Line #3 TearJerker/KingdomHeartsX


1	!!'''WARNING: Per wiki policy, spoilers are unmarked on Tear Jerker pages.'''
2	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/strelitzia_and_chirithy_final_moments.jpg]]
3	[[caption-width-right:350:That was Strelitzia's last word of regret to the player before she died.]]
4	* One episode of the story in Daybreak Town opens with your Chirithy chatting with another Chirithy about their respective Keyblade wielders. At the end of the episode, the other Chirithy is lying on the ground at the meeting spot, only having enough time to tell your Chirithy that its player has fallen to darkness before disappearing. This is the fate that awaits ''all'' Chirithy should their Keyblade wielder fall. It gets worse when your Union's Foreteller shows up and explains to Chirithy that despite all the Lux being gathered, darkness is still spreading with even more power. [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking And all while]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJA7cXBv6gw this song]] [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking plays in the background]].
5	** From the same episode, you meet up with a group of other Keyblade wielders whose leader informs you that a new breed of heartless showed up and enlists your help to thin their numbers out, promising to meet back there when you're done. Throughout the missions, you can interact with them while eliminating heartless, up until the second-to-last mission where none of them are to be found. When you go back to where you promised to meet up, you see Chirithy instead (presumably the leader's and the one talking to your Chirithy earlier). He tells you that they're not coming and only came to give you a message: "''I'm sorry I couldn't keep our promise.''" Even your player character is visibly shocked by this.
6	* One day, Ephemer promises to meet up with the player the next day so that they can continue investigating the Foretellers' tower. He [[StoodUp doesn't show]], and the player spends the ''whole day'' waiting for him.
7	* The revelation that Heartless are fallen humans. Players already know this from the first game in the series, but it's a gut punch to the protagonists.
8	* Chirithy's reaction to the appearance of the Nightmare Chirithy. He's heartbroken that one of his species has fallen to darkness.
9	* Since this story happens before the Keyblade War, which pretty much wrecked the universe, the future of Daybreak Town and its inhabitants doesn't look good.
10	* When Skuld first joined her Union, she started a party of her own...and no one joined. Until Ephemer joined one day, and the two of them worked together for a while, and the party slowly started to grow. But one day, just as suddenly as he'd joined the Party, he left. The party had gotten big, and he told Skuld that she didn't need him anymore.
11	* The ending: You see the beginning and fight in the Keyblade War. You see how everything falls apart, especially when you see the hearts of the keyblade wielders are floating away throughout battle ''non-stop''. It's [[{{Pun}} heartbreaking]]. The final scene makes it worse.
12	** The fact that Ava attacking Luxu starts the Keyblade War; [[VideoGame/KingdomHeartsBirthBySleep once again]], the BigGood causes a DownerEnding because she went too far in trying to save everyone.
13	** Furthermore, the Protagonist is forced to fight four of five Foretellers in a row, never actually winning any of the fights while they're battered and very, very much detest the war itself. Aced even batters them after the fight and kicks them while they're down for extra measure. It's no wonder that after all's said and done, the Protagonist just collapses in the middle of the battlefield on the brink of exhaustion or even near-death.
14	** The Protagonist is the ''only one'' on the battlefield wondering why no one else is questioning why they're fighting ''their own friends''.
15	*** Though we don't see them and you probably didn't think much of them besides being {{Filler}}, some of the participants may have been the friends you made in the Daybreak Town quests. The group that helped you defeat the Raid Boss when you first became a Keyblade wielder, the boy who refused to have friends until you got to him, the group that you went hunting for Heartless with... not all of them are guaranteed to have become Dandelions.
16	** Each of the Foretellers (with the exception of Aced) have an added element of sadness should you fight them.
17	*** Invi [[ApologeticAttacker apologizes for getting the player involved]] and promises to make the fight end quicker. When defeated, she's the only one who compliments her former allies on the warrior they raised, and urges the player to get through the war.
18	*** Gula asks the player if they're okay, before reminding them that they're on a battlefield. After the fight, he tells the player that he'll "see them around". He doesn't...
19	*** Ira offers to be merciful to the player out of respect, praising their growth and lamenting that he didn't have them in his union.
20	*** Ava's fight probably hits the hardest. After having heard the truth from Luxu, the despondent Foreteller marches into the battlefield and does battle with the player. After the fight, she pleads with the player to leave the fight and join the Dandelions, before walking off to her doom. Even worse is that this really is the last we see of Ava for now, as she [[spoiler:doesn't even appear in ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsIII's'' epilogue]].
21	* ''Back Cover'' gives us a new one for the Foretellers (including Luxu). Each and every one of them were friends with each other, but the revelation of a Traitor in their midst breaks them all in different ways. Gula isolates himself from other people, Aced is visibly upset by the very idea, and the others seem in disbelief that one of them would even betray the others, and Luxu seems to have a hint of being distraught at having to leave. As Back Cover goes on, we see how the tensions between the Foretellers fracture their relationships with each other further, to the point where Aced is ganged up on by Invi, Ava and Gula. Yet even as they fight each other, it's very visible that each one of them is lamenting the idea that one of them would betray the others, and how badly they each react to being accused of being the traitor and even some token signs of still trying to show they are friends (the scene between Ira and Aced after the latter fights off the three other Foretellers, Ava and Invi explaining their roles to each other, Gula's hesitation at actually killing Aced and bringing up his idea to Ava on summoning Kingdom Hearts come to mind) makes the very idea of the Keyblade War being set off by them all going against each other all the more heartbreaking. And Luxu can't do anything except watch. The factor that there's implications of the Master setting them all against each other in a BatmanGambit is even worse.
22	* Poor Strelitzia. She's murdered and in her last moments, her Chirithy apologizes for not being able to protect her and she wishes she had spoken to the player character. Her last words before fading into the light was:
23	-->'''Strelitzia''': ''"I wish... I'd had the courage."''
24	** Seeing that lone heart float away into the air really helps deliver that GutPunch, doesn't it?
25	** As if that wasn't bad enough, no one knows she was murdered, with her body and her Chirithy fading into light. Not even her brother Lauriam is aware of her death as he's trying to find her. [[AmbiguouslyEvil That is, if he wasn't the one who took her place...]]
26	** [[FromBadToWorse It's gotten worse]]. Elrena and Lauriam are able to determine Strelitzia's fate by looking through the data of the old Daybreak Town, and to say that they weren't happy about it is an {{Understatement}}. And yet we still don't know who was responsible...
27	** A ForegoneConclusion thanks to ''III'': When Lauriam becomes Marluxia, he will forget everything about his past, including Strelitzia. His memory at least comes back when he dies as Marluxia... so maybe Lauriam will come back one day.
28	* Another ForegoneConclusion, thanks to ''III'': Eventually, Daybreak Town is going to be destroyed, all but forgotten, ''sunk into the ocean'', and built on top of.
29	* ''Another'' ForegoneConclusion, thanks to ''III'': Apart from Ava and Luxu, ''all the other Foretellers failed in the missions they were given.'' Ava doesn't return because she "carried out" her task correctly [[note]] and she ''started'' the Keyblade War by attacking Luxu, implying that was what she was ''supposed'' to do[[/note]] and Luxu surviving means he carried his out correctly too.
30	* TheReveal that the one who killed Strelitzia is none other than the entity known as Darkness, who attacked her and hypnotised Ventus to make him ignore the murder and pick up her guidebook instead. After remembering everything, he’s crying in guilt.
31	** To make things even worse, Ventus, being the absolute sweetheart that he is, believes he's responsible and confesses everything to the Dandelion leaders. Lauriam’s response is to attack Ventus in rage and grief, while the other Dandelions try to stop him.
32	* Following the battle with Darkness, Ven falls into another coma. Watched over by Lauriam he admits to Ven he knows Ven isn't responsible for killing Strelitzia but lashed out at him because he needed someone to blame.
33	* '''Everything''' about Quest 979, the last quest of the entire saga, which is so far on the bitter side of bittersweet it may as well be a DownerEnding. To recapitulate:
34	** It's revealed that the Darkness that the Master of Masters was fighting against were the original [[ArcNumber 13]] Darknesses, who destroyed everything and everyone the Master had cared about when he was young. His plan to finally eradicate them was for the strongest 7 to infest the hearts of himself and all six of his apprentices, Luxu included. Because Darkness can't be dealt with unless it has tangible form, his plan was to strengthen his and the Foretellers' hearts to seal the darkness away until someone in the future is able to deal with them. And those are only 7 of them: the remaining six are to be locked away with the Union Leaders and the Dandelions. The whole reason the Master chose to take a break from all the fighting is that he has that much faith in the defenders of light to cast away their emotions in the fight against darkness. For a war he started to avenge his fallen comrades, that's saying a lot.
35	*** Special mention goes to Luxu. This is the same guy that waited centuries, if not millennia, for the end of the second Keyblade War and his chance to reunite with his friends; he has pretty much obeyed the Master without question for thousands of years. But even he draws a line in the sand with how many lives the Master intends to sacrifice just to eradicate the darkness. That is probably why, after Luxu leaves, the Master remarks that he knows Luxu is the traitor. Not even Luxu is safe from being manipulated.
36	** As Skuld, Ephemer, and the player character are waiting for their way out of the data world, the remaining four Darknesses arrive, requesting that they open a gate so they can leave and infect the worlds as prophesized. When they refuse and prepare to fight, the player suddenly lashes out at Ephemer and Skuld, saying that they will never win against the Darkness. The FinalBoss fight is against your two friends, one of which is the friend you spent a good chunk of the original ''χ'' looking for, so to see it go down like this is heartbreaking. After you win, they both collapse in exhaustion, and the player readies their Keyblade for the final blow. A sorrowful Ephemer then opens the gate and launches the player into it, which the darknesses follow right before Ephemer shuts it. Two pods from the real world are sent back to allow them all to escape, leaving one for all three of them, though Ephemer laments the last one won't be used. In the real world, Ephemer and Skuld, with tears in their eyes, watch Daybreak Town falling to darkness before reentering the pods, seconds before the clock tower crumbles.
37	*** Worse, there's no indication that Ephemer ever figured out later on it was all a ruse, and his friend pretended to have been turned to save all of them. The poor first Master of Scala Ad Caelum lived out his years and died thinking his friend had turned evil, and had been effectively destroyed by his hand.
38	** After sending Lauriam, Elrena, and Ventus into the Ark, as well as sending the two pods back to the data world, Brain is approached by Luxu, who tells him that his plan to save all the Dandelions won't work, as they have neither the waypoint nor the medium to properly reform in the future. It just hurts watching the normally stoic and intelligent Brain look at Luxu with uncertainty and completely fumble on his words upon realizing this.
39	** Even the Master of Masters, the conniving son of a bitch he is, gets a tearjerker moment when he orates that he's not just going to Quadratum out of sheer curiosity. He's desperately looking for a place where neither light nor dark hold any domain: even as the Darkness assures him that they're supposed to be friends, the Master is just beyond tired of having to deal with it his whole life. It's taken so much from him already.
40	** The trapped player bursts into laughter, saying it was so easy to trick the Darknesses into thinking they were possessed. But it only gets worse from here: the player locks the other end of the portal, trapping them inside with the Darknesses, after which they finally collapse from exhaustion. Hugging their Chirithy as their light shines, the player watches as all of the other Dandelions die and are protected by their Chirithies, turning them into ''all the Dream Eaters from Dream Drop Distance''. The realization that player's allies throughout the game were partners of the children from the age of fairy tales stung many hearts.
41	*** It doesn't even stop there. As the player character wonders if they will undergo the same fate, Chirithy tells them that they have a choice: if they do not go to sleep, their heart will melt into a new one. The player then sees flashes of the person their heart will melt into...and it shows '''''Xehanort''''', first being born in Scala ad Caelum and taken to Destiny Islands by a mysterious figure who watches him grow to adolescence, and him gaining a friend in Eraqus during their training. The Player then expresses that it isn't over yet and, after their Chirity gives them one last "Good night", fades away as the Player's heart begins its next journey...
42	** Then the credits roll, and those alone are also a tearjerker. Not only are they accompanied by an arrange of Dearly Beloved mixing elements from every version of the track throughout the years, a story that a legion of dedicated fans spent years keeping up with has finally reached its conclusion as it's recapitulated to you in the background. For so many, it really has been about the journey.
43	** The first post credits scene sheds light on the fates of those that boarded the Ark, including Maleficent (showing another angle of the scene from ''Kingdom Hearts II'' to close the loop). Elrena, Lauriam, and the comatose Ventus get sent to wildly different worlds and times; Ephemer's pod floating ontop of the sunken remains of Daybreak Town, from which he barely gets up; and unfortunately, Skuld's location remains a mystery. Finally, Luxu is shown dragging the box in the badlands, uttering the Master's phrase as he pulls off his hood, revealing Brain's face. Whatever happened, Luxu will remain in solitude, trading bodies over years but never being able to be his true self until the events of ''Birth by Sleep''.
44	** Brain awakens in a world he doesn't recognize, and is greeted by someone who was expecting him. He finds out that he made it to Scala ad Caelum, the world that Ephemer built from the ashes of Daybreak Town and founded a new Keyblade Order in. Keep in mind, the last time Brain had ever seen him was in the data world, probably a very long time ago by this point, and he presumably never meets any of his friends again. The final words spoken by Brain, in the entire game drive it home: "He was a good friend."
45	* The ending of the first episode of the Dark Road has Xehanort visiting four graves... Which represents four of his fellow apprentices that went with him and Eraqus on the mission to find their older classmates, meaning that something terrible must have happened to them. Seeing the young Xehanort look so despondent and sad is quite sad, especially when Eraqus himself arrives and forlornly reminds Xehanort that it wasn't his fault, which indicates he had been blaming himself for years over their deaths. Say what you will of the Jerkass Xehanort became in the future, but it's quite easy to feel sympathetic towards him as at that moment he was just a young boy mourning the losses of four of his friends. It's quite likely this played a hand in his eventual turn to darkness and why he was so callous with Eraqus, as he's already lost four friends and probably had hardened himself so that losing one more wouldn't have affected him too much.
46	* The Player Character in their second life if one [[FridgeHorror thinks about it]]. They believed Xehanort was the "[[TheChosenOne Child of Destiny]]" mentioned in the Book of Prophecies, and raised him on the island Sora, Riku, and Kairi played on with the intent of keeping the darkness away from Xehanort. Then they die at an old age believing they were doing good by Ephemer as Xehanort is their friend's great-great grandson. DiedHappilyEverAfter, right? But not only do players ''know'' Xehanort would fall into darkness, kickstart a second Keyblade War, and hurt many people, but it's all but said that they were ''wrong'' about Xehanort being the child of destiny[[note]]If anything their description of the child of destiny better fits ''Sora'' than Xehanort[[/note]]. Meaning, not only was everything they did in their second life AllForNothing, they may have inadvertently ''helped lead Xehanort down his path''. Ouch.

Context TearJerker / KingdomHeartsX