o64

[halfling-rogue.livejournal.com]

Challenge: [o64] Yin and Yang (I know it's over, I just want to write it for fun.)
Title: Key to the Soul
Word Count: 290
Notes: Weapons are often said to reveal the nature of the bearer. KH2 spoilers.

It wasn't something he liked.

When Maleficent had first shown him how to use his inherent power to form a weapon that was ideal for his strength and ambitions, he'd been horrified by what he conjured up. Bat wings and blinking eyes, and how could he ever have something so ugly inside of himself? He'd tried to fling it away from himself, and scowled as the witch laughed when it just returned to his hand, as omnipresent as his own shadow. It whispered inside his mind, and when Maleficent asked whether he wanted to know its name he already knew.

Souleater.

Later, he came to appreciate the irony. He'd hurt so many, but in the end, it was his own soul that had been offered up. He'd had to fight so hard to win even a semblance of it back--and even that came with a price, now that he was irrevocably tied to the darkness. He was stained, and in the depths of Castle Oblivion he was forced to accept that. He was bound to the Souleater, and it to him, and ugly as it was, it was the tool best suited to him now.

But he wasn't all darkness. And when he finally (finally) came into his full right as a Keyblade Master, he knew that his old weapon would have to be both crux and change for the new.

He couldn't just erase and replace it entirely, but he could mould it, add to it, and slowly the weapon of his own destiny took shape. Razor-sharp membranes grew misplaced angel's wings, and the eye (perceptive now, not baleful) still stared from above a Heartless chain (the shackles of his mistakes).

It wasn't pretty. But it was balanced.