- promise -

The edge of a black coat fluttered about in the wind.

Isa stood on the top of a spire of the abandoned Villain's Vale, his hood kept down. This high up, a breeze was inevitable and he was facing right into it, the wind blowing his long blue hair back.

He wasn't here on business.

"Lea..." he murmured. "What exactly was worth saving?"

His old home was laid out before him, the view admittedly admirable. Isa couldn't pick out very many things he could recognize. The bird's eye view disoriented him, and the town was still undergoing reconstruction. It would almost certainly never regain its former glory.

Not now, at any rate. Xehanort's plans dictate otherwise.

Isa frowned at the conflicting emotions in his heart. The days when he and Lea were playful children in this now ravaged world had long passed them by. There was no reason to preserve this place when it wasn't important anymore.

But it was, in a way. Not to Xehanort's plans – except, perhaps, for the Chamber of Repose. It was to the remains of Isa's heart that still fought for true control, rather than the weak grip allowed only for him to retain his memories of the past.

Occasionally, he was never sure which side he wanted to win. Usually, Isa was content to have Xehanort's fragment in dominance. It wasn't much different from his time as a Nobody, and he had gotten much more done as one. But it were moments like these that made him doubt himself and remember with a rather burning clarity how times were before everything had gotten very complicated.

He shook his head, muttering. "The heart's failings are many. Don't let yourself get caught in the trap of one."

Isa's old heart did not like to listen to its new mind.

It almost seemed like it enjoyed plaguing him with memories that contradicted Xehanort. He recognized that his ideas were very ambitious, of course, and that they didn't exactly fit neatly with the usual person's conscience. But Isa was not a usual person anymore, and an ordinary life did not matter a bit in the long run when it came to ultimate balance between the Light and the Darkness.

"Wha– isn't this the part where you... cheer me up or something? "You're just having a bad day" or... "That's what you get for pulling your punches!" Some friend."

"Oh. You mean I was supposed to lie."

His mouth twitched at the memory, and he shook his head again in an attempt to ward the treacherous thoughts off.

Standing in an empty, dark room, looking through a small book by an unmade bed that hadn't been slept in for days.

"I'm not the one who changed. You did," a voice read aloud.

"Perhaps so," Isa murmured before he could stop himself. "Perhaps so, Lea." He looked across the landscape before him yet again, a wry expression on his face. "After all, we did indeed make a promise."

Total word content: 498.