(A.N. Welcome my friends, to the beginning of a hopefully long and wonderful journey. After discussing this with a friend of mine, we began to brainstorm ideas for this. There will be tragedy. It will be almost every genre except western and maybe romance. I may even put that in. There may be OCs, but they will be but tools to write this. I hope that you have as much fun reading this as I will as I write this.)

Prologus: Beatae Memoriae

A single man stood in his own lonely world. He was surrounded by darkness on all sides, the only bit of reprieving light filtered from his own chest. However, even that which was once radiant was beginning to waver. It would flicker and dim until the man struggled to remember why he was in this place again.

This place was his prison, a prison not of his own choosing but it would have been had he been giving a choice in the matter. This place, this purgatory, was a fitting place for him and reminded him of the chains that bound his heart and very soul to the choking blackness. The chain of memories, his chain of memories would sometimes seem almost false to him. It was if the time in the world of absolute darkness had changed him.

Time… such a man-made concept had no place in this hell. Even if there was a time of day, of desired light, to counteract this ever present nightfall it would still not matter. The man had discovered early on that when you are absolutely and truly alone time does not exist.

This was not the man's first time in this purgatory, this place of limbo where one does not age yet still forgets. The man's memory was fading once again, yet he held on tightly to them, desperate to remember who he was and why he was the person that he was.

He did not pity himself, oh no, he had abandoned all his feelings of self-pity long ago. It was hopelessness that dimmed the light that was once radiant. But once he remembered hope, only then would the light of his heart shine brightly once more and light his path.

And so the man began to walk, lost in a broken memory of a time which he barely recalled. A time that would never again be possible, traveling to a past through the only true way that existed, a way that could become corrupted and twisted into something almost unrecognizable.

Memory.

Soon his wanderings took him to a familiar location, one that he had spent much time around. It was the place where he had giving himself a new name to reflect how he had changed. He walked over and stood before the weak waves before sitting on a rock, gazing out onto the false light that was seemingly trapped between large stone arches and reflected off the dark ocean. The man once against lost himself in his own scattered recollections.

He was not aware of how much time passed as he sat. He also did not notice a person, another soul that had been lost to this place long before he had been, walk over to him. She stood there, silent, for only a second before she spoke.

"Who are you?"

"Hmm," The man said and turned his head to look at the new arrival in slight surprise. "Why hello, it's not often I get visitors."

"Please, call me Aqua." The girl said, sounding both sad and weary. There was however, as the man noticed, a look of hope that still burned in her eyes. "Why are you sitting here all alone in the Realm of Darkness? How did you end up here?"

"Well," the man started to explain, his voice low and slightly raspy from disuse. He looked back out onto the ocean and continued to speak. "I can tell you this is my second time on these shores, but unfortunately much like the first, I do not remember who I am or whence I came. Everything was washed away in whatever currents carried me here."

"That's too bad." Aqua said as she looked down. She turned to face the ocean and sat down. "I know I've been here a long time, wandering through the endless hours, unable to escape."

The man glanced at her and asked a question to which he already knew the answer to. "You wish to return your own world?"

Aqua did not look up and only nodded slowly before she spoke again. "It's my friends. I promised I'd be there for them."

"Your friends…?" the man said slowly as he looked up at the empty sky and for the first time in a great amount of time he remembered. "Somewhere in a scrap of memory I have left you remind me of a boy I once knew. He is very much like you." He could tell that she carried the same sort of light as that boy.

That boy was his hope, the force the replenished his weary heart and allowed it to light his path once more. Her mere presence was glowing with light and the man felt more of his memories returning.

"True to his friends and kind, he travels to many worlds and fights to keep the light safe." The man continued speaking.

"Keep the light safe?" Aqua said and looked up at him, confusion evident in her tone yet her face was emotionless save her eyes. The man concluded that she must have forgotten how to show emotion.

"I've been away too long. Did something happen out there? Are the worlds in danger?" Aqua asked as she continued to speak, concern edging its way into her voice now.

"Sad to say, they nearly fell to darkness more than once. But every turn that boy arrived, keyblade in hand, to save the day." The man answered.

"Huh?" Aqua turned her body to face him fully, a small, hopeful smile beginning to appear. "Wait a sec, is his name Terra or Ven?"

The man thought and was silent for a minute or so, then slowly shook his head. "Neither of those I'm afraid."

Aqua's smile disappeared quickly as she let out a weary sigh and looked down. "Should have known…" She turned back to the ocean and returned to staring out at the dark ocean.

"How long has it been since I met him… at least a year now, perhaps more." Memories revealing themselves. "Back then my heart was clouded with vengeance." The man raised his own hand and looked down upon it. More memories. "I did terrible things both to him and his friends." A few more memories. "I brought unhappiness to more lives than one." Faces remembered. "I felt something must be done. Was that why… a means of clearing my conscious or perhaps out of a scholarly instinct?" Holes being filled. "While the boy slept I hid the results of my research inside him, transporting the data to where it might best serve a purpose." Thoughts and memories reconnecting. "In fact I would like to believe maybe he can set things right. A boy like him who touches so many hearts, he could open the right door and save all those people whose lives I've managed to ruin. So many are still waiting for their new beginning, their birth by sleep, even me and even you." Fragmented mind correcting itself.

Aqua turned to look at him once more, her head tilted in curiosity. "What's this boy's name?"

After a few moments of silence the man spoke. "His name is…" Memory is almost…

"Sora." Complete.

Aqua stared at him and suddenly smiled. Her breathing became slightly erratic as she began to cry.

"Sora." She repeated the name as she moved back to facing the ocean. For a long time they sat in silence, lost in their own memories. "Excuse me, sir, but what is your name? You never said."

"My name…" The man began as he once more spared a glance toward his new companion. He had had many names and titles to choose from, but even still his answer came naturally.

"My name is Ansem."

And that was true.

He was no long Ansem the Wise for if he truly had been wise; he would have been to stop his beloved apprentices from traveling down that dark path into a terrible fate. If he was truly wise then his world that was once a paradise would not need to be completely rebuilt.

On the other hand he was no longer Darkness in Zero, or DiZ as he had taken to calling himself sometime back. The light of hope had been reignited. The darkness was no longer his friend or his only companion now. He could no longer use the darkness and it could no longer use him.

He was Ansem.

"Ansem…" Aqua said thoughtfully before looking at him. "I'm going to stay here, do you mind the company?"

Ansem let out a quiet, almost inaudible chuckle. "Of course not, I enjoy having visitors." And that was true. A long time ago Ansem recalled having a tiny mouse king as his visitor once and couldn't help but smile at that particular memory. It had been a very long time since his last smile.

"You seem like you've remembered a few things." Aqua said after a brief moment of comfortable silence.

"Indeed I have. The darkness that had clouded my mind and memories seems to have been lifted by that light of yours." Ansem replied with the tiny smile that had remained after his remembrance of the strange, yet kind king.

"I see… would you mind sharing a few? Memories are supposed to become clearer when spoke of. I don't mind if you don't want to." Aqua asked and turned her whole body to face him, no longer positioned to look out upon the dark ocean.

"Hmm. I suppose I have pieced together enough of my mind to tell a story or two." Ansem said as, he too, repositioned himself to face the young girl in front of him.

Prologue: Of Blessed Memory