The Book of Prophecies

The Gazing Eye

The man who wrote the Book of Prophecies always went about hooded and coated in black, and not one of his apprentices could have said what colour his hair was, or whether he was old or young. He moved in fits and starts. He would stop dead in the middle of a sentence, stand quite still, and then finish it as though nothing had happened, and his mood could swing from grave to delighted without any warning that his apprentices had ever managed to spot. He was fond of them, though, and they knew it. There were six of them: Ira, Aced, Invi, Gula, Ava and Luxu.

Luxu was the youngest, and he wore a black coat just like the Master's. One day the Master called him in, looked him up and down, and counted on his fingers. "So that makes you the indisposable number seven."

Luxu looked at him blankly.

"Come on!" said the Master, with a sigh. "It's simple. You six plus me is seven. Wait. Don't tell me I don't count!" He held out his hand, and a Keyblade appeared in it. "Here, take it."

It was shaped like a great key and was as long as a sword, with a grip and a guard at one end and a key's teeth at the other. Set into it was an eye. It was blue, with a pupil slit like a cat's, and it was looking back at Luxu.

"The Gazing Eye?" said Luxu.

"That's not what it's called," said the Master. When Luxu asked what it was called, he had to think about it. "Hm. Actually, no name."

"No Name," Luxu repeated.

The Master tapped the blade. "Well, 'gazing' or not, that Keyblade does have an eye in it. My eye, to be exact."

"Ew!" Luxu nearly dropped it.

The Master ignored this. Luxu's role, he explained, was to pass the Keyblade down to an apprentice of his own, who would pass it to theirs, and so on, "so that my eye can see the future."

Luxu worked it out slowly. The eye would watch, whatever it saw would find its way back to the Master, and the Master would write it all down. "So the Book of Prophecies."

"Bingo!" The Master clapped his hands. "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!"

"But I haven't done anything yet," said Luxu.

"Good point," said the Master. "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."

"Do I really have to go alone?" said Luxu, who didn't like the sound of this at all. "What about the others?"

The Master waved this away as a minor detail. There was something else he wanted kept hidden, too. "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, with thirteen locks, three down each side and seven across the front, and a crest on the lid.

"What's in it?" asked Luxu.

"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."

"I promise."

What the Master told him then went no further than the two of them. When he had finished, 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 with ears like a cat's that stood upright on two feet. "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."

"Master, did you make this?" Ava was enchanted. "It's so cute!"

"Spirit?" said Gula, more cautiously.

Spirits, the Master explained, were a little like cats or dogs: loyal companions. 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."

"Someone has fallen into darkness," said Invi slowly.

"So you're telling us that if we see a Nightmare," Ira began.

"So, if we see one of these Nightmares anywhere," Aced finished for him, "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."

"No! I won't let you do that!" Ava couldn't bear the thought of getting rid of anything so sweet. She looked up at Aced, the biggest of them, behind his bear mask. "Maybe you can growl at them?"

"Don't insult me!" said Aced, mortified.

Gula grinned. "No wonder you ended up as the bear. You're scary."

"Come on, Aced," said the Master, who was laughing. "You won't know if it works unless you try."

Aced looked round at them all. "Please tell me you're joking."

Five of them were given copies of the Book, and Ira read his more slowly than anyone else.

"So, did you look through the Book?" the Master asked him.

"Yes," said Ira. "But I'm still analyzing it."

"Wow, no quick skim for you, huh?" said the Master, amused.

"I just prefer to be thorough." Ira hesitated. "Master, is what it says in the last passage true?"

"Oh, yeah that." The Master's voice didn't change at all. "Bummer, huh?"

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?"

"Huh?" Ira was startled. "Dis, appear?"

"Vanish? Dim? Fade?" The Master couldn't find a better word. "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."

"I take it you're talking about Kingdom Hearts," said Ira.

"Yep! You're right on the money." The Master was pleased with him. "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," said Ira. "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."

"No, they're not for protecting Kingdom Hearts," the Master cut in, and he recited the last passage of the Book instead. "On that fated land, a great war shall transpire. Darkness will prevail and the light expire."

"Isn't it our duty as Keyblade wielders to prevent this war from taking place?" said Ira.

"Nah, not possible." The Master shook his head, then leaned closer. "You really think you can change the future?"

Ira said nothing.

"We have to focus on what comes after," said the Master, more gently. "There's no use thinking of ways to change events that we know are gonna happen."

"Then, what do you want us to do?" asked Ira, and the answer he got wasn't 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?"

Ira wouldn't let it go. "We have to at least try! With enough Keyblade wielders we could."

"C'mon," said the Master, not letting him finish, "are you telling me that you think the world can be saved by just seven people?"

Ira stood his ground, and in the end the Master shrugged. "Well, if you wanna give it a shot." He was already leaving. "All righty, good luck!"

And then 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 them all without taking sides, and to step in 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 wasn't 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."

"Oh, come on. Lighten up a little!" said the Master. "Maybe I'll never disappear. Wait. Do you want me to go?"

"What? N-no! Of course not!" said Invi, horrified.

"I was just kidding!" He patted her on the head. The next moment, though, he was serious. Change was hard, he told her, but things had to keep moving, and she would have 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 quite some time before the Master looked up and noticed him. "You been here long? My bad." The Master dropped into a chair. "So, what did you want?"

"You didn't forget, did you?" Aced stared at him. "You're the one who called me here."

"Lighten up, I was just kidding!" The Master laughed. "I didn't forget." He came straight to the point. "You're going to be Ira's right-hand man."

"What?" Aced was lost. "Ira's right-hand man? What do you mean?"

"Well, Ira's gonna be the new leader after I'm gone, you see," the Master explained, "so just stand by him. Don't disappoint."

Aced made a small, unhappy noise, and the Master caught it at once. "What? Is that disappointment I hear? Did you want to be leader?"

"No!" said Aced, much too quickly. "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," said the Master. Wanting to lead didn't 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, and he looked up. "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. Aced didn't react, so he said it again, and this time it got through. "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?"

He leaned back in his chair. "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 sent Aced off 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 once looked up.

"Master. Um, Master?" Gula hovered in the doorway. "If you're busy, I can always come back later."

"Sure. Oh! No, no, no, stay!" The Master caught him before he could go. "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."

"Yup," said the Master. "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."

"I get it." Gula was a step ahead of him. "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."

"Way to steal my thunder, show-off!" The Master folded his arms and sulked. "It's not fair. My plan was supposed to blow your mind with its grandeur."

"I'm, sorry?" said Gula, confused. "But was my logic flawed?"

It wasn't. "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."

The Master 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's face fell. "But Master, isn't there anything we can do?"

"Well, that's what brings me to your role," said the Master. "You might just be the only hope of keeping light from expiring."

"Hope?" Ava looked up at him. "Master, what is it that you need me to do?"

He laid it out for her. "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."

"You really think that, I'm the right person for this?" said Ava in a small voice.

"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!" The Master sounded shocked. "Getting rid of them would be like pooh-poohing all your hard work!" Nobody but the five new leaders would know what had become of 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 had been circled in red, and Ava asked why.

"Jackpot!" said the Master, delighted. "That lucky wielder gets their own free copy of the Book of Prophecies!" Then he lowered his voice. "Ava, this book needs to be handed to its owner in secret. No one else can know."

Ava thought it sounded risky. After a moment, though, she nodded. "All right."

Then, one day, 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 the slightest sign of where he had gone. The five who had Books went back to reading them.

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 heart 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 striped parasols with bunting strung between them. The streets were cobbled, and a purple star was set into the paving over and over again, all the way out to the numbered districts. The town had a waterfront with a dock and a lighthouse, a beach, a park and canals. Beneath all of it ran a waterway that went further, and joined up more places, than anyone above ground ever stopped to think about. Dandelions grew on a hill above the town. Across a bridge, with a waterfall roaring behind it, stood the clock tower, and wielders didn't go there.

The wielder came to the town the way they all came: chosen by a Keyblade, and then left to work out for themselves what that meant. The five apprentices who had been given Books were called the Foretellers now, and each of them led a Union of wielders and wore the Union's animal as a mask. Ira led Unicornis, Aced led Ursus, Invi led Anguis, Gula led Leopardos and Ava led Vulpes. The wielder joined one of them and was given a small, round companion that stood upright and had very firm views about what it wasn't.

"I'm neither of those things!" it said indignantly, when the wielder took a guess.

Chirithy walked at the wielder's side and told them what to do next, and when it couldn't show them the way, it slipped into their sleep and told them there instead. The work itself was simple enough. Heartless kept coming into the town and the worlds beyond it. They were creatures of darkness, black all over except for their glowing yellow eyes; the smallest were about the size of a child, and some were a great deal bigger. The wielders went out and fought them. Light spilled out of the Heartless as they fell, and that light, which everyone called lux, was gathered up and counted, and every Union's total was ranked against everyone else's.

"The Keyblade is the power of the heart of light," Chirithy said, when the wielder asked what it was all for.

The Unions were supposed to compete. An alliance between any two of them was forbidden, and the reason, on the rare occasions anyone gave one, was balance.

The wielder didn't say much, 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 run. The wielder came in from the side and finished it off. The boy was laughing at himself even 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 wasn't the wielder's, and put out his hand. "Nice to meet you!"

He didn't seem to think the difference mattered in the slightest. "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 up and down, and seemed to decide he could 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 together by land, and nobody could possibly travel to all of them, so something was projecting them here instead, where the Unions could gather their lux from far away. He was trying to find 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?" said Ephemer. He hadn't lost them. "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 had been talking to the Foretellers in a room somewhere, with a figure in a black coat standing among them, and all of it had felt like something that had already happened. Ephemer wanted to hear every detail twice.

"Really? Interesting." His eyes lit up. "Hey, I've got an idea. Why don't you come with me?" He meant to 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 shut.

"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 under the town. Ephemer was already there, looking pleased with himself.

"Great minds think alike. Other than the entrance, this is the only place that connects outside," he said. "Be careful, there's a fair share of Heartless around here."

There were. One of them came at the wielder out of nowhere, a thing that couldn't be seen at all until it struck, and Ephemer cut it down and grinned. "Now we're even."

But the passages went on and on, and the tower was still somewhere far above them. At last 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 much longer, he pointed out, their Union leaders would notice. "We know how to get in now. Let's save the rest for another day."

They climbed back up into the daylight. By the rules of the town they shouldn't have been talking to each other at all, and Ephemer knew it as well as the wielder did. He didn't seem to care.

"We may not be in the same Union, but we're friends, right?" he said. "Let's meet tomorrow at Fountain Square. How about noon?"

What the Nightmare Meant

Ira called the others to the clock tower and didn't waste any words. "There's a traitor among us."

Invi asked him for proof. In answer he held up what he had found near their chamber: a Chirithy gone dark, turned wrong somehow. "I found this sniffing around."

"Is that, a Nightmare?" said Invi, staring at it.

"Is that, a dark Chirithy?" Ava could hardly bring herself to look.

"It's not me," said Aced at once.

Gula thought it could be settled easily enough: they could all summon their Spirits and see. Invi shook her head. Their Unions held countless wielders, she said, and any one of them could summon a Chirithy that wasn't a Nightmare.

"Who's to say that the Nightmare you saw belongs to one of us?" said Ava. "It could belong to anyone in our Unions."

"That's highly unlikely," said Ira. "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'd all agreed the bangles were harmless.

"Collecting is fine," said Ira. "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 were supposed to find whoever was behind it, and Ira had his 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."

"No, Ira," said Invi. "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."

"Ira." Aced's voice was full of scorn. "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 all of them. "It looks to me like the Master made the wrong choice."

Gula left after him, and then Ava, with a small, unhappy wish. "I hope. I hope we can all resolve this soon."

Ira looked round at the empty chairs. "That didn't go as expected."

"What's wrong, Ira?" Invi had never seen him like this. "This isn't like you."

So he told her what he hadn't 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 what that had to do with the traitor, and all he could do was say it again. "Like I said, it's nowhere to be found, in my Book."

Invi worked it out for herself. "Ira. Are you implying that someone is in possession of the missing page? And the person with the complete Book is the traitor?"

"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," said Ira. "Trust me."

Invi 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 nobody.

Invi promised Ira she would keep watch on 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 hadn't 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?"

"His argument was unconvincing," said Gula.

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."

"But alliances are forbidden, Aced!" said Ava, shocked.

Aced didn't care. There was darkness at work, he said, but no traitor, and Ira was wasting everyone's 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 wouldn't break the Master's rule. "I want. I want to follow the Master's teachings."

"He's no longer here," Aced reminded her. 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 what he had to say.

"Hear me out, Invi," said Aced. "I want an alliance among our Unions. Gula here has already agreed."

Invi was appalled. "And disobey the Master's teachings!?"

Aced said they had no choice, and Invi reminded him why the rule existed at all. The Master had kept their Unions apart to hold the balance, because imbalance led to wanting more power, and wanting more power led to darkness. She gave him a hard look. "I know you haven't forgotten! Perhaps, it's you who has been tainted by darkness."

"I'm tainted by darkness?" Aced turned it straight back on her. "Then what about you, Invi? You spy on us and report everything you see back to Ira!"

Invi didn't deny it. "Because that is my role."

"To observe us, yes," said Aced. "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."

"So Aced is the traitor after all," said Ira.

"No, I don't believe he is." Invi had thought about it carefully. "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." At the door she turned back. "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 wore away. "When will it stop? I don't want us to turn against each other."

A boy in a red scarf stopped in front of her, and she made herself smile. "Oh. Hello! Your name is Ephemer, right?"

It was. He sat down beside her without being asked. "Why the long face? Did something happen?"

"Long day," said Ava. "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, Ava 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'd 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 didn't go home to sleep. He went back down into the waterway on his own, towards the tower. "Sorry," he said, to the friend who wasn't there.

Someone was waiting for him in the dark.

"Who is it?" said Ephemer sharply. Then he saw. 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, she told him, and the five of them would each lead a Union, just as the Foretellers had. She gave him a rulebook. Ephemer couldn't take it in.

"Me? A Master? A Union leader? That's crazy," he said. "And what's this nonsense about 'the end'?"

"What I need you to do is to prepare the other world," said Ava. "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, she said, and the Dandelions wouldn't 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 didn't 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 didn't come to Fountain Square. The wielder waited, and then tried all the places he might reasonably be, and then all the places he might not. Nobody in his Union would say a word 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 recognised. "It's up ahead. Are you with me?" He looked at the wielder for a moment. "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 wanted to know what the wielder thought they were doing. When the wielder mentioned Ephemer, she nodded.

"Ephemer? Yes, I know him," said Ava, "but you still haven't answered my question."

She heard the rest of it: the dream, and 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 more amused 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 wasn't 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 glanced 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."

Chirithy had stayed behind. Ava knelt down beside it. "Please, call me 'Ava.'"

She asked whether it had shown the wielder the dream of Ephemer, and when it said it hadn't, 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, and Chirithy's job was to protect them from the nightmares, so that the wind could carry them far away from here.

At Fountain Square the next day, the wielder was in the middle of an argument with Chirithy about the count when a girl walked straight into it and took a side.

"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, amber eyes and stars in her ears, and she beamed at them both. "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'd 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 didn't 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. When Skuld heard that he was waiting, she was already on her feet. "Why don't we go to the place you're supposed to meet him?"

The town had got 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, without a sound. And wielders were coming back from the districts as something else. These were Darklings, wielders whose light the darkness had taken, and they came back wanting more. Skuld and the wielder fought them and didn't say much about it afterwards. A Chirithy that wasn't really a Chirithy watched them from further off than it needed to.

The alliance between Aced and Gula had lasted for months, and nothing had come of it. In the end, Gula was the one who ended it.

"The alliance. I think it's time to call it quits," he said. He had joined to prepare for darkness, and no darkness had come, and Aced hadn't brought anyone else in. "This alliance is meaningless. Even Invi agrees."

Aced went cold. "Is Invi the one who told you to break our alliance?"

"Uh-oh, you weren't supposed to find out." Gula 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!" said Aced.

"And that's exactly why," said Gula. "I just can't trust anyone but myself."

Aced told him he wouldn't stand a chance against the darkness on his own. Gula wouldn't be moved. "Sorry, my mind's made up."

When he had 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 the Keyblade clean out of her hands, but Invi wouldn't give an inch. "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!?" cried Invi.

"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. Before he could answer, Ava and Gula came running into the square.

"Ava, there's no time to lose!" Gula was shouting.

"Invi, Aced! What's going on!?" cried Ava.

Invi picked herself 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 out through the town, and a bridge came crashing down into the water.

Skuld and the wielder heard it from across the square.

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

Chirithy said that 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 at all.

"I was just expecting, more," said Skuld, almost disappointed. "It's kind of a letdown, really."

Then there was a Foreteller in the doorway, and Skuld went scarlet. "W-we're so sorry! We were just looking for someone."

The Foreteller wasn't 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 nothing else. "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 no longer 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 along with it, there would be nobody left to drive the darkness back afterwards, and it was her role to stop that happening. "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."

"This is all so. I-I don't understand," said Skuld. "So what happened to Ephemer?"

"They're a special group of Keyblade wielders that will remain after the rest of us are gone," said Ava. She had to stay for what was coming, so she had needed somebody 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 weren't chosen would stay. "They will have no choice but to fight in the Keyblade War."

Skuld looked stricken, and Ava didn't soften it. "I'm afraid it's inevitable."

Skuld didn't need any time to think. Ephemer had left her once, she told the wielder, saying she'd 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 didn't answer. On one side there was Ephemer. On the other there was every wielder in the town who hadn't been chosen, still out gathering light for a count that had stopped meaning anything.

Ava didn't press them. "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 that nobody else knew about, and she was rather proud of it. "I have a secret. This is my favorite spot that nobody knows about. It belongs to me, Strelitzia." She had long ginger hair tied up in two pigtails that fell past her waist, and she sometimes talked to herself there, because nobody could hear.

For two years she had fought darkness, made friends and said goodbye to them. One thing hadn't 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 had seen the wielder everywhere, and she had 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," said Strelitzia. "Taking a break?"

He smiled at her. "Actually, I'm done collecting my Lux for the day."

It was only noon. Strelitzia was torn between admiration and envy. "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 if they could pair up, with 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."

Strelitzia thought that sounded impossible.

He asked whether 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?"

"No, no, no, no! It's nothing like that!" Strelitzia had gone red to the tips of her ears.

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 that. He wasn't. "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 still wouldn't pair up with her. "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 sat with hers in her lap. "Me, a Union leader."

She told Chirithy that 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 about who else would disappear, and sat bolt upright. The wielder wasn't a Dandelion. She had to tell them, and she had no idea how she'd 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 didn't find them at the fountain. She searched the whole town, and at last there was only 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," Strelitzia said to herself. "I'll head back to Fountain Square."

The blow came from behind her, and she never saw who struck it. She had just enough 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 very end was about the wielder, whom she had never managed to speak to. "I wish, I'd had the courage."

Then she was gone.

The Bells

Aced had got away from the fight and into a storage room. He couldn't stand up properly, and that was where Gula found him after dark. He had brought the page with him.

"Do you wanna know what my role is?" said Gula. "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 one thing he could never forgive. "I called you my 'comrade.' But never again, Gula." Gula had known all along that there was a traitor, and he had watched in silence while the rest of them tore each other apart. "I won't forgive you for that."

He dragged himself to his feet. 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 didn't draw her Keyblade. "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," said Aced.

Ira hadn't. He had come to carry out 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 his ears. "You, still count me as one of the five lights?" He gave a short laugh. "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 once he was alone, he said it to himself. "I need to see that Lost Page."

He went to where Ava was tending Gula's wounds. "I know Gula's here. Tell me where he is."

Ava asked him why.

"None of your concern," said Ira.

She stood in the doorway and didn't move until Ira gave up. "So that's it. All right. I'll go."

Gula had been expecting 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 that was. "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 rather the point. "I'm going to summon Kingdom Hearts. Then he'll have no choice but to come back."

Ava protested, and Gula wouldn't hear a word of it. "That's exactly why! The only way to get him back is to break the rules!" He would need lux to do it, far more than he had. "You always do the right thing. Help me with this."

She wouldn't. He didn't 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 that she was the one who had told Ira where to find Gula. 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 looked ashamed. "I had no idea. I apologize. I overstepped."

Between them they began to see the shape of it. Gula was gathering lux for his door, and so were Aced and Ira, each for reasons of their own.

"They're trying to maintain the balance," said Invi. "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." She 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 wasn't 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 rounded 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 his eyes moved to 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," said Aced.

"That's enough, Aced." Ira had arrived. "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 thought far too much of himself.

"Then let's settle this on the battlefield!" said Aced, and he walked away.

Skuld stared after him. "Master Ira. The battlefield? What's about to happen?"

Ira didn't soften it. "What fate intended."

"So Master Ava was telling the truth," Skuld whispered.

"Yes," said Ira. "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 lay senseless, 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 hadn't found Ephemer. Ava had vanished too, she said, and without her the Dandelions were losing heart.

They went looking for Ava. In a warehouse, where it was awfully quiet, they found Gula instead.

"Looking for someone?" He looked Skuld up and down. "A wielder who's not out collecting Lux. That must make you a Dandelion." He knew why they'd 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 couldn't just sit back and wait for the end.

Gula 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 told them, and he and Ava had searched for him without finding 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?"

Neither of them could tell him.

"The traitor is the catalyst for the events that lead to the world's end," said Gula. "I thought I knew who it was, but I couldn't stop them. And who knows? I could've been wrong." There was more of it, and he said that too. "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 didn't seem surprised. "Oh, it's you."

She asked him what he'd been doing all this time.

"Watching," said Luxu. "That's my role."

She asked what the Master had told him to do.

"Watch." He shrugged. "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?" said Ava. "Are you implying that he wanted this? This chaos, this war?"

His role, Luxu said, was to carry the secret, and for that to happen, things had to go 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 didn't 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 Keyblades met, and the sound of it went up and out over the whole town, because the bells in the clock tower rang.

Everyone in Daybreak Town heard them. 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 wouldn't, 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."

That was when the thing that had been wearing a Chirithy's shape came for the wielder. It got inside them, because the bangle had been letting it in all along, and as it did, it told them what it was. It had come out of their own darkness, it said. It had fed on that darkness, 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 for miles, at the place where the roads met. On every side were wielders from the five Unions, all of whom 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." When it was over, he lowered his Keyblade. "You've grown. It's a shame, you have so much potential."

Gula found them looking worse than when he had last seen them. "Hey, it's you. You don't look so good. Are you okay?" He fought them anyway. "You're on a battlefield, you gotta fight."

Aced remembered them. "You! I deemed you unworthy." When the wielder held their ground, 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 very 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. Somewhere in the middle of it all, 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 poured down through it, and two people were standing where a moment ago there had been nobody: Skuld, and Ephemer. He knelt down beside the wielder. "Sorry about that."

The wielder looked up at him. "You broke. Your promise."

"I know, but I'm here now." Ephemer held out his hand. "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. But something sat inside the wielder that wouldn't take a shape: a feeling that something had happened and left no memory of itself behind. They went out and gathered light, and the count went up.

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

The five had met before any of that, on the rocky ground where the war had been fought. Ephemer got there first, and Skuld second.

"Am I the second to arrive?" said Skuld.

Ephemer could hardly believe it. "Skuld? Well, this is a surprise!"

"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," said Skuld. "I wonder who the others are."

The third was a blond boy in a black and white jacket, who said he'd 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 a little wistfully. "You two know each other, huh? Must be nice; I've always been on my own." He had no idea 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 eyed Ephemer. "So, you the leader?" Then he turned to Skuld. "Hey, about the rules, think they're set in stone? Or more like a guideline?"

Skuld didn't find this funny. "They're rules. Of course they're set in stone."

"I get it." Brain grinned at her. "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'd been searching for something, he explained, and the 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 found it empty.

"So this is the Master's room," said Brain, and he 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 didn't say they ought to assign new leaders. 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." Then he added 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 wasn't to remember the war. It wasn't only for the wielder's sake, either. "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 back in order, the battlefield, the Foretellers and the way it had all ended, 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. Ephemer didn't like it, and Ventus liked it even less.

"Wait. Keyblade wielders fighting each other!?" said Ventus.

Brain thought it was only a friendly competition. "Besides, it's not like we have much of a choice. It's in the book."

"I don't like the thought of wielders turning their weapons against each other," said Ventus firmly.

Brain looked 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 for them. 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 was supposed to have become a Dandelion and was nowhere to be found. He tracked down the girl who had been in her party, a blonde girl with a loose black tie.

"Are you Elrena?" he said.

She said she was.

"I want to ask you about my sister, Strelitzia," said Lauriam.

Elrena hadn't 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 talked about the Unions fighting. "Nothing seemed to ever come of it."

Lauriam understood 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?" Then she thought of a way to help. "Chirithy! Weren't you friendly with Strelitzia's Chirithy?"

Her Chirithy remembered what she didn't. Strelitzia had vanished before the bells rang, and she had been looking for someone.

"So she definitely disappeared before the Keyblade War," said Lauriam. "Maybe this 'someone' is the key to finding out what happened."

Later, Elrena brought him something stranger still. Before she disappeared, Strelitzia had talked about a war. Lauriam couldn't 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 shouldn't be. After that, 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 that 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 wasn't so sure.

"Like Ephemer said, this should be the real world, and yet those glitches are obviously a phenomenon that belongs to the virtual one," he said. 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 even though the worlds themselves were broken.

Skuld said what the copy had been made for. "As a backup of the real one."

By then a sorceress had come into the town, 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 wasn't a person's had told her it couldn't be done here: what was written in a world of data couldn't be changed. It sent her instead to the basement of the clock tower. An unfinished lifeboat waited down there, 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 wouldn't be turned back.

"This isn't the way out," Lauriam told her.

She beat him, went down to the lifeboat, and was gone. When he came round, he didn't 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: the place where Ava had told Brain he was to be a Union leader. Ephemer was surprised to be dragged all that way, and even 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," said Brain. He had it with him.

"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 hadn't 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 name with the circle round it wasn't Brain's.

"That's right. I'm not the one who was supposed to get the Book," said Brain. "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."

He 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 didn't 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 straight 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 look uneasy. "Are we being suspected of something?"

"What is this?" Skuld bristled. "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," said Ventus. "It's true."

She had given him a rulebook, he said, and told him to go to the battleground when it was all over. Before that, she'd told him to come to an abandoned house. "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 couldn't remember what had happened before they left the house. So 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 he meant it. It couldn't 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 thought they had been chosen as Dandelions, and what else might want to come along with them. "Darkness can hide anywhere. Even inside someone."

"Darkness," Ephemer repeated.

Skuld took Ventus back to his room. When she returned, she said he'd 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 by, and that it 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 after them.

"Yeah," said Brain. "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 walked 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 back and was thrown off. "Get off me!"

Then Ventus appeared 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 couldn't look Lauriam in the eye. "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 wouldn't hear a word. "Stay out of this!" He went for Ventus. "Answer me!"

"It. It wasn't me. It wasn't me!" cried Ventus, and he fell.

Something came up out of him. It had no shape of its own, and it took one for their benefit. "Finally. It's about time."

"A monster!?" cried Skuld.

Brain only looked at it. "I see. You're darkness." He very nearly 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," said the Darkness. "I simply am."

It spoke of Ventus as though he were a tool it had put down. "It was his will."

"I don't believe you," said Skuld. "Ven didn't even know her! Besides, he would never wish that on anyone."

The Darkness agreed with her, and it made no difference at all. "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 with Skuld. 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 didn't 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," said the Darkness.

Decided what, Brain asked, and the Darkness told him. "That he would harbor darkness." Brain asked who had decided it. "It was written in the Book of Prophecies." So it had read the Book? "We read the words as they were being written." And the Master? "We're old friends."

Ephemer couldn't 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 every word. "Then why did you take my sister? Why Strelitzia?"

The answer wasn't 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 down at Ventus on the floor. "So, Ven didn't attack Strelitzia. You did. Is that right?"

It didn't give him the answer he wanted. It said only that it had been decided.

They fought it, and they couldn't finish it.

"Yeah," Ephemer admitted, breathing hard. "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 without being seen, and it gave him one word. "Infection."

Then Lauriam came back into the fight. "I figured you guys could use some help."

The Darkness wasn't impressed. "One more ally will make no difference."

That was when Ventus woke. There was light in him, and he got to his feet 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 just enough strength left to tell them one thing. "Everything's going to be all right."

Then he collapsed.

Lauriam sat by Ventus while he slept, where Ventus couldn't 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 wasn't 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 wasn't 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 at once. "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 towards the streets. Brain thought about it. The data world had been made to save everything as it was before the war, 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," he said.

Lauriam didn't 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. 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 ago. "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 nothing could stop it now. "I am formless. You cannot destroy me."

Afterwards, Ephemer and Skuld sat together in the empty chamber. Ephemer didn't 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," he said. "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 all at once. Elrena came to find Lauriam with news of someone in a black coat up on the hill, and when Ephemer heard it he went very 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 still hadn't woken, and they went down.

The lifeboat was in the basement of the clock tower. It held a row of pods, each as tall as a person standing, with a door hinged at the top and a window cut in the shape of a heart. There had been seven of them.

"The evil fairy took the seventh," said Lauriam.

Ephemer counted. "I count six." He looked round at them all. "But there are seven of us."

Then Brain found that one of the six didn't 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," said Brain. "Just like a computer in sleep mode."

The Master had known this would happen, he explained, and had built the copy as a shelter. If it froze, it could be woken up 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 wasn't sure escaping 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, there would be nobody out there to rescue anyone. In the end, Ephemer decided. "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 didn't think she deserved a place, and Skuld wouldn't take one.

"Listen, the only way to make it out of this is to go back," said Skuld. 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 if they were sure, and they were.

Brain thought of a way round it. "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 then the Book. "It was meant for you. This too."

Ephemer didn't want to take them. "But this is yours."

Brain wouldn't hear of 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 carefully. "I'll hold on to these for now, but as far as I'm concerned, they still belong to you."

"Then it's settled," said Ephemer. "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 were gone.

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. It 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 the Darkness knew him. "Luxu." It didn't like it at all. "Why are you here? You're only meant to observe."

Luxu wasn't 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. The Darkness warned him that using it would ruin his plan.

"It's not for me," said Luxu. "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. Luxu said he could only guess. "But I am sure of one thing. He is not a fan of darkness."

The Darkness wasn't troubled by that. "We're not fond of light either." It told him what it meant to do: to spread through the data world by its signals, and to go with the chosen one into the future and claim worlds that hadn't been made yet. "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," said the Darkness.

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 exactly what he thought of it. The longer darkness went without a body, the more its will faded, 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."

"As you are in mine," said the Darkness.

Brain climbed 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 wasn't time.

"There might be another way," he said. "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 he was planning.

"Return two of the pods to the data world," said Brain. "That way, the three of them will each have one."

Lauriam didn't want to leave him. "Will you really be okay on your own?"

Brain told him that he was the only Union leader who could still get away. "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 didn't 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 off with the Master's words. "May your heart be your guiding key."

Then there was someone behind him, and Brain spun round. "Who?"

A figure in a black coat was watching him. "So it's just you?"

Brain asked who he was. The figure gave his name, Luxu, and said that he had been one of the Master of Masters' apprentices.

Brain stared at him. "Huh? Master Luxu? I thought you disappeared before the Unions were created."

Luxu didn't explain. "None of that matters now. Tell me, are you a Union leader?"

Brain told him where the others were: one gone forward through time, the rest 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 of them could get out. Luxu asked what he would do himself.

"Stay here and stay alive as long as I can," said Brain. "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 wasn't 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 aloud whether the others had got there safely.

"Of course," said Ephemer. "Brain's with them."

Then four shapes rose 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."

"And you thought we'd just agree to that?" said Ephemer.

They waited. He didn't move. "I won't do it."

They reminded him that they could take any one 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 couldn't understand it. He called the wielder's name and asked what was wrong with them, and then he thought he did understand, and that was worse. "Wait, are you?"

Skuld thought the same thing. "I thought we'd dealt with you."

Together the five of them beat Ephemer and Skuld down, and it took hardly any time at all. Ephemer begged the wielder to stop. Then, while the wielder stood among the four and talked, at length, in a way the wielder never talked, he did the thing they wanted. He fired straight through the wielder's chest, and the shot blew open 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 dragged 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?" said the Darknesses. Then they understood. "You. It was all an act?"

The possession had never happened, not for a single moment. It had been a performance, put on for four things that believed anyone could be got into if only the right way were found.

"Why you!" the Darknesses cried.

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 wouldn't be slow. Chirithy reached the wielder.

"It's not over yet," said the wielder. They sank down holding Chirithy, and light rose over both of them.

Afterwards there was a white place with no edges to it, 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 for as long as it took. The second was not to sleep, but to go on, into wherever hearts go on to, with no promise about what came out the other side. The wielder chose not to sleep. They picked Chirithy up and held on tight, 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," said Ephemer.

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 for himself. "Let's take a look outside."

Outside, the real Daybreak Town was coming to an end. 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, and that they ought to go back inside. She didn't move straight away. "Thank you for being here, Ephemer. I'm glad I don't have to face the end alone."

But Ephemer hadn't 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 nobody at all.

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 still stood in the earth where they had come to rest, thousands upon thousands of them. Somewhere in the middle of them he stopped and pushed back his hood, and the face underneath it was Brain's.

Brain woke up somewhere he had never been before. "Where am I?"

It was a dark city of tall towers and spires crowded close together, with statues of cloaked figures and hawks along the rooftops. A purple star was set into the paving under his feet. A man was waiting for him.

"You must be Brain," he said.

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 stood a statue of a boy holding the very same Keyblade that Brain had been carrying not long ago.

"Is that?" Brain began.

"The original Keyblade Master and founder of this town, Scala ad Caelum," said Sigurd. "That is Master Ephemer."

The town had been built on the ruins of Daybreak Town, on the very same ground, which was why the star was still in the paving. Brain stood looking up at the statue for a long while. "I know. He was a good friend."

Long before any of it, before the Master disappeared, he had sat and talked with the Darkness as though 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," said the Master.

His world existed in three stages, he explained. 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 of all, 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 this strange. "You have the Book of Prophecies, and therefore knowledge of all things. Strange that you would knowingly waste your time and efforts."

The Master laughed. "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?"

"Sure was." The Master sounded pleased with himself. "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 couldn't even imagine. The Darkness said he was difficult to understand, and he asked whether it wanted to understand him.

"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 on growing, one fairy tale at a time, with darkness following them into every corner of it. "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 in return. "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 didn't understand. "Fiction? Not the data world?"

The Master shook his head. "Nope. If you imagine hard enough, you can make anything a reality."

And, at the very end, he talked to Luxu about the war. "I was a young boy when the Keyblade War began."

Luxu couldn't believe it. "What!? There was a Keyblade War back then too?"

It had never stopped, said the Master. 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 didn't see why not.

"We can't get rid of the darkness in this world, so we're ending it to escape into another one," said Luxu. "We can't win against the darkness, can we?"

There was a way, the Master told him, but not in one lifetime, or even 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 in the end 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 of it. "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 had become the Heartless. The ones without forms had kept a will of their own, and they 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," said the Master, "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, he said, 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 now. "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 couldn't bear it. "Is it really necessary for the Unions to betray each other? Is the War the only way?" And then, louder, "You can't do this! The sacrifice is too great!"

"I told you, not to let sentiment cloud your judgment," said the Master. 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 then 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."