At Roxas's suggestion, I paid a quiet call on Sora that night for the first lesson, just as I'd planned. Waking someone in the night is cruel, but it also presents a situation where they have the least control and therefore the most surprise.

Against complaints, I'd split up Sora and Xion – once I finally told them apart by the simple act of stealing Xion's jacket. Not that it changed much, since they both still acted alike, but at least we knew which was which.

So I snuck into Sora's room on silent feet, knowing full well that while he's prone to taking naps, he's also a light sleeper and could be woken too soon if I wasn't careful. Now, what best to confront Sora with?

Since the entire tower itself was made to respond to my magic as needed, what would normally be more complex turned into a trivial matter, concealing myself in one illusion while making it appear – and not just appear, but sound and smell – as if the room was on fire. That illusion was held in place until I was ready for him to notice it, creating an oddly frozen flame in the room.

Then I added certain extras to the room. Nothing elaborate – water bottles scattered about just out of reach of the fire in varying shapes and sizes, followed by – thanks to a previous visit I'd paid to Merlin – a spell in item form, like the pre-made spells Sora is supposed to collect normally. Only this one contained a spell I'd come up with – Growth. I'd pushed the limits of pre-made spells with this, allowing it to achieve a different effect depending on what it was used on.

Dealing with the fire in any way would be a passing mark, of course. The outstanding grade would be if he noticed the spell on the bedside table, picked it up and used it with any one of the bottles, thus causing the water inside to multiply and extinguish the flame in short order. Attention to detail is just as important as how you react under pressure and in surprise.

Then once I was satisfied, I released the illusions, watched and waited. Sora continued to sleep for a few minutes before the scent of smoke reached him, then his brow creased as his mind struggled to wake up. It creased further as I nudged the fire into making louder crackles, then at last he shot upright and stared about.

The first thing anyone does in such a situation of course is yell, "Fire!" Which he did. Fortunately I'd had the foresight to make sure no one outside, unless they were watching with the all-seeing eyeglasses upstairs, would notice. I couldn't have interference in a test, could I?

He realised the fire was between him and the door, and to his credit did not even think of running to the window. He was at least five floors up, which of course meant that was out of the question.

Then though he'd only just been roused, he noticed a nearby bottle.

"Not gonna do enough by itself," he reasoned out loud, continuing to look around. "Wait a moment... these weren't here before. A test, then?" he reached out to the fire, drawing his hand back quickly with an absent Cura. "But it feels real enough!"

Still overlooking the spell right next to him, he looked thoughtful, rescuing some of the water that was closer to the fire, then collecting it all together on his bed. I nudged the fire a little closer.

"Wait. Cura worked. What if...?" he trailed off, looking first to the water, then to the door, eyes narrowed thoughtfully. He froze the water in the bottles with a few spells, then tossed one into the fire.

I'm no expert, so I can't say if what happened next is supposed to happen or not. Obviously I improvised, causing the water bottle to burst spraying frozen and rapidly melting ice randomly about. I put out some of the flames, but to him it would have looked like it was too unpredictable to chance it.

Instead he tossed a second, larger one down, which reacted similarly and covered a wider area, but still left a lot of fire between him.

"There's gotta be an easier way out?" he said, frustrated, casting about the room again – and at last spotted the spell. Like all such spells, one touch is all it takes to absorb the spell and learn it. "Huh... if I hadn't frozen the water, I could use this. But I got all this fire right here..."

Sora picked a bottle at random, taking the cap off this time and holding it as close as he dared to the still slowly encroaching fire. Ice probably doesn't melt as quickly as his did, but I'm allowed to cheat. To him it still probably felt like it took too long, but at last he figured he had enough water to cast the Growth spell into it. The water in the bottle erupted like a fountain as it multiplied, and after a few surprised moments he managed to direct it and soak the fire, the room, and by sheer chance me as well, removing most of the fire before it finally wore off and left him without enough water.

"I think that's enough," I said, cancelling the illusions, which had the convenient benefit of drying off everything soaked by the illusory water. "Not bad. I thought you'd lose your head a bit more in a sudden crisis."

"I thought it was a test! But the fire-"

"All illusions. I've grown fairly skilled with them lately," I explained.

"The spell too?" he asked.

"No, that was real. Now, just one thing Sora. Don't tell the others. They'll get their surprise tests too, but don't give anything away."

"You woke me in the middle of the night for a crisis that wasn't real, and now you want me to keep it quiet?" he demanded.

"I did warn you I'd test you unexpectedly. You kept your head in a surprise situation, even if you did overlook the spell at first."

"I'm never gonna get back to sleep after this," he complained.

"It just so happens I have some sleep magic too," I offered.

"Just don't leave me to oversleep," he grumbled. "Middle of the night and all."


I'd have tested another that night, but even I need my sleep. I left Roxas having his own look into Yen Sid's book after he'd decided to stay up and find out more. Personally I think he's looking for justification of a certain claim he makes, which is that as my Nobody, he doesn't need to be checked for the Mark of Mastery because he can just nick mine.

Whatever he was looking for, he'd gone to bed when I got up, and to the surprise of no one except Jiminy half an hour later, I was the first one up.

"I had the strangest dream last night," he confided in me, tucking into some buttered toast I'd used the opposite of Growth on for him.

"Oh? What happened?"

"Well, it was as if my whole room was on fire," he said. "Except it didn't look like my room, and Sora was there. And you too – you were testing him."

"Strange. I did give him that test last night, but I don't see why you'd dream about it. Are you up yet, old friend?"

"No, I'm off somewhere chasing moonbeams," Neku replied with a yawn, appearing nearby. He doesn't actually need to sleep, but sometimes he acts as if he does anyway. "You can thank me for it," he went on. "I figured you'd want a way to find out what Lee got up to while you were sleeping. Sorry I didn't tell you in advance, but I didn't expect him to wake Sora that late at night."

"Well, if it keeps me up to date, I'm sure I can bear with it. Just give me a chance to add it to the journal, won't you?"

"Sure thing. I need a word with you anyway, Neku."

"There's a surprise," he muttered sardonically, taking a seat at the table and creating a bowl of porridge for himself. Again, not something he needs. Just a way of seeming more human, I guess.

"I've still gotta look up how to send them to the Realm of Sleep, but I figure all three of them might need a little nudge in the right direction occasionally. I thought you might want to go with Sora, since he'll still have Saisha with him."

"Sound enough reasoning. Who're you sending with the others?"

"Who else? I'll have to borrow your extra eyes, Jiminy. They'll get a first-hand view of things though, so it works out. The point is though, you'll still be able to keep in touch with me Neku. I've got your book after all. But I need a way for Axel and Demyx to get a line out in case they need something from us out here."

"So you want to be able to help out indirectly, but only in the first world and only if they need it, right?" Neku asked. "I'm sure I can figure something out. Anyway, what are you thinking of getting up to today?"

"Some basic training," I shrugged. "More normal stuff than last night. They all need a little guidance, or I think so anyway. Sora's style is lagging behind where you and I arranged for him to remember going along with us, but never actually did. Xion rarely bothers with magic, so that's a given point."

"And Riku?" Jiminy asked. "He sure looked like he had a good balance going. I didn't see any darkness to him though."

"Right. Sora and Xion don't have much, though Xion does have some he's never touched, but Riku has the advantage that he, like me, knows the gift of keeping himself safe while he uses it, and he doesn't have my disadvantage of the glass cannon."

"Glass cannon?"

"He means his tendency to lose control of his darkness when he's under pressure and not paying attention properly," Neku translated. "You want to be careful though, Liam. Make sure the reason he's not using it isn't because he isn't comfortable with it."

"It's a part of him, Neku," I pointed out. "Once you've used it, it's difficult not to again – that's always been the most dangerous aspect of it. He knows how to keep it under control, but it leaves him susceptible to anyone who has power over the darkness – like Xehanort, in all his incarnations."

"And as you keep saying, a weapon you're reluctant to use might as well be in enemy hands," Neku finished. "I guess you do have a point. Just be careful with it, I don't want to have to alter reality again because one of you went too far and lost him to the darkness."

"I'll keep it in mind. I think I'm also going to teach them a few spells too, like the Growth one last night. Expand the repetoire from the basics a bit."

"So much for the clean slate Yen Sid wanted," Neku observed. "You really don't agree with that, do you?"

"No. It's absurd. If you've taught yourself you'll have a few bad habits, but that's part of what the training is for. There's absolutely no sane reason why you should throw everything out just to do it right."

"Has anyone told you that you're stubborn?"

"Many times," I replied. "I've got plenty of bad habits, but you don't see them telling me to start fresh. One of you boys run down and wake up Axel and Demyx," I called, spotting all three of them wander in looking sleepy, with Sora even more so. Riku mumbled something to them and headed out again.

Once Sora and Xion had been at the table for a few minutes, Sora staved off a yawn, then told me, "Told them already. Seems only fair."

"Fair enough," I shrugged. "I'll just have to change what I have planned for their surprise tests, won't I?"

"Told you he'd say that," Xion said. "Got any marmalade?"

"Marmalade?" Sora asked. "Since when do you like that?"

"I dunno. I just wanted to try some. Maybe I'll like it where you don't."

The twins aren't quite as similar as most think once you get to see them at certain times. And I was going to get to see a lot of them.

At least I knew no matter what I set them, they'd share that with each other. It just meant I'd have to be smarter and come up with different kinds of surprises.