Summary
[spoiler]The Master seems to have talked with Darkness, but they do not come to a mutual understanding.
He claims Darkness is always watching (but not in that moment particularly).
Luxu reinforces that the Dandelions are an "important cornerstone" in the world's revival, and wonders if it'll be alright if Darkness appears before them.

Darkness reveals that they do not have a true form, their appearance and voice being a "service" for humans.
It claims they have no goal, and do not have feelings of wanting to accomplish something.
It calls humanity a separate existence, making it difficult for them to understand each other.
Darkness claims that Ven wanted Strelitzia to be killed, though this is an extrapolation from his desire to be a Union Leader.
Strelitzia's sacrifice wasn't necessary, but that "didn't matter" to Darkness.
Ventus is a "destined child" written in the Book of Prophecies. "An existence which houses darkness."
Darkness doesn't have desire or care, but the Book of Prophecies is an exception.
It has seen the Book, and claims the Master of Masters is an "old friend."
It claims that there is more darkness than there is light.

Luxu is worried about the Dandelions, but the Master knows things will work out because a future world is written in the Book.
Apparently, he can't see minor details due to the long amount of time being recorded. So the fates of individuals are something he can't see.
Luxu continues to worry, and the Master gives him permission to watch over them, but warns that interference is useless.[/spoiler]

Gosh it’s like I’m about to get to the new ones and they add more ?

Welp so much for darkness is vanitas.
but gonna say, that's a pretty unique kind of a villain (?)

Darkness is a flip flopper lol unless I’m misunderstanding them. Darkness said they chose to hide in Ven because Ven wanted power. Then Darkness said they chose Ven because Ven was destined to be chosen. I’m just staring in confusion lol

And from what I’m understanding, MoM isn’t human since he was friends with Darkness? He’s just like or at least similar to Darkness?

This is why we wait for better translations lol

This was a nice surprise. I didn't expect to see the union leaders again until the Player returns from their quest.

Darkness wants the union leaders to turn against each other, therefore it lies. But it looks like there is some Truth in between the li(n)es. I'll comment more on that once the translated videos are up.

Maybe so. Darkness is something lol

Also, is Nomura really gonna retcon Vanitas (no I’m not talking about Darkness theory). We’re just gonna pretend that he doesn’t exist anymore and isn’t Ventus darkness?

Exactly, I'm going to wait it out for Goldpanner's exceptional translation work.

Oh thank god! It’s finally out after their erratic scheduling.

I guess this really does confirm Eraqus’ lineage.

I mean, we do see his jawline, but with an eye like that he’s definitely not a normal human, even by wielder standards.

Actually those are two different things
1. Darkness killed Strelitizia because Ven wants power and don't care about the reason he wants it
2. Darkness chose Ven to hide in because he is destined to be a vessel for darkness

This is all very interesting in a bizarre way, so like others have said, it's best to wait for better translations.

Love how Skuld always protects Ven in this video
If Skuld is Subject X , I wish Ven will interact with her in the next game

I think you do the community a real disservice by posting these rushed translation summaries. There's little nuance and they lead to confusion and disinformation.

They did say it was a summary... anyone taking that summary as hard core proof are the ones jumping the gun in my opinion.

Based on the summary, I don't feel Darkness is flip flopping? From a vague point of view, Darkness seems to go with the flow. It doesn't have deep desires of its own, it just "answers to the call" so to speak. Ven possibly had this small insignificant wish to be somebody or something and Darkess was like, "Oh, so you want this girl dead so that you can take her place. That's EXACTLY what you need! I'll help you!"

This aligns with what we already sorta know about Darkness doesn't it? It's not necessarily evil, it greatly depends on the user. Though either way you slice it, it does seem "negative".

I think you need to chill.

I translated the dialogue in its entirety for myself, but because I'm still learning and I'm conscious of that, I only posted a general summary of the key points so that I don't push wrong information. And I don't think I'm rushing, considering I spent about two hours on roughly 5-7 minutes of dialogue. (Not saying more time wouldn't have helped.)
There are minor details I couldn't be 100% certain of, but I'm confident that my understanding of the scenes was accurate.
If I'm wrong then I'm wrong, doesn't really matter that much because Goldpanner's translations always get the most traction anyway.

Savage.

I translated the dialogue in its entirety for myself, but because I'm still learning and I'm conscious of that, I only posted a general summary of the key points so that I don't push wrong information. And I don't think I'm rushing, considering I spent about two hours on roughly 5-7 minutes of dialogue. (Not saying more time wouldn't have helped.)

All I have to go by are the time stamps, and you're consistently the first person posting in these threads, with a summary, usually about an hour, little more, after the OP.

There are minor details I couldn't be 100% certain of, but I'm confident that my understanding of the scenes was accurate. If I'm wrong then I'm wrong, doesn't really matter that much because Goldpanner's translations always get the most traction anyway.

I didn't mean to make light of the efforts of learning and translating the language. I think it's great that you're learning Japanese and I can understand wanting to post a quick summary while longform translations are on the way out but, and I'm not saying this as an insult; the summaries consistently lack that nuance and imply things that are otherwise, well, wrong. Everyone is capable of making mistakes of course. Blaine was something we couldn't have foreseen being wrong. But, it's not a standalone issue here, it happens almost every update and it can be very frustrating to the staff who are spending hours translating/confirming/adapting/and editing videos.

Currently I'm not technically a site staffer, but I do occasionally assist Goldpanner with translations and adaptation. I don't put in nearly the amount of work that GP or Sign do on this, but I do know firsthand how frustrating it can feel to do the work and automatically feel like you have to challenge an idea born from a mistranslation. I don't *think* you had anything to do with this particular example, but the amount of hate GP and even KHI in general got for saying that Strelitzia was Lauriam's sister rather than Elrena's was absurd and we ended up being correct in that all along.

I'm not actually asking you to stop but I am asking that you to take that into consideration

As a summary it inherently lacks detail and nuance. I think most of us here have the wherewithal to understand that and act accordingly.
I could just post my full translations, and I have in the past, but that is when I get things wrong most often (though usually nothing major, to my recollection) as I miss more complex grammar or something like an idiom I wasn't familiar with.

Currently I'm not technically a site staffer, but I do occasionally assist Goldpanner with translations and adaptation. I don't put in nearly the amount of work that GP or Sign do on this, but I do know firsthand how frustrating it can feel to do the work and automatically feel like you have to challenge an idea born from a mistranslation.

I'd never dream of diminishing or obstructing the work Goldpanner and Sign do. And I know very well the struggle of combating misinformation in this community (not at all limited to translations).
With my own translation efforts, I'm always quick to explicitly state when I'm not certain of something.
If I saw myself being consistently/harmfully wrong, then I wouldn't be posting.

I don't *think* you had anything to do with this particular example, but the amount of hate GP and even KHI in general got for saying that Strelitzia was Lauriam's sister rather than Elrena's was absurd and we ended up being correct in that all along.

With that instance in particular, it was a crapshoot that couldn't be helped. We just didn't have enough context to know for certain which interpretation was accurate. An unfortunate side-effect of high-context language. Though I think that little mystery was by design, as I recall confusion within the Japanese community over that as well, and the line could've easily been made more clear with only a word and a particle.

Maybe just let the guy post his summary. Don't really see any harm in what he's doing especially when there are summaries that will come out in a few hours that will be more accurate/word for word translations.

Welcome to the forums, I agree. There's no harm in providing rough translations if it forms engaging discussions.

Besides, it wouldn't be the first time that meanings were lost in translation. Ephemera turned out to be Ephemer, Blaine turned out to be Brain and there was debate as to whether Strelitzia was the sister of Lauriam or Elrena.

Translation are up; Brain summoning the Masters' Keep ?

Oh. My. GLOBNESS. uWu

I can't believe Brain is wielding MASTER'S DEFENDER. And his smile he had when he learned that Dorkness was the only one present, it almost looked sadistic. Like he was READY TO INFLICT PAIN on this dorkness feller. Can we say that light doesn't mean good, or was that a misdirection via animation? Who knows. I can't wait for the next episode to come along in January/February. This is doubleplus exciting!!!!


yall really fighting each other over translations? come taf on. we're supposed to be rejoicing over another 5 minute textscene.

Moving on

Ephemer: Friends? Was the Master working with the darkness?

Darkness: We don't need to work with people like you.

This part kinda disproves the whole "since darkness isn't human and the MoM is 'old friends' with darkness then MoM must also not be a human" thing. Since he includes the Master in the category of "people like you" then I assume the Master is a human and not just a manifestation of light or whatever so that's nice to hear.

Really makes me wonder if the Master is going to be the villain of the saga after all or if whatever is behind darkness is going to be the actual villain. Could really see it going either way.

This also backs up Vanitas being darkness as well. The darkness says "we" meaning there are multiple of them. Vanitas could very well just be one instance of darkness.

I think MoM and darkness fighting will damage the KH universe so sora will have to stop both. making them both a villain

Hmmm…

I have to admit I’m slightly disappointed with this update. It’s a main scenario update but there’s nothing particularly new to gloss over, just slightly clearer expositions of what we already know or can guess.

We already know Darkness and the Master know each other, or at least are aware of each other.

There’s been a lot of talk on how Eraqus resembles Brain quite a lot.

Ven’s there because he needs to be flung to the future with amnesia.

There’s nothing that’s surprising or twisty at all. I’m thankful for the translations and all, but this update has been rather lackluster. I have to say, I hope they don’t prolong the drip feed much more, but they most likely will because DR won’t survive on its own as a pseudo-idle game…

The Master of Masters continues to be an entertaining character. When you think you figured him out, he throws another curveball.

Yeah. Getting really sick of these updates that tell us barely anything. It's such a slow burn and I hate it. I really wish that they would just finish off the UX story already but at this rate it's going to still be receiving story updates 5 years from now.

What makes matters worse about UX is that we already know where all of these characters end up. It's just a matter of us finding out how they got there. We don't even need this story information in order to understand future games but we just want to know more about the backstory. It also bothers me that we don't really know how far we are from the end of the story of UX. They stated like a year ago that we're in the "final chapter" of the game but who knows how long that final chapter is going to be.

Maybe darkness will incapacitate all of the dandelion leaders and then Luxu will step in after his conversation that he just had with the Master and he'll save them by throwing them in the arcs and tossing them into the future. Who knows! One can hope that this happens and they finally move on to something else instead of seeing these goofs stand around in a room for another 10 story updates.

I don't think every update needs to have a big twist. It might feel like you want the next big moment because it's been X amount of time since the last update, but when you consider the story as a whole, that kind of delivery would just make it exhausting and repetitive.

That said, it's not like we didn't learn anything.
Brain having Master Keeper isn't a huge shock to anyone paying attention, but it's nice to have it finally confirmed.
And we got to learn more about Darkness and how it operates, as well as its relationship with the Master.

Also, I really like that Streltizia's death was completely arbitrary. Not some cog in a Machiavellian scheme. Just the wrong place and wrong time. Amplifies the tragedy of it.

The Kingdom Hearts team confirmed that the story of UX will come to a close in 2021, I don't see the player character visiting any new Disney worlds from this point onwards and I think Square Enix would rather have all of the UX team focus on Dark Road.

What a relief to hear this. Thank the lord. And yeah, for a game that's just starting out, Dark Road has had very little story development so far. I mean, the first bit of it had a lot of story development but now it has most definitely stagnated and I find myself rarely playing the game anymore. Would be nice to see what they could accomplish with all of their effort put into Dark Road.

:ROFLMAO:
This is easily one of the most hilarious scenes in the whole series. Luxu by accident came a bit too close to the Truth about the Master of Masters. I don't think MoM is one of the Darknesses himself, but he may be responsible for their existence, and definitely was on their side in the previous Keyblade War.


Like the Devil reading the Bible...
(Is this saying known in the English-speaking world? It means intentionally misinterpreting something to support one's own point.)


This reminds me of a discussion with [USER=89012]@Sephiroth0812[/USER] a few months ago about the events that led to Eraqus attacking Ven:

Now we have evidence that this stuff was in the Book, and we can assume that Brain will do his best to pass it on to future generations, so it's likely that Eraqus did know it as well. Also, note how Brain will be able to confirm the story, because he's got the Book. At the same time, both candidates for the person who was supposed to have it at this point are knocked out. So, if things had been as planned, Brain would have had little reason to believe what the Darkness told him. This may well be the scene where the Masterplan went off the tracks!

...they did? I don't remember that.

Wanna know the worst part? I can’t remember who said it, it might be Nomura, or another dev, but someone once said that they wanted to use a powerful engine (or console) to show the atrocity of the Keyblade War. You know what we got? Flash animations on web browsers then mobile on a bunch of chibi kids duking it out with shiny glowy sticks.

Here’s the clincher, the weapon the games were named after, you know the one everyone supposedly fought over, the χ-blade, to get to the macguffin that is Kingdom Hearts, has yet to appear. It didn’t appear in the original, not in unchained, and not now.

I’m barely hanging on as it is, but we’re getting off topic and I’m just ranting now.

MoM’s theme definitely implies he’s crazy...or possibly a functioning sociopath.

Um...nothing about this says it'll end in 2021 tho.

That's because it was not in the Keyblade War that happened in UX, but in the previous one that MoM told about. In the modern timeline, the lore has mixed the two wars together.

So I have thoughts....

First it definitely seems to be painting the idea that Darkness isn't actually evil, evil is something done with conscious intent. Both it and the MoM say it has no goals so I doubt we are meant to doubt that. From the sound of it darkness just wants to understand beings of light but it can't and in that lack of understanding it causes harm. It reacts to the negativity in a person, it feels their desires, and in doing so it tries to help in its own way by letting them act on those desires. But it doesn't understand the morality element of all this nor does it feel empathy or love it just...reacts and watches the reaction. Which mean Darkness isn't really the issue it's people that are, darkness only reacts but the selfish actions of murder, power grabbing, greed, hate those come from the beings of light. That would sort of account for why Xehanort wanted to go so far, the core issue is people themselves how do you fix that? Well one way is definitely to start the world over as blank and create new life that is compatible with darkness.

I definitely get the sense Darkness is being painted almost sympathetic here while the MoM is...concerning. He talks about how they are too different, that understanding or in other words balance can not be reached, and thus he seems to seek their destruction. That IMO completely flies in the face of a hero like Sora and a story like KH which is all about reaching out to people and making connections with them no matter how impossible it seems. I get the sense the direction the story is going is that Sora is going to ultimately broker an understanding with Darkness and the MoM will be a villain that needs to be stopped because he is going to try some kind of mass genocide of an entire sentient species (maybe all of reality really) because he thinks co-existence is impossible.

More than ever though I am doubling back down on my theory that Xemnas was talking to "a" Darkness in the chamber of repose. Especially now that it's confirmed Darkness as a species can turn invisible and that it can choose when it takes corporeal form or has a voice. It would explain everything honestly, Xemnas constructs a room where Darkness can appear in visible form to speak with it, and when he leaves darkness can just hide itself so if anyone goes poking around in the room they won't find anything. Xigbar/Luxu spying on Xemnas trying to find out what he is doing is because Luxu knows about Darkness's abilities and he may have suspected that Xemnas was talking with Darkness.

To further this Darkness would explain a lot on Xehanort's knowledge.

Sora: He knew everything that was going to happen?
YX: No not everything, but remember Ansem possessed Riku and saw his experiences in real time
Sora: So, that could only tell him so much. How did he know I would be here?
YX: Simple *shows image of Kairi's heart flying into Sora's*
*skip to TT*
YX: You've been to this world many times in your memories, in the data, and in your dreams again and again like deja vu.

In other worlds the MoM saw all this happen and wrote it down, then stuff from the book was brought into the world multiple times, and darkness experienced all of this again and again. Just sitting, watching, observing, experimenting to try and understand, and trying to keep things on course like sending Maleficent back. Then at some point it joined with Xehanort, seeking refuge in him like Kairi did to Sora, and in doing so Xehanort gained access to its knowledge and experiences. Maybe that's what the eye color change represents, they eyes of the being called Darkness staring out from within him. Would explain the opening of KH3 with the scene where YX stares into the sky and sees a dark purple flame in the sky that is reflected in his eyes.

Thus I will take it one step further and suggest that Apprentice Xehanort when he said he isn't Xehanort in DDD is true, that Ansem is Darkness or the being of Darkness merged with Xehanort's own darkness. In fact you could take it a step further, continuing the experiment under Ansem's name then taking it himself. If Darkness can sense what a person wants it may literally have just been acting on what it felt from Ansem the Wise. In other words it was doing what Ansem the Wise wanted to do, carrying on the work he wanted, because it doesn't comprehend the morality of why Ansem the Wise stopped. With Xehanort's own desires getting mixed up in there as well.

When Xemnas says he thought he be praised but instead Ansem the Wise kept holding back causing him to want to erase him, it's genuine. It was acting on what AtW wanted and no matter how much it did what he wanted it was met with being told to hold back, to stop. Unable to understand that it saw Ansem as holding himself back so it got rid of him and took his place, but again Xehanort's own desires are mixed in with this to. It's a messy hodgepodge where there is no real distinction where one ends and the other begins.

In way then for a time Xemnas really WAS all that's left of Xehanort. Since darkness is incorporeal unless it chooses to take form the human body is 100% the being of light's. Ergo as the living body of AX he was all that was left of Xehanort (well really all that was left of Terra hijacked by Xehanort but let's not get into that), but you can then see Xehanort's nihilism at work. Taking the name of Xemnas meaning in a way all he ever was, was the husk vessel for Darkness, for Ansem, thus the name Xemnas. Because that's what Young Xehanort ends up believing, that the heart's true essence is darkness, and Xehanort carried that belief with him for the rest of his life. If the heart's true essence is darkness you don't need to fight the darkness you need to embrace it, be one with it, to be true to yourself is to act on those dark desires in your heart not hold them back.

Your light is a farce, you're just a vessel for a darkness you can barely contain with a false light, and that's all you ever will be in this broken ruined failed world. Co-existence is impossible with no leader managing people, they will always be at war because the average person can't comprehend things. They see it black and white, darkness vs light, evil vs good and in that rigid view peace can't be reached so someone who can comprehend it all, like Xehanort believed himself able to become, needs to step up and lead. Start the world over free of preconceived notions and guide it from the beginning to create harmony rather than an endless war. In a way it seems almost noble, in the most absolutely depressing faithless way imaginable. A belief and plan based on assuming/seeing the worst in everyone.

Transcript for the one important scene is in the OP. Have to re-export vids due to a minor issue.

1. Can I just say HOLY COW they're milking this Wreck It Ralph scenario
2. Also, weird glitch at 0:52 above MoM
3. If they could give customized Keyblades this whole time (I'm talking about Brain's Master Defender), I wonder why they're still choosing to give a lot of the main characters generic KHUX Keyblades. I feel like there should be some diversity.

I don't think they'd be calling it a "Final Chapter" if it wasn't going to be concluded by December 2021 at the very latest.

The MoM said that Darkness doesn't like beings of Pure Heart because it scared them because they're complicated to understanding.

lol looks like Sora will defeat the Darkness in one fell swoop by confusing the hell out of them.

Also, I feel like Phase 1 was meant to demonize the Darkness, while this next Phase 2 could be about understanding it and showing a never before seen side that could make us sympathetic over it.

Like a moral grey area.

So like the No Name Keyblade Brain's Master's defender was passed down generation to generation. That's good to know. When Donald claimed that "it was so old" that always seemed like an exaggeration. Now it makes sense

Considering the cliffhanger we got today, I don't think we're gonna get a main story update next time, just the Candy Kingdom ending (If it doesn't end by next update, it is just a pure joke). The update would probably end on the player going back to daybreak town. Which means like 4/5 months without any updates on darkness and the union leaders. Brace yourselves guys.

Okay, but the point is that they don't directly say that it will end next year. The final chapter could go on for longer than 2021. Depends on how many episodes are in the final chapter.

I do wonder if Brain will also get No Name - making it so both his Keyblades are passed down - or if No Name's gonna go to Ephemer.

Thanks for waiting! All videos are up:

1. I truly believed this would be the last one ? Someone please save Player from obscurity.

2. That was me, I goofed while editing the video. Should be fixed in the reupload.

The light this sheds on Ven is the most interesting part IMO. "The fated child as written in the Book of Prophecies." At this point we can almost say for certain that MX's effort to take Ven in as his pupil and, thereafter, to split him into pure light and pure darkness, will be revisited in the future and injected with new significance.

Also, this update essentially gives us confirmation that Luxu/Xigbar is well aware of exactly who Ven is. If he's been watching over them, then he surely must also know what Ven looks like. The Xigbar-Roxas relationship just got more interesting.

This is just speculation, no? I don't believe this has been confirmed anywhere. At this point we don't have any reason yet to believe that the references to the Keyblade War as in-world lore throughout the series refer to anything but the War from Unchained χ, but this could of course change.



I really like this Xemnas-talking-to-Darkness theory. Chamber of Waking/Repose will almost certainly make a comeback, especially with this new lore surrounding Ven. This theory could probably expanded to include some kind of ongoing relationship with Darkness seeking out Ven's slumbering body, abetted by Xemnas.

EDIT: Returning with some quotes from Xigbar (the man himself) re: Chamber of Repose which are quite fascinating in the current context: "The Chamber of Repose... If you recall, that's where we spent our time researching the darkness that resides within people's hearts... The first thing Xemnas did once he got rid of [Ansem the Wise] was to undo the seal and build a room in the back. Ever since then, he holes himself up in that room when he can, and he talks to someone. But who? For all I know he's the only one in that room."

Also, we now know that Apprentice Xehanort - Xemnas' direct predecessor - was using that same research space for other very mysterious ends. This is shaping up to be most intriguing...

It's gonna be the next my friends are my power bs.
i can 100% see it happening

I think many of us thought that the Master "disappeared", to go to the Verum Rex world... but I think the truth is, when the Master and Luxu disappeared... they are actually going to this Unchained X virtual world that the game takes place in, and have these conversations that we are seeing in the latest story updates. The video above implies that Luxu and the MoM both went away, and at some point Luxu comes back.

Also, I think people don't understand how potentially huge this recent revelation on the nature of Darkness is... For so long, we just thought Darkness was there as this like "angry" side of everyone's heart (which it still could very well be), but now it appears to be these invisible beings that only want to seek out the desires of individuals, and make them happen... or they are just being coordinated by someone, and they are just giving us vague answers that won't be all that helpful. Darkness states that there are more beings of Darkness, then there are of light... interesting. Darkness also was "old friends" the MoM, but doesn't need him/work for him, it looks like down on humans for some reason, and is usually invisible except for right now.

I know many of us were already operating on the assumption of Darkness in people's heart/Realm of darkness is different from these "Beings of Darkness" who wish to act upon and manipulate the desires of people they see (at least so far as they have explained), but what if they really are one in the same? If that were true - what impact would that have on the conclusion of things in Kh2: that all darkness is natural, and half of what makes our hearts work, and we need to just accept it. If that's true, than at some point living people were pure light, and accepted these beings of Darkness, and we then had to learn to reign in our inner darkness, which only wants us to pursue our own betterment (easily translatable to the deadly sins) in order to keep worlds and people from falling completely into darkness. Why Darkness ACTUALLY exists (besides the not so helpful "if there's light, there's always a shadow" explanation) seems to be that it came OUT OF people who had pure light... but had desires for more, more light... and for some reason that manifested into actual dark beings? Darkness hearts pure light... probably because they have no desires for them to exploit and plant themselves within. Still, Darkness seems to speak lowly of humans... Yet it looks like Darkness constantly looks for hearts, and use their desires to infiltrate them.

Potentially, Darkness once always existed INSIDE of light, and light PUSHED that part itself out, in order to prevent war and pain, which it saw happening. As such, Darkness is like this completely shunned part of Light, that is just as important and old as "light" itself, and it really took until the modern Sora era for everyone to realize that trying to avoid darkness just made it stronger and could never actually stop it.

Still, we know the MoM goes to the Verum Rex world at some point. So there's still a lot more to explain.

Anyone else curious about what Luxu's motivations are after this update? Like, he's always been a mischievous guy, especially as Xigbar. It makes it very hard for me to believe that Luxu's motivation is simply "because the master said so." There has to be more to it than that. He has too much personality/too much of a sense of self for his motivation to simply be because he's following orders from the master.

Every time we get a new update and we see Luxu and the Master talking in that room with the screens it makes me wonder how Luxu can possibly think that a miserable existence of body hopping for thousands of years and never forming any actual meaningful relationships in that time is all worth it in the end. It really makes me wonder what the Master has planned. The end goal has to be extremely beneficial to Luxu in some way.

One thing I've noticed with Kingdom Hearts is that quite a few characters that start out as "bad guys" eventually are given so much depth to their character that Nomura has no choice but to have them join the good guys. We've seen it with Axel, many other organization members, and hell, even Xehanort himself. I'm starting to sense that from Luxu and given his nature of crossing people, I wouldn't be surprised if he double crosses his own Master and ends up on the side of Sora and folks.

This character just has too much going on to simply be the Master's underling. He's either going to greatly benefit from the Master's plan or he's going to join the good guys. Only time will tell.

I think darkness saying "there is more darkness then light" is a reference to 13 darknesses and 7 lights which make the X-Blade.
maybe one of the darknesses is inside the black box, and when the time comes MoM will use it to summon the other pieces and summon kingdom hearts using the foretellers as light.

"Master, have you ever spoken to the darkness?"

"My dude, do you hear this music right now?"

Today's update showed us that Luxu was worried about the union leaders. It could be a possibility that somehow knowing those kids are be safe is enough for Luxu to live the life he had.
Also the master strictly forbid Luxu from meddling with fate, yet Braig did side with Xehanort and attacked Ventus during birth by sleep. Unless this was written in the book of prophecies, Luxu went against his master.

This sounds like such a Nomura thing to do that I could plausibly see this as the narrative conflict for Kingdom Hearts IV.

I'm curious to see the moment where No Name is entered into the mix, and a little bit is explained in regards to how both of these keyblades get passed down. Defender might just be Eraqus' bloodline, so it doesn't matter who's actually and No Name goes to each Master... But does Luxu just literally find the first Keyblade Master (which one would assume would be Brain, but I guess doesn't have to be) and give it to him - or does Luxu just plant himself as the first Keyblade Master randomly, and then pass it on.

I forgot what I was going to type here while I was replying at a different thread. I think I was going to question about why Darkness would even bother about human affairs if they've been existing separately long before that. If it's something basic like to parasitically reproduce, I swear...

Perpahs the MoM is a creature of light like the Darkness we see now. And there are many different beings/creatures of pure light and pure dark. Perhaps the reason why he uses the coat is to keep this a secret, maybe to keep the light under control or something. The ultimate light is hidden in the ultimate darkness.

Are these darknesses Heartless? Or do they predate them as the original darkness, like when everything first began? Thr darkness controlling Ventus I assume stays with him and eventually becomes Vanitas. At that point maybe it changes plans and simply wants to reunite with Ventus.

Also, the MoM, on purpose, absued the power of waking so that he would be sent to the Final World, where he found his way to Qaudratum where he lived for god knows how long. Maybe time doesn't pass the same in unreality.

The Mom theme, though, is amazing.

Thanks for the translations! This was certainly interesting learning more about Darkness. Even though it is being painted as the main antagonist right now, I would not count out the Master of Masters. There could be a twist coming where his plan to eliminate Darkness is just as evil as...whatever it is Darkness does.

I'm also fascinated that Darkness used Ventus as a vessel because he was pure. Does that mean Darkness was inside Sora too all those years of his life while inside Ventus? Can Darkness qualify as another Sora? While I ponder that, Darkness said Ventus wanted power or to be a Union Leader. So the dark Ava couldn't have been the real Ava. It makes me even more curious where she is.

And finally Luxu is going to observe the Dandelions? How much watching has this guy done? This makes his connection with Ventus bigger then was BBS showed at least.

I feel like this would've been a given anyway considering how close Ven is with the other Union Leaders, but yeah, it's a straight up confirmation that he's kept an eye on Ven the longest.

Which makes me wonder why he's got beef with Ven, because in BBS, he was planning to kill Aqua and Ven in the Keyblade Graveyard himself. That HAS to be going against the Master's orders because that's well beyond "meddling". However... Luxu says he's never read the Book, so maybe the Master had already known what Luxu was going to do later down the road. As Xigbar, Luxu plays an immense role in the Keyblade War, basically serving as Xehanort's right-hand man, so there's no way the MoM didn't know. Especially when we know he met Young Xehanort way back in the day.

It makes me think before Ven was sent to the BBS era, he and Luxu must've had some sort of showdown or something, and he's had it out for him ever since. Cause Luxu is going from "I have to protect these kids!" to "You idiots never saw what was coming." Although... Body hopping through time and seeing the darkness play out the way that it did, I could see why he became a lot more cynical. Still, what a change.




It makes sense because the war in Chi started because of everyone wanting more Lux for themselves and their Union. And since everyone wanted to be on equal footing in case one Union didn't try to spark a war with another, they just kept hoarding it. A fight that revolved around light ended up destroying that entire World, not just Daybreak Town. And it's only in Union X, after Unchained X, that we start seeing Darkness move around. So when Darkness is saying that it's always been around, we have to think that far back when thinking about the story so far.

What I find interesting about Luxu here is how concerned he seems about the welfare of the Dandelions, like a 'mother hen'. It doesn't sound like Xigbar at all, who appears to not care about anyone in the main games and is frequently causally cruel and mocking. I wonder what happens to him in the meantime and what his change in personality could mean.

I'm even a little tempted to read more into this line:

Master: Wow, Luxu. Don't you have any respect for your superiors? Maybe you're the one who's got more in common with the darkness!

Agreed, what the Darkness does is practically acting on their own whim and also own interpretation of the few feelings and wishes they are able to glimpse without any effort to gain insight on context and proportionality.

Considering Ven's overall personality the "power" he wanted was very likely along the lines of having more self-confidence and courage to interact more with people, make friends etc., not some actual political power or being an actual leader of other people, which is shown throughout the entirety of Ux how shy and insecure he is about everything and how he's totally uneasy with all this "leader"-stuff.
He only gets somewhat more confident once he has had "pep-talks" of almost all of the other leaders and feels included in the group, which makes sense in the light of during his introduction where he lamented about being a loner which he obviously wasn't comfortable with.

Such nuances are completely lost on those "Darkness" beings though and I do honestly hesitate on the whole "depends on the user"-interpretation because these "Darkness" beings still act on their own volition, not on command by those who they (apparently almost always without consent) chose as their hosts.

Since these Darkness beings seem to be an entirely different form of life their effects on beings like "us" being completely negative in almost every way would be an effect of nature though, just like a virus in real life.
The whole "evil" or "not evil" issue thus still stands but generally spoken so far the possibility that the Darkness beings doing these things out of ignorance rather than willful malice is still up in the air.
Not that it makes much of a difference to those harmed by them though in-universe compared to us in the audience here who can easily indulge in some philosophical debate about the whole issue because we aren't affected by it.

I could imagine Lauriam really not caring much about any of these "finer details" and the MoM telling Luxu about how "Darkness" are masters of mental warfare makes me doubt if there's really no malicious intent involved from their side.



Clearly it does explain both Eraqus' and Xehanort's (as Hirokey notes further down) more extensive knowledge although their sources are likely different so they both also get a biased and skewed version of it all from their respective sources with Brain being Eraqus' while Xehanort's would be most likely one of the "Darknesses".

The extent of the knowledge is still up to debate, but Eraqus certainly knew that Ven is someone "special" just as Xehanort did, which makes Ventus practically the exact opposite of Sora, almost a "cosmic plaything" for the "big players" to push around.


This makes quite some sense I'd say, also in regards to Xemnas stating something along the lines of "it has been a long time "friend" when he sits down on the throne of the CoR.

Many have interpreted this as either the "Terra-side" shining through addressing Aqua or Xehanort being a bit "mockingly" but who knows, maybe it was Xemnas addressing a "Darkness" being or even two Darkness beings, one in Xemnas the one "freely" non-physically swarming the room having a conversation among themselves.

In one of the KH2 FM scenes when Zexion and Vexen talk about Xemnas being in the chamber Vexen murmurs something about Xemnas "sleeping" which was in the Days of DDD being interpreted as Xemnas possibly visiting the Sleeping realm but it could also be him just having relinquished control completely to the "Darkness" being.


So, are you suggesting that Xehanort has/had a similar situation as Ven but unlike him, he willingly accepted that Darkness being?
In the BBS reports Xehanort does state he eventually ceased to wear his armor so that might have been the time period where he "met" one of these Darknesses and probably came to a sort of "agreement" with it.

The MoM states that Darkness cannot see a persons thoughts so it can't actually see what said person truly wants, only the more primal, feral desires involved in it so it would make sense that if Apprentice Xehanort had such a being with him the reasons why Ansem the Wise would actually want to stop all his research would completely fly over the Darkness beings mind because it has no concept of morality or even care and empathy.

I can imagine that this whole "researching people's hearts" must have been like a golden opportunity for a potentially involved Darkness being because the heart is the thing they know and understand the least about, although this would of course throw the whole issues with Terra-Xehanort and Apprentice Xehanort even more out of whack because now one would have to nitpick out what statements and actions were actually Xehanort's and which ones were the "Darkness being" at helm.

No doubt there will also be debates to have then how much of Xehanort's undoubtedly horrible actions were truly done on his own volition and how much was, perhaps albeit indirectly, influenced by "Darkness".



I think the main issue here will be what further actions the MoMs "Master plan" actually entails, as while possibly having noble intentions the MoMs plan could possibly end only in a pyrrhic victory or in a "was it worth it?"-question considering all the collateral damage that seems to be caused by it.
The scenario of both Darkness and the MoM being antagonistic and wrong has also been proposed several times already with Sora and his circle of friends and companions needing to come up with a third option so there's still quite some room for alternate outcomes.

How big is the chance that Darkness only learned of Ventus because they overlooked the writing of the Book of Prophecies in the first place?
MoM says to Luxu that "Darkness hates those who are pure of heart, " and that "There may be danger, but they're just the kind of people that darkness is weakest against. " which indicates that people of pure heart have something which can be used either against Darkness or at least deny them success.

Why would Darkness qualify as "another Sora" though? What does Sora even have to do with it?
Ven's and Sora's hearts didn't actually merge at any time, they're closely connected and Sora harbored Ven's heart for a while so if the hidden Darkness was still present it would still be confined to Ven's heart...unless Roxas accidentally released it when he reached into Ven's heart to activate his Keyblade for dual-wielding.
Who knows, the armored Ventus-Nightmare enemy in DDD which possessed Ven's armor might actually have a connection to this "Darkness".

What Darkness says about Ven "wanting power" is the very limited understanding it has of it, not what Ven actually wanted.
Terra and Riku too "wanted power" but it was for overall noble and understandable reasons, yet the Darkness beings can't see those according to the MoM so they go with the assumption of the most primal variant of it.


Tbh to me it looks more like Ven has "a beef" with Luxu and not the other way around. What Xigbar is consistently mentioning and remembering is the "angry look" Ven gave/gives him so it looks more like there is something that made Ven angry at Luxu, possibly even different factors and that look got "passed on" to both Sora and Roxas due to how close Ven's heart is to both of them.

It is by now however pretty clear that there seems to be something bigger between Luxu/Xigbar and Ventus in terms of connection beyond what all the earlier games so far hinted at, even completely unconnected to Xehanort.
However, since Luxu is a body hopper Ven might not even be aware that multiple people he used his "death glare" against were in fact secretly the same guy who remembers every instance of it.

Speaking of it, this also perhaps merits another look at some of the more obscure things given by Xigbar in 358/2 Days which when it was released were certainly intended and given as references to Birth By Sleep, yet might actually go further.
That Xigbar sees Ventus in Xion's shapeshifting ability primarily while Xemnas' view shifts between seeing actual Xion, Sora and Ventus in her.
In the original Days Luxu/Xigbar comments "Of all the faces... Why do I look at her and see yours? Do you always have to stare at me like I just drowned your goldfish?"
which indicates Ventus glaring at him like this more than once, so it doesn't just reference the one time in BBS.
In the ReMixes they changed the line to "Why is it that you always have to glare at me like that?" which imho drives the point home even further that it a) happened more often already and b) that the antagonism comes mainly from Ven's side and Xigbar/Luxu not exactly understanding why.

In the secret reports Xigbar also comments with some vague stuff on Roxas and Ven:

Sure, people can argue the "him" means Sora but that doesn't really add up with Xigbar's assertion about never escaping the things he did as a human. Sora has never met the human Braig, but Ven has.
Furthermore, throughout the Secret Reports in Days when Sora is spoken about he's either referred by name or as "the hero", not "him".


In a different Report Xemnas confirms to sometimes see Xion as Sora, but the Days Ultimania states sometimes he also sees her as Ventus and sometimes even as her "default" black-haired girl form.

As usual it is very vague but it is exactly such a setup which Nomura has often used to expand on later down the whole overarching story line.



There is a huge gap of time between these conversations Luxu and the MoM have and present era "Xigbar-Luxu" so the opportunities for Luxu's outlook to change are manifold.
Not to mention that Luxu's own motivations are still quite a mystery themselves and Ava did accuse him of misreading/misusing the Master's intentions right before the Keyblade War itself.

Then there's also the issue with Xigbar/Luxu having the golden eyes and claiming to be "half-Xehanort" so that could also have affected his personality and outlook.
Depending on if there's another of these "Darkness"-beings involved as mentioned earlier with Xehanort, Xemnas etc. so could Xigbar/Luxu be as well which might also attribute indirectly to a change in personality.

I do in fact think that besides Xigbar/Luxu and Xehanort all the Foretellers might be "afflicted" with a "Darkness" being which worked towards them giving in to their darker desires and intentions which eventually caused the escalations between them.
It is especially noticeable with Aced and Gula whose "sanity" seemed to detoriate over the course of back cover and the original browser Chi.

The idea that the Master of Master is a being of pure Light (not a Pure Heart) like what the Darknesses are is interesting. But if makes you wonder: if there are multiple Darknesses, are there multiple Lights? And this Re:MINDs me (lol) of what the MoM told Xehanort in the DLC:

When the Master of Masters told Xehanort his name, a flash of light came. Maybe that's why Xehanort was surprised: his name is Light.

[ATTACH=full]13436[/ATTACH]
It was right under our noses the whole time holy crap

You see, Ventus was never a Dandelion to begin with, so technically speaking, Luxu has no obligation to grant Ven the same priviledges as the others who were appointed as Union Leaders.

We only know he wasn’t meant to be a union leader, nothing about not being a Dandelion.

Tbh though, and this is just a personal opinion, he doesn’t even seem to make the cut as a Dandelion at all. He’s too weak, and I don’t mean in terms of lux count, just, overall his constitution. Sad, lonely, insecure, gullible, etc. It’s like looking at cannon fodder.

Thanks for spotting my error there, I meant to say Union Leader not Dandelion... then again, do we know if Ventus was worthy to be a Dandelion?



Looking back at Case of Ava, it seems that Ventus doesn't quite fit the criteria that the Master of Masters was looking for. Maybe that gives Luxu the greenlight to interfere with Ventus?

I wonder how they'll interpret the whole "friend" thing in Global since they said Darkness itself was Maleficent's old friend, rather than Darkness was affiliated with a third party (unless it turns out that these two lines have nothing to do with each other lol).

I'm concerned about the direction this is going, because right off the bat, it doesn't seem that Nomura is a talented enough writer to pull off a character like Darkness right. Consider how many contradictions there were in this segment alone:
1) The Master clearly says that Darkness is not very conversational, and doesn't communicate well with humans. I don't know about you, but Darkness seems to be communicating perfectly fine, and he isn't exactly conserving his words more than the average person, either.
2) The Master states one second that there's no way for them to understand the Darkness, and yet in the next breath mentions that their behavior is based on reacting to the desires in other people's hearts. That belies a clear understand of how they think and what they respond to, which means they do in fact understand them. It would have been more appropriate to say that their natures are so different that it makes the two races incompatible.
3) The Master also states that Darkness plays mind games, and that in his opinion there isn't anyone better. But he also says that Darkness can't understand people's hearts and why they do the things they do. Those two statements don't mix. If Darkness can't understand people's motivations and how they think and feel, then how can it play any kind of mind games with them? You can only play mind games with people when you have an intimate comprehension of how they think and what they would do in any given situation. Based on what the Master says, it gives the impression that Darkness is basically this mindless, incomprehensible entity with little to no intellect or rationality, merely a singular driving impulse, like a prototypical version of the Heartless. But what we've seen throughout this game doesn't jive with that impression.
And I DON'T buy for a second that the contradictions are due to some greater game of deception being played by either Darkness or the Master or both of them, and that Nomura is intentionally trying to mislead us. I think Nomura just wants to have it both ways. He wants to convince us that this new antagonist is something totally different from Xehanort and the Master by claiming that it doesn't think at all like them. But at the same time, he also wants us to be enthralled by the creature's villainy, and Nomura only knows pretty much one way to write a "villain": cryptic dialogue, smug condescension, scheming behavior, grandiose pretensions, and belittling taunts. Writing an incomprehensible "creature" character is just not something he's interested in writing, because it's so far outside of his comfort zone. If this is the new enemy we have to look forward to seeing more of in the future, then I'm not impressed.
By the way, extra points for the ridiculously tired anime cliche of the new antagonist getting attacked by a hero and then just magic-propelling him back against a wall without breaking a sweat in order to show off its absurd power that will get heavily downgraded by the time you actually have to fight the thing for real. Haven't seen that a million times before in just this franchise alone.

AR you need to relax, this is a mobile story for kids it isn't some higher work of art. ALSO, you need to remember that while the MoM scene and the dorkness scene are inherently contradictory, you also need to remember that we only have this instance of dripfeed gacha mobileshit story that likely won't be expanded upon for another couple of months. To understand what Nomura wants from Darkness the entity, we the fanbase are probably going to need to delve into Quadratum, understand unreality, and a number of other things to get that clear picture. It'll be years.

Even though witholding information to manipulate people is the Master's entire deal?

I mean, I say that like it's obvious, but a lot of people here still want to know who the traitor was in Back Cover, so I guess people will keep taking him at his word no matter how many times he does this.

Even if I don't take what MoM says at face value, Darkness' statements contradict themselves. He states on the one hand that he/it doesn't have goals, yet they specifically chose to possess Ven because of his role in the Book of Prophecies, which suggests some sort of longer term goal.
And I would happily turn my brain off and not take any of this seriously, except combing over every fine little detail has proven to be the only way to understand a lot of the major developments in this franchise.

It doesn’t help that some of the subtler nuances get lost in translation.

Now that this update landed right in the middle of the month, I wonder what the next update schedule looks like.

This is the type of dialogue where voice acting makes a very large difference...

I feel that darkness is lying about a lot of things to do with its nature, or at the very least misdirecting the truth. Regardless this update couldn’t feel like a bigger fuck you. We’ve been watching this one singular scene play out for what? Half a year??? This is a drip feeds drip feed.

I predict Union Cross will be finished on March 28 2021 to coincide with the release of the very first Kingdom Hearts.

That's a very wishful thinking.
only if we get story update every 2-3 weeks, instead of every month or two.

Let's look at the release timetable. Hypothetically speaking, we get a Dark Road update for January, a Union Cross update for February and a Union Cross/Dark Road update for March.

What other unanswered questions could there possibly be in Union Cross at this point outside of where Lauriam, Elrena, Ventus and Skuld end up after The Age of Fairy Tales? Of course, I could be very wrong here, but Union Cross feels like its reaching its climax.

There was a 3 month gap between DR Chapters 2 and 3, so safe to assume we'll be getting a few more UX updates before Chapter 4 hits.

I don't think much good comes from speculating when the story ends. People have been doing this nonstop ever since they announced the story was entering its final chapter. Just enjoy it as it comes and let it run its course, eager beavers.

Perhaps we will find out MoM's name in Dark Road in a future update, maybe one near the end or something.

Before cutting the discussion as to when Union Cross' story will end: take into consideration that Dark Road is tied to KHUx in terms of accessing the game. If anything, Ux will end alongside DR, meaning that Union could very well end during the last months of next year, seeing as how I don't think Dark Road will have that much of story content.

---

That said, one of these two could be happening:

1.) The MoM doesn't know that Darkness has changed and/or, since Darkness said there are several Darknesses, it's possible that each one has a personality of its own.

2. Darkness is lying.

My assumption was that Dark Road would continue going on after UX ended, with DR being in the same program being Nomura's excuse for being allowed to end UX at all (and possibly remake it). The name of the program would probably change to Dark Road to reflect this transition.

Honestly, I think the only reason why Dark Road is tied to the Union Cross application is because it keeps the existing UX playerbase as oppose to forming a new one with a new app. Dark Road was created because the UX developers wanted to work on another Kingdom Hearts project after UX, meaning, Union Cross is finally being finished.

Probably, but I doubt they'll close the service. They can just outright say that the story is over, but still offer minimal updates. KHUx could close services 2022, perhaps.


It is. But it also isn't an issue of creating a new player base, but also of making sure that existing players try the product.

Reading all this stuff about Xehanort being also possessed by one of the Darkness beings reminded me about somehting in MoM (the game)
[SPOILER="Also includes theories about MoM, which coudl be connected to Darkness"]AX is talking to Kairi and the last thing he tells her, that "you have to abandon the mission - we have failed".

I already wondered if AX is really talking to Kairi, which seems likely, because she was meant to find for him a Keyblade wielder and not someone/something else (another being which was placed into Kairi? Illusion-MX said to Kairi that there are memories not longer being there, which could be this now missing being) and now the "we" can also be interpretated like that. Darkness refers to itself or its kind as "we". A combination of Xehanort and Darkness can also be understood as a "we". But "we" as in AX and Kairi seemed off to me and could only fit if there was a talk between them beforehand left out.

And while its so much fun to speculate, lets do some more. The more simpler things first. The MoM scene happened likely before the beginning DDD scene, because in the former AX memories and personality seem intact and he knows more than Ansem SoD/Xemnas later. I can see both scenes happen at around the same day. AX wants to save Radiant Garden from being engulfed in Darkness atleast at that point. He may control the Heartless at that time, but maybe he knew things were already beginning to go out of his control. Either because he saw how the Heartless were multiplying or because he noticed, that his own "Darkness" was about to gain control.

After he sent Kairi/whoever of, Darkness took control out of nowhere and attacked, back at the computer room, AX's colleagues and ends this with stabbing Braig of all people. Luxu wondered before if Xehanort never lost his memories and is answered that "he" is not "Xehanort", but "Ansem", tying in to the thought of someone else, that "Ansem SoD" is Xehanorts darkness and "Darkness" somehow combined. If Darkness was involved in all this I see it as very likely, that Darkness targeted "Luxu" and not "Braig", gaining some time in order to do its own business for a small amount of time, before Luxu is able to watch again, because it doesnt want MoMs lackey to know that it was so close the entire time or what it's doing.

I also had a thought about Subject X's heart being placed into Kairi and being the actual one, who AX/the Darkness inside him talks to, but I neglected that idea... To a part. Its difficult for me and I think myself thats all one big strech... I just let others decide what they make from it.

His talk about finding a keyblade wielder suits Kairi more, but Subject X is likely to be someone who was/is a keyblade wielder too, regardless if its Skuld or Ava. AX could have hoped, that if Subject X would gain control of Kairi at some point that she could do the inheritance ceremony to someone and create this way atleast one more keyblade wielder.
[/SPOILER]

One thing I've been thinking about recently. I don't know if anyone has brought this up yet, but in the KH2FM, Xigbar states he was scouting someone to join the Organization. Mar...something, he called him. Obviously that has to be Marluxia. Given who Xigbar is now, this gives that statement so much more meaning if he's been watching him this whole time, similar to his relationship with Ventus.

Even though KH3 said Xemnas recruited him, maybe it was Xigbar who informed him about Marluxia, while still watching him all this time. I hope they bring this up in the future.

You make a good point, the illusion of Xehanort isn't really explained and we know Nomura loves his explainations or foreshadowing. The Xehanort saga is over so there's not really much purpose in keeping him relevant beyond Dark Road.

I'm a sucker for the idea of Apprentice Xehanort being utilized as a host for Darkness.

They might as well. Apprentice Xehanort has no agency of his own anymore. Might as well go the extra mile and say on top of the fake/not fake amnesia, Darkness was using him too.

Darkness was using Terra during his Mark of Mastery exam so it'd be on brand.

Let's go! I want Darkness in on this story. So in addition to being half Terra and half old man Xehanort we got ourselves Darkness too. Can't forget Eraqus hiding in Terra's heart too. So that would bring us to 4 different beings inside whatever version of Xehanort. Too bad Apprentice Xehanort didn't have a split personality and have one of each version take over his body randomly at Radiant Garden, at different times of the day.