Chapter Text
Sora wakes up all alone.
A prayer on my lips, a scar on his, we stood worlds apart as the sky fell. It was horrifying. For a second, I stopped hoping. I let go of everything until I remembered that I was the one who needed to hope. If they couldn’t, then I needed to.
That’s what Sora remembers Aerith telling him, the night their meteor came. They were sitting in a garden, a bit outside of the town, Aerith carrying a picnic basket with her and setting up for her friends. She spoke casually, about how she was already gone and threading together wisps of life for the rest. He remembers the feeling of dread when she told him how they had accepted it—you just died? he asked, not trying to be cruel. No one helped?
No one could’ve, she insisted, and she told him about how they ended up here. Her hope worked, but at the cost of her life, so Sora didn’t believe her. Doesn’t believe her. Because what is death if not an obstacle between him and the ones he loves?
I could’ve, Sora knows. He could’ve helped a thousand times over.
Sora shakes off the memory and looks up. He’s standing on the edge of a cliff and under the night sky, the world a beautiful royal blue around him. The sky of a thousand stars, a thousand worlds, glimmering and splendid. They used to scare him, but they welcome him now. He’s visited so many of them. The sky is home, much like how Destiny Islands is home.
He also feels a pull at his heart. Sora is no fool—he knows the pulls of darkness like he knows night from day, like he knows his hand from his friend’s like he can tell himself apart from Riku in a photograph. He feels the pull and it tells him to jump off the cliff. Save yourself, it begs.
Who are you? Sora tries to call back.
The ground beneath Sora rumbles and by instinct, he summons his keyblade and stumbles backward. Struggling to regain balance, Sora forces himself to solid feet with a cry before looking around to what could’ve caused it. There is no one.
Sora looks up at the sky, his second home; and he sees what Cloud, Tifa, Cid, and Yuffie had seen that night.
He sees the red and the brown and he hears the screaming and the rush and he feels the flame and the dread.
Oh, he thinks. So this is what the end of the world would be like.
He always thought it would be quieter. He always thought it would be louder.
This is both and neither.
A hand reaches up and holds his necklace. Sora squeezes it like he’s bringing himself light. Meteor, some darkness says. Or is it light? The shooting star. Save you.
Sora isn’t quite able to make out what the voice means (I'm sorry), but his mind wanders far from it: the meteor didn’t crash into Aerith’s world. She saved them. And still, they fell to darkness. Remnants of Sephiroth dragging them under. But Sephiroth is not here, nor is Aerith, nor is Cloud.
So would the world fall to darkness? Would Sora be able to save it?
Sora drops his hand from his necklace to his keyblade and clenches it tightly. He doesn’t know why he’s here, but he’s been all over the worlds, the universe, the verses that dare not be named, so he knows a thing or two about saving them. Or he hopes he does at least. It’ll hurt, but it’ll be worth it.
Does it have to be worth it? Riku once asked. (Where are all these memories coming from?) Sora had told him about Aerith’s story, and they sat in the sand, waiting for their Mastery Exam to begin. How long ago that feels. Was it long? Has it been years? Pain. Can’t we just have it?
I mean, we’ll have it anyway, Sora reasoned. Might as well make some use of it.
Riku said something that made Sora laugh—Sora couldn’t remember if he meant to make him laugh. Riku was just like that. Is like that. He just makes Sora laugh and smile like it’s no big deal; Sora wonders if that’s what others think of him.
He hopes so. He hopes he makes others as happy as Riku makes him. He hopes he can save them like how Riku saves him.
With a prayer in his hands, a smile on his lips, Sora points the keyblade to the heavens and lets light come out. His knees buckle at the impact, almost like darkness is beseeching him to fall. Sora is not scared of the dark. He hasn’t been for years, and the stream of light feels important—it feels necessary, and Sora stands his ground. (Something is wrong. There’s no keyhole. There are no people. There’s just this meteor and this voice.)
Fingers clenching so tightly around the keyblade that the skin could’ve broken, Sora lets out a shuddering breath. The world around him feels cold, and it might be darkness, so Sora pours his love into this prayer of his.
My friends, he thinks. I would die for them.
The sight, the sound, the feeling is still here. The meteor is still coming to take this world away, this place Sora doesn’t even know the name of. Sora closes his eyes.
I would fight for them, he corrects. We would fight together.
The sound, the feeling is still here. What would happen to this world? Would it fall to darkness and wait for someone to kiss it awake? Or would it cease to be? Fade? Sora stops listening.
I’m stronger with them, he promises.
The feeling is still here. What happens to it all? What happens to the people? What happens to the laughter, the joy, the—
Sora remembers what Riku had said that made him laugh.
It’s pain, Sora. Not some moogle coins.
It wasn’t that funny.
Sora lets out a laugh again, anyway, and that feeling isn’t here, because his thoughts spin and all he can think of is, I’m stronger with him.
Sora opens his eyes, and that’s where he must be—a road from dusk to dawn.
A road for Sora to Riku.