first strike barely sank into the shadows surrounding the machine before it was deflected. The second time she sent her light along with the keyblade, and it bounced off with a ringing sound. The rotating rings inside seemed to shift, just ever so slightly, speeding up and hitching in their motion.

She prepared for another strike, and felt a gentle pair of hands join her own on the hilt. Naminé. The other girl’s eyes were still wide, but her mouth was set in a determined line.

It was an awkward way to hold the weapon, with four hands on the hilt, but this time when they swung the keyblade, it didn’t bounce off. It slid through the darkness and between the rings, to the heart of the machine. The rings themselves faltered, before beginning to fall, loose, as if whatever had anchored them had been pulled out.

Radiance felt a strange shift, like she’d felt once before. That feeling of the world lurching to the side, while she stayed in place. Naminé’s entire body was suddenly sparkling with gold light, like maybe she had Kairi’s ability after all. Naminé let go of the keyblade, and reached over to hug Radiance instead. And then that glow was rushing into her, as Naminé disappeared. No… she didn’t disappear. We become whole. And this time, instead of weak and off-balance after the shift, it seemed to all snap back into focus.

Until the ground below her did shift, in a much more literal sense. The whole floor pitched sideways.

She looked back to the fight, what was left of it. Sora was back on his feet, though Corridor was supporting him. Xemnas was gone, Xehanort driven to his knees. He was facing her, not Corridor and Sora, as if he’d realized what she was doing, and intended to stop her. He got back to his feet, flickering weapon returning to his hand as he stumbled forward. He was saying something, but she couldn’t understand any words, just an incoherent rage.

Cracks broke jaggedly across the floor, parts of it crumbling to nothingness and others tilting at impossible angles. The vaulted ceiling was so high she’d barely been aware of it before, but pieces of stone were now raining down, providing additional hazards as she tried to judge a path back to the others.

Radiance readied the keyblade, and started to run. If she had to go through Xehanort, she would.

She didn’t get a chance, as a thin crack running the length of the floor between them opened into a chasm. She backpedaled and kept running. She didn’t want to leave him. He was still dangerous, could still do something to harm them… but there was no way for her to get to him.

She shook her head and ran at Sora and Corridor. She was only a few yards away.

With a sickening slide, the floor beneath her gave way, and she began to fall.

“Kairi!” Riku screamed, and then he was falling, too, holding Sora as all three fell. She tried to use the debris around them to slow herself down, heedless of potential bruises and scrapes as she struck the broken stone. Finally Riku grabbed her, and pulled her into the dark.

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