Sentient Midnight

by Rhino7

Everything has led to this. One way or another, the war against the Darkness will end. Part 1 of Reverse Trilogy and finale to my Alliance-verse.

Sentient Midnight

By Rhino7

Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts, its characters or storyline. This story, the Alliance-verse, and the OCs are mine.

Here it is! This is the first chapter of the first story in the trilogy that will wrap up my Alliance universe. Sorry it took me so much longer to write this than I originally thought. I'm stoked to finally be getting this one off the ground though. We're hitting the ground sprinting, so I hope you brought your running shoes!

This story picks up right where T Minus One Year left off, so if you haven't read it or any of my other Alliance stories before…you're going to be confused. This story will have significant connections to both T Minus One Year and the Mercy Trilogy in particular, though I plan on working enough explanations into these chapters as I go along that you guys won't be too confused if you haven't read those.

Anyway, enough of my humming and hawing. Enjoy!

..:-X-:..

Chapter One: Old Enemies Arise

Autumn had settled over the military cemetery. Red and brown leaves had drifted from the trees, brushing over the tops of the headstones, gathering around the mausoleums, and resting on the concrete around the war memorial. A gentle breeze whistled through the grass, tickling at the quiet visitors to the site.

This was the twenty-fifth autumn since the end of the war against the Darkness. Twenty-five years since the memorial had been erected by the original Restoration Committee. It was a simple statue of a warrior standing on a short pedestal in the center of a circular fountain. The name of every person who fought in the final battle was meticulously carved around the base of the fountain's marble walls. The warrior stood square, feet set, assault rifle in its hands, staring out of the cemetery and toward the horizon. The dark stone of the statue glinted with the afternoon sunlight.

There was a single person standing before the memorial that afternoon. The woman stood lax, hands in her jacket pockets against the evening chill, her dark hair tumbling over her shoulders, flirting with the breeze as she stared up at the lone soldier. She had been visiting this statue for 25 years. She had memorized the engraved words on the plaque, and she knew every facet of the statue like it was her own body.

Formally, it was named the Unbreakable Souls War Memorial, but the locals referred to it affectionately as the Staring Soldier. The defiant, resolute look in the warrior's eyes was identical to the expression that she had seen on the person that the statue was based off of in pictures. It was a person she had never formally met, but a person she owed her life to, whom she wished that she could have known.

After all, everything that she had ever done to get where she was now, she had done in the memory of the Staring Soldier. With a soft exhale, she ran her fingers over the engraving of the soldier's name amongst the other souls who hadn't survived the war.

For the brave men and women who died protecting this realm, defenders of the Light and warriors against the Darkness, this memorial is dedicated. May their sacrifice never be forgotten.

She knew the words by heart, and she had also taken to heart the smaller engraving at the base of the warrior's statue: I may not rise from this, but together we will rise from this.

"Mikayla Leonhart." The voice cut across the silence behind her.

She inhaled and removed her hand from the cool stone. She knew why they were here. They were right on time. Without turning to face them, she moved her hands behind her back, holding her wrists together. She felt them approach, and she lifted her gaze to the Staring Soldier. The handcuffs were cold as they snapped around her wrists, but their voices were dull as they read her rights to her.

A hand on her shoulder finally began to turn her away. She had to leave. She had to go with them now. You couldn't just do what she had done and then expect to walk away. She kept her head held high as she turned, walking with the small party of officers away from the Staring Soldier. She kept her own eyes forward on the setting sun.

"We will rise from this."

..:-X-:..

Twenty-five years earlier…

The skies over Radiant Garden were dark, had been dark for nearly two weeks. Morning, noon, afternoon, evening, night: it all passed by under a shadow of sunless, starless sky. The sun was still there, all right, and the stars hadn't gone anywhere, but the inky blackness that encompassed the sky overhead felt oppressive. It was like a thick blanket of black had been draped over the atmosphere of Radiant Garden, and it was making Cid Highwind feel damned claustrophobic.

He stood on the tarmac outside the Alliance's main Gummi hangar. The mandatory grounding of all flights out of Radiant Garden and the redirection of all incoming traffic into Radiant Garden within the first 48 hours of the darkness's arrival had been a fucking waste of time. The Allied Council had quickly lifted the ban on air traffic when Cid's aeronautical department nearly burned their entire council room to the ground.

Without removing his gaze from the sky overhead, Cid reached into his pocket and tugged out his pack of cigarettes. He tapped out a fresh stick and withdrew his lighter, pocketing the pack again. He glanced down briefly, sticking the cigarette between his teeth and lighting the tip of it. Putting out the lighter, he shoved it back into his pocket as well. He puffed on the cigarette against the chill of the air as he looked back up at the darkness.

The most recent scout ship had reported that, from an orbital perspective, the atmosphere of Radiant Garden was black as pitch. No landscapes, bodies of water, structures, or electrical light were visible through the darkness. Cid's top subordinate, Major Valerie Banks, had herself confessed that it looked like a dead planet from the view in her orbiting ship.

Already, other planets in the Alliance were panicking over what they were calling the 'black out incidents.' So far, two other worlds had experienced the black outs: the Sun Kingdom on the perimeter of the Alliance's reach and Traverse Town smack in the middle of Allied territory. Some mass hysteria had broken out on other worlds, along with doomsday nutjobs and anarchist rioters: the whole kit and caboodle of chaos. The Alliance had tempered them for the most part, but their reassurances were empty.

Nobody knew what the Hell was going on, least of all the Alliance, but they were working on it to the best of their ability.

Cid drew a deep inhale of smoke and let it fill his lungs. Their readings and measurements were worthless. This thing, whatever it was, wasn't giving off any magical qualities, and it wasn't comprised of any elements or chemicals that weren't naturally present in the atmosphere. It was like a ghost, undetectable and immeasurable aside from the naked eye.

"Star-gazing?" Merlin's voice greeted him.

Cid snorted, breathing the smoke out through his nostrils and turning to see the tottery old wizard sauntering toward him.

"Sarcasm?" Cid replied.

"Well, I certainly wasn't being serious." Merlin tutted, glancing up at the sky. "You don't get used to it, do you?"

"No, you most certainly do not. Hopefully we won't have to." Cid plucked the cigarette from his teeth. "What time is it?"

Merlin withdrew a pocket watch from his robes. "Three o'clock in the afternoon."

"Shit." Cid grunted. "Cain't hardly tell from all this." He waved absently at the sky.

Merlin hummed lightly at that, but otherwise said nothing.

A beat of silence passed between them, both musing on the ebony sky.

"What's your latest analysis on what is causing this?" Merlin asked after a moment.

There was a tone to the older man's voice as he asked the question that made Cid avert his eyes from the sky to look at the wizard. He sounded almost rhetorical.

"The same as it has been the last week and a half." He grunted, eying the wizard. "What about you?"

Merlin looked pensive, and for some reason that made Cid edgy.

"I haven't seen a sky like this in nearly 30 years." Merlin finally muttered.

Cid eyed him before looking skyward once more. "I don't remember that."

"No, nor would you." Merlin replied. "Even the elders don't talk about it. Well, there aren't many elders left to talk about it. Neither you nor any of the others would remember."

Cid squinted. Back then, he had been a teenager. Nothing interesting happened before he was in his thirties, and the Heartless took Radiant Garden. Even trying to remember his teenage years seemed like too much effort. He frowned. That was just it. He couldn't remember. Not in a way that it was foggy or faded, but almost as though every time he tried to remember anything between the age of 15 and 20, his mind was…diverted. Unintentionally. Unwillingly. Forced.

It felt like magic. Like a blocking spell.

"The Hell are you talking about?" Cid leveled his gaze at Merlin.

The elderly man adjusted his spectacles absently, eyes affixed to the sky. "Even I don't remember everything, Cid."

"What happened back then? Why can't I remember?" Cid felt his blood inexplicably begin to burn angrily.

Something had happened. He knew it, but he couldn't imagine it.

"There is a specialist." The wizard said gently, finally turning his gaze to Cid. "A man tasked to remember everything about this brand of darkness." He gestured to the sky. "He is the keeper of all knowledge about what we call the Sorcerer's War."

The name struck a chord in Cid's core, but he couldn't register why.

"Who?" He grumbled. "Why have you been lying this whole time about it?"

"Not lying." Merlin looked sad. "Protecting."

"Protecting what? This specialist? Some stupid secret? The Hell, Merlin?"

"Protecting Radiant Garden." Merlin replied calmly. "You don't remember the Sorcerer's War and that is a blessing."

"I'll be the damn determiner of THAT." Cid gruffly turned away, taking a hard drag from the cigarette. "You fucked with my mind? Who else's? Aerith's? Leon's?"

"It was more than a simple war, Cid." Merlin's voice dropped its sadness and soft tone; instead, it sharpened to a razor's blade. "Wars leave scars and horror and trauma behind. The Sorcerer's War left behind…seeds. Seeds that must never, ever be sown, let alone be allowed to take root. It was not an easy decision, but it had to be done in order to prevent history from repeating."

Cid jabbed a finger at the blackened afternoon sky. "Bang up job. Shit, Merlin. So we could have known by now what the Hell is going on and figured it out? That isn't helping, Merlin, that's sabotage."

"They were preventive measures. The specialist knows exactly what is happening. He has already contacted me." Merlin sighed, looking ancient in that moment. "The memory block spell grieves me every day, but I do not regret doing it. It's the only reason any of us are still alive."

Cid couldn't believe what he was hearing. He exhaled smoke and stomped the cigarette out with his boot on the tarmac. More than anything, he wanted to take a swing at the old man.

"Can it be reversed? The fucking memory block?"

"It's been in effect for nearly 3 decades. The repressed memories would be…vague and indistinct senses with no anchor." Merlin said, then clarified. "No."

"Shit…Fucking…Balls." Cid spat. "You son of a bitch."

"The others will all know soon enough as well." Merlin said heavily, "It's a secret that has poisoned me for too long. That spell protected you, me, all of us for so long…but I'm afraid now that it is not enough. We need the specialist."

"Then bring him." Cid said in mock nonchalance. "Fuck it. What can it damn well hurt now?"

Merlin gave him a flat look but said nothing.

Cid turned and started to leave, but abruptly turned on his heel and raised an angry finger to point at Merlin's face. "You just opened a whole box of shit on yourself."

Merlin gave no response, and Cid snarled, turning away and leaving the tarmac. Merlin watched him leave and then sighed heavily, feeling a hundred pound weight pushing on his shoulders, weighing on his heart. He gazed up at the starless sky and cringed.

Things were going to get so much worse than this single lie. He couldn't ask them to understand. They were too young. They had seen the horrors of the Heartless and the darkness. But what had gone down during the Sorcerer's War…No human eyes should have ever seen what was unleashed on this world.

It was done. That chapter of their history was done. The new chapter would be just as frightening and, if they couldn't manufacture the same miracle from decades ago, unending in suffering. Merlin closed his eyes briefly and hung his head.

He could endure their scorn and their anger for that small hope.

..:-X-:..

As soon as Cloud stepped into the inner chamber of the castle ruins, he felt uncomfortable. So much so that he stopped in his tracks. Beside him, Yuffie sauntered on, unaffected by the sudden shift in the atmosphere of the room. The narrow corridor led to the column-like platform in the center of the chamber. On the wall behind it, a hole gaped above the room, where the door to Radiant Garden's heart had been accessed by Sora five years ago.

"Okie dokie, what's new?" Yuffie chirped, already at the top of the platform.

Four scientists from Merlin's sorcery department had been working in rotating shifts here since the darkness fell over the planet. From where Cloud was rooted to the spot, he recognized Lieutenant Penny Hillbrook and Major Gabe Brown as the two currently working.

Hillbrook, a stocky woman with a round face and buzzcut brown hair, stood at attention. "Ma'am. There's been a development."

From where he was hunched over some equipment or other, Major Brown gave a halfhearted wave in greeting, mumbling something that Cloud didn't catch.

"More crystal formations?" Yuffie repeated. "That's str—Cloud, did you die?"

The younger woman's head poked over the edge of the platform, squinting down at him. "C'mon, slow poke."

Cloud grimaced. Did she honestly not feel how…wrong…this room was? This was the first time in months that Cloud had set foot in the castle ruins, let alone in the chamber where the heavy battles had gone down. The hair on his neck was standing up, and the tingle of rising goose flesh prickled up his arms. The idea of going up those steps to where Yuffie was talking to Hillbrook and Brown made him feel nauseated.

That platform was where Aerith had nearly died a month ago, during her experiments with the blue crystals that had formed around the base of the gaping hole in the wall. That entire situation made him uncomfortable too, but he had more or less made his peace with that. He flexed both fists at his sides, averting his eyes briefly before looking back up.

"Did you say more formations?" He asked.

Yuffie deadpanned. "Are you seriously not coming up here?"

Cloud set his jaw. "Just…Do you not feel that?"

One of Yuffie's eyebrows lifted. "Feel what? Your level of weirdness going up?"

"No, that—" He lifted one hand and rotated his wrist absently. "—eerie feeling."

"You're giving me an eerie feeling." Yuffie snarked. "Now get up here."

Almost physically pained at the idea, Cloud swallowed and ducked his head, advancing up the steps to the main platform. The dread rolling in his stomach only increased with each step, and he almost turned back twice. Why? He had no idea. He couldn't put a finger on the exact reason why this room was bothering him so much. No matter how he tried to shake it off, the unease lingered.

"Hillbrook was just telling me about these new crystals that have been cropping up." Yuffie immediately launched into the report as soon as he stepped out onto the platform.

Cloud shuffled off the steps, looking indirectly at the spot where Major Brown was analyzing the wall. The pale blue crystal formations had been developing over the past few months. They had seemed pretty benign for the most part, until Aerith had begun running experiments on them in her pursuit to understand the heart of Radiant Garden, and the undercurrent of unexplainable energy that co-existed with it.

The adverse reaction that the crystals had had to Aerith's analysis had nearly gotten her killed and had put her in a coma for over a week. But even after she had woken up, she refused to drop her studies. What good she possibly thought could come from those menacing little stones, Cloud had no idea. He had half a mind to smash them all every time he looked at them.

"What about them?" He grumbled.

"They're black." Hillbrook explained.

Cloud looked at the lieutenant, who was standing on the opposite end of the floor with her hands folded rigidly behind her back. When she offered no more explanation, he shifted his gaze to the place he had tried so ardently to avoid. The floor between him and the wall where the crystals were had a long, singular crack slicing through the stone. The surrounding floor was scorched black where the crystal reaction had burned through it a month ago. He followed the trail of it and repressed a shudder as he looked at the nest of blue and black crystals that had formed near the base of hole in the wall like froth on the mouth of a rabid animal.

Brown was squatting in front of the largest batch of them, wearing thick protective gloves and goggles as he poked at the stones with metal instruments. Yuffie, a few feet away from Brown, had her nose nearly three inches from the surface of a black crystal, squinting at it.

"Obsidian." Brown offered, without looking away from his work.

Cloud repressed the urge to grab Yuffie by the elbow and drag her away from the crystals. Instead, he folded his arms tightly across his chest. "Obsidian? Is there a volcano around here I'm not aware of?"

Yuffie blinked, and Brown finally tore himself away from his poking and prodding, sliding a flat gaze in Cloud's direction.

"Not a volcano, per se, but something volcanic." He popped out of his squat and stood, pushing his goggles back into his tously red hair. "These crystals have only cropped up in the past day or so, but my readings are putting them at over twenty years old."

The scientist sauntered over to a work table, where several of the blue crystals had been cut away and placed. He removed his gloves and picked one up bare handed, turning to face them.

"These babies are, as far as I or Ms Gainsborough can tell, just natural growths from residual light matter surrounding the door to the world heart." He explained, tossing the crystal to Yuffie.

Despite being several feet away, Cloud deftly side stepped to avoid the thing. Yuffie caught it with one hand and lifted it to her eyes.

"It's warm." She remarked. "And…humming."

"It's excess." Brown explained. "Think of it like overfilling a water balloon, and then cinching it tight." He mimicked the motion with his hands. "Some of the water spills out at the top. The current theory is that these crystals are the tangible remnants of Radiant Garden's heart that got amputated when Sora shut the door."

"So the heart is fractured?" Yuffie looked uneasy at that prospect.

"The heart is a collective." Cloud answered haltingly. "Even if you cut part of it away, it still exists as a whole. It's…conscious, self aware…sentient."

Brown pointed at him. "Bingo."

"Then what's with these?" Yuffie gestured with her free hand to the black crystals. "These obsidian ones. You mentioned a volcano?"

"That's the weirdness here." Brown took the blue crystal back from her and looked to Cloud. "These rocks shouldn't be here."

"Damn straight." Cloud snarled.

"No, I mean, naturally, it's impossible that they grew here themselves."

Tap, tap, tap.

"They looked pretty rooted to me." Yuffie said.

Cloud looked over and saw that she was tapping her fingernail against one of the larger crystals.

"Yuffie!" He snapped. "Don't touch them."

His abrupt reprimand startled her, and she turned to look at him. Her fingernail scraped across the jagged edge of the black stone, and she hissed, backing away and straightening.

"Ow, thanks, Cloud!" She held up her hand, showing him the thin red line that had been cut down the length of her finger.

Brown looked suddenly as uncomfortable as Cloud felt. "We…haven't analyzed the effect of the black crystals on human skin."

Yuffie looked unfazed. "Well, uh, they're sharp." She said sarcastically, wiping the blood off on her shorts. "Well, I think I've seen everything I needed to see. Cloud?"

Cloud didn't need asking twice. "Yeah."

Without another backward glance, Yuffie hopped over to the stairs, sent a haphazard salute toward Hillbrook, and sauntered her way out. Cloud aimed to follow, but Major Brown crossed over to him quickly.

"Keep an eye on her, would you?" The man quietly asked. "There's something off about these black crystals."

"There's something off with this whole damn castle." Cloud grumbled, walking after Yuffie.

The chilly fingers of discomfort didn't leave Cloud's body until he had stepped completely out of the castle and was walking with Yuffie back to the town proper.

..:-X-:..

The board room in the central headquarter building of the Alliance in downtown Radiant Garden was normally very organized, clean, well maintained, and minimally decorated. But these were not normal times, so the entire length of the board room table was covered in paper, pens, empty take out boxes, half finished coffee, and a mess of other odds and ends. All the senior members of Leon's Weapons Specialist Department had been virtually locked in the room for the past two days, going over data and trying to figure out what was happening.

Leon sat at one end of the table, his back facing the floor to ceiling windows of the outer wall of the building. He was leaning forward, elbows on the table, fingers twisted in his hair, staring down the length of the table, waiting for an epiphany. On the opposite end of the table, Private Tabaeus McCallister was in an identical position, staring directly back at him, and looking just as hopeless and confused as he felt.

On either side of the table, the other soldiers in his department were in various states of disarray and dishevelment.

Major Cooper, a wiry man in his early thirties, was working on his fifth origami fortune teller, boots propped up on the table. Private Marcus, a husky kid in his early twenties, was staring at the chart that they had pinned to the wall, tapping a pen against his neck in thought. Private Chris Lolly was alternating between scribbling ideas on paper and subsequently balling the paper up into a ball and throwing it across the room. Private Tilly Ambrose, one of Leon's newest recruits, was completely done, sitting back in her seat, eyes closed, mouth open, asleep with her clipboard in her lap.

Leon slowly blinked and looked away from McCallister, having lost track of how long they'd been staring at each other in utter exhaustion. The soldier jarred out of her trance, removing her hands from her hair and sitting back. Her hair didn't move from its unkempt state.

"Okay." Leon laboriously stood, holding onto the edge of the table until his bad knee woke up. "Does anybody have any new ideas?"

Cooper tossed his paper onto the table. "Highwind's scouts aren't reporting any new data fluctuations. The shadow has been consistently…bleh." He waved his fingers vaguely.

"We should try lighting it on fire." Marcus offered dully.

"And blow up our own atmosphere?" McCallister retorted.

"Hey, if evil is flammable, I say light that mother up." Marcus slapped the table top.

Leon lifted a hand. "It's a shadow. It doesn't have substance. There's nothing to attack."

"Has the crazy woman said anything about it?" Marcus prompted.

Leon slid his gaze to McCallister for that answer.

She responded by rubbing her eyes hard. "Beth Marshall is not talking to anybody besides her doctors and Aerith."

"She's talking to Aerith?" Cooper glanced at her. "About the darkness?"

"About…everything." McCallister shrugged and looked to Leon. "Sir, I think it's time for an update from Highwind or Lockhart's divisions. They may have gotten more info."

"I counter that proposal with my own proposal," Cooper lifted a hand. "Maybe we should all get six hours of sleep and go at this with fresh eyes."

"What does Ambrose think about that?" Marcus prompted, glaring across the table at the sleeping intern.

McCallister stood, picked up one of the hardcover books that they had been studying, and violently slammed it closed a foot away from Private Ambrose's face. The other woman shrieked as she was jolted awake, toppling backwards out of her seat and into the floor.

Cooper was right; they were all burned out. Leon himself hadn't left the room in nearly six hours. He'd gotten one short text from Tifa, making sure he wasn't lying in a ditch bleeding somewhere. What time even was it? He looked at the time on his phone and saw that it was half past four in the afternoon. He wasn't even sure how many hours that meant had passed.

Leon groaned and ran a hand over his forehead. "We'll adjourn for twelve hours."

Cooper helped Ambrose back up to her feet, where the twitchy woman adjusted herself and looked around in a panic.

"What did I miss?" She asked.

"A whole lotta nada." Marcus climbed out of his seat, staggering toward the door.

Cooper and Ambrose followed him out. On her way, Ambrose sent McCallister an evasive look, which the senior soldier returned with a poker face. Lolly was still scribbling. McCallister watched the other three leave and then she maneuvered around Cooper's pyramid of energy drink cans to stand in front of one of their data charts.

Lolly would work himself into a coma if given the opportunity. Leon normally wouldn't leave a brainstorming session if people in his department were still at it, but this wasn't a normal day. Lolly was a machine. McCallister was a stubborn mule. He could let them keep going if they wanted, but he was going home for those 12 hours.

"Keep me posted." He said, taking his phone and dialing as he left the room. "No, on the other hand, don't. I need sleep."

McCallister grunted that affirmation, chewing on a pen as she stared at the charts.

Leon held the phone to his ear as he left the Alliance building. It was dark outside, but it had been dark outside for a week now. His internal clock was so out of sync anyway that the fact that it looked like the dead of night didn't affect him. The phone rang twice before Tifa picked up on the other end.

"Still alive?" She greeted.

"Barely." Leon squinted one eye, feeling a caffeine headache creeping through his skull with all the subtlety of an ice pick. "We're breaking for twelve hours before going back at it."

"Going that well, eh?" She returned.

"Yeah. What about your people?"

"They're still here at the house." She said. "None of us could stand being in that building for that long."

The idea of going home to half of Tifa's Combat Department in their living room didn't sound appealing, but he had been on his feet for 30 hours; he couldn't muster the energy to care.

"Is Mikayla awake?" He asked, letting his feet automatically walk him home.

"Oh yeah." He heard Tifa smile. "She's been the life of the party."

That was entirely too believable. His and Tifa's six month old daughter was the center of attention in any crowded room. The infant had been honing her craft; she had even gotten a smile out of Cloud, who had been nothing but a pain in the ass for the past month. Leon snorted and found himself within a block from home, ending the phone call with Tifa

Sure enough, there were eight people in their first floor living room when Leon opened the front door and stepped inside. The havoc mirrored the mess in the Allied board room, except Tifa's group had Mikayla and Duke, Leon's golden retriever, to entertain them. The group swiveled their heads at his entrance en masse, but just as quickly went back to their discussion. Upon second look, Leon noted that they weren't really discussing anything at all; rather, they were all audience to Mikayla, who was laughing hysterically where she sat upright in the middle of the floor. In front of her, Sergeant Garrett Park, a mountain of a soldier with a bald head and a horrendous scar slashing across the middle and right side of his face, was sitting cross legged and methodically tearing newspaper. The sound or the sight of the tearing paper was the most hilarious thing that Mikayla had ever seen, and the eight soldiers in the living room chuckled along with her.

"This looks productive." Leon said, setting his keys down.

"Hey." Tifa was sauntering out of the back study room with a box of paper documents in her arms. "Roberts, there're another two boxes back there. Bring them."

A plucky woman on the couch hopped up and headed back to obey the order.

Tifa set the box down and walked over to Leon. "Welcome home."

"Is it?" He lifted his arm so she could slide under and give him a squeeze in greeting.

"We've been working hard, really; this is…break time." Tifa shrugged.

"Yeah, well, I need break time." He stepped away from her and into the living room.

Without a word exchanged with the group, he knelt down, scooped his daughter off the floor, and left the soldiers in the living room as they grumbled at her being taken away. The baby's laughter trailed down into breathy giggles, and her hands bopped against his jaw he carried her past Tifa to head upstairs.

"She's all riled up," Tifa remarked. "You won't get any sleep with her."

"Too tired." Leon grunted, holding Mikayla as he went upstairs. "Don't care."

Tifa snorted and went back to the living room, and he heard her clap her hands and announce, "All right, the entertainment has left the room. Break is over. What have we got?"

In the second floor bedroom, Leon groaned as he sank onto the bed, every molecule in his body screaming for sleep. The little girl in his arms, however, simply grabbed his face and babbled, demanding attention.

Sleep was overrated.

..:-X-:..

Below the dungeons and the frozen foundation of the castle ruins in Radiant Garden, a single breath broke the silence that the sealed chamber had sustained for nearly 30 years. The sound clawed through the crack that had carved its way down to the base of the castle from the central chamber several stories above. The forest of blue crystal formations pulsed from the floor to the ceiling of the cornerstone chamber, the sliver where the crack had formed let the heated breath escape.

Every corner of the room was illuminated solely by the glow of the crystals; there were no lamps or candles within it. The crystals branched outward like fire frozen in a spell, licking at the walls and the broken ceiling. The bodies in the crystal had been motionless for so long…too long. Enough. Of the three rigid figures, one completed the exhale, greedily dragging in a hoarse breath, the first breath that she had taken in three decades.

"Haaah." She groaned, and her breath fogged the exterior glass of the crystal.

Her hands, with fingernails sharp as claws, flexed through the stone as though it was melting ice. After so long being paralyzed, motionless, helpless, she could finally move again. Eyes, forced to remain open against the crystal, slid closed and then peeled open again, focusing on the tinted world around her.

Her memory was dull and foggy, and her body felt overheated in the casing of smothering stone and glass. Black obsidian stones were spread like bolts of lightning across the outer surface of the blue crystals, climbing upward through the floor. The crystal was weakening. She was strengthening. The tide was ebbing.

As her lungs expanded with that long-awaited breath, her body pushed at the constricting stone around her, and she pushed further against it. Her lips were immobile, her jaw locked; she couldn't utter any incantation. Her narrow gold eyes sharpened, and she shoved her mind behind the unspoken words. Incantations were no barrier to someone like her.

The thin, musky air in the chamber became electrified, humming with the sudden power ballooning within its stone walls. It grew thicker and thicker until, with a groan and a roar, the crystal formation lodged in the room splintered and shattered. A shockwave reverberated off the walls and dislodged dirt and grime from the old space. The three bodies all collapsed to the floor.

Her body was weak, maybe dying. Pathetic. She would need to get a new one. The magic in the crystals had halted her aging, and the aging of the other two limp bodies, she registered as she looked at them. The soldier and the sorceress: that's what history would remember them as. The man who tried to kill her, and the sorceress who tried to end her.

She felt her lip curl in a vengeful smirk. She could just kill them now…if she could move. Her muscles, atrophied from the paralysis and strained from the magic, refused to cooperate. After all these years and everything that she had been through, she would not let the weak body of this broken human hinder her now.

The door to the enclosed chamber opened. A gasp entered the room as a middle aged man gawked at what he'd just walked into. She recognized him. Though decades had passed as she was suspended in the crystal, the same decades had aged his familiar face. She remembered him. She remembered far too much of him. She would kill him slowly as soon as she found a new body. The teenaged girl that she had taken was quickly expiring; it was time to evacuate.

She rolled onto her back, arched her spine, and screamed. Black viscous smoke poured out of her mouth, curling up toward the ceiling. It pulsed in the air and fled through the open doorway like a conscious entity. The man staggered and ducked, allowing it to flee. He stared after it for a bewildered moment before turning to face the room that he had guarded for so long.

The blue crystal was shattered into a thousand jagged shards, gleaming in the weakening glow of their dying magic. The three bodies lay crumpled where they'd landed. The empty vessel that had housed the bodiless woman sagged and fell lax as the smoke left her frail body. The other two bodies were just as still, but a quick check showed that they were all miraculously breathing.

The man knelt beside the empty vessel, whose glassy eyes were staring sightlessly up at the ceiling. She was alive, but hardly considered living. He grimaced and drifted his fingers over her face, drawing her eyelids closed to create the guise of simple sleep. The man was stirring, the soldier. The other woman remained limp.

He gulped and pulled out his phone, dialing the number that had been lying dormant for years. He hadn't called that number in years. His eyes only flitted across it in the dark hours of the night, when the nightmares threatened to overpower him and the responsibility of protecting this room nearly destroyed what little soul he had left in his cursed existence.

But the countdown had begun. The crystal had broken. The demon was free. The magical seal had been destroyed. Darkness had been unleashed anew on Radiant Garden. The Sorcerer's War would begin again.

So he dialed the number, staring at the stirring soldier in awe and horror.

The other end of the line picked up, but there was no greeting. The receiver would recognize his phone number; there would be only one reason that he would call this man. Still, he felt compelled to announce himself, if only for the nostalgia of normalcy.

"It's Jerome." He said, and his voice was hoarse and gravelly from disuse. "She walks."

On the other end of the line, he heard Merlin give a heavy sigh, a grunt of understanding, and then the dial tone droned in his ear.

..:-X-:..

"Beth?" Aerith canted her head, looking at the other woman, who was blankly staring out the window at the starless sky.

"She walks." Beth whispered, her pale eyes wide and her lips thin.

Aerith shifted slightly in discomfort. Over the past week, she had more or less grown accustomed to Beth Marshall's strange ways. Well, she had learned to expect the strange; she hadn't gotten used to it yet. Since the blackout, Beth as a psychiatric patient appeared to have had a major breakthrough. Her incoherent ramblings and violent outbursts had dropped to almost nothing. They hadn't been required to sedate or restrain her since before the blackout began, and, when she spoke, she was nearly completely lucid.

"Who walks?" Aerith asked gently.

Though she had had a breakthrough, Beth was still mentally unstable and none of the tests that the doctors performed had given any measure of how truly lucid or aware she was. She was mute for every doctor, every specialist, and every visitor who tried to engage her, but she spoke for Aerith. She would have a conversation with Aerith.

Beth slowly turned her head from the window, eyes still detached. For a chilling moment, Aerith felt like she was staring into the eyes of a vegetative person. Then the other woman blinked, and her mouth curved into a small smile.

"I'm sorry…It's dark outside." She said haltingly.

Aerith tried to appear at ease. "Yes, it is." She answered gently. "Who walks?"

Beth's eyes slid down to where Aerith had folded her hands in her lap, and her gaze settled on Aerith's engagement ring. Quick as a flash, her eyes flipped back up to Aerith's face.

"My family is dead."

It was said plainly, a matter of fact, void of emotion and unaware of how uncomfortable such a statement was. Aerith didn't respond immediately. She rubbed her thumb against the side of the engagement ring, turning it around her finger a full revolution before speaking. Beth was detached; her full range of outward emotion hadn't recovered. Aerith didn't know if the woman was suffering internally and was just incapable of showing it or if she didn't feel at all. So far, the only emotion that she had displayed was fear. Any time other than when she was afraid, Beth was a mask of apathy and mild interest.

"Yes they are." Aerith reciprocated as plainly as possible. "They died in the invasion 15 years ago. How does that make you feel?"

Beth snorted, hugging her knees to her chest. "You're not a psychiatrist."

"No, I'm not." Aerith mimicked her, folding her legs up in her seat and hooking her elbows around her knees. "But I'm listening if you want to talk."

Beth chewed the side of her lip. "Did you find it?"

Aerith inwardly sighed but went along with the deferral. "Find what?"

"Nowhere. That's where you'll find him."

There it was. One of those four mystery words that Beth had spouted for hours on end before regaining her lucidity. Nowhere. Cage. Chasm. Bomb. So far, Aerith and the others had only been able to glean a basic idea of what the words meant.

"How are we supposed to find someone that is nowhere?" She asked lightly.

Beth's eye twitched and her throat bobbed as she swallowed impulsively. "When the shadow goes away, you'll have to find him. He'll be Nowhere. Where is it?"

Was she slipping? Aerith breathed measuredly. Beth was staring at the engagement ring again with an unreadable expression.

"I'm getting married." Aerith prompted, changing the subject as abruptly as Beth had been in all of their conversations.

Beth rolled with it, nodding her head. "He'll walk with her."

Aerith blinked. Beth was suddenly staring directly into her eyes. Her lips were pursed to at thin, bloodless line, and her eyes were severely narrowed, as though she was intensely focused on Aerith's face. A feeling like ice water filled Aerith's chest.

"Who are you talking about, Beth?" Aerith asked directly.

Beth's expression didn't change, and she didn't answer the question.

Feeling her patience wearing thin for the day, Aerith stood, stretched, and granted the woman a cool but polite goodbye and a promise to visit again soon, before slipping out of the private room. Beth said nothing, but her eyes followed Aerith until the door closed.

The early evening sky was black overhead, and Aerith sighed as she left the hospital, making her way to her and Cloud's apartment.

Nowhere. Cage. Chasm. Bomb.

Lately, Beth had been so preoccupied with the 'nowhere' part. Aerith and Cloud had looked through all of the research in the old archives about Heartless and Nobodies, after Aerith had stumbled upon a theory. The formula seemed to follow that, when a person lost their heart to the Heartless, a Nobody was created. Her theory was to apply that formula to worlds. When a planet was consumed by the Heartless, what if a shade of that planet was created? A 'nowhere?'

Such a thing had never been found or hinted at in any of the Alliance's records, aside from the letter from the criminal Corbin Franks, who was in the Jinx prison in the deserts of Agrabah. His solitary letter to Aerith had been received months ago, and it still made as little sense now as it did then. Unfortunately, that was all they had to go on.

'Cage' was just as open to interpretation. Beth had spoken to Merlin about her ordeal, being trapped inside the heart of Radiant Garden for two decades. Aerith still had a hard time wrapping her head around that. There was a door inside the old castle ruins, the door that directly accessed the heart of the world, and Sora had sealed it years ago. Aerith learned over the past year, however, that just because a door closed, didn't mean that there were no windows still open. So Radiant Garden's heart was a 'cage.' What did that mean?

'Chasm' could only refer to the anomalous ship that Leon and a small squad of soldiers had intercepted months ago. That didn't make sense, though, because that ship had been destroyed, blown up while in orbit around The World That Never Was. It was gone.

Then there was this talk of a 'bomb.' Every time Beth said the word, it sent a heated shiver up Aerith's spine. Something instinctively told her that the girl wasn't talking about a mere weapon of war. This was something…greater.

Her cell phone's ringing interrupted her thoughts, and Aerith jumped slightly, tugging the phone out. It was Merlin. She answered it in the middle of the third ring.

"Hello?" She greeted.

"It's happening." Merlin's voice was taut.

Aerith slowed her walk until she stopped on the cobblestone street. "What is?"

"I just got a phone call from an old…from a specialist who has been keeping an eye on…There are three unidentified persons being airlifted to a private hospital on the south end of town. This is extremely classified, Aerith; I need you here."

"Here? You're there? Who are they?" Aerith did an about-face. "Where is the private hospital?"

Merlin rattled off the address before adding, "Have you spoken with Beth?"

It was a lightning fast shift in topic, and Aerith mouthed soundlessly. "I just left."

She picked up her pace, feeling an unexplainable anxiety building in her chest.

"Merlin, who are these three people? Are they alive?"

"Yes…in a way."

"That's not clarifying anything." She frowned. "Where were they found? Who are they?"

"Get here as fast as you can." It sounded as though Merlin was preoccupied with something on the other end of the line, and she heard him moving things. "Tell no one."

The line died.

Aerith started to stop where she was, incredulous, but a bolt of confusing adrenaline suddenly hit her. She shoved her phone back into her pocket and took off at a run. The darkness of the sky yawned overhead, and a wave of claustrophobia abruptly clawed at her throat. Picking up her pace, she sprinted around a corner and toward the direction of the private hospital.

..:-X-:..

The brainstorming in Tifa's living room came to an abrupt halt when Jake Alms skidded into the house, without knocking and uninvited, and practically leapt over one of Tifa's interns to reach the television.

"Have you heard—have you heard—have you heard?!" Was all the wiry young man could spout, pawing at the television until the screen flickered to life.

"What? Jake. What the Hell?" Tifa stepped over to him, jerking him back to his feet.

"The Sun Kingdom saw dawn today." Jake's green eyes were wide.

Tifa and the other soldiers in the room straightened and fell still at that.

Jake bobbed his head enthusiastically, gesturing with both hands at the special news report on the television. "The darkness left them!"

Tifa let go of him, staring with her interns at the reporter on the screen.

"At this time, there is no definite reason as to how or why the unexplained shadow that has shrouded the Sun Kingdom for weeks now has finally abated." The woman was saying.

The screen cut to footage from the Sun Kingdom, where another reporter was speaking with one of the Allied ambassadors on the planet. Sure enough, Tifa could see that the nightly sky had been replaced with a late morning sun lighting the world. People were whooping and hollering in the background.

Her cell phone began to ring, and Tifa tore her eyes away from the report to answer it in the kitchen, away from the commotion of her soldiers in the living room. It was Cid.

"What's this about the Sun Kingdom?" She greeted abruptly.

"The press got a hold of it sooner than we expected." Cid sounded breathless.

Tifa straightened, "Isn't this a good thing? No one has been able to figure out what that shadow was…is. If it's lifted from that world, then Traverse Town and Radiant Garden should be next, right?"

"We don't know." Cid grumbled. "Some people aren't taking it that way."

"How are they taking it?" She asked.

"Some of the other worlds think that's the tail end of the darkness, like it only stretches so far. Some are speculating that the head of the darkness is sitting over Radiant Garden, and as it stretches toward other worlds, the end of it is receding over the Sun Kingdom." Cid replied.

Tifa ran a hand over her forehead, leaning against the kitchen counter. "What does the Council think?"

"They're convening now. Tifa, we've got other things on our hands right now too." Cid sounded suddenly withheld.

"Like what?"

"You want the bad news or the weird news?" He prompted.

Tifa squinted one eye, "Bad news."

"Riots have broken out in Agrabah, Twilight Town, and The World That Never Was over this." He said. "People just freaked out, rose up, and it's chaos out there. Shit, Twilight Town and The World That Never Was barely have enough military presence to keep anarchy from raging."

"And Agrabah?" Tifa's voice tightened. "The Jinx prison is out there."

Cid cursed. "I know. The Sultan contacted us half an hour ago, saying things were under control, but…"

Tifa glanced toward the stairs, where Leon and Mikayla had presumably gone to bed. "What's the weird news?"

"Merlin's shitting bricks because of an anomaly over at the castle ruins. He's got Aerith with him at some private hospital—"

"Hospital? Are they okay?"

"Yeah, s'far as I know, but neither of them are answering my calls and the place itself is being really shady."

"I'll head over there myself." Tifa said, and it wasn't a request.

"A'right. Keep a lid on this. The media is going batshit enough as it is tonight."

"Right." Tifa hung up and moved into the living room. "Park."

Sergeant Garrett Park got to his feet immediately, "Ma'am?"

"Keep an eye on things, but get discussion going again. We need answers and ideas, not a bunch of people gawking at what could be a steaming pile of misinformation." She ordered.

Park nodded. "Yes, Ma'am."

Tifa scribbled a note for Leon and left it by his keys before bolting out of the house and aiming toward downtown to find Aerith and Merlin.

..:-X-:..

The time agent sat across the table from the woman that it had taken her a week to find. Considering that this person had been in hiding for fifteen years, it should have taken a lot longer. That was probably the only reason why she had agreed to meet like this. She was curious. Or impressed. The agent chose to believe both.

The designated meeting place was a simple picnic table in Radiant Garden's general park. It was neutral, it was private, and it was empty given the circumstances on the planet. The time agent had tied her long dark hair back from her face, and she kept her brown eyes trained on the woman. Across from her, the woman was dressed simply, with her brown hair falling just above her shoulders, her chocolate eyes watching the agent thoughtfully.

"You aren't from around here." The woman said.

Agent Mike, Mikayla Leonhart in her personal life, didn't move, one leg crossed over the other and her arms folded across her chest. "Perceptive. You are from around here, though, no matter how you try to hide it."

The woman looked unthreatening, with a frail physique and no obvious body strength to boast of, but her dark eyes were deep and critical.

"Perceptive." The woman responded with a smirk, her posture rigid with her hands folded delicately in her lap. "What gave me away?"

"A lot." Mike said coolly. "I know who you are and what you can do. Let's leave it at that and get to business." She sat forward slightly. "You know how this war ends."

The woman across from her sighed. "It's hard not to see how this war against the darkness will end, stranger."

"Yes, but you KNOW. Detail for detail. So do I. That's why I've hunted you down."

"Well, I know because I have a gift. You know because you cheat." She smiled.

Mike straightened with a scoff. "I'm a professional. I don't cheat."

"You don't belong here, child." Her voice suddenly softened, "You're twenty-five years out of your timeline. Give or take."

"So you know who I am. Then you probably know why I'm here." Mike narrowed her eyes.

The woman remained passive. Mike continued.

"I know how the war ends because I read it in history books. I studied it. I grew up hearing the stories and the details never changed. Suddenly, the details are changing. The history books are being rewritten exponentially. Every time I go home, it's less like home. Someone is changing things. Someone is transcending the rules of time and physics and altering this specific decade." She dropped her palm on the table surface between them.

"I've been hiding for a long time, child. Why do you think I will come back to the world now?" The woman asked gently, sincerely.

"Look, I'm breaking every rule that I vowed to uphold just talking about this with you." Mike said emphatically. "But I'm stuck here," She pulled out the blue wrist device that she had used to travel through time. "And I can't do my timeline any good by being stuck in this one."

The blue device was dull, lifeless. It had cracked and died soon after she arrived in Radiant Garden, twenty five years before she was supposed to be there.

"I will go to prison for this." She said plainly, staring at the woman. "But I would rather go to prison and see the disappointment on my parents' faces than to go back to my timeline and find that it doesn't exist anymore."

"Even if I wanted to help, what makes you think I can?" The woman prompted.

"Because I'm a shadow compared to what you can do. We're blood. You trained me, for Pete's sake. You founded the agency that I'm an operative of." Mike snapped. "Because it's your damn duty and your family and if I have to—"

"All right, all right." The woman lifted a hand, "Simmer down, agent. Of course I want to help…and of course I can…" Her eyes narrowed, "But if you truly know how this war ends, then you know what happens…to everyone."

Mike folded her arms again. "I do."

The woman sighed and slowly stood, straightening her white skirt. "That's all I needed to know…Let's go then."

"Thank you." Mike took her hand and shook it; her calloused hand abrasive against the woman's soft grip. "Ellone."

..:-X-:..

The Jinx Prison deep in the deserts of Agrabah was in chaos. No one knew where the epicenter of the fighting had been, but every level of the detainment center was a flood of fighting, punching, brawling, and yelling. The guards were hastily moving to re-establish order, but with the riots breaking out all over Agrabah and, from what they'd heard, in neighboring worlds, there was little they could do and no one who was listening.

The maximum security levels had sprung open, allowing the more dangerous criminals to roam the halls with the common thieves and liars. They were all thronging together in a mass of bodies that were both trying to escape and simultaneously attempting to hurt as many of each other as possible in their attempt.

He moved among them like vapor, his lanky frame moving easily through the chaos. Fire had broken out in the commons area of the prison, and fluttering papers fell like flaming confetti onto the brawling bodies below. Fluidly, he maneuvered around an overturned table and slid out of the inner doorway. The outer hallway led to the main guard tower, which had been overrun early in the riots and was in shambles already.

Two guards were lying unconscious—perhaps dead, it mattered not to him—and keys dangled untouched and ignored from one of their belts. He clucked his tongue; did these violent imbeciles have no sense? It was far easier to unlock a door than to bust it down. Then again, perhaps it was the show that his delinquent inmates craved. The parade, the explosions, the yelling, and the strife: after so many months behind bars, he couldn't rebuff them for that simple pleasure.

With a low snort, he knelt, plucked the keys from the limp guard, and straightened, casually making his way across the broken yard and reaching the main gates. His long fingers extracted the main gate key and, with a flick of the wrist, unlocked the door. The gate opened out into the open air, and a heated desert breeze buffeted his face.

He made his way to the Gummi hangar that stood adjacent to the prison. It was a simple brick structure, housing only one mass transport ship and two dual-person ships. He located the keys in the main office of the hangar—also abandoned, as all guards had been ordered inside to quell the riots—and chose one of the dual-person ships.

It would pass through the atmosphere without alerting the Allied base on this planet. It was too small, of no consequence given everything else that was going on. He taxied the ship out onto the tarmac. Without a moment's hesitation, he punched the accelerator, and the Gummi's tires screamed as the ship gunned down the tarmac, lifting off with a whoosh and angling skyward.

The cool female voice hummed out of the speakers, "Now leaving Agrabah. Please select destination."

His upper lip curled as he imagined his destination, that helpless, barren little planet that was ripe for the taking, waiting to be burned, like they had allowed him to burn. Soon, he would make them understand pain. Soon, he would watch their precious leaders writhe at his feet, until they begged for him to end it.

"Radiant Garden." He hissed.

The ship cleared Agrabah airspace and the thrusters engaged, slamming the ship into warp speed and leaving only a jet stream in its wake.

..:-X-:..