The protagonist has helped save Game Central Station, and in the aftermath, Chirithy has figured out that Darklings are drawn to the light of Keyblade wielders the same way Cy-bugs are drawn to beacons. It’s the only explanation for why the Darkling of Game Central Station stalked the protagonist despite knowing it wasn’t the wielder it was looking for. The question is: who was the Darkling after, if not the protagonist or Ephemer? Having destroyed the Heartless-turned-Nightmare, the protagonist and Chirithy have decided to return to Data Daybreak Town to discuss the matter with the Union leaders and see if their efforts stopped the world’s glitches.
The meaningful events of the first half of Kingdom Hearts Union Cross quest 977 see both Luxu’s storyline converge with the present-day’s and five of the six most powerful Dandelions go toe-to-toe with Darkness. Quest 977 is the first of the last set of quests in Kingdom Hearts Union Cross, and this writing behaves as a recap and interpretation of its events to help clarify the ending of the game’s storyline. Spoilers ahead.
Standing on a hill in the outskirts of town, Luxu witnesses the glitch storm over Data Daybreak Town blacken the sky as it gets worse. The Dandelions are running out of time to defeat Darkness, just as the time is coming for Luxu to act out the Master’s will. The world is ending, and as instructed, he will watch and perform one other task. Luxu remembers the Master giving him the instructions for it while the world crumbles around him.
The memory plays out as an extended version of Kingdom Hearts Back Cover‘s Case of Luxu cutscene. After receiving the No Name Keyblade, Luxu also receives the mysterious box that he needs to keep hidden. In exchange for finding out the box’s contents, Luxu promised the Master that he would never open it, and it’s after he learns the box’s secrets that the scene extends, as Luxu — impatient as ever — “convinces” the Master to give him a hint on why he put what he did in the box.
The Master explains that when Darkness attacks Daybreak Town and the first lifeboat launches, both the real and digital Daybreak Towns will have served their purpose, and their apocalypses will begin. The Master put what he did in the box for this situation and is telling Luxu of it to make sure he isn’t swallowed up in the world’s destruction when it happens. Luxu will need to watch the apocalypse up until the very end. Then — quick as he can — use a corridor of darkness to escape to another world.
Darkness is unbeatable by conventional means, which is why the Master needed to use the time he had to get the Dandelions ready to pass the torch onto the next generation of Keyblade wielders. Daybreak Town’s purpose was to create the Dandelions and prepare them for being transported into the future, where they can defeat Darkness and complete the Master’s plan. Simply put, whatever the Master put inside the box will help the Dandelions make it into the future when the world ends.
Things aren’t going well for Ephemer, Brain, and Skuld. In their explosive fight with Darkness, the first individual thrown from the chaos is Skuld, who temporarily blacks out. Brain and Ephemer break from the exchange for only a moment, and in that second, Darkness strikes Brain’s Keyblade from him and knocks him down. With only Ephemer on his feet, it’s apparent that Darkness is going to win, and it voices that. While Ephemer knows it’s right, he still has a sense of humor, so he’s happy to accept Darkness’ surrender when it suggests calling the fight.
During this little reprieve, Darkness finds itself unable to argue with Brain when he calls it out for lying about having no motivations. He points out it’s working too hard to stop the Dandelions for such a claim, so Darkness confesses that it does want something: It wants to infect people. It wants to spread itself throughout humans via their minds (motivations) and their hearts (emotions). Dark Road Episode 3 reveals that Darkness pulls this off, as Odin explains to his apprentices that Darkness infected many people during Union Cross‘ time, inevitably causing humans to start self-producing Heartless.
Skuld cuts Darkness and Brain’s conversation short. Brain expressed his confusion about how Darkness planned to infect people while hiding in Ven, and when the entity tried reminding him that the Book of Prophecies already determined its plan succeeds, Skuld woke up, claiming she doesn’t care about the reasons behind Darkness’ actions. For her, the Book is not an excuse Darkness can use to justify highjacking Ven’s body and attacking Lauriam’s sister; it’s going to pay for both actions.
Darkness levels with Skuld despite not needing to. It hijacked Ven because while it’s currently of a hive mind, it also wants to be able to merge its many bodies into one, and it can’t do that without a heart of pure light — like Ven’s. The brightest lights cast the largest shadows; they make Darkness stronger. In other words, through Ven, Darkness could fuse its bodies into one and take on a form that’s distinct from its others. Killing Strelitzia was a sacrifice it needed to make to get to this point because Ven’s motivations for power made him susceptible to Darkness’ influence and infection.
From here, all of Darkness’ opponents rally together. Having woken up at the end of Darkness’ explanation, Lauriam, to his fellow’s delight, stands with the other leaders now that he knows full well that Ven wasn’t the one to attack his sister. However, his inclusion doesn’t matter to Darkness because it knows one more ally will not help the group. As such, Chirithy asks the entity how it would feel about two more joining the fray, as it and the protagonist finally make their return.
Darkness still doesn’t care. Even if the group manages to defeat it and escape to the real world through the lifeboats — as Lauriam suggests — they will still lose. Daybreak Town will still succumb to the darkness and cease to be, and Darkness doesn’t even have to do anything. The Master essentially set the world to self-destruct the moment the first lifeboat pod departed, which, as Lauriam knows, happened when Maleficent escaped. In short, they’re all going to disappear with or without Darkness’ help.
As he does, Brain wonders why Daybreak Town has a self-destruct system in the first place, so Darkness indulges him. The Master set up the world’s destruction just in case the Dandelions fail to stop Darkness. There’s no way to reverse the process once it’s triggered, and should it succeed, it will seal away both the world and Darkness. More than that, the process was going to activate no matter what because the Master made Maleficent’s escape the catalyst. In other words, as Skuld and Lauriam point out, the Dandelions were nothing but pawns.
However, Ephemer refuses to believe such a thing, and his moxie convinces the rest of the group to believe as well. Regardless of what the other Masters had planned for them all, Ava gathered them together, and she would never knowingly throw away the Dandelions the way Darkness is describing. They all believe in her as their leader and in her desire to keep them safe above all else. With nothing else left to say, the protagonist and the Union leaders engage Darkness.
Kingdom Hearts Union Cross is on IOS and Android.
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