Kingdom Hearts: The Brightest of Hearts

Chapter 11: The Darkest of Hearts part 1

Back in Traverse Town, after the Gummi ship landed Sora, Donald, and Goofy quickly got off. They were expecting everyone to be in the town square, but there was only Cloud.

"Cloud? Where's Yuffie and Leon?"

"They all went to help the people of Traverse Town, a lot more people have been showing up due to you liberating their hearts from the darkness. Though we did notice one thing, after your mission at Deep Jungle, Sid asked Chip and Dale to make him a device that shows the location of the Gummi ship, so we'll know you guys are on mission and alright. However, I noticed that right after liberating Neverland and London you immediately went to a place called New York City. Why did you do that?"

"We uh... Well..."

"It was me." Sora stepped forward from Donald and Goofy toward Cloud.

"I was excited to know there was only one world left so I rushed into it and liberated as much as I could but... Things didn't go exactly as planned."

"You didn't liberate the world?"

"I did... but I... saw someone else die, and in my frustration and rage the darkness nearly got me."

"... Yeah, that will do it."

"I... I wanted to kill him, I wanted to go down to his level and make him suffer." Sora started crying again, Donald and Goofy were about to comfort him but Cloud reached out first. Cloud got on one knee and extended his hand gently onto Sora's shoulder.

"Sephiroth destroyed my world and killed almost everyone I loved. He destroyed my hometown and killed Tifa's father. There was also Shinra, they killed Zack who was Aerith's old boyfriend. They basically helped Sephiroth destroy our world and drain it of its recourses, killing hundreds, enslaving thousands, and ruining millions of lives. Then there was Maleficent who resurrected Sephiroth after we tried so hard to stop him and RIGHT after we saved the world from the Dooms Day Black Materia, she just opened the skies to the Darkness in-between Worlds. Shinra is gone but Sephiroth and Maleficent are still out there. I can't tell you how much I want them to be right in front of me right this moment so I can slice them to pieces." Sora looked at Cloud as his expression darkened, Sora even noticed Cloud's fists were clenching as if to contain his overwhelming rage.

"But you can't, because it's not, right?"

"... I wouldn't say that Sora."

"What? But my mom and dad always said that violence and revenge never solve anything."

"Well, doing things for revenge can be pretty stupid, yeah. I mean if you just focused on the revenge aspect then it will practically consume your life and leave no room for friendship and love. Me and the rest of the group can attest to that, one way or another we let our fears, our sadness, or our anger control us and made us do some pretty stupid things. But these emotions we feel aren't unjustified, they're just a part of who we are. They're only a weakness if you make them a weakness. And you only make them a weakness by letting them dictate everything you do and ignore everything and everyone that tells you to stop."

"... But if our emotions can control us like that then wouldn't it be better to suppress them?"

"Ah! No, Sora don't do that. Trust me, I tried that once and it never ended well. In fact, suppressing your emotions will actually just lead to a brand new emotion that's even easier to get consumed by and leads to even worse results."

"What emotion is that?"

"... Depression. I'm still dealing with that one and it really got worse when I was separated from the group but I'm slowly recovering and doing better."