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izaswritings · 2 years

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kh fic - i walk as if i were another | chapter two

Title: i walk as if i were another

Fandom: Kingdom Hearts

Synopsis: Seventy-five years ago, a man in a black coat gifted a young Xehanort the chance to visit many worlds, and seek the darkness within them. He left him there in the graveyard to meet his fate. But Xehanort has dreamed of this graveyard too many times— and when he goes looking for closure, he finds, instead, a very old friend.

Ephemer, for his part, has left his friend waiting too many times. He doesn’t intend to leave them behind again… even if Xehanort inches ever closer into the growing dark.

Chapter Warnings: Past character death, depictions of grief and trauma in various forms, and occasional swearing. If there’s anything I missed, please let me know!

Notes: The artwork that inspired this particular chapter is @xhnort’s remember who you are, remember that you have a heart. Breaks my heart every time. Please be sure to go give them a follow!

AO3 link is here. | Chapter One is here.

chapter two

It is a moment that will live in their mind for the rest of their life: that sudden drop, as if falling through the sky.

They cannot see anything at all; for a moment, they are certain they have blacked out. There are whispers and laughter and a darkness so familiar it hurts. Terror steals their breath. They have been afraid of the dark all their life, for reasons no one has ever been sympathetic to. There is nothing within the dark that frightens them. It is just that they know, soul-deep, that the darkness will eat them alive.

The next thing they know, they are on the ground. They don’t move. They lie still on the cobblestone, aching, hoping. Have they made it? Are they free from that island prison, at long last? If they open their eyes, would they see—

There is sunshine warmth against their hair and the cawing of gulls in the distance, and for a moment they are so certain they’ve failed—dreamed it all, the shadow in the rucksack cloak and the door of darkness—that the bitterness climbs up their throat.

“Helloooo? Can you hear me? What happened?”

A hand shakes at their shoulder. They stiffen, and then their eyes fly open. A boy stares back down at them, wide-eyed, more curious than alarmed. He has long black hair and pale eyes, dressed in white robes unlike anything from the islands. He is utterly— wonderfully—unfamiliar.

His hand is warm on their shoulder, and he is looking down at them, and for a moment everything feels at peace. A moment from long ago clicked into place in the present.

The end of the dream. At last.

“Hey,” says the boy. “Are you okay?”

X̶̛̛̪́̄̎̚ȩ̵̙͚͙̳͒̏̓̌̽͌̓͋̀̿̇͘͜͝h̷̠͉̞̲̞̤̲͕͚͍̜̻̓̆͗̅̈́͝ͅa̶̡̫̖̜̯͉͍̦̪̬̣͋̋́̇͒̓̑̏͛̒̈́n̵̨̡̜̲̞̤͖͔̒͆ǫ̸̛́̈́̓͋͌͜r̶̛̲̂̈̓̍͘͜t̷̢̛̼̙̹̲̱̫̪͙͕̻͇̫̽̂̌̂̉̐́ smiles back at him.

He is only able to grasp Ephemer’s hand for a few seconds before his fingers curl through, Ephemer once more as insubstantial as air. His hand spasms from cold, and Xehanort draws it back, flexing out the tremors. Ephemer is looking down at his own hand with wide eyes.

“Interesting,” Xehanort repeats, and tilts his head, eyes narrowing. “I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me what that was.”

Ephemer is still looking at his hand. He curls his fingers, and glances over at Xehanort with a funny sort of smile. “You didn’t think it would work, but you took my hand anyway?”

“…You were the one who made the gesture first.”

Ephemer laughs sheepishly, and scratches at the back of his head. Xehanort frowns, irritated despite himself, and then turns to walk away. The empty stretch of earth is starting to unsettle him. The longer he stands there, the more his skin crawls.

A moment of silence, and then Ephemer flickers to walk beside him. He is looking back, too. “Brings back memories, doesn’t it?” he says, quietly. “Not very good ones, I guess, but—yeah.” He is very carefully not looking at Xehanort. “It’s… it really has been a long time, hasn’t it? I’ve been here… wow, I don’t even know how long. Haha, that’s a little sad.” He scratches at his cheek. He still isn’t looking at Xehanort.

“…I have been here before,” Xehanort says, frowning slightly at the other. “I didn’t see… well. Anything.”

“I wasn’t ignoring you,” Ephemer assures, which isn’t really what Xehanort was asking. “I… I think I was sleeping? Or something like that. I was still sort of aware, but it was all like a distant dream…and then you showed up. I thought I was still dreaming, actually. But then… you, in this place, at that spot…”

He trails off into silence, lost in memory. His eyes stay settled over the graveyard.

Xehanort stops walking. “Me,” he repeats.

“You. Your heart?” Ephemer flickers a little, head tilted as if in thought. He makes a wishy-washy hand motion. “It’s kind of hard to explain.”

“…I see.” He is torn between asking more and stopping the conversation there. What exactly is that supposed to mean? Xehanort and the person from his dreams… they are not the same, and Ephemer himself has agreed. You’re different. So how is it— what is it, then, that Ephemer has recognized within Xehanort?

He wants to know. He also absolutely doesn’t want to hear the answer. It is a strange knot of feeling that he needs more time to pick apart before acting on, at any rate.

Ephemer hums under his breath, eyes still trailing the rusted Keyblades. “Where are you heading, anyway?”

Xehanort pauses, thinking through his answer. He watches Ephemer watch the graveyard, and then he looks away, his hands clenching. He is finished here. He has done everything he planned to do, and frankly, after this incident he is beginning to think he should leave this place sooner rather than later. But Ephemer’s presence is—a complication.

Xehanort is leaving. Does Ephemer intend to come with him?

He is not sure how to ask. He is not even sure he wants to ask. It is easy to hold himself still, and keep his expression calm, to survey the situation and break it down into parts. This does not make the emotions any easier to parse. Ephemer is the past Xehanort was just planning to bury; Ephemer is one of the friends he has been looking for almost all his life.

(They sit at the fountain. The sun is setting and the hour is late. The square is silent and empty, and the shadows stretch hollow and reaching across the cobblestone.

Ephemer has not come. Ephemer is not coming.

They keep waiting anyway.)

Xehanort folds his hands behind his back. It doesn’t matter. He has made his choice—and besides which, regardless of his feelings on the matter, Ephemer holds answers. Xehanort is not in the habit of throwing away a chance to learn. It would be the height of foolishness.

“I am leaving,” he informs Ephemer, because he might as well start there. “You are welcome to return with me, but I confess I’m not entirely sure how to cart a spirit through the Lanes Between. It is, however, your choice.”

Ephemer hesitates. “…I don’t think that’ll be a problem. Um, if—if you’re okay for me to come with you?”

“I would not have offered otherwise,” Xehanort tells him.

“Then— okay.” His smile is uncertain, but it reaches his eyes. “Though… Lanes Between? Is that how you got here?”

Xehanort still has the coat— he could make a portal of Darkness, if he wished. It would certainly be easier. But he is unwilling to reveal that little new talent to Ephemer just yet; besides which, for all that Darkness is the most likely thing binding Ephemer’s soul, his heart is so Light that Xehanort doubts such an interaction would end well.

“Did we have another name for it?” Xehanort asks, genuinely curious. “It is as it sounds—the paths between the worlds.”

“The lanes between…” Ephemer seems lost in thought. “I guess, since I never… they must have found a way to…”

He trails off into mumbling. Xehanort is entirely forgotten, if only for a moment, and he watches Ephemer ramble quietly, struck with a sudden nostalgia, some ancient fondness.

(Get it? Or have I lost you?)

He looks away. His chest feels as though he has gripped his heart in a vice.

He breathes past it, and then reaches up to unzip the coat. The chill of the Graveyard is bothersome—years from the islands have yet to rid him of his low tolerance for the cold, which still annoys him—but the questions he’ll face if Eraqus or anyone else from Scala catch him with the coat are not worth the risk. He regrets his choice of bare sleeves for his uniform. Vor and Bragi had always had the right idea of it…

He folds the coat over his arm stiffly. Ephemer cuts off abruptly. He looks at the black coat with an unreadable expression, and shuffles back on his feet.

Xehanort looks mildly back, daring him to ask.

Ephemer presses his lips. He rocks back on his heels again. Then he catches Xehanort’s eyes, shrugs sheepishly, and waves away the whole silent exchange as if it had never happened.

He is clearly hiding something—he had, after all, asked about the coat before. He recognizes it. Xehanort would dearly like to know why. However… well.

Xehanort, who is also hiding some things, knows better than to push. For now.

“Where are we heading?” Ephemer asks him now, as Xehanort turns back to continue his trek through the graveyard. He does not want to be near that center place when he summons his Keyblade, if only for his own comfort. Ephemer keeps easy pace with him. “Hmm. Are you… on a mission?”

“…Of sorts.” Xehanort swerves around a stray Keyblade with a slight grimace. “Scala ad Caelum. Do you know of it?”

Ephemer stops. Xehanort turns back, interested. “You do,” he realizes. And yet, his own memories… “How?”

Ephemer flickers wildly. Then he settles. “That’s… a long story.”

We have time, Xehanort almost says, except— they do not, in fact, have time. He has already wasted what little of it he has. Xehanort narrows his eyes. Ephemer fiddles with the end of his scarf and doesn’t meet his gaze.

Xehanort scoffs and turns his back on him, summoning his Keyblade to his hands. “We have much to discuss,” he warns Ephemer, cold again. “Later.”

Ephemer smiles weakly. “Mm.”

(He stands at the entrance of the deeper tunnels, and they step forward, unsure of what to say, how to say it. They do not want to go in there. They do not want to see what is inside. They are terrified of opening the door— and yet. They are even more terrified of Ephemer going alone.

They tug at his sleeve. Silent, wordless. A million things to read in the gesture.

Ephemer turns back. His smile is weak and thin on his face. “Mm,” he says. “I know. Let’s go back, yeah? Tomorrow, we’ll meet up again.”)

“…Or perhaps we have time after all.” His hand is tight on the Keyblade. “How do you know Scala, exactly?”

“It’s really not that important!” Ephemer insists, and looks, for some reason, almost embarrassed. “And, um… wait, is that your Keyblade?”

Irritation sparks. “Ephemer—”

But Ephemer has already flickered away, now beside him once more, leaning down to study the blade more closely. “It’s different!” he says, and Xehanort stiffens despite himself. But Ephemer is smiling. “It suits you.” His head tilts. “It sort of reminds me of… Daybreak Town, actually. Or, the clocktower, at least? Huh.”

It is clearly an attempt at avoiding the question. It also works, because on second glance—

The crown of his Keyblade… the shape of the cogs near the teeth of the blade…

(This whole time?)

He suddenly cannot stand to look at it. Xehanort snaps his hand out and lets his armor materialize; the Keyblade shifts into a glider. Ephemer’s eyebrows shoot up into his hairline.

Xehanort steps up on the glider. He is suddenly tired of it all—this graveyard, those old memories, those childish dreams, Ephemer. He wants, very suddenly, to just…

(Go home. The beaches of white sand, the call of waves and gulls; the heat of the sun on his head and the distant ringing of the island bells, beckoning him back from the shore. From the bend of the paopu tree on the play island you could see the whole of the sea and horizon, and when the sun set it looked as if the water were set alight, the whole world glowing from within. He used to sit there for hours. He used to stand there in the surf and watch until the very last ray of light faded from his eyes.

Go back. Chess by the classroom windowsill; Hermod speaking quietly in the background, ever attempting to keep the peace. Bragi and Vor debating the last lesson; Urd, practicing her forms in the corner and pretending like she was ignoring them all, only to twitch whenever Vor or Bragi said something she disagreed with. Baldr, reading alone, only to lean back and try to help Eraqus win at chess—at first slyly, then far too obviously, until Xehanort got annoyed with the interference and bounced a pawn off his head.

“You’re meaner than you look,” Baldr said, wincing from the hit, and laughed when Xehanort rolled his eyes.)

…rest, maybe.

“Come on,” he tells Ephemer. “Let’s go.”

Ephemer looks at him for a long moment. Safe behind the glare of the visor, Xehanort does not react.

But all Ephemer does is smile again.

“Together,” he agrees.

It isn’t hard to enter Scala undetected. Xehanort is an old hand at it, and after… recent events… well. There are fewer people to notice him, now. It makes things easier.

He dismounts the glider, and his armor and keyblade both vanish with a flick of his wrist. Ephemer—who had been out of sight the entire passage through the Lanes Between, but a cheerful disembodied voice the entire ride—blurs back into view. He is looking around with interest.

Xehanort ignores him, and rolls out one shoulder gone stiff from the flight, sticking close to the shadows. No sign of Eraqus, yet. Hopefully he can keep it that way.

“Pretty!” Ephemer comments, still looking around. “What world is this?”

What.

“…Scala ad Caelum,” Xehanort says, blankly. Had Ephemer lied about knowing it? Why? Xehanort had not even expected him to know in the first place, so— what?

“What?” Ephemer says, and looks around a lot more rapidly, this time. “This isn’t Scala.”

Xehanort stares at him. “Yes, it is.”

“No, it… is it really?”

“Yes,” Xehanort repeats, entirely distracted now. “Why? What do you think Scala looks like?”

“Um,” says Ephemer, and thinks about it. He looks baffled. “More… goth?” Pause. “Gothic?” Another pause. “Er, not this.”

Xehanort has no idea how to respond to that. “I thought you knew Scala,” he repeats, incredulous. “Though I repeat, I am curious as to how—”

“Xehanort?”

Xehanort freezes, quieting mid-word. In his distraction he has entirely forgotten his earlier plan to hide, and apparently Eraqus has changed his wandering habits in the time he has been gone, because he is standing now in the mouth of the alley, staring at him with wide eyes.

Xehanort composes himself. “Eraqus,” he says, turning to face him. He has to fight both grimace and smile, and settles instead on neutrality. “…It has been awhile.”

Months, now, and it shows. Eraqus looks older. His hair is longer, and his eyes are shadowed. In the aftermath of—everything—he had stood with a wary sort of tension ill-suited for the boy who once lounged and laughed everywhere he went, and in the time that has passed the tension has settled in him, grown comfortable. He stands taller, like he is bracing himself.

It is… uncomfortable to witness. Xehanort shifts back on his heels, unwilling to break the silence.

At last, Eraqus blinks, like waking from a dream. Then a smile breaks across his face, and he strides forward, already reaching out. His smile isn’t as bright as it once was, but when he throws his arms around Xehanort, it is with the same crushing force as ever.

It used to be easy to take this affection, to return it, however stilted it felt coming from Xehanort. After months, however, the embrace takes him off-guard. Xehanort doesn’t move.

Eraqus doesn’t seem to mind. He just adjusts his hold on him and buries his head in Xehanort’s shoulder. “You jerk,” he says, into his collarbone. “I almost thought you were going to miss the test! Aren’t I supposed to be the late one?”

…Ah. He’d made him wait.

Xehanort stares blankly over his shoulder. He cannot see Ephemer at all; sometime in the chaos of Eraqus’s arrival, the ghost has vanished from view. It is probably for the best.

There is a distant ringing in his head. A dream turned faint and gauzy from the years: a fountain, and a sunset, and a terrible pit in his stomach. A memory of the look on Ephemer’s face, when he saw Xehanort kneeling there in the Graveyard.

“Please,” Xehanort says, scornfully. “Who do you think you’re talking to? Like I’d miss an exam this important. You, on the other hand…”

Eraqus makes an aggrieved noise and jerks, as if to pull away. Xehanort raises his arms at last and hugs him back, tight. Eraqus pauses.

It is foolish, and unlike him, and he knows Eraqus has forgiven him already anyway. But there are things Xehanort must do. And there are echoes of another life in his head. And… and he hadn’t meant to make Eraqus wait. Not really. So.

“Sorry,” Xehanort says, quietly, in his shoulder.

Eraqus doesn’t move. Then he pats Xehanort on the back. “It’s okay. You’re back now, aren’t you?”

Xehanort smiles thinly, and pulls away at last. Eraqus leans back, and this time the smile settles a little better on his face. “Haha. You really did miss me!”

“Believe what you will.”

“Always do,” Eraqus says, glib. His eyes search Xehanort’s face. “So?”

Xehanort leans back on his heels, eyebrows up, mirroring him. “So, what?”

“So, you’ve been gone… for months, really.” He leans in. “Where’d you go?”

Once these words would have been said with enthusiasm and little else. They are still enthusiastic, of course, but Eraqus’s eyes are shadowed—and behind them, the empty streets of Scala feel like a curse.

Xehanort shrugs. “Here and there.”

“Aw, come on.”

“…a few different places.” Eraqus doesn’t look appeased. “Nowhere unique. Just… Wonderland, and a few other worlds. Retracing old steps, that sort of thing. That’s all.”

He doesn’t think of Ephemer or the Graveyard. Even though he cannot see the ghost, he is aware of him—hovering somewhere around them, listening in. In this, he is grateful. He does not want to mention the Graveyard to Eraqus, and wants even less to reveal Ephemer to him. There would be… there is too much he cannot explain away.

“Ah, Wonderland,” Eraqus says, and his face pinches a little as he says it. Good memories carry new weight, now. “…What were you looking for?”

“Who says I was looking for anything?”

Eraqus doesn’t move. Xehanort meets his gaze calmly.

Eraqus drops his eyes first. “Hah, yeah. That’s about what I expected, I guess.” He rocks back on his heels, hand pushing through his hair; it scrunches odd at the back of his ponytail. He’d lost that habit, somewhere in their four years of learning— it aches, a little, to see it has returned. “Well, all right then. If— if that’s all it was.”

He looks at Xehanort very intently when he says this. Xehanort smiles thinly back. Eraqus presses his lips, displeased, and then slumps. “…You can tell me anything, you know?”

He knows Eraqus would like for that to be true, yes.

“Of course,” Xehanort tells him.

“…Yeah. Okay.” Eraqus looks away from him. Xehanort can see him sigh, and then—as Eraqus always does—shake the disappointment away, pull himself back together. Despite everything— the awkwardness, the stilted silences—he has missed him, he thinks. Or maybe he just misses what once was.

Regardless. It is… good, to see Eraqus again.

“Later,” Xehanort promises him. He cannot tell Eraqus of his journey, but… he can tell him something. He just needs to think what.

Eraqus gives him an exasperated look, but doesn’t call him out on it. “I’ll hold you to that,” he agrees. Then his face brightens. “Anyway! I know you can’t tell me of your travels or whatever, but come on—”

“Eraqus,” Xehanort starts, irritated now.

But Eraqus has turned away from him—away from Xehanort, and towards an empty stretch of wall where Xehanort can half-feel Ephemer hovering. “But, well, are you at least going to tell me about this?”

Xehanort freezes. Ephemer, possibly in shock, flickers in and out of view with a wide-eyed expression. Eraqus waits patiently.

Ah, Xehanort thinks, very calm. Fuck.

“You can see him,” Xehanort says, not a question.

Eraqus gives him a funny look. “Uh, no? Obviously not. But I know they— he?—anyway, yes?” A pause. Eraqus’s funny look gets a lot more disapproving. “Did you… not expect me to notice him?”

Yes. No. “Just testing you,” Xehanort demurs, immediately.

“Uh-huh.”

Ephemer at last seems to get his thoughts in order. His voice is distant and faint; he is visible again, but so see-through he might as well be mist. “Oh, wow. I didn’t expect you to be able to… um. Hello!”

“Hello to you too, disembodied voice,” Eraqus replies, ever friendly. Then he turns to Xehanort. “But seriously, what’s going on?”

Xehanort presses his lips. His mind, for once, is blank. He is not sure what to say, nor how to say it. There is an easy lie here, but he keeps getting tangled on the details. I just met him. I’ve known him for forever. He is a friend. He is an echo. He is the friend of the person I am not—

“My name is Ephemer,” the ghost says, taking the choice from his hands, and when he flickers into view again this time he is almost solid, his voice clear and bright. He stands just beside Xehanort, close enough to feel an echo of the chill Ephemer now carries with him. “Sorry about... well, you know.” He scratches at his cheek, a little sheepish. “Most people can’t see me unless I let them, and sometimes it’s a bit hard to explain… uh, me. I hope you can forgive me!”

Eraqus nods. “Oh, that makes sense! No worries, I get it. Though…” His head tilts. “I mean, you must be from another world, right? How did you… ah…”

The world order. Damn. Eraqus has never been the biggest stickler to the rules, but that has shifted slightly in recent years. Xehanort cannot remember for the life of him what Eraqus thinks of keeping the world order now.

Ephemer looks a little confused at this line of questioning, but gamely offers an answer. “Another world? I mean— well, I guess that’s right. I’m really just tagging along for the ride. He, um, helped me against a heartless a little while back. Figured the least I could do was try and repay the favor somehow, y’know?”

(A garden of half-bloomed flowers. The boy collapsed on his knees. They wave the last fading shadows of the dying Heartless away and approach him, hand outstretched.)

“You returned the favor already,” Xehanort replies, and even to his own ears his voice sounds distant and a little cold. Eraqus looks startled. Ephemer’s expression is unreadable. “If I recall correctly.”

“Mm. But I still made a promise.”

Xehanort looks away first. Ephemer watches him—then shakes his head, and turns back to Eraqus with a weaker smile. “That’s really it, to be honest.”

Eraqus looks vaguely baffled, and a bit like he doesn’t believe Ephemer at all. “Uh… huh.” He glances at Xehanort. Xehanort raises his eyebrows back. “Right. Okay.” Eraqus eyes Ephemer and then Xehanort and then Ephemer again, and squints a little harder. “You know, on second thought… hey, haven’t I seen you somewhere before?”

Ephemer blinks. “Huh?”

Xehanort frowns at once. “That’s impossible.”

“No, no, I could have sworn…” Eraqus is mumbling to himself. “And your name! It’s like—ugh, like one of my grandfather’s stories, he always used to go on…”

Ephemer inhales, sharp and sudden. He searches Eraqus’s expression as if looking for someone else’s face.

Eraqus smacks his hand into his palm. “Oh! Ephemer, like Ephemera! Like the Scala founder?”

There is a long moment of silence.

“Ephemera!?” Ephemer splutters.

“Yeah, I think there used to be a statue, too. You know, in the old city.” Eraqus squints at Ephemer. “And you kind of look…”

“Ephemera? Like, with an a?”

Very calmly, Xehanort says: “What do you mean like the Scala founder.”

“I mean like the Scala founder, come on, these are… basic… history lessons… which you wouldn’t have had…” Eraqus trails off. His brows furrow. “Huh.”

Never have all the childhood years he spent on the island felt so infuriating. “The founder of Scala ad Caelum is named Ephemer?”

“Ephemera. I mean, nowadays most folks just call him ‘the First Master,’ but my grandfather always used to—though you know what, he always said the name wrong too. Huh.”

Xehanort turns on Ephemer. Ephemer flickers out of view at once. “Haha,” he says, weakly and not-at-all calmly. “Well. I guess this is Scala after all! Even if it looks really different.”

Eraqus’s eyebrows do a very complicated jump. “…Are you actually—”

Is he actually? It is not that Xehanort is unaware of the early years of education he has lacked due to growing up outside of the Keyblade’s domain; when he had fallen through to this world he had begun half a step behind everyone else, and history and other starting subjects were tossed aside for the papers on darkness and world order, if only to get him on equal footing with the rest. But even then, Xehanort has heard of the First Master— but only ever as that. A name, any name, even a picture… he would have noticed that.

But then, perhaps this isn’t a matter of education. Eraqus is a legacy child, after all. And Keyblade Wielders are always keen to keep secrets. It could be the founder’s true name and face were buried with his descendents, just another divide between the bluebloods and the rest. It wouldn’t be the first secret of the legacy-bearers Eraqus has spilled without realizing.

“It doesn’t matter,” Ephemer says. His voice is still faint and distant, his form flickering; it is as if he is hiding, and something about that makes him think— a fountain, a cobblestone square, pale sunshine and the way Ephemer ducks his head, hair shading his eyes, hand ruffling through the back of his hair—and he side-eyes Ephemer judgmentally.

Ephemer winces and then settles, less see-through than before. His expression is a strange mix of sheepishness and painful nostalgia, and his eyes linger on Xehanort for a moment longer before he turns to Eraqus with a shrug. “Anyway. You’re… Eraqus, right?”

“Oh, right!” Eraqus sticks out a hand, smile bright. Ephemer laughs and waves his fingers through; Eraqus draws his hand back sheepishly. “Oh, right.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” Ephemer tells him, good-natured.

“You too! Any friend of Xehanort’s is a friend of mine.”

Xehanort twitches a little at the comment. But he doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t even know what it is he wants to say.

“What are you, by the way?” Eraqus is saying now, looking Ephemer up and down with a somewhat fascinated—and almost longing—expression. “I didn’t know… I mean, I haven’t ever seen a ghost before.”

Xehanort goes still. He does not think of the graves.

“Ah, that’s…”

“…a story for a later time,” Xehanort smoothly interjects. Something has settled ill in the base of his gut; guilt, perhaps. It is, as ever, an uncomfortable sensation. “I need to get going. Master Odin will want to be hearing from me.”

“I’ll walk with you—”

“There’s no need.”

Eraqus’s smile flickers. Xehanort hesitates, then adds, “Come on, Eraqus. Mark of Mastery is soon. I’ve been training. You’re going to need all the practice you can get.”

“It’s an exam, not a competition.” Eraqus’s eyes are bright, though, and his smile returns. “You know what they say—pride goeth before the fall.”

“Except I don’t lose, so…”

“I mean, I’m remembering like, possibly 117 chess matches that say otherwise—”

“107. Again. Also, yes, but mainly when you cheated.”

Eraqus shrugs and hooks his hands behind his neck, grinning fit to outshine the sun. “Someone sounds like a sore loser.”

Xehanort scoffs at him. Eraqus laughs, and then leans forward. He hugs Xehanort quick and tight—and then pulls back, still beaming. “I missed you,” he says, conversationally. Then he lets go. “I’ll try and catch you tonight, all right? Don’t avoid me!”

“I wasn’t—”

“Sure, sure. Anyway, good meeting you, ghost kid! See you, Xehanort!”

“Eraqus—”

Eraqus is already gone. Xehanort lifts a hand to his forehead and sighs.

When he lowers his hand, Ephemer is watching him again. Xehanort bristles. “What?”

But all Ephemer does is smile. “You found a pretty good friend,” he says, simply. “I’m glad.”

Xehanort stares at him. Then he turns away. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” He makes to leave the alleyway.

“Ah, hey—”

“I don’t know how Eraqus spotted you, but it’s probably best you stay out of sight for a while. I need to talk to Master Odin.”

“Was it something I said?”

Xehanort doesn’t answer. He hears Ephemer sigh, soft and soundless. He keeps on walking, and only when he is three streets down (empty, all empty, so few of them left—), does he turn to look back behind him.

He can’t see Ephemer at all.

He looks at the empty street for a long time. Then he forces himself to look away.

His conversation with Master Odin is as stilted as expected; the few remaining Masters, injured all, barely pay Xehanort any attention. His trip caused little stir, in the end, despite their-once strict policy on world travel. Xehanort suspects darkly that Master Odin cast the whole thing as a sort of grief-fueled wanderlust.

Regardless: he reports what they want to hear, and tunes out their empty praise and false concern over how he’ll perform in the Mark of Mastery. “I’ve trained,” he says, over and over. “I am ready.” And, when the mutterings go on too long for his patience: “I’ll prove it to you at the exam itself, then. Is that not what it’s all about?”

He gets let go by mid-afternoon with little fanfare, forgotten almost as soon as he goes to leave the room. The few Masters remaining are murmuring amongst themselves, ever anxious now that their students and great city have almost dwindled to none. Only Master Odin, and one of the few older students left—a uptight upperclassman named Yen Sid, the last to pass the exam when the city was still living—watch him go. When Xehanort catches Yen Sid’s eyes, the older boy gives him a searching look, and then a small nod.

Xehanort closes the door behind him. The halls are empty. Ephemer is nowhere to be found, gone elsewhere per Xehanort’s request. Eraqus…

Xehanort looks off to the training fields. Then he turns on his heel and heads for the other direction.

The old classroom looks just as he left it, all that time ago. It is untouched. The remnants of Master Odin’s last real lesson; the seven chairs scattered in disarray around the table. Eraqus’s chair faces backwards. Bragi’s is pushed back so that his feet could rest on the table. There is a thin layer of dust over everything, floating thin and translucent in the air.

Xehanort walks to the window, sitting on his usual seat. Even the chess board is still here, the game left unfinished. He looks at it—sloppy strategy, Eraqus—and then back out the window again. Scala in sunset sprawls out before him. The white buildings and the windmills. The gondolas to nowhere.

He doesn’t move. The afternoon tints the darker red of a true sunset. The door opens near-soundlessly behind him.

“Ah. Perhaps I should have known.”

Xehanort turns his head and bows slightly. “Master Odin. Did I forget something?”

The Master stands in the open door of the classroom, his eye lingering on the chairs. He shakes his head. “No. I simply… wanted to check in on you. You have been gone a long while, Xehanort.”

Xehanort lifts his head, somewhat calculating. Master Odin has always been a thorough teacher—but also, a distant one. Never the kind to involve himself in his student’s problems. Xehanort had always appreciated that; it is unsurprising, though perhaps disappointing, that this tendency has shifted since the others’ deaths. “I’ll be fine. As I said— I’ve kept up my training.”

The wide brim of the hat makes it hard to read Master Odin’s face in the best of times, and in this low light now it is almost impossible. The Master shakes his head again. “Yes,” he says. “Yes, I have no doubt. Still. The Mark of Mastery is only two weeks away. Are you certain?”

“Yes,” Xehanort says, colder than he means to. He checks himself. “That is to say… I am ready. I know I am.”

“…I see.”

Xehanort pauses. Then he straightens. “Master Odin. I do have one question.”

“What is it?”

“…The founder of Scala ad Caelum. The First Master. We learned of him, but never about him. What… what was he like?”

Master Odin is silent for a long moment. “That is not what I expected you to ask.”

Xehanort shrugs.

“…It is a complicated question.” His head turns, a little. Xehanort follows his gaze to the plaque— the ancient Keyblade, No Name, forever resting above the hearth. “The First Master is largely unknown mainly because he wanted it to be that way. The Keyblade War, and what caused it… my own fascination with the tale began in part because the First Master tried his very best to bury it. In that way, too, he tried to bury himself.”

Xehanort frowns. “That is…”

“…Well, it wasn’t always so, of course. In the old city, tales of him were more well known, despite his attempts at downplaying his role. But Scala has… seen shifts, since those times. In the recent generations, the First Master is all but fairytale, now.”

Xehanort contemplates this. “And his name?”

“A well-kept and highly regarded secret among the legacy families.” Master Odin considers him thoughtfully. Then he nods. “His name is Ephemera, though my own Master once contested that name quite heavily. He was young, when he founded Scala, and young still when he passed on.”

“Passed on.”

“The stories conflict. The one I was told was that he returned to the battlefield of old, and met his end there. Others simply say he vanished.” Master Odin shakes his head. “That is all I know of him, I’m afraid. As I said— in the destruction of the old city, most common knowledge of him was lost.”

“…I understand.” Xehanort turns back to the window. “Thank you for indulging my curiosity.”

Master Odin is quiet for a long moment. Xehanort can feel the old Master’s gaze like a weight on his back. He waits, almost impatient, for his old teacher to ask—but in the end, all Master Odin does is sigh.

“Get some rest, Xehanort,” Master Odin says, at last. “And… welcome back. I am glad to see you safe.”

Xehanort hums, tuneless. Another pause, and then Master Odin closes the door behind him.

Xehanort doesn’t move. He studies the glass, the reflection of the empty room. “Well?” he says. “How long were you listening?”

The reflection flickers. In the glass Ephemer is featureless and gauzy, unreal. His hands are folded behind his back. “Only once my name was said. I didn’t intend to eavesdrop.”

Xehanort glances back at him. Ephemer isn’t looking at him; instead his eyes are on No Name. He watches the Keyblade for a long moment, brows furrowed.

For the first time, Xehanort studies Ephemer with the same intensity— no longer looking for the similarities, but instead the differences. Is it just his imagination, or is Ephemer taller than he was in the dream? His hair, just a touch longer? But mostly… perhaps it is just the look on his face. Something hollow, something aching. Even in death his eyes look shadowed and tired, and his shoulders slump as if a weight is pushing down on them.

Xehanort had dreamed of these people less in vivid memory and more in vague impressions: bright laughter, waving hands, curiosity threading through the light in his eyes and the way he leaned forward, eager to share every theory. Starlight earrings and a shaking smile; pale hair the same color as a rose, polite and thin-voiced devestation. Ephemer doesn’t match those echoes so neatly anymore. If there is any proof of time passed, it is in this— he looks at the Keyblade, a million thoughts running behind his eyes, and doesn’t say a single word.

“You didn’t tell me,” Xehanort says, at last.

Ephemer winces a little. He glances back over his shoulder. “I’m sorry. I just… I really didn’t think it would matter?” Xehanort is not impressed. Ephemer glances away again. “Or that it would come up,” he mumbles, much quieter now.

Xehanort stays silent, stewing in the implications. How could it not matter? Ephemer survived the Keyblade War. Ephemer built Scala. And yet— he looks just as Xehanort remembers him. Young in the face, even if his eyes are so much older. “You don’t look like an old Master.”

“Hmm, I don’t know if I ever got to the age where I could be called old…” His smile is sad. “I don’t really know why either? When I… woke up, after—you know—I looked like this again.” He runs a hand through his hair. “I guess it makes sense, in a funny way. I met new people, made new friends… but the person who knew me best then, she always used to say it was like I was stuck in the past. Like some part of me was still clinging to the Graveyard.” He shrugs, a little. “And then some part of me was.”

Xehanort is not sure what to say to that. It feels—strange, unsettling. To hear even snippets of the life Ephemer lived beyond the War. Foolish of him, really. Change is inevitable. Isn’t Xehanort his own proof of such a thing? The boy who first fell to Scala, dreaming of friends who were not his, and the person Xehanort is now… he is not the same. He has walked a different path. Why should Ephemer be different?

A quiet blur in the corner of his eye. Ephemer refocuses just across from him, sitting in Eraqus’s spot. When he leans back by the window, the glass frosts with delicate swirls. “Is this… a classroom?”

Xehanort looks down at the chessboard. He doesn’t look at the empty table. “It used to be, yes.”

Ephemer’s face falls. “I’m sorry.”

Xehanort frowns at the game. That pawn, to that square… then the rook… his past self had set up a rather neat victory, barring any of Eraqus’s more creative moves. “I have a question for you,” he says, still looking at the board. “About… the past.”

“The past, huh…?” Ephemer shifts a little, flickering like an fire. “…Well, what do you remember?”

The fountain square. The Graveyard. A burning light, and blood in their teeth. “Not enough,” Xehanort concludes.

“…A lot happened. Most of it bad. But there were happy times, too. Meeting you was one of them.” Ephemer smiles. “Me, you, and Skuld—do you remember? On the good days, when there wasn’t much to do, we could meet at the fountain…”

Skuld. The name aches bone-deep in his chest. Dark hair and starlight earrings. Xehanort’s hand curls to a fist. He thinks of darkness.

“That isn’t what I want to know,” he says, cutting Ephemer off. Either Ephemer isn’t catching his hints, or he is ignoring them. Xehanort has no patience for either option. “Tell me about the Keyblade War.”

Ephemer’s smile fades into a solemn expression. He studies Xehanort’s face, and presses his lips, as if unsure he likes what he’s found. “There— there really isn’t much to say.”

“Anything you can tell me would be useful. You survived it, didn’t you?”

“…Something like that.”

Effusive, distant. Ephemer is fading in his eyes. The anger strikes cold through his heart. “You are hiding something from me,” Xehanort says, sharply. “Aren’t you, friend?”

Frustration flashes over Ephemer’s face. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

It is not quite an argument, except maybe it is. The anger feels strange and multifaceted, robbing Xehanort of his words rather than sharpening them. He scowls down at the chessboard and seethes.

Ephemer is stiff and silent. Then his shoulders slump. “You went into the war. Skuld and I went after you.” His voice is quiet. “If you really want to know about the war— well. You were the one who probably knew best.”

Useless. “If you aren’t going to be helpful—”

“I just don’t understand.”

He turns away, frustrated again. The Ephemer he remembers was curious, ever eager to share. Of course the Ephemer he found has changed his mind.

The silence is strange. There is a part of him insisting that it is wrong, it is unlike Ephemer— Ephemer, who babbled his theories to the first person who would listen, who always had a story to share…

And maybe it is the echo of that person that prompts Xehanort to lift his head and say, as blunt as he can make it: “Whatever friend you seem to think me to be, I am not that person.”

Ephemer just blinks at him. “I…” He solidifies a little. His brow is furrowed. “I know.”

Xehanort pauses. “You… know.”

Ephemer gives him a funny sort of smile. It is somewhere between sad and knowing. “Of course,” he says, quietly. “I mean… I’m not really the person you knew either.”

That is not what I meant. But Xehanort doesn’t say this. He frowns down at the chessboard again, and does not answer.

The silence settles. Xehanort stares out the window at the darkened city, shadowed and small in the evening light. Ephemer stays sitting beside him. His feet kick out over the edge. He draws his fingers close to the glass and makes patterns from the frost of his fingertips. That terrible knot in Xehanort’s chest does not ease. And yet. He stares out the window, watching the city slip into sleep, Ephemer beside him—and cannot deny that some part of him is soothed by it.

You came back.

It means nothing, in the long run. But the thought doesn’t fade.

The classroom door opens again. Ephemer flickers, solidifies, and waves with a smile. Xehanort glances away from the window, resisting the urge to sigh. Eraqus. Of course.

Eraqus considers Ephemer thoughtfully. Then he looks at the chessboard. The empty table and chairs—his eyes skip over them, and his hand briefly clenches on the doorframe. But he still walks into the room with a smile.

“Want to keep going?”

The chess game. Xehanort glances back down at the board. No questions? No interrogation?

He is about to ask, but he makes the mistake of looking up. Eraqus’s expression quiets him. Xehanort glances back down at the board.

…He feels tired, again. Of today. Of remembering. What is the point of it all? If he is truly committed to his chosen path, then what reason has he to hesitate?

But then again— if he is already committed, then what reason does he have to say no?

Xehanort sighs. “You’re going to lose,” he warns, finally.

“Don’t count me out just yet!”

Ephemer blurs away from the window seat, hovering beside Xehanort instead. Eraqus slips across from them and then shivers. “Cold!”

“Oops,” Ephemer says, looking sheepish. “My bad, sorry.”

“It’s okay! Just surprised me.”

It is casual and mundane and—it is something like a dream. It feels bizarre and uncertain. It is not a reality he has ever imagined. A meeting he has never indulged, even as a daydream. Xehanort watches them both. Then he leans over the board and pushes the first pawn forward.

“Your move,” he tells Eraqus, and Eraqus smiles brief and blinding before hunching over the board with narrow eyes. Ephemer leans over Xehanort’s shoulder to watch the game, eyebrows up.

Eraqus makes his move. Xehanort clicks his tongue judgmentally and matches him. Ephemer puts a hand to his chin and nods thoughtfully at the move. How bizarre. How fondly unfamiliar.

The awkwardness from earlier—it is not forgotten. It cannot be. But for now, in this moment, it seems forgiven. It cannot last, of course.

But almost despite himself, Xehanort is grateful for it.

They play a game, silently. Ephemer settles at his side. He is not there and yet he is—the chill like an echo of warmth. For a moment it is like sitting at that fountain square once again—talking, laughing. The warmth of the sun on the crown of their head. Ephemer, kicking his feet over the fountain, knocking their legs together in his excitement to speak.

It should be jarring. It should clash, these moments. The fountain square and the chess game by the window. But it fits. It fits so rightly. It feels as if something has clicked into place. Like something he always wanted, and never dared to dream of. His heart burns with warmth.

The moonlight haloes the board. Xehanort pushes his last pawn forward. “Checkmate,” he tells Eraqus, and smirks.

He is sitting by a fountain, watching the clouds. He is waiting for someone. He is always waiting.

There is a girl sitting next to him—dark hair, stars in her ears—lying down at the edge of the fountain, her eyes closed, fast asleep. He reaches out and brushes his hand by her shoulder, feather-light. Healing magic itches at his fingers. The bruise fades.

Tomorrow—nebulous, nonexistent, but in this dream it is still important—tomorrow, when they go to the tunnel beneath the city, he will be ready. He will watch her back. They will make it to the clocktower together, and finally find an answer to everything.

His friend is not coming back. He knows this. He stays at the fountain anyway, and waits for one more day. Just in case. Maybe Ephemer will keep their promise after all.

The sun is setting. The fading light turns the water into a silver mirror. The reflection in the water is not his. It is a face he cannot recall. It is a face already forgotten.

He waits. But no one is coming.

Xehanort turns away from the empty street, and meets the reflection��s eyes. He thinks of darkness. He thinks of all those worlds he saw, all those shadows. He thinks of the graveyard and the X-blade and Kingdom Hearts. He thinks of gravestones. 323 - 107.

“Remember who you are,” he tells the reflection.

The water ripples. His friend breathes easy beside him. The face in the water is his own.

“Remember you have a heart,” the reflection replies, and behind them the clocktower tolls.

#kingdom hearts #kh #khux #kingdom hearts union x #ephemer #xehanort #eraqus #young xehanort #player kh #playernort #fic: i walk as if i were another #iza fanfic #kh fic #reblogs and/or comments are always appreciated!!!!!#thanks for reading

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