Darkness. Darkness all around him.
And then, there was light.
When he was able to see again, he saw he was standing on a very small platform facing two distinctly different doors.
A look around showed that every other direction was nothing but a dark abyss, and with nowhere to go besides the doors.
Taking a closer look at the one on the left he noticed that it was made up of a mix of soft pink and light blue in a very tasteful design. It almost seemed warm. Innocent even.
The door on the right was darker in color and looked far more... regal in its appearance. Royal purples, imposing blacks, and the blues of a raging ocean. This one felt cold, dangerous even, but it was all in a way that felt far more... real.
Looking at each door he came to realize that the warm door filled him with feelings not his own, in a way that it felt like it was trying to speak to him without words. The cold door only gave silence, but he could feel it's undivided "attention" on him.
"My world was consumed and somehow I ended up here." He felt that speaking in this darkness wasn't usually done, but he needed to say what was in his heart here.
The Warm Door quieted it's emotion conversation to listen, while the Cold Door seemed to focus even further.
"In those last few moments, I bore witness to something I never wanted to see, nor wish on anyone else. In the months since the Heartless first invaded my world, I and several others have done nothing but fight to keep them from consuming our home. There were friendships forged, blood spilt, and lives lost in all that time."
The Warm Door gave him a small burst of supportive and loving emotions at this. The kind that is given unconditionally by family and loved ones to those suffering in depression and trauma.
The Cold Door gave nothing but its attention.
"In that hardship, I grew to love someone. She stood beside me as we fought, laughed with me as we drank, supported me when I cried, dragged me to safety when I was wounded, warmed my bed and heart at night with her love, and gave her everything to me as I gave my everything to her. She became my everything in that world and any other."
The Warm Door gave happiness and joy at the honesty and fullness of the emotions he displayed when speaking of his wife. But there was also a tinge of sadness as if it knew where a story like this was going.
The Cold Door gave nothing but its attention.
"In those final moments of my world, I was about to be killed by one of the Heartless, but she took the blow for me. I watched her body disappear as her heart was taken into the darkness, leaving me with nothing but the pain of being incomplete."
The Warm Door gave those feelings of support once more, spiced with mutual sorrow at his loss and his broken state.
With a hint of nervousness at what is to come.
The Cold Door gave nothing but its attention.
" Fighting an enemy as long as we have the Heartless provides for a wealth of knowledge and understanding about them. So while we didn't know their penultimate goal for doing so, I know that the Heartless gather hearts with near religious devotion and care. So I know her heart is safe and undamaged in their hands."
Both doors were silent.
"And I WILL have her back!"
Silence.
He turned to the Warm Door. "If I go through you, will you lead me back to the embrace of the one my heart belongs to?"
A burst of emotions, of intensity and frequency it was difficult to translate for a moment, but certain phrases were easy to pick up on.
My path would leave scars, but they, along with your memories, would give you a strength unequaled!
Or
It would lead to finding an inner peace with the world, leading to happiness for you and all those around you!
And his favorite
It would hurt you, but it would lead you to a new love. One possibility even deeper and stronger than the one you had!
But all said the same thing in the end.
No.
He turned to the Cold Door. "If I go through you, will you lead me to what I desire beyond life itself?"
It was here, when it was asked, that the Cold Door finally gave something beyond attention and stoney silence. A very small series of cold emotions, basic warnings about what kind of path it was, which all summed up to a single answer.
Yes.
He did not give a reply, just pushed open the Cold Door. He was about to step through when a burst of emotions from the Warm Door gave him pause.
Despair. Heartbreak. Sadness… Acceptance.
It was devastated that he was going down a dark path, but accepted his decision because he was doing this not for power, greed, or corruption like so many others it had seen, but for love.
A beam of light filtered through the warm door as it opened a crack, from which a simple yet broad sword floated through towards him.
Grabbing the blue hilt when it was close enough, words, actual words filled his head.
The power of the warrior. Invincible courage. A sword of terrible destruction.
Use it well.
He stared at the gift… then nodded in thanks and walked through the Cold Door to a Darkened Path, sword at the ready...
Hours, days, weeks. He had no knowledge of how long he'd been in this Darkness but that did not matter to him.
Hundreds, thousands, millions. He had no knowledge of the number of Heartless that attacked him, had been slain, or he had interrogated before slaying them. (And interrogation simply summed up to grabbing a nearby Heartless by the neck, slamming them around and demanding to know where his wife's heart was)
How long has it been since he last slept? He hasn't felt any fatigue so he didn't care enough to know.
Currently, he was fighting a massive Darkside, but he knew, as he had fought four of these already (and that was after coming to the Darkness), that one more good hit, and this titan would fall.
Dodging to the left as a massive fist came down, he scrambled up the now available arm using his free arm and legs.
Reaching the top of its head, he grabbed the hair tentacles tightly as the beast shuddered and shook itself in another attempt to knock him off once again.
Feeling it settle under him, he reversed the grip of his sword and, with a mighty wrathful roar, plunged the blade straight down into it's skull.
It gave a slight groan, then collapsed onto the floor, slowly dissolving around him.
He gave a sigh at his defeated opponent, then looked around at the ever present circle of yellow eyes.
And the vast sea of yellow eyes behind them.
And the ocean behind them…
And the infinite behind them…
But none of that mattered. He raised his sword and pointed it at the wall.
"I came here for one reason, and one reason only. I WILL have her back!"
Funny thing about looking at a sea, if something shifts about it that's not natural to what you were viewing, it is very obvious to one's eye.
So when one small set of eyes slowly drew closer, he noticed how the sea of eyes seemed to form a circle around it as they parted for them to pass.
Minutes of watching this circle approach finally came to an end when there was really only small wall of bodies between him and the other set of eyes. But that quickly changed when the Shadows and Large Bodies stepped to the sides like the infinite behind them did before, revealing a slightly larger than usual Fortuneteller. A glance over of its form has him lasering his complete and utter attention on this Heartless due to one small detail.
The ring on her finger was the exact same one as the wedding ring he had given her weeks before that day...
He noticed that she had stopped when the wall had parted. She even shrunk into herself and looked afraid, refusing to look him in the eye when he was examining her. But she seemed to steel herself somewhat, and slowly continued into his circle when he realized what was on her finger.
Several questions flew through his mind, and many of them were answered in the milliseconds he had watching her approach him.
The form was different (legendary understatement), but the bearing, the steel in the back, the emotions in her eyes…
"...So… that's how they reproduce? They use the hearts they take to make more?"
She nodded subtly, ashamed and unwilling to look at him, but feeling every bit of his eyes on her form. She didn't even want to contemplate the thoughts going through his mind
So it was a complete surprise for her when she felt his hand under her chin, her cloth mask being removed, and a very intimate yet chaste kiss upon her lips.
He smiled down at her stunned expression.
"It's going to take getting used to not waking up to your old pretty face now, but," he gave an approving appraisal of her entirety, "I can live with that."
Fighting down her blush, she gestured to the yellow eyed wall around them.
"What about them?"
Stubborn man! He's in the most dangerous place in the world, surrounded completely by a host unimaginable, and he brushes it off without a care?
"When I somehow made it here, I was only focused on one thing: getting you back. I have you back now. Nothing else matters."
If she still had the ability, that would have made her cry. They both knew she couldn't leave, and that they couldn't go back.
She pointed to his heart. The statement clear.
"...If that's the way it has to be. But it's not theirs to take. After all, it's already owned by someone else."
One startling comment after another like this, and she'd be unsure if anything more in the universe would be able to surprise her.
She looked in his eyes, and found only love.
She placed her hand over his beating heart, and he smiled.
The light from his heart didn't hurt her as she reached for it. In fact, it actually encouraged her to grab it.
And when his body faded, to be replaced with a warm eyed Armored Knight still holding the Dream Sword, it was a wedding banded hand immediately offered to her once the transformation was complete.
With no greater joy to be had, she wrapped her own banded hand with his.
In a world that doesn't exist, filled from corner to corner with nothing at all, a Samurai wielding an unusual sword locked gazes with a Dancer, who had an unusual band around her left hand...