Even years ago, the Heartless were unstoppable forces.
WARNING: Per wiki policy, spoilers are unmarked on Nightmare Fuel pages.
- The Keyblade War. The End of the World, caused not by Heartless, but the forces that should be Good all killing each other. There was a faction of children that escaped before it happened. The Dandelions. You were not in that group. You will be right in the middle of the battlefield
when everything goes straight to hell.- Even worse: many of the people caught up in the war haven't even reached adulthood yet.
- While fighting in the Keyblade War, you fight four of the Foretellersnote . Gula challenges you just because you're both there and it's a war, after all. Invi promises to make your suffering quick. Aced tries to take you out of the picture to prevent you from interfering with his plans, and he only fails because Ira interrupts to fight him. Likewise, Ira goes in to Mercy Kill you only to be interrupted by Aced. Only Ava seems to be trying not to kill you, and she begs you to leave and go with the Dandelions, knowing you likely won't survive if you stay.
- The Master of Masters, as he's portrayed in Back Cover, can be considered this. Either he's Ambiguously Evil or just Creepy Good. If he turns out to be the former, though, he may very well be the most interesting villain the series has had thus far.
- While it's uncertain whether or not his actions are deliberate, the roles he assigns to every Foreteller certainly seems suspect enough to make one wonder if he's taking advantage of his position of power and instigating conflict and hostility between the five.
- Which is further muddied by him telling everyone but Ava the exact thing they needed to do in order to not start the Keyblade War. Ira just had to lead and keep everyone calm, which he failed at by splitting the group apart via telling them that someone MUST be a traitor (and split it even further with Invi by only telling her about the lost page) and failing to keep the group calm. Invi needed to just mediated and watch over the group, something she failed at by taking it to mean to spy on everyone and tell Ira everything with no respect for what it might mean. Guila needed to solve the mystery of the book/lost page and not trust everyone (aka not get into an alliance) and he basically gave up and waited for the traitor to reveal themselves instead of figuring it out on his own using the book. Aced was just meant to support and keep Ira on the right path as a leader, which he failed after causing the Foretellers to doubt Ira and not repair the trust with him until he's dying. Luxu needed to stay out of sight but it was him getting spotted by Ava that sparked the keyblade war.
- His interactions with Luxu are arguably the most interesting of the bunch, seeing as he entrusts him with a box that he's never allowed to open, and a Keyblade that was forged with his own eye at the center. (The implications of that alone are unsettling in itself.) Then there's the reveal that his task for Luxu is merely a case of Self-Fulfilling Prophecy; the fact that the Book of Prophecies exists is because Luxu has passed down the Keyblade from wielder to wielder, and in turn, has enabled the Master the ability to see the future. If the Master's response to Luxu's reaction is any indication, his apprentice is clearly rattled by his enthusiasm, if not the revelation alone.The Master: (casually) What's the matter? Come on, you did a fantastic job! At least smile a little!
- As if his dialogue with Luxu in his last scene isn't off-putting enough, the original score that's playing in the background sounds as if someone's bashing their fingers against a piano in a deliberately chaotic manner, giving a distinct impression that the Master may or may not be a bit out of his mind. Possibly because he became unbalanced after seeing everything that Xehanort did.
- While it's uncertain whether or not his actions are deliberate, the roles he assigns to every Foreteller certainly seems suspect enough to make one wonder if he's taking advantage of his position of power and instigating conflict and hostility between the five.
- Mission 546 onwards. Remember the Darklings, aka the Heartless of Keyblade wielders in Daybreak Town? Well, they're COMMON ENEMIES in this mission and appear as such in the next few missions! Sure, they're not as hard as the Boss Darklings in 540, but it still makes you wonder just how many keyblade wielders have died and fallen to Darkness at this time. Keep in mind, the wielders were all children or teens at best! The worst bit is that they don't fade into darkness when they run out of health, they just flee.
- Seeing Aced in Back Cover and then looking at him in the finale of χ [chi] is a trip, seeing how the abrasive but well-meaning master somehow winds up trying to make himself king, ready and willing to kill anyone who stands in his way—even if they're children.
- Same goes for Luxu. In Back Cover, he's just an ordinarily Adorkable kid whom the Master love to tease. As he's doing the role given by Master of the Masters up to Ava confronting him, he becomes almost emotionless and somewhat uncaring to the upcoming Keyblade War while casually explaining to Ava that the war is unavoidable and that his role is only just to watch.
- This becomes much worse with the reveal in III that we have known Luxu the whole time. He's Xigbar and the apathy that he shows towards the upcoming keyblade war seems to have developed a small degree of hatred for the heroes, mocking them for their ideals. Compare to when we see his past self in Union X wanting to intervene and help the Dandelions despite the Master of Masters' orders. What happened over the years to cause him to pull such a dramatic 180 might not be fully explained, but the end of Union X gives a hint of it. The Master of Masters tells Luxu that the war against darkness is one without room for sentiment or heroism. Fast forward to the present day, and Xigbar seems to have taken that advice to heart, gleefully siding with destructive villains like Xemnas and Xehanort.
- Elrena and her Chirithy coming across the building where Strelitzia and her Chirithy were killed. While investigating, they're startled by a flickering apparition/afterimage of Strelitzia and her Chirithy in their final moments.
- Shortly afterwards, Ven and Skuld see glitched-out apparitions of Ava and the Master of Masters in garbled conversation inside the Foretellers' study, and then the entire clock tower starts glitching out.
- With Game Central Station as a world, we get a wonderful little sight. Remember the Cy-Bugs? Those giant insects that can absorb any matter whatsoever to adapt to their environment? As it turns out, that includes Heartless.
- Recent events have Ventus getting a painful flashback to a dead Strelitzia. And a later flashback shows that Ven was there when Darkness murdered Strelitzia. But the strangest thing is that he's just...standing there. One possibility is that he's simply trusting the Darkness disguised as Ava, which raises unsettling implications for the Undying Loyalty the Keyblade wielders have to the Foretellers. Another is that Darkness did something to Ventus to make him compliant. Either way, the whole situation is just one more piece of trauma for the boy.
- To make things even worse, it’s been revealed in a new story update that Lauriam is pissed off at Brain, demanding to know what happened to his late beloved sister. Brain states that Darkness corrupts others and severs bonds. And than Ventus walks in, despondently saying that he “erased her”. Not killed, but erased, as in she no longer exists. Lauriam then lunges at Ven, absolutely enraged with his Keyblade in hand with full intention to kill Ventus! Ephemer stops Lauriam in time, when Ven suddenly screams that there’s something wrong with him, before collapsing to the ground and Darkness emerges in front of the Dandelions, stating “we exist”.
- The Master of Master's sheer ruthlessness in his attempts to eradicate the Darkness. From how he planned himself, Luxu and the Foretellers to become vessels for seven of the most powerful Darknesses so they can be destroyed in the future to how he willingly sacrificed the world and countless lives just for a chance to do so. The way he dismisses Luxu's horror at all this is cold, even for him, showing a severe lack of empathy on his part (though Darkness did cause him to lose many loved ones and comrades which explains said ruthlessness). Granted he already knew it would happen so he couldn't change it if he wanted to anyway and unlike Xehanort in the future, he at least seems to still believe in people enough to try and save them and the future despite ending the world.
- The Player becomes this from the perspective of Ephemer and Skuld (and the person playing the game!) in the finale of UX after they believe they have become possessed by Darkness. They proceed to utterly trounce their friends in battle, leaving Skuld unconscious and Ephemer reeling on the ground. Granted Skuld and Ephemer were holding back out of concern for their friend but then so was the Player making it an even fight meaning the Player still utterly trouced them while not using their full power and abilities and there's no reason to think the fight would have ended differently if all three had not been holding back.
- The Player would have gotten this had they been aware of what Xehanort, whom Player ends up raising in their reincarnation, would have done in his later life. Despite the Player's hopes, Xehanort became his parental figure's own antithesis and worst nightmare.
