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Day One.
But Kingdom Hearts was safeguarded by its counterpart, the X-Blade. Warriors vied for that precious light, thus beginning the Keyblade War.
The violent clash shattered the X-Blade into twenty pieces - seven of light and thirteen of darkness. And the only real Kingdom Hearts was swallowed by the darkness, never to surface again.
The jolt is violent.
At first, he thinks he’s falling, but he realises after a moment that he’s drifting through water, landing on his feet upon glass. There’s light filtering from above, playing off the patterns of stained glass, which are slowly becoming clear through the murkiness. A circle ringed in stars, with a unicorn, a snake, a leopard, a fox and a bear staring upwards.
In the centre, a heart with a winged cross. He knows that symbol. There is a twitch in the back of his mind that tells him that he came looking for it, either now or at some point. He wipes one hand over the glass and stares into it, trying to get a good look at himself.
He's humanoid, but smooth, silvery white. He knows that's not how people are meant to look: People have eyes, and noses, and anything except smooth silvery curves. There’s a push at the back of his mind, a reminder that the response here is to be nauseated and horrified.
The voice is sonorous and totally calm, as if it’s the most simple question in the world, but he doesn’t know the answer. It apparently does, though, as he feels its presence pushing against his mind, and sees a picture of a face framed with a mop of dark hair peering out of a mirror in a room he doesn’t know.
He looks back at the glass. He has eyes now, a nose, a mouth, hair. He’s wearing clothes - jeans, a t-shirt, a hooded jacket with too many zippers, a green keffiyeh around his neck.
Something rumbles. Coming up the edge of the glass pillar is a sea of inky black, squirming and crawling, obscuring the glassy faces and curling up over Eden. There are other voices now, overlapping, yelling, and Eden doesn’t understand any of them.
He feels a weight in his hand. A weapon, his mind supplies. His arm moves on its own, lifting it up, and the burst of light spreads outwards, dissolving the sea of darkness around him.
Eden turns it, looking at it. The shaft of it is filigreed, ending in a curve of sharp glass. He thinks it's pretty, but he's not sure what that even means.
He opens his eyes. He’s standing in a town square, by a fountain, as the sun hangs on the edge of the horizon. I came here. He doesn’t remember how. Or why. There are the suggestions of memories clawing at the edge of his mind, but no matter how hard he thinks about them, all he gets are flickers and flashes.
He can't shake the feeling that he's been here before. That he's walked into this town square before, thought about how he couldn't remember getting here, and then -- ...
The air shifts, and a maelstrom of blackness springs up in front of him, something shadowy striding out of it. Something huge and oily, like it was shaped out of darkness, with bright yellow eyes staring down at him.
He switches his keyblade to his right hand and holds it ahead of him, settling his left arm behind his back. It's a familiar stance, and as the monster's arm swings towards him, he flicks his keyblade, deflecting the arm with enough force that it -- and the body it's attached to -- careens across the square.
Heartless, his memory supplies as he gets a good look at the monster. A creature of darkness, formed around a corrupted heart.
The Heartless pulls itself to its feet, preparing to throw itself at him again. Eden taps the ground with his foot, familiarising himself with the shape of the cobblestones, how much force it would take to push himself off the ground and cut straight through the Heartless.
The calculations take a second, and then, as the Heartless barrels forward, he pushes off on one foot, speeding towards the Heartless, swinging his keyblade down -- ...
His back hits the cobblestones hard. For a moment, his mind stutters in confusion, as it tries to reconcile with what happened with the knowledge that that should have worked.
The Heartless takes a step closer, looming over him.
With a crack, the sky splits open, admitting a lightning bolt that crashes into the Heartless, searing layers of shadow away. The Heartless reels back, as a man in yellow robes and a mask like some kind of cat lands, raises his keyblade, and swings it, incinerating the Heartless in a wave of electricity.
Eden pulls himself to his feet, leaning on his keyblade. The yellow-robed man turns, just enough to give him a sidelong look, but doesn't say anything.
“Well, I think that’s enough for starters,” something says. Eden recognises the voice from his dream, and turns to see a small kitten staring up at him. “But, uh. This may be tougher than I thought.”