Disclaimer: Kingdom Hearts is not owned by me, it is owned by Square Enix.

Yeaaaaa, not dead.

Discoveries


3 months later...

A small Shadow Heartless crawled under the moonlit sky. It was another time to hunt. Time to hunt hearts. It was not alone. With it was a whole pack of Shadows. Leading them were 3 Neoshadows. They were approaching a small town, population of probably 20. The town was remote, in the middle of a forest so any call for help was out of the way. The NeoShadows halted, the pack halting behind them also. Lights could be seen in the thicket of the trees. Ironic how the light can help the darkness. The Heartless continued their march and branched off into small groups. The plan: surround the town and feast upon their hearts. While doing this, one Neoshadow stopped, sensing something strange. It was a familiar feel, but it was a mixture of some sort. It felt another presence of a Heartless yet it was accompanied with the presence of fear. Fear and hate. The Neoshadow asked if any of the other Heartless sensed it, but they sensed nothing.

The town had completely fell asleep. The only sounds coming from the houses are children and adults sleeping. It was perfect. The shadows made from the moonlight crept towards the houses like wolves ready to pounce on their victim. When inside the vicinity, the Heartless dragged themselves out of the ground, showing their pure black bodies in the faint moonlight. Their luminous yellow eyes peered at the houses. The Neoshadows led their own groups and parted, choosing the first victims of their feast. One group seeped into the ground and crawled under the walls of the house. The other side was a bedroom and sleeping on the bed was a little male child. His heartbeat echoed to the Heartless, making them crave the heart more. Seeing that nothing can save the child now, they rushed towards him, eager to have the first bite of the heart. The sound of a slash followed and all the heartless disintegrated. The child woke up in shock and saw a big figure holding a strange sword. The figure put his finger to his lips and silently walked outside. The child snuggled his blanket and thought to himself, he was right.

. . .

"The town is safe," reported Quas. Her hair gained some length over the months and was put into a ponytail. "The trap was a complete success."

Duncan read the report again, making sure he had read it right. "So it has. This was the fourth time in the row. You were right about him Quas, this ability will be of use to us."

It was an average day in the academy. The sky was covered with clouds, students were either chatting or sparring, and classes went by with no problems. There hasn't been any accidents for a week. Duncan was quite pleased with the week's events, but he was more interested in something else, actually someone; Malix. He had proved himself to be an excellent student. Months of tactics and magic was only days to him. Rivaling a few, he is one of the best in the school.

The best thing, though, was finding a special ability Malix had. For some reason, Heartless could not detect him, but he could detect them. Usually, a keyblade wielder is a homing beacon, allowing any thing Heartless related detect them easily, not the other way around. Quas had saw this and convinced Duncan to let Malix use his ability in a real combat situation. All other situations were only small encounters. Duncan was reluctant at first, but allowed it. Malix didn't disappoint. Four times now, he had destroyed hordes of Heartless swarms that were planning to attack small towns and four times he had succeeded.

"Malix had proved himself he is to be an important figure in this academy," Duncan declared, "but he can't do that if he continues to isolate himself. The only person that he will only talk to is you."

"Father, Malix and I have a strange connection, it is not hard to see why he only trusts me." After the Heartless attack on the academy, Malix hasn't shown any type of hospitality. Sure he may have shown some communication to Aurora, Blade, Claw, and the others, but other than them, he shuts himself in his dorm. Quas still can't help that they look very similar, to the point they could be siblings, but she was very sure she was an only child.

Duncan sighed and organized some papers. "Well it can't helped. We can't force him to do what he doesn't want. You are dismissed." Quas nodded and walked out of the office.

It can't be helped, she thought to herself. Ain't that the truth. Even when she is the one Malix talks to, he still is difficult. Over the months, she had tried to help him remember his past, to find a way to find his true identity. All efforts were useless. Other times, she tried to get him to leave his room, but he rather stayed inside to read the books he got from the library, hand delivered of course. Quas guessed that wasn't too bad, but being anti-social isn't really good. The only things they did that they both agreed on was... well talking. Honestly, it felt nice talking to him, even if he can't talk. Something in their conversation just made her day. It really felt like talking to someone that knows you very well. One bad thing though, he showed very little signs of emotion. There were times where he "looked" amused, but mostly just straight face the entire time. It was disturbing at times, but surprisingly she didn't really notice it during their conversations.

Quas approached her dorm, which was Malix's too now because they share a room, and saw that Gummi was at the door with a lot of books. The door opened and a hand came out, obviously Malix, and showed that he wanted get the books off the little girl's hands. Gummi lifted the big books as hard as she could to the hand, almost dropping them at a moment. Malix got them and nodded to Gummi, his way of thanking her. Gummi smiled and nodded back. Then she walked away, in Quas' direction, ignoring her for her other duties. Quas walked inside to see Malix putting the books down on a nearby desk. Her room was slightly changed since he moved in. Her bed was changed to be a bunk bed for Malix, her on bottom and his on top, and there was an extra set of furniture. Things to drawers, desks, lamps, etc. Malix turned to see Quas and waved.

"Hey," Quas said, waving also, "how've you been?"

He shrugged and through hand gestures said that he have been practicing his blizzard magic. He managed to do something worthwhile and wanted to show Quas.

"Really?" He had trouble doing magic and she was surprised that he wanted to demonstrate what he learned. "Go ahead, show me what you got." Malix brought his hand and concentrated. Little swirls of snowflakes appeared around his hand and swirled around it. The snowflakes slowly began to take shape into a ball, then another one, and another one. The finished image was a mini-snowman in Malix's hand.

"Wow!" Quas carefully got the snowman off of Malix's hand and examined it closely. It was not perfect, there were small bumps in the snowman, but it was still a very good job. "This is fantastic, when did you have the time to do this?"

He replied that he practiced while she was out. It gets a little boring after hours of reading so he practiced on his magic time to time.

"That's good. Let's see, you're kinda good on fire and I guess you are decent on blizzard now. All that's left is thunder and cure magic. The basic spells anyway."

Malix nodded. He found it rewarding that Quas had found his demonstration to be more than average.

"How's your combat? I mean like just your blade skills?"

Malix turned his hand left and right, signaling that it was decent. It wasn't the master material, but it wasn't beginner material either.

"Hmm." Quas looked at the clock. 4:39. She looked back at Malix and smiled. "Wanna spar for a bit?"

The request surprised him. Battling against a student who had way more training than him seemed unfair, but the chance may not come again. Plus, it would be very gratifying if he managed to beat his superior. Finally he nodded.

"Great! Let's go." Quas grabbed Malix's wrist and dragged him outside. I can see what he's really made of, she thought

. . .

The academy courtyard was quite an amazing place. Trees filled the yard the whole way, flower beds planted near the academy, even small ponds managed to be in the scene. The main attraction though was the Sparring Grounds. Positioned in the middle of the courtyard, it was the place where any student could test their skills with freedom, as long as it's safe of course. It had 15 domes and it could hold battles as large as a 10 vs 10 matches. When Quas and Malix arrived, 5 of the domes were packed, 4 were average, and 2 had a few people inside of them. They went to an empty one, court # 13.

"A whole court to ourselves," Quas said with a hint of delight, "kind of rare to be honest." The area had many leftovers battle scars from the last people using it. Blade marks filled the ground with blast marks everywhere from spells.

"Watch your step," she said as she guided Malix around and over cracks on the ground, which were literally barely 3 feet from one another.

Malix asked if the domes stayed like this forever.

Quas laughed and responded, "If that was the case, these buildings would have been destroyed already. At the end of the day, the people who look over the Sparring Grounds fix and clean it with magic so it'll be all fine the next day so the students can ruin it again."

Malix nodded to her response. That explains it.

"Yea, nice isn't it?" They stopped at a faint white circle, telling them this was the center of the dome.

"Ah, there it was. The battles smudged off the paint." She turned around and flicked her wrist. "Go to your side. Once we're in position, the fun can begin."

Once the two stood in positions, they summoned their keyblades. Malix summoned his Midnight Roar while Quas summoned her Oathkeeper keyblade. The two circled each other, waiting for the other to strike next. Both knew each other's styles quite well. Though Malix is beginner, he had a great strength in close combat while Quas is skilled in using different combination of spells to trick and eventually defeat her foes.

Malix wanted to attack first, but he knew it'll be an instant defeat if did. He needed to do something Quas wouldn't expect him to do. The an idea came into mind. It wasn't good, but it was worth trying. Breaking the silence, he used Blizzard to create a small snowstorm around Quas, obscuring her vision. She was surprised that he started the battle like that. Good job, she said to her self. Quas easily removed the snowstorm, but Malix had disappeared. Realizing where he was, she raised her keyblade above her just in time to block a fatal slash from above. They smiled for a second and pushed each other away. After landing, Malix charged right away, leaving Quas no time to react. He thought wrong, Quas anticipated his attack and jumped over him, casting a small Fire spell. It hit and his clothes started to burn. Malix quickly put it out with a Blizzard spell, giving Quas an annoyed look.

"Hey, your fault for charging in like that," she said with a smile.

Malix rolled his eyes. Quas pointed her keyblade at him and waved it up and down.

"Don't roll your eyes on me. I'm giving you advice here. You should at least look like you care."

Instead, Malix charged at Quas again. She got ready, guessing that he is going to do the same method, but somehow change it so he wouldn't get burned this time. This time he attacked with fast jabs and strikes, but Quas blocked each and every one of them. After a few seconds, their keyblades got locked together, forcing them to knock each other back. While being knocked back, Quas saw the opportunity to use another spell, this time a Fira. A bigger fireball came out of her keyblade and was headed toward Malix. He predicted this and planned to do a Fira spell of his own. He aimed his keyblade and took aim. Then, time slowed down and an eerie voice echoed in his head.

We found you.

A sudden dark feeling came over him. Before he realized it, the spell was already cast, but it wasn't a Fira spell. It was a huge blue fireball, 3 times bigger than Quas'. Just by her expression, she did not anticipate this at all. By the time the blue Fira absorbed the smaller one, she cast an Aerora spell. The blue Fira hit the spell and a huge explosion erupted. The explosion pushed Malix all the way to the wall, making him pass out in the process.

The next thing he knew, he was surrounded by other students. He shook his head and got dome was filled with students, probably curious what caused the massive blast. The area inside helped. The floor was completely charred and blue flames danced on it. Sudden dread fell on him and looked to see where he last saw Quas. Luckily, the headmaster's assistant, Claw, was already there, healing her. She was conscious and her wounds didn't seem to be severe. Malix pushed away some students so he could check up on her, but in the first few feet of his approach, Claw summoned his keyblade to stop his advance.

"Stay away. I saw what you did." He looked at Malix if he was a threat.

"Claw! I told you already. We used spells that were too strong for us and..."

"Enough of your lies. I saw this guy use a Dark Firaga. Good thing I just happened to overlook your battle."

"Wait... you were watching..."

"That's not important, what matters is the current situation." Claw chuckled. "Well good news for you buddy. We found something that helped you what kind of person you were." Claw moved his keyblade closer to Malix's neck, the scythes only an inch away from stealing his life. He said in a cold voice, "Sadly, they're not good."