This has been one of my most favorite stories to write. It's really grown into a lot more than what it started off as, and along the way, I've found confidence in my ability to write action sequences. I want to thank everyone who's reviewed this story—your encouraging words were some of the best feedback I've ever gotten!!

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Wake of Darkness

Epilogue
Wake

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The dreams were always the same.

Familiar faces twisted in agony, bodies wrangled and tortured and broken—Aerith's long hair and dress matted with blood, Tifa's nude corpse strung up like an offering, Yuffie dismembered by her own weapons, Cid and Donald and Goofy and Merlin and Mickey—everyone—except Sora—

Sora, blue eyes filled with tears and fury, as he stood before him clutching that magical key of his, demanding over and over and over—

WHY WHY WHY?!

And all Leon could do was spread his crimson-stained hands in surrender, as his lips curled into a sinister smile.

Sometimes Sora died. Sometimes Leon did.

Often, his friends' fates were different—sometimes they were still alive by the end, but more often than not, he watched himself slaughter them in ways he never could have imagined before the start of all of this.

Yet no matter how the dreams changed, they were still the same: consumed by the darkness, Leon would hurt the people he cared about the most.

They were warnings, he knew.

But he didn't need any more reminders of what was now living inside of him. He got enough of that whenever he woke from his nightmares, mind spinning and pulse racing, and stumbled to his bathroom mirror to look at himself.

He stood there now, breathless and trembling and covered in a sheen of cold sweat, his knuckles bone white as he clutched the sink in front of him. His reflection looked as bad as he felt, but at least the details hadn't changed.

Same tainted marks, same mismatched eyes, same one wing.

The darkness hadn't spread in months, not since he had been released from Sephiroth's dark sanctuary.

Released, not escaped. After having his fun, Sephiroth himself had let Leon go, leaving him standing at the edge of the borough and squinting into the brilliant Radiant Garden sky, empty-handed except for his gunblade and the remains of the clothes he had disappeared in.

There had been no farewell, no promises to return, no traces of caring at all what happened to him.

At the time, Leon'd had no idea how much time had passed since Sephiroth had taken him into the World of Darkness. It wasn't until he'd walked right into the marketplace that he had noticed the reactions of the people around him.

There was nothing like being greeted by startled gasps and pointing to welcome a person home. Though it had felt like only hours, Leon had been Sephiroth's captive for weeks.

The darkness did that to you. Once you submitted, it twisted your reality into its own, feeding you pleasure upon pleasure to keep you trapped within its eternal prison, as it slowly transformed you from the inside out.

And Leon hadn't escaped unscathed. Their startled reactions hadn't been because they were surprised he'd survived or they were happy he was back—

It was the wing he had held aloft behind him.

That was when he'd understood why Cloud had taken to hiding his in the beginning. It attracted too much attention, made people treat him differently, reminded them he wasn't completely human any longer.

Now, as he gripped the edge of his bathroom sink, his wing hung in the air beside him like a wilted flower, quivering a little as his body slowly recovered from his nightmare.

It was a beautiful wing, a blend of bat and bird, separated into three segments by long, deep purple points tipped in crimson, with soft white feathers growing between the leathery segments. But as beautiful as it was, it was a neverending reminder of what he had become.

Glaring into the mirror, he swept an arm over his forehead to wipe his sweat away, brushing his bangs aside in the process. He hesitated when he caught sight of the other gifts Sephiroth and Cloud's powers had given to him.

A black line stretched across his cheek and fed into his scar, that corner of his face tainted by the darkness—which showed in his eye. No longer a slate gray, his iris gleamed with a lustrous silver, slit like a wild animal's.

Just looking at it made his stomach churn. He carefully fixed his bangs to hide the eye from view as he'd been doing for months.

Some things he couldn't hide as easily, like his wing, but he had found ways to conceal most of the others beneath his clothes: the crisscrossed black lacerations across his back, the dark skin of his shoulder and the crescent moon of white feathers growing from it, the other thin arc of feathers on his hip, the tainted skin of his arm and side and chest...

All of them had come from the same place Cloud's tainted arm had. When the darkness had healed his wounds, it had given him more than peace of mind—it had turned his scars into trophies.

Tearing his eyes away from his haggard reflection, he grabbed the silver necklace resting nearby.

The girls had recovered Griever from the battlefield and mended the chain to give to him as soon as he'd returned home, only they hadn't known for sure that he would. But he had, just like Cloud always came back. They hadn't anticipated the changes in Leon, either—both inside and out.

Leon slipped his necklace on and turned away from the mirror, taking a moment to rest heavily against the sink. The lion's head pendant rested centered over the streak of corrupted skin on his chest, and he clasped a hand around it, feeling his rapid heartbeat against his fingers.

It was like this almost every morning.

Nightmare. Mirror. Bad memories.

And the stench of darkness.

That one never left, either—the ever-lingering scent of the darkness's taint. Those who hadn't been touched by the darkness couldn't smell it, but he could.

Sometimes, when he couldn't stand being surrounded by it anymore, he would smother his shame and purposely lose himself in old routines—sparring at the falls, helping bastion reconstruction, gardening for Aerith, running errands for Tifa or Cid or Merlin.

Today would have been one of those days, but he had already made plans.

He followed his usual routine, showering while trying not to touch his sensitive feathers or tainted skin more than he had to, then took a few minutes to check his wing for loose feathers before he bothered drying off. On went his usual attire, with all of his shirts and even his old jacket mended with care to fit his wing, thanks to Aerith.

Aerith, who was one of the only people who went out of her way to see him now, to check on him, to make sure he was eating properly and wasn't too lonely or whatever.

Tifa, on the other hand, couldn't look him in the eyes anymore—guilt, maybe, for letting Sephiroth take him instead of her. Leon had fought to protect her; he didn't blame her for what had happened anymore than he blamed Cloud or Aerith or Yuffie. But whenever Tifa looked at him, there was shame where pride should have been.

Merlin and Cid treated him the same as they always had, but even Yuffie had taken to tiptoeing around him these days.

But it didn't matter. Leon had resigned himself to the same fate Cloud had.

As he stooped down to pull on his boots, he saw a single feather resting harmlessly at the foot of his bed, a stark obsidian instead of his silvery white.

He plucked it from the floor and held it up. The light streaming through his bedroom window cast against the black gloss of the long feather, making it gleam a deep indigo and magenta depending on the way he rotated it. Shades of the darkness itself.

His fingers closed around the feather, crushing it.

The stray feathers were becoming a daily occurrence, evidence that Sephiroth was up to something—maybe another attempted attack on Tifa? Or maybe Sephiroth would come straight to Leon this time.

Whatever.

Sephiroth could watch him all he wanted—Leon didn't care.

He pulled his boots on, fixed his bangs over his silver eye again, and left his small house, gunblade sheathed at his side.

Wing arched behind him, he walked with calm resolve through the borough streets and ignored the stares and whispers he always attracted. He had learned to accept them, though it hadn't been easy at first.

These were the people he fought to protect, and this was the home he had yearned to restore for the past eleven years; he wasn't going to give them up because they couldn't understand what he had gone through. He wasn't going to hide or run away, not like Cloud had. That was what Sephiroth wanted.

Leon was going to keep fighting.

Give in, but don't give up.

One day he'd face Sephiroth again. He'd look him in the eyes, see the dark smile that haunted his memories, and he would fight—fearless, unfaltering, and without using the dark gifts Sephiroth had bestowed upon him.

He would fight, and he would win.

And he wouldn't do it alone.

He passed through the borough and bailey, tracing old familiar steps—the same steps he had taken the day he had found Cloud sprawled out on the path in front of him. His boot treads still hadn't worn into the trail yet.

The fountains along the bailey wall trickled with the same comforting melody. Overhead, the sun glimmered with its morning radiance, only a few cottonball tufts of white scattered throughout the vast blue surrounding it.

The gate to the reconstruction zone was closed, just like Cid wanted it.

Not a heartless stirred, just like that fateful day, only this time it wasn't Sephiroth's doing. Cid and Tron's protective program was hard at work, now preventing the creatures from straying even this far.

But instead of turning towards the bastion, Leon passed through the remnants of a once beautiful plaza and descended the path into the crystal ravine that stretched far beyond the bailey and its curtain walls.

There at the mouth of the ravine was Cloud.

He waited patiently against Fenrir, the motorbike Cid had helped him build over the last few months using scraps of gummi Sora had left them during his last visit months ago. Arms crossed, Cloud seemed calm, his wing even hanging relaxed beside him.

Leon approached him, silent except for the scuff of his boots against the crystal wasteland. He folded his wing as he came to a stop in front of him, automatically glancing at the long sleeve and glove hiding Cloud's corrupted arm. And though a pair of tinted bike goggles hid Cloud's eyes, Leon knew Cloud was studying him right back.

"Hey," was Leon's greeting.

Cloud pushed away from his bike. "You're late."

"Yeah."

There was no question of why. Cloud already understood because he had the same dreams. He had never said so, but Leon didn't have to ask. After all, they shared the same darkness.

When Sephiroth had released Leon, Cloud had shown up a week later.

Same story—Cloud hadn't escaped. No, Sephiroth had let him go, probably to continue his twisted game of cat and mouse with Cloud. Only this time Cloud wasn't alone. Tifa and Aerith and the others could pretend they knew what Cloud was going through, but the only one who knew the truth was Leon.

"Get on," Cloud said, offering him a second pair of goggles as he slid onto his bike.

Leon slipped them on and hoisted himself onto the seat behind him. He wrapped a firm arm around Cloud's waist, and Cloud's leathery wing curled against his side, used to this by now.

Leon felt the rev of the engine come alive beneath them, its soothing growl rumbling throughout the crystal wasteland that had become their playground.

The behemoths and wyverns of Villain's Vale, the defenders and wizards of the Rising Falls, the neverending hordes that dwelled within the Misty Abyss—no legion of heartless lasted long beneath their synchronized assaults. And when they ran out of heartless, neither of them had qualms about turning their blades on one another.

They had no better teachers than themselves, and no better motivation than the wake of darkness they saw in each other.

And this time when Sephiroth returned to play, both of them would be ready.

Leon clenched a fist into Cloud's shirt and murmured into his ear.

"Let's go."

Cloud glanced back at him just for a second, and Leon thought he saw a trace of a smile there. Then Cloud kicked off from the ground, accelerated the bike, and they sped off into the wasteland together.

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Fin.