The Book of Prophecies

The Gazing Eye

The man who wrote the Book of Prophecies went hooded and coated in black. None of the people who studied under him could have said what colour his hair was, or whether he was old. He moved oddly, starting and stopping, going still in the middle of a sentence and then finishing it as though nothing had happened, and his mood swung from grave to delighted with no warning his apprentices could ever find. He was fond of them, though. That much came through the coat. There were six of them: Ira, Aced, Invi, Gula, Ava and Luxu.

Luxu was the youngest, and he wore a black coat like the Master's. One day the Master called him in and counted on his fingers. "So that makes you the indisposable number seven." Luxu looked at him blankly, and the Master sighed. "Come on! It's simple. You six plus me is seven. Wait. Don't tell me I don't count!" Then he held out his hand, and a Keyblade appeared in it. "Here, take it."

It was shaped like a great key, as long as a sword, with a grip and a guard at one end and a key's teeth at the other, and it had an eye set into it, blue, with a pupil slit like a cat's, and the eye looked back at Luxu. "The Gazing Eye?" he guessed. "That's not what it's called," said the Master. When Luxu asked what it was called, he thought about it. "Hm. Actually, no name." Luxu tried it out. "No Name." The Master tapped the blade. "Well, 'gazing' or not, that Keyblade does have an eye in it. My eye, to be exact." Luxu nearly dropped it. "Ew!"

The Master ignored that. Luxu's role, he said, was to pass the Keyblade down to his own apprentice, who would pass it to theirs, and so on, "so that my eye can see the future." Luxu worked out what that meant. The eye would look, what it saw would come back to the Master, and the Master would write it down. "So the Book of Prophecies." The Master clapped his hands. "Bingo! The fact that it exists is proof of your success! That means you've trained a worthy apprentice, passed down that handsome Keyblade, and fulfilled your role! Congratulations!" Luxu only stared at him. "But I haven't done anything yet."

"Good point," the Master said. "Guess you better get started then! Unfortunately, you'll have to go alone from here on out. No Book of Prophecies to keep you company, either. I can't have you causing any temporal paradoxes." Luxu did not like the sound of that. "Do I really have to go alone? What about the others?" The Master waved it away as a minor detail. For now, Luxu and the Keyblade had to stay out of sight, and so did something else. "You, that Keyblade, and, this box need to stay out of sight. Just watch with your own eyes, and my eye, of course, as things unfold between the others. Then when the time is right, go off and do your thing."

The box was black and heavy. It had thirteen locks, three down each side and seven across the front, and a crest on the lid. "What's in it?" Luxu asked. "It's a secret," said the Master. "And, well, you see, the thing is, you can never, ever open it." Luxu groaned. "Great, now I really wanna know."

In the end the Master gave in. "Ah, all right. I'll indulge you. But this secret stays between the two of us, and you have to promise never to open the box." Luxu promised. "I promise." Whatever the Master told him then, it went no further than the two of them. When it was over, Luxu had only one more question. "But why?" The Master smiled under his hood. "You'll see."

The Master made one more thing, out of nothing any of them could identify: a small, round creature that stood upright, with ears like a cat's. "Well, things are gonna get pretty hectic around here soon," he told the others. "But this Spirit Chirithy is gonna make your lives much easier! Hopefully." Ava was enchanted. "Master, did you make this? It's so cute!" Gula was more careful. "Spirit?" The Master explained that they were a little like cats or dogs, loyal companions, and that every wielder would have one. "They're here to help, so play nice!"

He was already turning away when he remembered something and turned back. "Oh, right, before I forget. If a wielder is overcome by malice, or rather, if their heart is tainted by darkness, their adorable little Spirit will turn dark and become a Nightmare." Invi understood what that would mean. "Someone has fallen into darkness." Ira began to say it too. "So you're telling us that if we see a Nightmare." Aced finished it for him. "So, if we see one of these Nightmares anywhere, we have to get rid of it on the spot."

"Exactly," said the Master. "And if you don't stop this renegade Spirit, it'll plant darkness in the hearts of others and you'll have an army of Nightmares on your hands. Beware." But Ava would not hear of getting rid of anything so sweet. "No! I won't let you do that!" She looked up at Aced, the biggest of them, behind his bear mask. "Maybe you can growl at them?" Aced was mortified. "Don't insult me!" Gula grinned at him. "No wonder you ended up as the bear. You're scary." The Master was laughing. "Come on, Aced. You won't know if it works unless you try." Aced looked round at all of them. "Please tell me you're joking."

Five of them were given copies of the Book, and Ira read his more slowly than anyone. "So, did you look through the Book?" the Master asked him. "Yes. But I'm still analyzing it." The Master was amused. "Wow, no quick skim for you, huh?" But Ira had found something he could not get past. "I just prefer to be thorough. Master, is what it says in the last passage true?" The Master's voice did not change. "Oh, yeah that. Bummer, huh?"

Then, almost in passing, he gave Ira something else to carry. "By the way, if one day I suddenly disappear, I'm countin' on you to keep the others calm. Okay?" Ira was startled. "Huh? Dis, appear?" The Master could not explain it. "Vanish? Dim? Fade? I don't know how to explain it. It's just hypothetical talk."

He talked about the world instead. It was full of light, he said: a world made of many smaller worlds, all connected, as far as the eye could see. "One great light protects us all throughout this vast land. All worlds share one light, one fate." Ira knew the name of that light. "I take it you're talking about Kingdom Hearts." The Master was pleased with him. "Yep! You're right on the money. People believe that the light that is Kingdom Hearts will be here forever. But if it were to disappear, the world would be enveloped in darkness."

"I understand," Ira said. "And that is why you granted us these Keyblades. With these we can spread the teachings of light, and we can protect Kingdom Hearts from darkness." The Master cut him off. "No, they're not for protecting Kingdom Hearts." Then he recited the last passage of the Book to him. "On that fated land, a great war shall transpire. Darkness will prevail and the light expire."

Ira could not accept it. "Isn't it our duty as Keyblade wielders to prevent this war from taking place?" The Master shook his head. "Nah, not possible." He leaned closer. "You really think you can change the future?" Ira did not answer, and the Master's voice softened. "We have to focus on what comes after. There's no use thinking of ways to change events that we know are gonna happen." Ira asked him what, then, they were for. "Then, what do you want us to do?" The answer was not enough for him. "But, what about all of those who are here now? And the ones who will be here when the darkness finally comes? Are we to abandon all of them?"

"We have to at least try!" Ira said. "With enough Keyblade wielders we could" The Master did not let him finish. "C'mon, are you telling me that you think the world can be saved by just seven people?" Ira would not give way, and in the end the Master shrugged. "Well, if you wanna give it a shot." He was already leaving. "All righty, good luck!" And he was gone.

To Invi he gave a simpler task. "So, to sum it up, I'll need you to observe the others. Easy breezy." She was to watch all of them without taking sides, and to step between them when they needed it. "Like I said, Ira may have to take over for me. But don't be shy. Just be fair. And do not be afraid to speak up!"

Invi was not sure she could. She understood, she said, but "without you or Luxu, to form and maintain our own Unions is. It's a little unnerving, to be honest." The Master teased her. "Oh, come on. Lighten up a little! Maybe I'll never disappear. Wait. Do you want me to go?" She was horrified. "What? N-no! Of course not!" He patted her on the head. "I was just kidding!" Then, for a moment, he was serious. Change was hard, he told her, but things had to keep moving, and she had to keep up. "Now that you know what the future holds, Invi, what does your heart say? 'May your heart be your guiding key.' I say it all the time; you ultimately need to do what your heart feels is right."

Aced had been waiting in the Master's room for some time before the Master noticed him. "You been here long? My bad." He sat down. "So, what did you want?" Aced stared at him. "You didn't forget, did you? You're the one who called me here." The Master laughed. "Lighten up, I was just kidding! I didn't forget." Then he gave Aced his role. "You're going to be Ira's right-hand man."

Aced was lost. "What? Ira's right-hand man? What do you mean?" The Master explained. "Well, Ira's gonna be the new leader after I'm gone, you see, so just stand by him. Don't disappoint." Aced could not hide what he felt, and the Master saw it. "What? Is that disappointment I hear? Did you want to be leader?" Aced protested too quickly. "No! I mean, if you had asked me to be the leader, that's a different story."

"I know you want it, but that just isn't enough," the Master said. Wanting to lead did not make someone a leader. "Ira needs someone like you to give him a push in the right direction." Aced swallowed it. "I agree, Ira is definitely the most worthy among us. I'm sure he'll make a fine leader." Then something else sank in. "But why do we need a new leader, Master? Does, does that mean you will no longer be teaching us?" The Master said he might disappear one day. When Aced did not react, he said it again, and this time Aced heard it. "Disappear!? Why? Where!?"

"Speak up sooner if you're listening," the Master complained. "That was embarrassing for me! Anyway, I don't know if I'm gonna disappear or not. It's anyone's guess right now." Ira thought too much, he said, always thinking away behind that unicorn mask, and everyone would be counting on Aced to spur him into action. "You might not be entirely happy with your role, but just know that it's the most important one. Capiche?"

Then he gave Aced the other half of it. "Shall I elaborate? Making Ira the leader is all good in theory, but sometime later you might think, 'he's terrible at this,' in which case it'll be your job to step up. Who knows? Your leadership might be just what everyone needs. And that is your true role." He left Aced with his blessing. "May your heart be your guiding key. Best of luck, Aced!"

When Gula came, the Master was so busy with his work that he never looked up. "Master. Um, Master? If you're busy, I can always come back later." The Master caught him before he could go. "Sure. Oh! No, no, no, stay! Now where, ah, here it is!" He held out a single page. "Go on, read it." Gula read it and looked up, puzzled. "This is from the Book of Prophecies. But" The Master nodded. "Yup. It's a page that's not in any of your Books."

The page spoke of a traitor. "Your role," said the Master. "You must find the traitor hidden among you, and stop them before it's too late. And in order to help you find the traitor" But Gula was ahead of him. "I get it. That's why you gave us all different roles, isn't it? If anyone deviates from the job they were given, we can easily conclude that they are the traitor. It's brilliant."

The Master sulked. "Way to steal my thunder, show-off!" He folded his arms. "It's not fair. My plan was supposed to blow your mind with its grandeur." Gula was confused. "I'm, sorry? But was my logic flawed?" It was not. "No, you're right," the Master admitted, and then his voice changed. "Even though there is a traitor, act normal and keep focused. Trust no one but yourself."

He found Ava last. "What's written in the last page of the Book is gonna happen. The entire world will be lost to darkness." Ava could not bear it. "But Master, isn't there anything we can do?" There was one thing. "Well, that's what brings me to your role. You might just be the only hope of keeping light from expiring." Ava looked up at him. "Hope? Master, what is it that you need me to do?"

"Don't get involved in any battles, forget the notion of Unions, find Keyblade wielders with potential, and create an entirely separate organization. Then, like the seeds of a dandelion, let them fly to another world. They will keep the light alive." Ava was not sure she could. "You really think that, I'm the right person for this?" He was sure. "Ava, you're the only person for this." "I understand," she said.

There was more. When only these chosen few were left, the Master told her, they would need to lead the Unions. Ava asked whether the Unions needed to go on at all. "Of course! Getting rid of them would be like pooh-poohing all your hard work!" Nobody but the five new leaders would know what had happened to the world. "I want everyone to start over in a different world with a clean slate, well, to their knowledge, of course." He handed her a list. "Here, take a look at these five names. They're your new recruits." One of the names was circled in red, and Ava asked why. "Jackpot! That lucky wielder gets their own free copy of the Book of Prophecies!" It had to reach them in secret. "Ava, this book needs to be handed to its owner in secret. No one else can know." Ava thought it sounded risky. Then she said, "All right."

Then the Master was gone. There was no last meeting, and no instruction beyond the ones he had already given. Ava looked for him, and so did Gula, and neither of them found any sign of where he had gone. The five with Books went back to their Books.

Luxu left the town with the No Name over his shoulder and the box beside him. Somewhere past the edge of everything he stopped and said the words the Master always said, in the form he would use from then on. "May my heart be my guiding key."

A Town That Counts Light

Daybreak Town was built of blue and white stone, on the water. At its centre was a square with a fountain, and behind the fountain stood a shop. West of the square the road narrowed into a market, a long row of stalls under parasols with bunting strung above them. The streets were cobbled, and a purple star was worked into the paving again and again, all the way out to the numbered districts. There was a waterfront with a dock and a lighthouse, a beach, a park and canals, and beneath it all ran a waterway that went further, and connected more places, than anyone above ground had reason to think about. Dandelions grew on a hill above the town. Across a bridge, with a waterfall behind it, stood the clock tower, where wielders did not go.

The wielder came to the town the way all of them came: chosen by a Keyblade, then left to work out what that meant. The five apprentices who had been given Books were known as the Foretellers now, and each led a Union of wielders, wearing the Union's animal as a mask: Unicornis under Ira, Ursus under Aced, Anguis under Invi, Leopardos under Gula, Vulpes under Ava. The wielder joined one of them, and was given a small round companion that stood upright and had firm views about what it was not. "I'm neither of those things!" it said, when the wielder guessed.

Chirithy walked beside the wielder and told them what to do next, and when it could not show them the way, it slipped into their sleep and told them there. The work was light. Heartless came into the town and the worlds beyond it: creatures of darkness, black all through except for their glowing yellow eyes, the smallest of them about the size of a child and some a great deal bigger. The wielders went out and fought them. Light came off the Heartless as they fell, and that light, called lux, was gathered and counted, and every Union's total was ranked against the others'. "The Keyblade is the power of the heart of light," Chirithy said, when the wielder asked what it was all for. The Unions were meant to compete. An alliance between two of them was forbidden, and the reason, when anyone gave one, was balance.

The wielder talked little, and got on with it.

In the park by the waterfront, a boy with curly silver hair and a red scarf had picked a fight with a Heartless and left himself nowhere to go. The wielder came in from the side and finished it. He laughed at himself while he got his breath back. "I'm all right. Thanks. I guess I got a little cocky. I'm Ephemer." He named his Union, which was not the wielder's, and put out his hand. "Nice to meet you!"

He did not seem to think the difference mattered. "Looks like we're on different teams. But I'm working on something other than my Union task today, so think of me as Union free for the day." He looked the wielder over and decided to trust them. "Can you keep a secret? The worlds we visit, the worlds of fairy tales, are nothing more than holograms. You know, projections. The light we collect there is actually this world's light."

There were a great many worlds, he explained, all joined by land, and nobody could travel to all of them, so something projected them here, where the Unions could gather their lux from far away. He was trying to work out how. "My hunch is that the Book of Prophecies held by the foretellers is what's creating these holograms. Get it? Or have I lost you?" He had not. "Good. Anyway, we're in this town, gathering the light that belongs to this vast world. Not just gathering, fighting over it, without knowing why. After a little digging, I discovered that all the Unions have different goals."

The wielder had had a dream. In it, the Master of Masters was speaking to the Foretellers in a room somewhere, with a figure in a black coat there among them, and all of it felt like something that had already happened. Ephemer wanted to hear every detail twice. "Really? Interesting. Hey, I've got an idea. Why don't you come with me?" He meant the room. "Great! Then let's head to the place you saw in your dream."

The room was in the clock tower, and the clock tower was closed. "So you don't know where the room is? I've been here a few times, but I haven't found a way in," Ephemer admitted. They split up to look, and the wielder found a way down into the waterway beneath the town. Ephemer was already there. "Great minds think alike. Other than the entrance, this is the only place that connects outside. Be careful, there's a fair share of Heartless around here."

There were. One came at the wielder out of nowhere, a thing that could not be seen until it struck, and Ephemer cut it down and grinned. "Now we're even." But the passages went on and on, the tower was still somewhere above them, and Ephemer stopped. "Wait. I think we should come back later. It's taken us this long just to find a way in." If they were gone too long, their Union leaders would notice. "We know how to get in now. Let's save the rest for another day."

They went back up into the light. By the rules of the town they should not have been talking at all, and Ephemer knew it as well as the wielder did. "We may not be in the same Union, but we're friends, right? Let's meet tomorrow at Fountain Square. How about noon?"

What the Nightmare Meant

Ira called the others to the clock tower and wasted no words. "There's a traitor among us." Invi asked him for proof, and he held up what he had found near their chamber, a Chirithy gone dark, turned wrong. "I found this sniffing around." Invi stared at it. "Is that, a Nightmare?" Ava could hardly look. "Is that, a dark Chirithy?" Aced said at once that it was not his. "It's not me."

Gula thought it could be settled easily: they could all summon their Spirits and see. Invi shook her head. There were countless wielders in their Unions, and any of them could summon a Chirithy that was not a Nightmare. Ava agreed. "Who's to say that the Nightmare you saw belongs to one of us? It could belong to anyone in our Unions." Ira thought not. "That's highly unlikely. Do you recall the tool the wielders were given in order to make them stronger?" He meant the bangles, the ones that let a wielder collect dark energy, and he believed they had come from the Nightmare.

Ava had thought they had all agreed that was harmless, and Ira corrected her. "Collecting is fine. But using that power is the equivalent of using the power of darkness." Ava's hand went to her mouth. "Oh, no. Everyone's already equipped their bangles." Aced wanted to know how they would find whoever was behind it, and Ira had an answer ready. "Seeing as those bangles couldn't have been acquired by just anyone, I believe it's one of us here in this room."

Invi would not have it. "No, Ira. I respectfully disagree. What proof do we have that the bangles are tied to the power of darkness, or if a Nightmare is to blame? We shouldn't simply jump to conclusions." Aced was scornful. "Ira. Some leader you are. You've managed to plant seeds of doubt in all of us with that speech." Invi told him that was quite enough, but he was already on his feet, and what he said on his way out was meant for everyone. "It looks to me like the Master made the wrong choice." Gula left behind him, and Ava after that, with a small unhappy wish. "I hope. I hope we can all resolve this soon."

Ira looked at the empty chairs. "That didn't go as expected." Invi had never seen him like this. "What's wrong, Ira? This isn't like you." So he told her what he had not told the others. "A Lost Page. Something's missing from our Book of Prophecies. Each of our copies were said to contain the events of the future. But this incident, well, it's nowhere to be found." Invi asked how that tied to the traitor, and he could only repeat himself. "Like I said, it's nowhere to be found, in my Book."

Invi worked it out. "Ira. Are you implying that someone is in possession of the missing page? And the person with the complete Book is the traitor?" He was. "It's not so far-fetched to assume that the one who has the Lost Page has been turned, that they have fallen into the hands of darkness. Trust me." She searched her own copy. "There seems to be no record of it in my Book either. You may be onto something. I wonder. Could this have been the Master's plan all along? To grant the Lost Page to only one of us." Ira had no way of knowing. "The Master is gone."

The page was in Gula's keeping. He was doing exactly what he had been told to do, and that included telling no one.

Invi promised Ira she would watch the others and tell him what she saw. "Of course. After all, that is what the Master asked of me. And Ira, may your heart be your guiding key."

Aced had not gone far. He found Gula and Ava and put it to them in private. "I was wrong about Ira. I thought he would make a great leader, but he let me down. Well, what do you two think? You don't believe what Ira said, do you?" Gula did not. "His argument was unconvincing." Ava was less sure. "Maybe there's something he hasn't told us." That only made Aced angrier. "Then he needs to tell us. How dare he look at us with suspicion. We're his comrades!"

Gula told him to get to the point, and Aced did. "I want the three of us to form an alliance." Ava was shocked. "But alliances are forbidden, Aced!" Aced did not care. There was darkness at work, he said, but no traitor, and Ira was wasting time hunting for one. "But darkness won't wait and neither should we. We need to band together now and find a way to fight it."

Ava would not break the Master's rule. "I want. I want to follow the Master's teachings." Aced reminded her that the Master was gone. "He's no longer here." But he let her choose. "Understood. That's your choice to make. You should do whatever you feel is right." Gula was in, on one condition. "I'm in. But let's be clear: the alliance is just between the two of us right now. I don't want my Union members involved."

Aced had asked Invi too, and she came to hear him out. "Hear me out, Invi. I want an alliance among our Unions. Gula here has already agreed." She was appalled. "And disobey the Master's teachings!?" Aced said they had no choice, and Invi reminded him why the rule existed: the Master had kept their Unions separate to hold the balance, because imbalance led to wanting more power, and wanting more power led to darkness. She looked at him hard. "I know you haven't forgotten! Perhaps, it's you who has been tainted by darkness."

Aced turned it back on her. "I'm tainted by darkness? Then what about you, Invi? You spy on us and report everything you see back to Ira!" She denied nothing. "Because that is my role." "To observe us, yes," Aced said. "But not to disclose everything we say and do to Ira! For all we know, you and Ira could be allies, scheming behind our backs!"

Invi reported it anyway. "It seems Aced and Gula's Unions are now allied." Ira drew the obvious conclusion. "So Aced is the traitor after all." She did not believe it. "No, I don't believe he is." She had thought about it. "To Aced, unification is a means of gathering strength to oppose the darkness. So I believe his heart still belongs to the light." She would persuade Gula to end it herself. "No. Please, let me do the talking. Your intervention will do nothing more than spur Aced's anger." Then, at the door: "And one more thing. Aced has begun to question the two of us. As a precaution, my reports will be less frequent."

Ava sat alone by the fountain in the square as the day ran out. "When will it stop? I don't want us to turn against each other." A boy with a red scarf stopped in front of her, and she made herself smile. "Oh. Hello! Your name is Ephemer, right?" It was, and he sat down beside her without being asked. "Why the long face? Did something happen?"

"Long day," Ava said. "Do you remember what you asked me before? About why the Unions compete against each other instead of working together. Actually, I always wondered the same thing." Ephemer shrugged. "Huh? Isn't it just because the Master said so?" It was, she said, and they had to obey. "But lately, I've really started to wonder. You once told me that you were looking for answers, that you wanted to solve the mysteries of this world. Well, I think that's how things should be. We need to question things and think for ourselves."

Ephemer tried to cheer her up by asking about the Book of Prophecies, and she laughed at him. "Not a chance! You were trying to pull a fast one on me, weren't you?" He told her he had made a friend that day, from another Union. "Wasn't much of a talker, maybe just shy. We're meeting again tomorrow." Ava said she wished the Unions could stop competing and simply get along. "That sounds like so much fun! Then, you'd better go home and get some sleep."

She watched him go. "Thank you. If worse comes to worst, I want to leave the future to kids who see the world like you do. Let the wind carry you far, far away. My Dandelions."

Ephemer did not go home to sleep. He went back down into the waterway alone, toward the tower, and apologised to the friend who was not there. "Sorry." Someone was waiting for him in the dark. "Who is it?" Then he saw who it was. It was Ava, and she had come to tell him about the end.

"We cannot avoid the end; not even the Masters, including myself, are likely to survive," she said. "There isn't much time left. You are the ones who will remain." She would choose four others, and the five of them would each lead a Union, as the Foretellers had. She gave him a rulebook. Ephemer could not take it in. "Me? A Master? A Union leader? That's crazy. And what's this nonsense about 'the end'?"

She told him what she needed. "What I need you to do is to prepare the other world. I'll be sending all the Dandelions there soon. You'll continue living your lives, but without the impending doom." It would be like an alternate reality, and the Dandelions would not remember the war. "There's no need for them to remember such a tragedy. It'll simply be a burden. Only the five of you will know the truth." Ephemer did not agree. "It might be a burden, but isn't it better they remember the past? The past is what makes the future." Ava looked at him sadly. "I thought you might say that. But I wonder if you would feel the same if you were there to witness the end."

The Offer

Ephemer did not come to Fountain Square. The wielder waited, and then went round the places he might reasonably be, and then the places he might not, and nobody in his Union would say anything about it. He had been there, and then he was gone.

That night he came into the wielder's sleep. "I'm sorry. I really am! There was something important I had to take care of. I hope you can forgive me. Are you still up for our adventure?" He was standing somewhere the wielder half knew. "It's up ahead. Are you with me? Ah, you're not ready yet. I had a feeling that might be the case. I'll be waiting."

The place in the dream was real. It was also forbidden, and the wielder went anyway. Someone was already there, in a white fox mask and a pink cloak, and she asked what the wielder was doing there. When the wielder named Ephemer, Ava nodded. "Ephemer? Yes, I know him, but you still haven't answered my question." She heard the rest of it out: the dream, the rumour that someone had seen her talking with Ephemer. "So you thought that he may have gotten caught up in the problems that we foretellers have been having lately. And because someone saw us talking the other day, you thought that maybe I had something to do with it."

She seemed amused rather than offended. "You're honest. I like you. You're not too far off base, but I can't tell you much else right now." Then she raised her Keyblade. "Show me what you can do."

When it was over she was not even out of breath. "Not bad. I see a lot of potential in you. But I also see sadness in your heart. Hanging on to it will eventually lead to darkness. You need to somehow let it go." She looked down at Chirithy. "With this little one helping you, you'll be fine. Now, go home. And I'm sorry, but this area is strictly off-limits, all right?"

When the wielder had gone, she said it quietly to herself. "So it's you. You're the friend he told me about." Then she knelt by Chirithy, who had stayed behind. "Please, call me 'Ava.'" She asked if it had shown the wielder the dream of Ephemer, and when it said it had not, she understood. "Then perhaps it was Ephemer himself." He had gone looking for the truth and come close to it, she said; he was somewhere else now, and from there he had reached out to the wielder. Whether the wielder followed him down that path was up to their own heart, she said, and Chirithy had to protect them from the nightmares, so that the wind could carry them far away from here.

At Fountain Square the next day a girl walked into an argument the wielder was having with Chirithy about the count, and took a side in it. "But why does that matter? It's not a competition. Or at least it shouldn't be. Our goal of protecting the light is the same. There's no need for us to fight." She had long blue-black hair and amber eyes and stars at her ears. "The name's Skuld!"

"Nice to meet you! Ephemer told me all about you. Don't look so surprised! He used to be in my party, you know." He had quit one day and left, she said, and she had been upset about it for a long time. "But then he showed up in my dream the other night and told me to find you!" She did not know why any more than the wielder did. "He asked me to go with you. So here I am."

He had been in the wielder's dream too, and when Skuld heard that he was waiting, she was already moving. "Why don't we go to the place you're supposed to meet him?"

The town had grown worse by then. Bangles were going round, sold by the Moogle who kept the shop behind the fountain, a small white creature with little bat wings and a red pompom bobbing on a stalk above its head. The bangles drew darkness into whoever wore them, quietly. And wielders were coming back from the districts as something else: Darklings, wielders whose light the darkness had taken, who came back wanting more. Skuld and the wielder fought them and said little about it afterwards. A Chirithy that was not a Chirithy watched them from further off than it needed to.

The alliance between Aced and Gula had lasted months, and nothing had come of it. Gula ended it. "The alliance. I think it's time to call it quits." He had joined to prepare for darkness, and none had come, and Aced had brought no one else in. "This alliance is meaningless. Even Invi agrees." Aced went cold. "Is Invi the one who told you to break our alliance?" Gula had not meant him to know she had been involved. "Uh-oh, you weren't supposed to find out." He looked anything but sorry. "But I'm the one who decided to do it, and I've already told you why."

"But we don't even know who the traitor is yet!" Aced said. "And that's exactly why," said Gula. "I just can't trust anyone but myself." Aced told him he would not stand a chance against the darkness alone, and Gula would not be moved. "Sorry, my mind's made up." When he was gone Aced said it to the empty room. "Invi, you will regret this!"

He came for her in the square. "It's been over a year since the Master left. It's time for me to fulfill my true role." He knocked her Keyblade out of her hands, and she would not give ground. "Don't be so conceited! I'm protecting the balance, just like the Master told us to! You need to come to your senses!" Aced stood over her. "If we don't do something, light will expire! Then we won't be able to avoid the grim future that awaits. We need to defy the Master's teachings to protect the world!"

"You're saying he was wrong!?" Invi cried. "He's not here anymore," said Aced. "I won't let his prophecy come true. I won't let the world fall into darkness!" Invi called him a fool, and then Ava and Gula came running into the square, Gula shouting, "Ava, there's no time to lose!" and Ava crying, "Invi, Aced! What's going on!?" Invi got up and told Ava the thing she least wanted to say. "I found out who the traitor is, regrettably."

Gula raised his Keyblade at Aced, and after a moment, so did Ava. Aced looked at the three of them. "May my heart be my guiding key." Then he came at them. The fight spilled through the town, and a bridge came down into the water.

Skuld and the wielder heard it from the square. "The foretellers! Why are they fighting? Ephemer was right." It was what she had been trying to tell the wielder. "Just before I woke up, he told me, the end of the world is near." And after what they had just seen, she believed it. "This world will disappear, just like Ephemer did."

Chirithy said going back under the town was a bad idea. They went anyway, the way Ephemer had gone, along the waterway and up into the tower, and this time they reached the room where the six had met. There was nothing in it, and Skuld was almost disappointed. "I was just expecting, more. It's kind of a letdown, really." Then a Foreteller was in the doorway, and Skuld went scarlet. "W-we're so sorry! We were just looking for someone."

The Foreteller was not interested in apologies. "Chirithy, I expected more from you. You know this area is off-limits." The masked face turned to the other two. "I caught another wielder in here just the other day. A friend of yours?" Ephemer, the Foreteller told them, had been gathering lux for a Union whose purpose ran against theirs. "He befriended you to get his hands on information, nothing more. But he is a threat no longer." The wielder raised a Keyblade, and the Foreteller seemed to have expected it. "So be it."

The fight went the way it was always going to go, and at the end of it the Foreteller lowered their weapon. "Congratulations. You fought admirably." Then the room was not the room, and the mask was a white fox's trimmed in blue, over a pink cloak. Ava thanked them for showing her the strength of their hearts. "I hope you'll forgive me for deceiving you, but the foreteller you fought, the room you were in, were both merely projections."

"It's as Ephemer stated in your dream," she said. "The world will soon end." If every wielder vanished with it, there would be no one left to drive the darkness back afterwards, and her role was to stop that. "My role in all of this is to gather wielders with great potential, regardless of their Unions. They must survive for the world after." Ephemer had gone looking for the truth because he knew there was one to find. "That's how I knew he was the one, the one I could count on to lead the Dandelions in my stead."

Skuld could not follow it. "This is all so. I-I don't understand. So what happened to Ephemer?" Ava told her. "They're a special group of Keyblade wielders that will remain after the rest of us are gone." She had to stay for what was coming, so she had needed someone to take her place. "And I chose Ephemer. He accepted, and now he's far away from here, waiting."

He was fine, she said. The world was not. A wielder had been corrupted, and the dark Chirithy they had seen was proof of it. "But I want the world to come to be filled with light. That's why only wielders with a strong resistance to darkness are chosen as Dandelions. So I ask both of you: will you join us?" The ones who were not chosen would stay. "They will have no choice but to fight in the Keyblade War." Skuld looked stricken, and Ava did not soften it. "I'm afraid it's inevitable."

Skuld needed no time to think. Ephemer had left her once, she told the wielder, saying she would be all right on her own, and she had been. "I never forgot about him, though. And I know he never forgot about me either because he led me to you. You helped me see so much." To thank him she would have to follow him. "Now I just have to thank Ephemer, and the only way to do that is to join the Dandelions."

The wielder did not answer. On one side there was Ephemer. On the other there was every wielder in the town who had not been chosen, going on gathering light for a count that had stopped meaning anything. Ava did not press. "Of course, take all the time you need. This decision is yours to make, and you should do what feels right. I just ask that you keep this to yourselves. I'm afraid the future is a very, sensitive subject."

The Girl Who Could Not Find Them

Strelitzia had a place in the town nobody else knew about, and she was pleased with it the way you are pleased with something small and entirely yours. "I have a secret. This is my favorite spot that nobody knows about. It belongs to me, Strelitzia." She had long ginger hair tied into two pigtails that fell past her waist, and she talked to herself there sometimes, because nobody could hear.

For two years she had fought darkness and made friends and said goodbye to them. One thing had not changed. "I first saw you at Fountain Square. You were waiting for someone, but they never came. When I returned from my mission that day, you were still there, waiting. You looked so disappointed. I saw your eyes well up as you hugged Chirithy." After that she saw the wielder everywhere, and never once found the courage to say hello. "While everyone else was going about their days without question, you began to doubt your mission, your purpose. You saw there was something more, something we weren't being told. You don't know me, but I feel like I know you. I hope that one day we can be friends. There's so much I'd like to tell you."

Her brother Lauriam, a tall young man with long pink hair, was the better known of the two, and he knew it. She found him resting in the middle of the day. "Lauriam. Lauriam. I knew you'd be here. Taking a break?" He smiled at her. "Actually, I'm done collecting my Lux for the day." It was only noon, and she was full of admiration and envy at once. "I-I don't know how you do it! You're so amazing!" She sighed. "Me, on the other hand, I spent the whole day getting chased around by them."

"You know your magic is stronger than mine," Lauriam told her. "Stay calm and focused, and you'll be done in no time." She asked him if they could pair up, him at the front and her at the back, and he said not yet. "Maybe when you get strong enough to protect me. Then we'll pair up, and you can carry me through battle." She thought that sounded impossible.

He asked if she had decided to join the Dandelions. She liked the people she was with, she said. "Besides. There's someone I wanna get to know. And if they're not a Dandelion, I might never get the chance." Lauriam's eyebrows went up. "Does someone have a crush?" She went red to her ears. "No, no, no, no! It's nothing like that!"

He stopped teasing her. "Stay calm, focus, be brave." She protested, and he laughed. "Okay, okay. You make everyone's lives so much brighter. People need that; they need your power. Believe in yourself." She asked whether he was only saying it, and he was not. "In fact, you just worked that power of yours on me. Things were feeling dull, but now I'm looking forward to what's in store for tomorrow." She would get stronger, she promised him. "I WILL carry you one day." He would not pair with her yet. "But I will come running if you're ever in trouble."

Ava chose her as one of the five. Each of them would lead a Union when the Foretellers were gone, and each was given a rulebook. Strelitzia held hers in her lap. "Me, a Union leader." She told Chirithy it was an honour, and a great responsibility, and then the rest of what Ava had said caught up with her. "Only the Dandelions will survive. That means everyone else will disappear."

She thought of who else would disappear, and sat up. The wielder was not a Dandelion. She had to tell them, and she did not know how she would find them in the dark, so she would get up early and wait at Fountain Square. She would recruit them, she told Chirithy, and say nothing about anything else. "Goodnight!"

She did not find them at the fountain. She searched the town, and at last there was one place left, an empty house in the Seventh District, and she was sure the wielder had to be there. There was nobody. "Well, it was worth a shot. I'll head back to Fountain Square."

The blow came from behind her, and she never saw who struck it. She had time to be surprised. Then she was lying on the floor of the empty house with her Chirithy in her arms and no strength left in her hands, and her rulebook was gone. "I'm sorry. This is all my fault." She said nothing about the war, and nothing about her brother. What she said at the last was about the wielder, whom she had never managed to speak to. "I wish, I'd had the courage." Then she was gone, and the empty house was empty again.

The Bells

Aced had got away from the fight into a storage room. He could not stand up properly, and that was where Gula found him after dark. He had brought the page. "Do you wanna know what my role is? The Books we were given are incomplete. There's a Lost Page. On that page, it is written that there is a traitor. The Master told me, to find and stop that person."

Aced understood what that meant, and it was the last thing he could forgive. "I called you my 'comrade.' But never again, Gula." Gula had known there was a traitor, and had watched in silence while the rest of them tore at each other. "I won't forgive you for that." He got up. Gula told him he could barely stand, and Aced went for him anyway. "Don't you underestimate me!" Gula went down and stayed down.

Ava put herself between them. She did not draw. "Why? Why did it have to come to this?" Aced looked at her standing over Gula and went out into the dark.

Ira found him. "Come to finish me off? Then make it quick," Aced said. Ira had not. He had come to do his role, he said, and his role was to make sure the light lived on. "With only five lights, we can't afford to lose any." Aced could hardly believe it. "You, still count me as one of the five lights?" He laughed a little. "Only you could be such a good guy after everything we've been through." Then he told Ira about Gula, and the Lost Page, and the betrayal he would never forgive.

Ira asked him to keep it to himself. "I'd like to believe that Gula was simply carrying out his role. Aced, I'll deal with this matter." But alone, he said it to himself. "I need to see that Lost Page." He went to where Ava was nursing Gula's wounds. "I know Gula's here. Tell me where he is." Ava asked why, and he would not tell her. "None of your concern." She stood in the doorway until Ira gave up. "So that's it. All right. I'll go."

Gula had expected it. "I knew it. It's finally come to this. Everyone wants to know about the Lost Page." He told Ava what it said, and how little it said. "It talks about 'the one who bears the sigil.' That's it. So, I don't know what to make of it to be honest." He had suspected Aced and gone to confront him. "And look what happened."

He had a plan, and it was forbidden, which was the point of it. "I'm going to summon Kingdom Hearts. Then he'll have no choice but to come back." When Ava protested, he would not hear it. "That's exactly why! The only way to get him back is to break the rules!" He needed lux to do it, far more than he had. "You always do the right thing. Help me with this." She would not. He did not argue with her, and when she had gone he said the Master's words to himself. "May your heart be your guiding key."

Invi came to Ava afterwards, and admitted she was the one who had told Ira where Gula was. When Ava objected, Invi turned on her. "Not only do you have your Union but you've also gathered the finest Keyblade wielders from other Unions and you're training them in a secret location, aren't you?" Ava told her why, and Invi was ashamed. "I had no idea. I apologize. I overstepped."

Between them they saw the shape of it. Gula was gathering lux for his door, and so were Aced and Ira, each for their own reasons. "They're trying to maintain the balance," Invi said. "But, that isn't the balance we were expected to keep." If everyone gathered light only for themselves, it would all go wrong. "Light will expire." Invi made up her mind. "I'll gather Lux, too. No matter what, the balance must be kept. Ava, you do the same. We must, delay the inevitable."

Aced was not finished. He stood before a crowd of wielders in the town and told them what he believed. "Why do you fight over Lux? Light is not proof of strength. Victory is proof of strength. And a strong Union is proof of justice." Skuld spoke up against him, and he turned on her. "Aren't you one of Ava's chosen wielders? One of the Dandelions? You, of all people, should be able to see that she's using her special Union to demonstrate her power." Then he looked at the wielder beside her. "Which Union do you belong to?" He never waited for the answer. "Stand ready."

The wielder went down in the street. "You're not worthy of the Keyblade," Aced said, and then Ira was there. "That's enough, Aced. You bring harm to a Keyblade wielder and call yourself a Master?" Aced shrugged. "Hmph! It was merely a test." The war was coming, he said, and the four of them had done nothing but feed it. "While others gather Lux, I will recruit a legion. Backed by a powerful organization, a single leader can maintain the world's balance. The four of you will be banished." Ira told him he overestimated himself. "Then let's settle this on the battlefield!" Aced said, and left.

Skuld stared after him. "Master Ira. The battlefield? What's about to happen?" Ira did not soften it. "What fate intended." Skuld whispered it. "So Master Ava was telling the truth." Ira nodded. "Yes. The war is inevitable." But Ava had said there would be no winners, Skuld said, so why fight at all? "To make certain, there are no winners," Ira told her. "Prepare yourselves."

While the wielder was down, a dream came: a place with no town in it, and a great many people fighting. When they woke, Skuld was there. "You're awake! What a relief." She had not found Ephemer. Ava had vanished too, and without her the Dandelions were losing heart.

They went looking for Ava, and in a warehouse, where it was awfully quiet, they found Gula. "Looking for someone?" He looked Skuld over. "A wielder who's not out collecting Lux. That must make you a Dandelion." He knew why they had come. "Why? To ask her if she can do something so we can avoid the war? Not even she has the power to do that. Or do you plan on asking her what's going on? Knowing won't change anything. There's nothing you can do." Skuld told him she could not sit back and wait for the end. He almost smiled. "I can see why she chose you. You're just like her. Always doing the right thing. But doing the right thing can't save the world. Only the Master has that kind of power."

The Master had vanished, he said, and he and Ava had searched for him without a trace. "There's only one person who might know where he is, Luxu." Ava had gone to find him. Then Gula recited the page to them. "Imbalance observed, strength misplaced, a future filled with sorrow. Words of truth misunderstood as they explore the secret of tomorrow." He looked at the wielder. "The Lost Page. Who could this be pointing to?"

"The traitor is the catalyst for the events that lead to the world's end. I thought I knew who it was, but I couldn't stop them. And who knows? I could've been wrong." There was more to it. "With a single strike, toll the bells and herald the end, bringing war upon us, as fate did intend."

Ava found Luxu. "There you are, Luxu." He seemed unsurprised. "Oh, it's you." She asked what he had been doing all this time. "Watching. That's my role." She asked what the Master had told him to do. "Watch. He asked me to watch."

He had no Book, he told her. He had to make his way to the future as it was written, witness the end of this world and go on to the next. "You're searching for a way to avoid the war, right? That's why you were looking for me, hoping I could lead you to the Master. Sorry, but I can't help you. This world is meant to end." She asked what he knew, and he told her about the page none of them had. "The page on which the Master's intentions are inscribed."

"His intentions?" Ava said. "Are you implying that he wanted this? This chaos, this war?" His role, Luxu said, was to carry the secret, and for that, things had to happen as the page said. "The Master isn't interested in this world and what's to come. He's observing, doing what it takes for me to fulfill my role." Ava's voice shook. "Tell me, what's written on that page? Luxu, are you responsible for all of this? Are you, are you the traitor?"

He told her who the traitor was. Ava stood there with it. "Th-that can't be true." Luxu's voice did not change. "You asked for the truth, so there it is. Now that you know who the traitor is, can you accept it?" He told her to follow her fate and fight. "Has it occurred to you that maybe the Master wasn't so concerned about the world's future, but how we, his disciples, would let our hearts guide us?" Ava refused to believe it. "Luxu, you're interpreting the Master's words in your own way. This can't be what he wanted!"

She attacked him. Their two Keyblades met, and the sound of them meeting went up and out across the whole town, because the bells in the clock tower rang.

Everyone in Daybreak Town heard it. In the warehouse Gula lifted his head. "And there it is. You should head back. You Union leaders will probably call for an assembly." Outside, Skuld turned to the wielder. "I'm going to go join the other Dandelions. Won't you come with me?" The wielder would not, and Skuld nodded slowly. "I understand. But please, don't take part in the war. I want you to come with us to the world outside. Ephemer would want that too. Think about it."

Then the thing that had been wearing a Chirithy's shape came for the wielder, and got inside them, because the bangle had been letting it in all along. As it did, it told them what it was: it had come out of their own darkness, and fed on it, and been fed by it. The wielder threw it off.

The war was fought on the badlands outside the town, on bare, rocky ground that went on and on, at the place where the roads met. The people on the other side were not monsters. They were wielders, from five Unions, who had been told that the count was what mattered.

The wielder fought the Foretellers one after another. Invi was almost gentle. "I'm sorry for dragging you into this. I'll make this quick." Ira knew the wielder's face. "So it's you. I'll be merciful." Then, when it was over: "You've grown. It's a shame, you have so much potential." Gula found them looking worse than he had left them. "Hey, it's you. You don't look so good. Are you okay?" He fought anyway. "You're on a battlefield, you gotta fight."

Aced remembered them. "You! I deemed you unworthy." When the wielder held, he changed his mind. "How unexpected! You've proven me wrong. You are indeed worthy! But that also means you pose a threat. And that is why you must disappear!" Ira put himself in the way. "This is all your doing! You destroyed the balance!" Aced turned to meet him with something like joy. "I've been waiting for this moment, Ira. I will rebuild this world as the new leader and Master!"

The hearts of the fallen rose off the ground and drifted over the field in their thousands. In the middle of it Invi told the wielder to live a long life, and Gula said that perhaps they would meet again somewhere. In the end nobody was left standing. The wielder lay on the stones as the rain began, and Chirithy found them and stayed.

Then something enormous opened in the sky above the field. Light came down through it, and two people were standing where there had been nobody: Skuld, and Ephemer. He knelt by the wielder. "Sorry about that." The wielder looked up at him. "You broke. Your promise." He held out his hand. "I know, but I'm here now. Let's go." The wielder took it.

A Backup of the Real One

The wielder woke up in Daybreak Town. The square and the fountain were where they had always been, and Chirithy was there with work to be getting on with. Something sat in the wielder that would not take a shape: the sense that something had happened and left no memory behind. They went out and gathered light, and the count went up.

Nearly everyone had come through the same way. The war had been taken out of them, on Ava's instruction, and they lived on without it. Five people kept their memories, because somebody had to know. Most of the Dandelions did not wake at all; they slept on where they were, each watched over by a thing that had been their own Chirithy.

The five had met before any of that, on the rocky ground where the war had been. Ephemer was the first there, and Skuld the second. "Am I the second to arrive?" He could not believe it. "Skuld? Well, this is a surprise!" She had half expected it. "I, on the other hand, had a feeling you might be here." Neither of them had been allowed to tell anyone. "This whole thing is a big secret," Skuld said. "I wonder who the others are."

The third was a blond boy in a black and white jacket, who said he had been told to come there when it was all over. "Welcome! You're number three," Skuld told him. "I'm Skuld. Nice to meet you." Ventus smiled shyly. "Oh, uh, thanks. You too." He watched the other two together a little wistfully. "You two know each other, huh? Must be nice; I've always been on my own." He did not know why Ava had chosen him. "I'm not especially good at anything. And I'm never at the top of the rankings."

The fourth wore a black fedora pulled low over his eyes. "The name's Brain. Pleasure." He looked round at the three of them. "Thought I'd be the last to arrive. Guess I'm not so lazy after all." He looked Ephemer over. "So, you the leader?" And then Skuld. "Hey, about the rules, think they're set in stone? Or more like a guideline?" Skuld found nothing funny. "They're rules. Of course they're set in stone." Brain grinned at her. "I get it. You're the serious one. Like Master Ava."

Lauriam came last, and he apologised for it. "I hope I didn't keep you waiting." They told him he was Number Five. "Number Five? Then I must be the last one." He had been searching for something, he said, and time had got away from him. Brain let him have it. "Well, you did. How do you plan on making it up to us, Number Five?"

They went up into the tower to the room where the six had met, and it was empty. "So this is the Master's room," Brain said, and sat down in one of the chairs. When Skuld objected, he shrugged. "Why not? It's ours now, isn't it?" He asked whether the rulebook did not say they should assign new leaders, and Ephemer said they would keep the five Unions as they were for now. "I don't want people being loyal to only their own Unions." And one more thing. "To avoid any confusion or chaos, let's not say a word about the foretellers to anyone just yet."

Ephemer had a job for the wielder's Chirithy. "Chirithy, don't forget about your task." The wielder was not to remember the war. It was not only for the wielder's sake. "We can't stand to lose anyone now. The darkness in this world is not the same as what we faced in the other one." It felt different to him. "It feels more, complex, like there's more to it than meets the eye. Almost like it has its own will." Skuld told the little creature it was doing well. "New adventures with friends is a great way to bury sad memories deep within one's heart."

The wielder dreamed about the war anyway. It came in order, the battlefield, the Foretellers and the way it had all gone, and it never felt like a dream. Chirithy went to Ephemer and Skuld about it, and they told it to keep the wielder from remembering.

The rulebook called for a contest between the Unions, and Ephemer did not like it. Ventus liked it less. "Wait. Keyblade wielders fighting each other!?" Brain thought it was only a friendly competition. "Besides, it's not like we have much of a choice. It's in the book." Ventus would not have it. "I don't like the thought of wielders turning their weapons against each other." Brain was startled. "Whoa, Ven. When did you grow a spine?"

It came down to Ephemer. "Up to me, huh? I think we should do what it says." But he had an idea, and he laid it out. The worlds had been recreated as data after the war, and so had everyone in them. "People don't have to fight each other. They can fight other wielders' data instead." Brain looked at him sideways. "It's a clever plan and all, but. A little too clever coming from you." Ephemer laughed. "Hey! Well, maybe I did have a little help from Lauriam."

Lauriam had stopped coming to the meetings. He was looking for his sister, who had been meant to become a Dandelion, and who was nowhere. He found the girl who had been in her party, a blonde girl with a loose black tie. "Are you Elrena?" She said she was. "I want to ask you about my sister, Strelitzia." Elrena had not known. "Strelitzia's gone missing?" She had barely known her, she said. "She always seemed to be waiting for someone."

Strelitzia used to sit on a rooftop in Fountain Square, Elrena told him, around the time Ava had spoken of the Unions fighting. "Nothing seemed to ever come of it." Lauriam heard what that meant. "These must be the new memories they were given. So my sister was around until before the war." Elrena watched him. "You really care about her, don't you?" She thought of a way to help. "Chirithy! Weren't you friendly with Strelitzia's Chirithy?"

Her Chirithy remembered what she did not. Strelitzia had vanished before the bells rang, and she had been looking for someone. "So she definitely disappeared before the Keyblade War," Lauriam said. "Maybe this 'someone' is the key to finding out what happened." Later Elrena brought him something stranger. Strelitzia had talked about a war before she disappeared. Lauriam could not make sense of it. "Strelitzia was certain the Keyblade War was going to become a reality. But how could she have known?"

Then the town began to go wrong at the edges. It started with small things, glitches, a shape flickering where it should not be. Then a way out of the town was forced open from the far side, into another world entirely, a world made of data whose people knew they were data, and creatures came through it. Brain had been quiet for a long time. "Question: Is the Daybreak Town we're in right now, real or virtual?"

Ephemer thought it had to be the real one. Brain was not sure. "Like Ephemer said, this should be the real world, and yet those glitches are obviously a phenomenon that belongs to the virtual one." Before the war, he explained, the worlds had been recreated as data along with Daybreak Town, and that was why they could still be reached though the worlds themselves were broken. Skuld said what the copy was for. "As a backup of the real one."

A sorceress had come into the town by then, a tall woman in black with a horned headdress and a staff. She had come from outside to change what was written, and a voice that was not a person's had told her it could not be done here: what was written in a world of data could not be changed. It sent her instead to the basement of the clock tower, where there was an unfinished lifeboat, a pod that would carry her heart forward through time if she left her body behind. At the far end she would need something to build a new body from, and somebody there who remembered her.

Lauriam found her in the tower. "What are you doing here? You may want to think carefully before you answer." She would not be turned back. "This isn't the way out," he told her. She beat him, went down to the lifeboat, and was gone. When he came round he did not know where he was. "Strelitzia. I was, I was fighting, and. She's gone."

What Was in the Room

Brain asked Ephemer to meet him somewhere quiet, in the place where Ava had told Brain he was to be a Union leader. Ephemer was surprised to be brought all that way, and more surprised by what Brain had to say. "One of the new Union leaders was chosen to receive a copy of the Book of Prophecies." He had it. "What? Brain, you have the Book of Prophecies?" It was insurance, Brain said, a backup in case anything went wrong with the data, and he had not used it yet. "More importantly, look at this note. The names of the five chosen Union leaders are here, with the recipient of the Book of Prophecies marked."

The circled name was not Brain's. "That's right. I'm not the one who was supposed to get the Book. But that's not the only thing that's off. One of the other leaders has been replaced entirely. Lauriam's sister, Strelitzia, was originally meant to become a Union leader. And the one who decided to give the Book of Prophecies to me, was Master Ava." Brain thought he understood why. "By changing who gets the Book, she was betting on the possibility that the future it contained could be rewritten. It was Master Ava's one act of resistance against fate." But he did not believe the other change had been hers. "So that's why I'd like to have a little chat. With the replacement."

They called Skuld and Ventus out into the snow, and Skuld saw through it. "But you didn't call us out here to talk about the weather, did you?" Brain asked them who had told them they were leaders, and where. Ventus began to be uneasy. "Are we being suspected of something?" Skuld bristled. "What is this? Some kind of interrogation?" Brain showed them the note, and the name that was missing from it. "Ventus. Your name isn't on the list."

"But, Master Ava really did tell me I was a Union leader," Ventus said. "It's true." She had given him a rulebook, he said, and told him to go to the battleground when it was over. She had told him to come to an abandoned house first. "I think, that's when Master Ava showed up, and we left the house together. On the way to the tower, she told me I was one of the new Union leaders." Brain pressed him. "You 'think' that's when she came? You're not sure?" Ventus could not remember what had happened before they left the house. Brain asked the question nobody wanted asked. "The person who came to the house, was it really Master Ava?"

"We believe you, Ven," Brain told him, and meant it. It could not have been Ava's doing; she would never have sent Strelitzia into the war without warning, or made anyone disappear. So who had Ventus spoken to? Brain asked them why they had been chosen as Dandelions, and what else might want to come along with them. "Darkness can hide anywhere. Even inside someone." Ephemer said the word aloud. "Darkness."

Skuld took Ventus back to his room. When she came back she said he had had his head in his hands the whole time. "The memories that came back must've been a real shock." Brain thought the darkness was close, and knew they were onto it. "It could be putting its plan into action as we speak." Skuld asked what it wanted, and Ephemer asked whether it might come for them. "Yeah," Brain said. "Like it did for Lauriam's sister." He shook his head. "I don't know why it targeted Strelitzia. I just"

That was when Lauriam came in. He had heard the last of it. "What, did you say? 'Targeted' for what? What did you mean by that? What happened to her!? Answer me!" Ephemer tried to hold him and was thrown off. "Get off me!" Then Ventus was in the doorway, and Lauriam turned on him. "Explain yourself, Ven." Ventus only stared at him. "Ven. What did you do to Strelitzia? Ven. Answer me."

Ventus could hardly speak. "I. It's my fault." He could not look at Lauriam. "I'm sorry, Lauriam. I'm responsible for what happened to her." Lauriam raised his Keyblade. Brain saw it for what it was. "Darkness's plan. Fear, doubt, anger. It's purposely messing with our hearts and making us turn on each other." He tried to stop Lauriam, and Lauriam would not hear him. "Stay out of this!" He went for Ventus. "Answer me!" Ventus cried out, "It. It wasn't me. It wasn't me!", and fell.

Something came up out of him. It had no shape of its own and took one for their benefit. "Finally. It's about time." Skuld cried out. "A monster!?" Brain only looked at it. "I see. You're darkness." He almost smiled. "I have to say, I didn't expect you to look like such a cliché." It told them it had no form to speak of. "What you see and hear now is for your benefit." Ephemer asked what it wanted. "Want? I want nothing. I simply am."

It spoke of Ventus as if he were a tool it had put down. "It was his will." Skuld would not believe it. "I don't believe you. Ven didn't even know her! Besides, he would never wish that on anyone." The Darkness agreed with her, and it made no difference. "You're right. They were strangers. But what he wished for was power. I simply helped him fulfill that wish by making him a Union leader." Ephemer agreed. Even if Ventus had wished for it, "he wouldn't go so far as to take it from someone, or steal their spot as leader." The Darkness did not care. "Power is power. How it's acquired is of no consequence."

Brain had questions, and he asked them one after another. Why Ventus? "Because it was decided." Decided what? "That he would harbor darkness." Brain asked who had decided it. "It was written in the Book of Prophecies." It had read the Book, then? "We read the words as they were being written." And the Master? "We're old friends." Ephemer could not take that in. "Friends? Then you and the Master are on the same side?" The Darkness said it had no need to take sides with people.

Lauriam had listened to all of it. "Then why did you take my sister? Why Strelitzia?" The answer was not about her at all. "Then, it could've been any of us? It didn't have to be Strelitzia?" He looked at the thing in front of him, and then at Ventus on the floor. "So, Ven didn't attack Strelitzia. You did. Is that right?" It did not give him the answer he wanted. It said only that it had been decided.

They fought it, and they could not finish it. "Yeah," Ephemer admitted. "I can't take you down alone. I'm not even sure I can wear you down." Brain asked how it moved through the town unseen, and it gave him one word. "Infection." Then Lauriam came back into the fight. "I figured you guys could use some help." The Darkness was unimpressed. "One more ally will make no difference."

Then Ventus woke. There was light in him, and he stood up and faced the thing that had been inside him. "If you're pure darkness, then that makes me pure light. If you used me to reshape yourself, then I can reshape you again. I'll give you a new form, that we can defeat!" He forced it into a shape that could be struck, and they struck it. When it was over he had strength left to tell them one thing. "Everything's going to be all right." Then he went down.

Lauriam sat by Ventus while he slept and could not hear him. "I'm sorry, Ventus. I know it wasn't your fault. I just needed someone to blame. Darkness is so, abstract. My anger needed a simple, tangible target. Selfish of me, I know."

His sister came to him. She was not hurt, and she looked at him the way she always had, which was the part he was least prepared for. "Hatred, anger, and sadness. That's exactly what they want. You have to let it go. What happened to my kind and loving brother?" Then she was not there.

Elrena came to find him afterwards. "Well, I thought you should know. It's about Strelitzia. Chirithy claims to have seen her." Lauriam was on his feet. "What!? You saw my sister? Where!?" On the hill above the town, the little creature said, walking with someone in a black coat, coming down toward the streets. Brain thought about it. The data world had been made to save everything as it was before the war, and so Strelitzia's data had to be in it somewhere. "If what Chirithy says is true, maybe her data is here and someone managed to access it." Lauriam did not care about the difference. He went out looking.

Seven People and Five Doors

Before they drove it off, the thing they had forced into a shape had told them what was coming. "It's useless. Even if you do manage to defeat us, you will still lose." Lauriam asked how, and it asked him back whether he meant to escape by the lifeboat. "If you return, Daybreak Town will still succumb to darkness." It had all been decided long before. "When the lifeboat is activated, this world falls to darkness. It is already in motion. The beginning of the end." The sorceress's leaving had set it going, and it could not be stopped. "I am formless. You cannot destroy me."

Afterwards Ephemer and Skuld sat together in the empty chamber. Ephemer did not know what would happen to the town. But he remembered what Ava had taught them: that when the world was shrouded in darkness, it would only go to sleep. "It's not much, I know, but it's enough to keep me from giving up hope. I played a part in bringing the Dandelions together, so I have a responsibility to save everyone. And I'm gonna try my best to do that." Skuld put her hand on his. "It's not your responsibility alone. But whatever you do decide to do, you have our support." He smiled at her. "Thanks for always being there, Skuld."

The copy of the town began to fail, everywhere and quickly. Elrena came to find Lauriam with word of someone in a black coat on the hill, and when Ephemer heard it he went still. "A black coat could only mean. One of the Keyblade Masters?" There was no time to think about it. "Come on, let's go to the basement." He turned to Lauriam. "Would you mind carrying Ven?" Lauriam lifted Ventus, who had not woken, and they went down.

The lifeboat was in the basement of the clock tower: pods the height of a person standing, each with a door hinged at the top and a window cut in the shape of a heart. There had been seven. "The evil fairy took the seventh," Lauriam said. Ephemer counted. "I count six." He looked round at them. "But there are seven of us." Then Brain found that one of the six did not work. "Two. This one's broken, so we're down to five."

Skuld asked what would happen to everyone else, all the Dandelions in the town. "They'll go to sleep," Brain said. "Just like a computer in sleep mode." The Master had known this would happen, he said, and had built the copy as a shelter; if it froze, it could be woken again. It was the real world they had to worry about. Ephemer saw it. "So it's not this world we need to be worried about." Brain nodded, and Ephemer's jaw set. "And we can't let that happen. We Keyblade wielders need to live on."

Brain was not sure escape was even the answer. "Even if we use the lifeboat to get back, we'll have to use it again to go wherever it is that we need to go after." But if nobody went, nobody would be left out there to rescue anyone. Ephemer decided it. "Brain, you should go back. Having you in the real world will give us the best chance to save the people here." Brain agreed. "There's only one way out of here and the seating's limited, for now. When I get back, I promise I'll find a way to save everyone here."

Ephemer began to share out the rest: Brain, the wielder, Elrena and Ventus would each take one. He never got to the end of the list. Elrena did not think she deserved a place, and Skuld would not take one. "Listen, the only way to make it out of this is to go back," Skuld said. She gave her place to Lauriam. "Lauriam, it's yours. If there's a chance you'll get your sister back, then you need to be there for her." And she was staying. "I'm not leaving you two here."

The wielder was staying too. Ephemer asked them if they were sure, and they were. Brain thought of a way. "Well, why don't we save one for later? I might be able to find a way to rescue all three of you at once."

Before he went, Brain gave Ephemer his Keyblade, and the Book. "It was meant for you. This too." Ephemer did not want to take them. "But this is yours." Brain would not hear it. "Master Ava told me you've been wanting to read the Book for a long time. Besides, I'm pretty sure she gave these to me knowing I would do just this. May your heart be your guiding key, Ephemer. Just like mine is for me." Ephemer held them. "I'll hold on to these for now, but as far as I'm concerned, they still belong to you."

"Then it's settled," Ephemer said. "Lauriam, can you look after Ven? Hop in, Elrena. Brain, take care of everyone." Brain stepped into his pod. "I'll be back for you guys." The doors came down, and the four pods went.

The True Dandelion

In the real Daybreak Town, the thing that had come back with the sorceress went up into the clock tower to see to the data, and found someone already there, a figure in a black coat with a white-cloaked form in his arms. "Who are you? There shouldn't be any Keyblade Masters left in this world." Then it knew him. "Luxu." It did not like it. "Why are you here? You're only meant to observe."

Luxu was not troubled. "I'm here because your friend, the Master of Masters, told me to be. Said I could watch what happens, but not to act. 'Look, but don't touch.' He always said the strangest things. But I've thought about it for a long time, and I think I know what he meant now." He carried the white-cloaked figure down to a pod, and the Darkness warned him that using it would ruin his plan. "It's not for me," Luxu said. "A seed of light to be planted in the future. The true Dandelion." He looked at the Darkness with something like pity. "You didn't read that part of the Book?"

It asked him why the Master had trained the wielders only to trap them in the data world, and Luxu said he could only guess. "But I am sure of one thing. He is not a fan of darkness." The Darkness was untroubled by that. "We're not fond of light either." It told him what it meant to do: spread through the data world by its signals, and go with the chosen one into the future, to claim worlds not yet made. "Expansion." Luxu summoned his Keyblade. "Right, expansion. So no matter what world or time I end up in, you'll be there too, huh. I don't think so."

"Oh? I thought you were told not to interfere," the Darkness said. Luxu shrugged. "Yeah, to help the Dandelions. But I'm not doing this for them. I'm doing this for me." Then he told it what he thought of it. The longer darkness went without a body, the more its will faded, and so it stole them. "You call it infection and expansion, but you're just stealing the bodies of those with hearts. You act like it's this grandiose plan, when it's actually kind of sad and pathetic." The Darkness had had enough. "Silence!"

Luxu counted for it. Six shadows had kept a will of their own after the war; one had come back here with the sorceress, and the rest were still in the data world. "Then you're the only one in my way." The Darkness answered in kind. "As you are in mine."

Brain came out of his pod into the real tower with Lauriam and Elrena beside him, and Ventus still asleep. He had tried to find a way to bring everyone back at once, and there was not time. "There might be another way. Not for all of the Dandelions, but I think I can help Ephemer and the others at least. But before I do anything, I want you to hop back in the lifeboat." Lauriam asked what his plan was. "Return two of the pods to the data world. That way, the three of them will each have one."

Lauriam did not want to leave him. "Will you really be okay on your own?" Brain told him he was the only Union leader who could get away now. "Ephemer gave me this chance to keep hope and light alive, and now I'm passing it on to you. Let me do this." He did not know where or when Lauriam would come out. "But keep your goal, your waypoint, etched in your heart." Lauriam knew what his was. "I assumed people's data just didn't exist when I couldn't find my sister's. But I was wrong. It does." Brain smiled. "Then that will be the waypoint to guide you. I hope you get to see her again."

Lauriam looked back at him from the pod. "I hope I get to see you again too." Brain sent them with the Master's words. "May your heart be your guiding key."

Then someone was behind him, and Brain turned. "Who?" A figure in a black coat was watching him. "So it's just you?" the figure said. Brain asked who he was, and he gave his name, Luxu, and said he had been one of the Master of Masters' apprentices. Brain stared. "Huh? Master Luxu? I thought you disappeared before the Unions were created." Luxu explained nothing. "None of that matters now. Tell me, are you a Union leader?"

Brain told him where the others were: one gone through time, others still trapped in the data world. He meant to send both of the pods he had back to them, so that with the one they already had, all three could get out. Luxu asked what he would do himself. "Stay here and stay alive as long as I can," Brain said. "I need to wake as many of the Dandelions stuck in the data world as possible."

Luxu told him what that would cost. "That world was built as a cage to entrap darkness. If it falls to darkness, that's it." And the lifeboat was not finished. "Whoever uses it needs two things at their destination: someone with memories of them, and a vessel to occupy. Were you aware of that?" Brain had worked that much out. "Well, I'll figure it out, no matter how long it takes." Luxu studied him. "You're pretty smart, aren't you? It's a shame this lifetime is the only one you've got."

It's Not Over Yet

When the pods had gone, the three who were left stood in the silent basement. Skuld wondered if the others had got there safely. "Of course," Ephemer said. "Brain's with them." It was very quiet. Then it was not, because four shapes came up out of the failing town, and Skuld went pale. "There are four of them?"

"No need for alarm," said the Darknesses. "We are not here to fight. We merely ask that you open our gate before you leave." They meant to go out through it, into other worlds. "The darkness you fought must have told you our purpose: infection." Ephemer would not do it. "And you thought we'd just agree to that?" They waited, and he did not move. "I won't do it." They reminded him they could take any of the three of them where they stood. "You can open our gate of your own will, or out of regret and shame at losing a friend before your very eyes." Ephemer leaned close to the wielder and whispered. "Once this starts, get in the lifeboat. One of us needs to survive."

Then the wielder hit him. The blow came from behind, and it was no accident. When Ephemer got up, the wielder was standing with the four of them. Ephemer could not understand it. He called the wielder's name and asked what was wrong with them, and then he thought he did understand, and it was worse. "Wait, are you?" Skuld thought the same. "I thought we'd dealt with you."

Together the five of them beat Ephemer and Skuld down, and it took very little time. Ephemer begged the wielder to stop. Then, with the wielder standing among the four and talking, at length, in a way the wielder never talked, he did the thing they wanted. He fired through the wielder's chest, and the shot opened the gate behind them. The Darknesses were pleased. "Well done. Using anger to get them to open our gate for us. Through this portal, we can access and infect countless worlds." They turned to the wielder. "It's time you rid yourself of that brittle human vessel. Unless you wish to waste away along with it."

The gate took hold of them all, the wielder and the four, and pulled them through. Inside there was no floor and no direction. The wielder was badly wounded and could go nowhere. The four closed in, and the wielder laughed. "Why are you laughing?" the Darknesses asked. Then they understood. "You. It was all an act?" The possession had never happened, not for a moment. It had been a performance for four things that believed anyone could be got into if the right way were found, and they had believed it because believing it was all they were. "Why you!" The wielder sealed the gate from the inside, with all five of them behind it, in a place that was already coming apart.

On the other side Ephemer closed it. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

The wound was going to be the end, and it would not be slow. Chirithy reached the wielder. "It's not over yet," the wielder said. They sank down holding it, and light rose over both of them.

Afterwards there was a white place with no edges, and a great many other wielders standing about in it, none of them speaking. Chirithy explained the two choices. The first was sleep, which was what was happening to the rest of the Dandelions, and Chirithy would take another shape and stand watch over them for as long as it took. The second was not to sleep, but to go on, into whatever hearts go on into, with no promise about what came out the other side. The wielder chose not to sleep. They picked Chirithy up and held on, and Chirithy said goodnight to its friend. Then, where there had been two hearts, there was one, and it rose and went away.

Ephemer and Skuld took the last pods Brain had sent them. "Let's go home," Ephemer said. They came out in the real tower, and the other pods were empty. "They all made it out," Ephemer said. Skuld looked at him. "What should we do, Ephemer?" He wanted to see. "Let's take a look outside."

Outside, the real Daybreak Town was ending. Skuld watched it go. "It takes so much time and effort to create, but only an instant to destroy." Ephemer told her it was too dangerous, that they should go back in. She did not move at once. "Thank you for being here, Ephemer. I'm glad I don't have to face the end alone."

But Ephemer had not given up. "Skuld, get in." She hesitated, and he grinned at her. "It's not over till it's over, Skuld." When she had gone, he stood alone for a moment, and said the wielder's name, quietly, to no one.

A New Day

Afterwards a figure walked out across the badlands with the No Name over one shoulder and the black box beside him on the broken ground. The Keyblades of those who had fought there stood in the earth where they had come to rest, thousands of them. He stopped somewhere in the middle of them and put back his hood, and the face under it was Brain's.

Brain woke up somewhere he had never been. "Where am I?" It was a dark city of high towers and spires built close together, with statues of cloaked figures and hawks on the rooftops. Under his feet, a purple star was worked into the paving. A man was waiting for him. "You must be Brain."

His name was Sigurd, he said, and he had been expecting him. "It was decided that you would escape Daybreak Town amidst its destruction and arrive here today. And that we would welcome you." Brain asked about the others who had escaped with him. "You are the only one who arrived in this time," Sigurd told him. The rest could wait until they were somewhere better, and they walked.

They came to a square with a fountain, and above the fountain a statue of a boy holding the same Keyblade Brain himself had been carrying not long before. "Is that?" Brain began. Sigurd told him. "The original Keyblade Master and founder of this town, Scala ad Caelum. That is Master Ephemer." The town had been built on the ruins of Daybreak Town, on the same ground, which was why the star was still in the paving. Brain stood looking up at it for a long while. "I know. He was a good friend."

Before any of it, before the Master disappeared, he had sat and talked with the Darkness, as if they were old acquaintances, which they were. It asked him what he meant to do with his world. "When twilight ends, a new day begins," he said. His world existed in three stages. First a great many wielders were brought together; then, as they fought through fear and saw their leaders fall, their numbers dwindled while others learned to stand alone; and last, those who were left had to decide what to do when they faced darkness in a world that had been sealed off. "And when all seven of the lifeboat's pods depart, this world will end, and a new day will dawn."

The Darkness found it strange. "You have the Book of Prophecies, and therefore knowledge of all things. Strange that you would knowingly waste your time and efforts." He laughed at that. "Whoa, you think the Book tells us everything? Yeah, right! No way I'd have let you peek at something that important! No, the Book doesn't cover much at all. Just what the Keyblade I gave to Luxu sees, and even then, only the bits important enough to jot down."

He told it what the lifeboat was for. Anyone who took it through time would lose their body, and would need two things at the other end, something to rebuild a body from and someone who remembered them. "The Book contains a waypoint." The Darkness understood. "You used the Book and your apprentice to travel into the future?" He was pleased. "Sure was. Luxu has the memories, and my eye is the medium. I've got a direct line from A to B."

He had seen something in the future, he said, a world he could not even imagine. The Darkness said he was difficult to understand, and he asked it whether it wanted to. "It is important to understand your enemy," it said. Then, almost fondly: "We are friends after all." He told it how he saw the war between them: a chessboard that kept growing, one fairy tale at a time, and darkness following them into every corner. "We can run and we can hide, but you always seem to stick with us every step of the way."

It asked where he meant to run to next. "A new world. One that I can't even conceive. A world where neither light nor darkness rules." Then he asked it something. "Do you know what sets people apart from other living beings? People want to believe in the future, even if they won't be around to see it. I want to believe, too. Believe in a world beyond what we can imagine. A world of fiction." The Darkness did not understand. "Fiction? Not the data world?" He shook his head. "Nope. If you imagine hard enough, you can make anything a reality."

And he talked to Luxu, at the very end, about the war. "I was a young boy when the Keyblade War began." Luxu could not believe it. "What!? There was a Keyblade War back then too?" It had never stopped, the Master said. It had begun when darkness took the form it had then, and it was still going on. "Yes, the battle with darkness never stopped. The Keyblade War isn't about to begin. In fact, it might finally come to an end."

Darkness changed its shape, he said, and could hide even inside people, and that was why the war had never ended. "The coming battle will end the world. Everything will be destroyed. The wielders sent outside will gather light from the now scattered worlds, and with that light, the world will be rebuilt." Luxu was appalled. "What? You're going to sit back, and leave the fate of the world in other people's hands?" The Master did not see why not.

"We can't get rid of the darkness in this world, so we're ending it to escape into another one," Luxu said. "We can't win against the darkness, can we?" There was a way, the Master told him, but not in one lifetime, or two. "That's why we need to leave this world, to bring it to an end, to abandon the notion of time and what separates our worlds. All so we can defeat the darkness." Luxu asked about the Dandelions, and what would become of them if they met the darkness, and the Master gave in. "You're not gonna let this go, are you? Tell you what. It's your role to keep watch, so why not watch over them while you're at it? But nothing more than that, don't go getting your hands dirty."

Luxu wanted the rest. "Can't you just tell me now?" "And ruin the surprise?" said the Master. But he would give him one hint. "When darkness strikes at dawn and the lifeboat departs, this world will have fulfilled its purpose. If that happens, you have to see it through to the end, and take a corridor to a new world as fast as you can." There was no way to beat the darkness here, he said. "This world exists to nurture the Dandelions, our little seeds of light, so they can be sown into the future, where they can stop the darkness."

Then, as Luxu turned to go, he remembered something. "Oh, wait, I almost forgot." Darkness had begun as thirteen, he said. The ones that spread and took forms became the Heartless; the ones without forms kept a will of their own, and wanted bodies. "You can't destroy darkness if it has no form, which is why you need a vessel with a strong heart. That's where you all come in." Luxu went cold. "Wait a minute."

"I know how it sounds," the Master said, "but believe me when I say that I didn't train you all, just to turn you into vessels. I pushed you to become resilient, resilient enough to withstand darkness even if it were to take over your hearts." Seven of the thirteen would be trapped inside the seven of them, and they would each go their own way and destroy the darkness wherever they ended up. "That's the true purpose of the Keyblade War."

Luxu saw all of it. "This was your plan." The Master denied nothing. "It is. I used the passage in the Book about the traitor, to plant doubt inside all of you for darkness to feed on." For the darkness to take the bait, they all had to feel something true, and when those feelings grew and clashed, the seven shadows would try to take their hearts. Luxu could not bear it. "Is it really necessary for the Unions to betray each other? Is the War the only way?" And then: "You can't do this! The sacrifice is too great!"

"I told you, not to let sentiment cloud your judgment," the Master said. He had watched the people he loved most drown in darkness. "This isn't some heroic tale about the battle between light and darkness. It's about honoring the dignity of those with hearts. Besides, I'm not planning on sacrificing anyone. I have a safety plan."

Luxu left him. The Master watched him go, and said it to the empty room. "May your heart be your guiding key. Your thoughts, your feelings, your actions, you are the key to the future. I'm counting on you, traitor Luxu."