Luxu has learned of the circumstances regarding the Master of Masters’ plan, and Ventus has collapsed following his attempt to remember who made him a Union leader. For Luxu, he now knows Darkness is indestructible, whereas Ven was exhausted by a flood of repressed, nonlinear memories regarding Strelitzia’s death. While Luxu can’t help but feel some type of way about his newfound knowledge, Ven, no longer able to subconsciously fight it off, can now fully remember what happened to Strelitzia the day she died.
The main events of Kingdom Hearts Union Cross quest 960 through 965 finally reveal who killed Strelitzia, unraveling a mystery that’s shadowed the new Union leaders since they first gathered at the Keyblade Graveyard. These quests also touch on why the Master of Masters decided to initiate the Foreteller’s Keyblade War, which he neglected to tell Luxu originally. This writing recaps and interprets these events to better explain the Kingdom Hearts Union Cross storyline, so there will be spoilers ahead.
With a series of exaggerated hums, Luxu annoys the Master and steals his attention away from the Book of Prophecies so that he can vent his frustrations about Darkness. He doesn’t like the idea that Keyblade wielders like themselves cannot destroy — and therefore defeat — Darkness and instead have to run away to a new world to get away from it. To him, they’re gonna have to run forever, and his pride as a warrior of light won’t let him accept that.
At first, the Master was irritated at Luxu for interrupting him, but now he’s just disappointed. He took the time to take Luxu under his wing and teach him everything he knows, and that apparently amounted to nothing. Luxu has a really bad habit of making assumptions about things he doesn’t understand and then convincing himself that those assumptions are factual when they’re not. If he’s learned anything from the Master, it should have been how to be patient and wait for the answer to reveal itself, but Luxu is anything but — which the apprentice somewhat childishly admits.
In response, the Master tells Luxu directly that they can defeat Darkness. However, doing so won’t be as easy as walking up to and destroying it. It will take time and careful planning, planning that will span multiple lifetimes. In other words, it will take patience, so much patience that they will need to get rid of their current notions of time and space. And the best way for them to do that is to destroy the current world and its boundaries — all to defeat Darkness.
Asleep in his room, Ventus dreams of the events that took place in the warehouse the moment Strelitzia stepped in. Like him, she and her Chirithy called out for whoever they were looking for but received no answer, so, again, like him, they thought they got the location wrong. As a result, the duo decided to continue looking elsewhere. However, as Strelitzia moved to leave, Ven, now under Darkness’s control, approached her from behind, and before she could register what was going on, Darkness leaped out of Ven and tore right through her.
At Darkness’ command, Ventus picked up the Union leader rulebook Strelitzia dropped in the attack; then the two of them simply walked over her body to the exit. While leaving her to die, Ven can hear Strelitzia asking for Lauriam, which is one of many details omitted from this scene’s original depiction in “The Last Leader.” Upon making it to the door, the light from outside washes over Darkness, dispelling its silhouette-like appearance to reveal that — like Brain suspected — the entity took Ava’s form. Now aware of the truth, Ventus wakes up crying.
When Darkness kills Strelitzia, it controls Ven the same way Maleficent controlled Terra in Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep. Mind control is a power darkness users have over others who can’t command the darkness in their own hearts — if they have any. Controllers of darkness like Maleficent can use it to make whoever meets these conditions do whatever they want, and while the enslaved can’t fight back, they are tentatively aware of the actions they committed after the fact. For Ven, his mind suppressed what happened in the warehouse due to how traumatic it was for him; he actively blames himself for Strelitzia’s death.
Ventus being a false Union leader was foreshadowed in five major ways. The first revolved around Ephemer’s conversation with Ava regarding his promotion. In it, Ephemer expresses his surprise that Ava is naming him a Union leader and a Keyblade Master. If Ava named Ephemer a Master, then it stands to reason that she named the rest of the Union leaders masters too, and as Birth By Sleep proves, Ven is no such thing.
The second comes from the Shift Pride cutscene in “Lauriam’s Investigation.” Here, it’s obvious that Ven has never read the Union leader rulebook, whereas every other leader has; he didn’t know what Shift Pride was despite it being the most controversial guideline the Union leaders had to implement. Ven likely neglected to read the book because it was a physical reminder of his part in Strelitzia’s demise.
The third reason centers on Ven’s Keyblade. Unlike the Wayward Wind and Lost Memory Keyblades he primarily wields in Birth By Sleep, Ven wields 358/2 Days’ Missing Ache in Kingdom Hearts Union Cross, as seen in the “Data World Glitches” questline. In Union Cross, Missing Ache is a Reverse Keyblade, meaning it’s a weapon that relies on using Book-of-Prophecy Medals that center on darkness wielders and villans. Ven is the only Union leader to wield a weapon of this variety, reflecting his ties to Darkness, the entity.
The fourth reason actually comes from Kingdom Hearts 3 Re: Mind. When Sora arrives at Ven’s heart during his journey to save the Guardians of Light from Xehanort, a voice claiming to be Darkness speaks out to him, implying that the entity does make it into the future as planned. How remains unclear, but it said it would use Maleficent as a waypoint in “Maleficent’s Escape,” so there’s that.
The final reason is a meta one: Union Cross hid Strelitzia’s killer’s identity, which means said identity was supposed to be a surprise; in other words, the killer was someone players already knew. After Lauriam reveals himself as Strelitzia’s brother, Ven becomes the only character who can make the identity reveal work, as he’s the only one with an established story and personality.
Brain had no established character when Strelitzia died, so there’d be no reason to hide his identity. His being the culprit wouldn’t really generate surprise; it would just give insight into his character. The mystery would work better as a why-dun-it rather than a who-dun-it if Brain did it. Lastly, Ephemer and Skuld are automatically eliminated from the running because players either saw or heard about Ava personally making them Dandelions before Strelitzia even debuted.
Ava worked as one of the suspects for Strelitzia’s murder because of what Luxu accuses her of in the “Traitor and the Lost Page.” Ava’s actions towards him afterward imply that she’s angry enough to do anything to get back at the Master and stop his plan, including violently replacing one of his chosen leaders. However, during the Keyblade War itself, Ava actively spares the Union Cross protagonist and tells them to join the Dandelions.
The game later implies that Ephemer and Skuld find the protagonist on the battlefield because of Ava. The duo appear in the Keyblade Graveyard specifically to pick up the protagonist, which they wouldn’t know to do without some sort of message from Ava. They didn’t just stumble on the protagonist either; they knew exactly where Ava left him on the field. Simply put, if Ava’s unwilling to kill the protagonist, then, like Brain deduced, she’s also incapable of harming Strelitzia.
Kingdom Hearts Union Cross is available on Android and IOS.
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