Chapter Four
As the dawn emerged to illumine the Mysterious Tower, Yen Sid and Kairi knelt in an area of the isle that she had not seen yet. Behind the crooked tower itself stretched an expanse of hills covered with grass and wildflowers and dotted with groves of pine trees. In the shadow of a grove, apprentice knelt before Master.
"I presume you began to read the book I left for you?" Yen Sid asked. Kairi smiled and nodded. "Very good. Now tell me, what did you learn?"
Kairi took a deep breath before speaking, recalling what she could. "The word 'magic' is actually used for two separate things," she began. "First, it's a natural force all over the universe, like light, heat, or gravity. Everyone has magic inside, often called their 'magical power'. Second, the term is used for the art of focus and control of this internal mystic energy."
"Very good," Yen Sid complimented. "It seems you learn well from the written word." He closed his eyes and began his first lecture. "What few realize is that magic is channeled not by the heart, but by the will. The drive to act that all possess. Yes, a strong heart can influence the potency of magic, but it is the will, the mind, that inspires it in the first place." And it was how those without hearts were capable of using magic.
"While it is very much possible to channel magic unaided, such as through the hands and fingers, most mages utilize any number of foci, such as wands, staves, or specially-prepared accessories to better control it. This is especially important for beginners, as it allows them to focus their power faster, to attain a feel for the flow of magic. For now, you will channel your magic through your Keyblade." He grinned. "Which, as luck would have it, is one the most powerful foci in existence."
"As far as learning individual spells goes," he continued, "there are two methods in doing so. One can meditate on a spell for day or weeks to personally attain enlightenment in a certain power, or the power can be passed on from another. Arcane mentors can pass on fragments of their skills, and a mage of some experience can even attain new powers by defeating foes heavily aligned with a specific power."
"It is traditional to learn the spell for 'fire' first." He gestured for her to move forward. When she was close enough, Yen Sid placed a palm on her forehead … and Kairi felt a breeze stir around them, a sense of something flow into her.
"You have attained the power of fire," he intoned, and stood from his kneeling position. With a wave of his hand, a line of wooden dummies appeared further up the hill. "Now, practice channeling that power." He moved away to give her space to work, and because he starkly recalled Mickey almost blasting him off this very hill when he began learning Fire.
Kairi stood and summoned Destiny's Embrace, glancing at Yen Sid before looking to her targets. She closed her eyes and thought of fire. She imagined the bonfires she and her friends had built on the beach for after-dark parties. She imagined the fireplace in her home on chilly nights, nestled in a fleece blanket with a good book. And she remembered a house burning down when she was nine, watching in horrified awe as the orange flames licked at the bricks of the house and brought it crumbling down.
For a moment, she felt like something stirred within her, but it escaped her mental grasp before she could get a handle on it, like smoke through her fingers. Breathing deeply to keep down her frustration, she tried to recall anything helpful that she had read in her new spellbook. A paragraph jumped to mind that had said that magic, while given shape by the mind, was most easily triggered by emotion, or the "memory of emotion".
Emotion, huh?
Kairi checked her breathing and remembered a time that made her angry. A dozen memories shuffled through her mind's eye, each that made her clench her teeth, but one struck harder than any other. It didn't just make her angry … it was far more than that.
She remembered when Sora had freed her heart. She could almost see the glimmers of Light as his body dissolved into nothing, scattered by her presence. She remembered the confusion … that had quickly blossomed into righteous fury. It had been brief, before Ansem had appeared and Riku had held him off, but it was there. That white-hot anger - at herself, for leading Sora into that situation.
The feeling from before rose up like a roaring wave and she grabbed hold of it, forcing her will upon it. She forced it through her arm, through her hand, and through her Keyblade. She locked her gaze onto a distant target and pointed her Keyblade at it. She barely heard herself shout "Fire" before a ball of orange flames shot from the tip of her weapon to smash into the dummy.
The wooden target hadn't a chance.
Master Aqua panted and banished Master's Keeper, gaze sweeping over the broken black crags of the Realm of Darkness. She had learned long ago that having her Keyblade dormant kept the Heartless from tracking her. At least a little bit. She took shelter beneath a close outcropping and took a breath to calm herself, slipping into a light meditative trance with practiced ease to rejuvenate her magic.
As her magic returned to its peak, she felt that familiar sense of warmth in her heart. She looked up to find the visage of a young girl before her, a soft smile on her face. Without a word, she turned away and faded to nothingness.
Aqua stayed there, wondering what that had been until she felt the presences of more Heartless approaching. She broke out into a jog with long, loping strides that she could keep up for hours. And all the while navigating the crumbling stones of these dark cliffs, she continued to wonder in the back of her mind about that vision.
Why had that girl seemed so familiar?
As Kairi grinned at her success, she couldn't help but notice something different. It wasn't that she was tired, per se, but some part of her felt … drained. Must be her internal magic. The book had said it was a finite amount, and her fragmented memories of Sora's adventure supported that fact. It had also said that limit could be pushed with practice and experience.
Shaking off her musings, Kairi reached for her inner-magic, the energy rising much faster. Experience, huh? She blasted the two remaining dummies to burning splinters, taking note of how each spell drained her magic. She looked to Yen Sid, who nodded before conjuring a large orb of light.
"Now, let us see how you fare against a moving target." The orb began to bob and weave, changing direction and altitude at seemingly random intervals. Kairi fired her spell at it, the magic channeling faster than ever, but the orb evaded its gently-curving path. She fired again, twice in rapid succession, and still missed.
With a deep breath, Kairi focused as hard as she could, trying to anticipate the orb's path in any way she could. Wait for it … She fired again, the flaming missile curving and striking the orb into motes of light. She fist-pumped in success, she concentrated for another spell … and found nothing. Her internal magic was gone.
"And so you have discovered your limitation," Yen Sid observed.
"How do I get it back?" Kairi asked. The book hadn't gotten into detail about that yet.
"One's personal reserve of magic replenishes over time, as their body absorbs it from their surroundings. How fast it recovers depends on the individual. With training, you body can learn to restore its magic with greater speed, as well as expand your reserves." He stroked his beard in thought. "For the rest of the morning, you will practice this spell and come to understand your limitations." He waved his hand, conjuring more wooden dummies. Much thicker-looking dummies.
"Begin," he commanded, tossing her a strange cube of blue material. Recognizing an ether from her book, Kairi crushed it in her hand, a burst of magic rushing into her and fully restoring her reserves. Stamping down the impulse to cut loose, she focused and fired off a single Fire spell, watching as it shattered part of a dummy. She bit her lip in thought before reordering her emotions and firing again, with slightly different results.
She continued to tweak her spell, as much as she could, until her magic ran dry, then sunk to her knees, Destiny's Embrace resting across her thighs, to wait out the return of her power. After the third or fourth repetition, she decided to count how long it took her to return to full power. After several more, she determined that it took about three minutes to return from exhaustion, but far less if it had something to build on.
Filing that away, she continued to practice her Fire spell. As the day wore on, she saw a marked improvement. Whereas at the beginning she could only shatter a small portion of her targets, she eventually moved up to breaking apart half of them in one spell.
As the lights in the sky that took place of the sun reached the peak of their brightness, Yen Sid approached and placed a hand on her Keyblade, prompting her to banish it. He pointed his hand, only two fingers pointing, and a ball of fire the size of a seagull egg from the islands shot from his fingertips to smash apart two separate targets. As Kairi stared, mouth open in awe, Yen Sid's expression hadn't changed a bit.
"Call that a demonstration. Keep up your practice and you will someday reach that level." With that he began making his way back to the tower, presumably for lunch. Kairi was still staring at the shattered targets, pieces of them still burning, when her rumbling stomach snapped her out of it. Without another thought, she ran to catch up to her Master for lunch.
After lunch of a thick beef-and-vegetable stew, Yen Sid brought Kairi back out to the back of the tower, a new sparring circle sculpted into a large patch of bare soil. This one was far more clean-lined and elaborate, its edges decorated with all kinds of arcane-looking symbols. He stood at the far end of the circle, Kairi in the center.
"As the morning was spent gaining some familiarity with magic," he explained, "now we will begin honing your casting under pressure." A snap of his fingers conjured a quartet of traditional wooden targets, like the ones archers used to practice, that began lazily floating around him in random directions. "You will use your Fire spell to destroy these targets," he lifted a hand that was engulfed in flames, "while avoiding counter fire." The grin that spread across his lips was very unsettling. "Begin."
No sooner had he said the word than he launched a mass of fire at her, forcing her to spin out of its way. Another attack followed and she slashed it out of the air, mindful of using one hand rather than Sora's two-handed style. It was then that she realized how hard it was going to be to relearn some of her new skills. Which, of course, she had no time to think about as she cartwheeled out of the way of Yen Sid's spells. And to make matters even more fun, he was mixing in ice magic, now.
As she spun out of the way of his next attack, Kairi dove into her magic, the action now almost as natural as breathing, and channeled it into a burst of fire. But while her focus was adequate for spellcasting, she had instinctively fired at what she deemed the biggest threat. Her fire soared at her Master … and dispersed against a transparent barrier of hexagons, which faded as quickly as it had appeared.
"Be mindful, child," Yen Sid scolded, before firing another shard of ice at her. She deflected the ice and fired again, this time at one of her targets. Her aim was true this time, and it struck the target to splinters. One down - three to go. She ducked under a fireball and fired at another target, the circle of wood veering away to survive by mere inches.
As the exercise carried on, Kairi soon began panting from exertion. Casting magic may not tire her out in the traditional way, but all this dodging and avoiding certainly did. And the more tired she got, the harder it was to aim or to avoid counterfire, which had hit her four or five times. And it didn't help matters that she had reached her magical limit twice since hitting her first target, only having shattered one more in return.
And yet, the worst part (arguably) was that she new, deep in her gut, that Yen Sid was holding back. His spells were measured, methodical, the time consistent between each firing. He was going easy on her, allowing her to focus on her task in a way that real enemies never would. And she couldn't bring herself to be angry about it, only grateful that the task wasn't even worse.
As her magic returned, Kairi jumped and fired at a target on the far right, her spell hitting home to turn it to splinters. But as she hit the ground, one of Yen Sid's ice spells struck her shoulder, its sheer cold like a punch to the gut. And that moment of distraction left her vulnerable to fire that seared her clothes and sent her to the ground.
"Up, Kairi!" Yen Sid shouted. "To fall in battle is to die!" He fired off another spell and she barely rolled out of the way. Gathering what magic she could, she focused her attention on the final target and fired. The target veered to avoid it … and flew right into its path to be destroyed like its fellows.
With a sigh of relief, Kairi collapsed to her knees, panting as if she had run a marathon. As she caught her breath, the burning sensation from her brush with fire was wiped away as she was surrounded by soft green light. A quick glance upward caught the fading image of a bouquet of pink bell-shaped flowers.
As she struggled to her feet, Yen Sid approached and narrowed his eyes at her. After a few moments, she began to grow self-conscious. "I must admit, I did not expect you to do so well," he noted.
"Well?" she asked incredulously. "It took me, like, ten minutes to destroy four targets!" She knew she was being rude, but as tired as she was she couldn't bring herself to care. Yen Sid's glare in reply made her duck her head in shame.
"Watch your tone, my apprentice," he warned. "And yes, you did well. You were only struck by a half dozen of my own spells. And while you allowed yourself to become flustered more than once, you regained your composure and finished strongly." He stroked his beard as he continued. "But in the heat of battle, losing your composure in the first place can be a deadly mistake. For no warrior is this more true than a mage." The grim look in his eyes hammered the point home, and Kairi nodded shakily.
Yen Sid nodded at her unspoken apology and conjured a table with refreshments and an awning for shade. "Take a break and we will continue with your swordplay," he gently ordered, and returned to the tower. Kairi entered the shade of the awning and downed a bottle of water before laying on the grass and promptly beginning to snore.
Sleep now, train later.
After her afternoon of sword training, Kairi was denied the sanctuary of her room by Yen Sid's orders to help prepare dinner. "Keybearers are rarely blessed with their amenities provided when on other worlds, and so must know how to take care of themselves," he explained. He directed Kairi to begin shredding chicken while he began preparing biscuits from scratch.
A shredded chicken, a mass of kneaded and cut dough, and a jar of chicken stock later, Kairi's mouth watered at the smell of simmering chicken-and-dumplings and freshly baking bread. It crossed her mind that Yen Sid seemed to have a thing for comfort food. Then again, she realized, perhaps this was for her benefit. Whether it was or not, she was touched.
After the food was finished cooking, the pair removed them from the heat and served themselves, eating in silence. As Kairi savored the last bite of her stew, tearing a biscuit in half to seep up the gravy, a thought struck her out of the blue.
"Master?" she asked. He looked up in answer. "My book said that emotion helps fuel magic, or 'memory of emotion'. What's the difference?" Yen Sid's gaze seemed to grow … remote. As if he were forcibly keeping himself silent.
"That is a lesson for a later time," he finally answered. Kairi would have pressed the matter, but something told her that would be a bad idea. So, she decided on another question.
"Master? What happened to Master Aqua?" She knew nothing about what had happened so long ago, why she had never seen Aqua since their first meeting. Yen Sid had implied that Aqua should be the one overseeing her training - so where was she?
"I do not know for certain," he answered stoically. "Years ago, presumably not long after she met you, Master Aqua came to me with one of her fellow apprentices in her arms. The boy, Ventus, was in a deep sleep. His heart had been shattered in battle with a great evil. I could no longer sense it within him, but I don't believe it is gone. After hiding away Ventus's body, Aqua left to battle a fearsome enemy." His fingers curled in agitation. "In all the years since then, I have not once felt her presence among the stars."
Kairi looked down at her empty plate, suddenly feeling sick. Her Master was gone?! "You mean she's …?"
"She is not dead, Kairi," he assured. "That much I am certain of. But as for her whereabouts, I have only theory and conjecture." Which was partly true. He was all-but-certain that Aqua had been trapped in the Realm of Darkness during her battle with Xehanort. He was merely uncertain of her whereabouts within the Realm itself. And he felt it best that Kairi not know this, otherwise she may attempt to spearhead a rescue long before she was ready.
As Yen Sid returned to his meal, he straightened up, eyes wide as he sensed the trigger of one of his isle's outlying defenses. The most distant were merely alarms, meant to signal the approach of a threat to great for his other defenses to repel. Hel glanced at Kairi, eyes narrowed.
"Kairi, return to your chambers. There is a matter I must deal with." And with a sweep of his robes, he was gone. Kairi hesitated before running to the nearest window. She swept her gaze over the hills to find a speck of blue in the greenery, moving to the edge of the tiny world.
Kairi bit her lip in thought before nodding to herself and heading for the nearest door. Whatever this "business" was, she wanted to be there to do what she could.
She would not be a burden again.
After finally catching up with her Master, Kairi peeked out from behind a large tree, her eyes wide at the sight before her. The edge of the isle was shielded by a massive, semi-transparent wall of violet energy. Cracks festooned the surface, caused by a great tide of Heartless. And though the barrier seemed to be fighting back, there seemed to be no limit to their number.
Thin humanoids with long tendrils protruding from their heads clawed at the barrier, each destroyed one replaced by three others. Fearsome winged Heartless with great horns and large swords slashed at the barrier, while glass globes with feathered wings fired spells at it.
And in the center of it all stood a towering monstrosity. A quadrupedal Heartless with curving tusks and an obsidian horn in its forehead rammed at the violet wall, cracks forming and widening with each strike. Finally, it rose up on its hind legs and slammed into the barrier, shattering it to pieces and allowing its brethren in.
No sooner had the first wave of Heartless crossed onto the isle than a wave of white lightning rained down from on high, vaporizing them on the spot. Kairi looked to Yen Sid, perfectly poised and Keyblade in hand. With a wave of his Keyblade, a great orb of golden light formed above him as an eldritch crest grew beneath his feet. With a shout, he ignited the spell, and blazing, burning Light burst from the orb.
As the spots faded from Kairi's vision, she gasped at the sight of the battlefield. All that remained was the massive horned Heartless. Everything else had been blasted to nothingness!
The great Heartless, apparently stunned by the powerful spell, shook itself and stood. With a twist of its neck, pillars of dark energy cascaded from the sky. Yen Sid merely summoned a magical dome that absorbed the attack and shattered, striking back at the Heartless. The heartless leapt forward to crash where Yen Sid was standing, forcing the old Master to dodge. With an audible grunt, he summoned a great ball of fire and launched it at the Heartless's horn, stunning the creature.
With a shout, he bodily leapt at the Heartless, his Keyblade slicing its horn clean off. He landed with unnatural grace as the monster wailed in agony, its body crumbling into purple dust and a massive glowing heart arising to fade away to wherever they went after being freed.
Kairi pressed her hands to her mouth to muffle her joy. Joy that faded into terror as Yen Sid crumpled to his knees, supported by his Keyblade. Without thought, she rushed to help him up. But before she could draw near, he vanished in a whorl of blue smoke.
"Apprentice," he said from behind, causing her to yelp in surprise, "didn't I order you to return to your room?"
Kairi had the decency to look abashed, her cheeks rapidly matching her hair. "I- I just-" She struggled to verbalize her emotions before deflating and settling on the simplest truth. "I just wanted to help," she said.
"Your courage is admirable," he said lowly, "but recklessness is not something to be encouraged." He stroked his beard. "We will discuss your punishment for disobedience later. For now," he pointed back to the tower, "return to your chambers." Unlike before, his tone left no room for argument.
As Kairi began the walk back, she yelped as something swatted her backside and she quickened her pace. Yen Sid smirked, a broom in his hand, as the memory of mickey's greatest bout of "recklessness" came to mind. In a flash of light, the broom was replaced by the Star Seeker and he turned to the edge of his isle. He raised his hands, one bearing the Keyblade, and set to work on repairing his wards, as well as strengthening them.
It would not do to have a Princess of Heart be lost on his watch. Especially not if she were his own apprentice.
As Kairi closed the door to her room, she rubbed her rear before sitting on her bed. That had felt like an old-school straw broom, but where had he gotten it? Duh, sorcerer - magic. With that thought, Kairi glanced at the book on her nightstand, surprised to find a pair of new ones underneath. She picked them up and examined them.
One was 'A Bestiary on Heartless', a guide to the various types of Heartless that roamed the worlds. The other was 'The Shapes and Powers of Magic', a more in-depth look at the elemental types of magic. Kairi smiled and sat to begin reading the latter, beginning with the chapter on Fire.
Though before she could get comfortable, she noticed the light from her window gradually fading. It must be turning to full night. She glanced at the kerosene lamp on her bedside table and smiled as an idea formed in her mind. She gently took hold of her magic, channeling it into her fingertips and thinking of candlelight. She snapped her fingers … And the lamp lit of its own accord.
Kairi giggled to herself and relaxed, book at the ready. After all, yesterday and today had basically been warm-ups, intro days. Tomorrow, she felt, was when things would really get serious! And overall, she wouldn't want it any other way.
How'd y'all like Kairi's first lesson in magic?
*The "magic is everywhere" thing is my best explanation for how MP works in-game. Personally, I liked the first game's MP set up better than KH2. Yen Sid granting her the "power of fire" is a reference to how Sora would get new magic in KH1. And the explanation for how one gets these "powers" comes from Sora's sources, some good/neutral (Donald, Phil, the Cheshire Cat/Pongo&Perdita) some bad (Jafar/Genie-Jafar, Clayton/Stealth Sneak, Ursula).
*The "mind over magic" thing is my idea of how Nobodies can use magic when they have no hearts. Or the Lingering Will, for that matter.
*As for the "seagull egg" comment, who else thought that egg from Destiny Islands was huge?
*For those of you concerned that Kairi may be picking up magic too quick to be realistic, remember that Sora did pretty well after meeting Donald.
*The Heartless that attacked the Mysterious Tower were a huge group of Neoshadows and Angel Stars (KH1), led by a Behemoth. Yen Sid's attacks were basically a fourth (maybe fifth) tier Thunder and a one-man Trinity Limit.