Back up, you don't know if you've never been here,
You've never been to the place inside, I face my fears
It takes everything I am.

It was six thirty and already she was standing inside one of the buildings on the school campus, only a few people walking the hallways at the moment. Her book bag across her shoulders she started towards the classroom that she had memorized the directions to. She had gotten the call right after she got back from the beach, a man named Professor Xemnas had asked to meet with her in the an hour or so before school, apparently there were matters to discuss. Only reason she had agreed right away was because the name had sounded seriously familiar, so she was just going to roll with it.

The classroom was on the third floor in a corner of the building she had never been in before, one that was somewhat offset from the rest of them. Stopping in front of the door, she glanced around then looked back at it before knocking, wondering if he was already here. "Come in."

The room itself was huge, because all the desks lined the walls instead of in row formations throughout the room, leaving the center to be fairly empty. Walking in the desk was still in front of the classroom, the only wall with no student chairs along it, and behind that desk sat a man with spiked silver hair and a set of deep almost orange eyes with a hint of red. He was dressed and almost completely covered in a black coat that she had to say didn't look out of the normal even though the place was pretty warm, it just seemed to fit his type of person. "Professor Xemnas?" She inquired.

"Yes, hello Zara." He said, glancing up from some paperwork he had been doing, she stepped in front of his desk and he studied her for a moment. "You've lost some weight." A blunt fact.

Was not expecting that. "OK..."

"Probably another reason it has been having an easy time targeting you, your body is malnourished and therefor weaker, so you're going to have a harder time with control."

"Control with what?"

"The darkness you wield." He sighed, putting down his pen and leaning on his desk with his fingers interlaced in front of him as he once again looked her over. "Is there a reason you're not eating?"

"Because I'm not hungry. And why is a teacher asking about my eating habits?"

"Because two reasons." He began. "One is your not stupid, and two is you're going to need it if you're going to survive this class."

"Since when did I get transferred?"

"When I got a call saying that you were attacked by your own darkness that you normally have control over. When did you stop your practices?"

"Practicing what?" She asked exasperated. "What? The darkness? I don't know what your talking about since I can't really wield anything except a set of daggers, that's all." Silence fell over them before he turned thoughtful.

"What happened within the past two weeks or so?"

Zara's eyes widened slightly as the realization dawned on her. "I'm sorry sir, but about two weeks ago I was in an accident and received amnesia, so right now I'm not entirely understanding what you are trying to say."

He nodded, seeming to understand. "That makes sense. Listen Zara, what this class teaches is how for a person to wield the power of darkness, I'm one of the few teachers here that helps students gain an understanding of whichever power they were gifted the control over."

"The power of...darkness. You mean the pitch blank kind?"

"No." He nodded to something behind her and she turned around, jumping back when she saw the corners of the room suddenly engulfed in the shadows that she could have sworn she dreamed about. She had decided the incident with Hasan and Axel rushing in was just some stupid dream that she had had, besides if it was real she would have woken up with the red marks on her arm, which she didn't.

The shadows disappeared suddenly and she turned back to him, eyes wide. "I was informed something like this occurred a few days ago, correct?"

"Yes sir." she whispered. Wait, that was real? How the hell did that happen?

"A student named Axel informed me that they had dominated most of your room and had attacked you, resulting in an irritated arm but that is it."

"But when I woke up it was just fine." She argued.

"Yes, because the darkness that attacked you was your own, if you were assaulted by someone else the wounds would have been greater but with you in control your body healed quickly."

"How did I even call it forth then when I had absolutely no idea I even had it?"

"The darkness you wield plays heavily on your emotions, and when one is much more dominant than all others this could result in it overcoming you entirely, or if you know how to wield it, allow your power to be that much stronger."

Zara nodded slowly as she took this in. "So tell me Zara, what emotion had you felt during that morning?"

After a moment she answered. "I remembered my parents, everything about them. Then I realized that they really were gone, so I guess the emotion more powerful than the rest of them was depression."

Xemnas nodded as he stood up from behind his desk. "This is good to know. Now tell me, are you going to work diligently in this class? I refuse to take anyone who will be wasting my time with nonsense."

Zara had to grin some as she nodded. "If you are going to tell me what's going on, I'll uphold my end of the deal as well."

Xemnas nodded, seeming pleased with this answer. "Good. Now follow me, neither of us have any classes today because I want to immediately start you training once again."

"Again?"

"You were in my class for the past two years, one of my best students in complete control of your powers. The reason you didn't sign up this year was because you did well enough that there was no more to teach you."

"Oh." She replied, frowning some. Maybe it will come back to me faster then since I've already done it.

"Now come, we will be using the second floor for our training with a few of the other students that I have requested to help us."

XXXXXX

Apparently the building Zara found herself walking was because it was specifically for students who had gifts, as she decided to call it. Sure, it was unoriginal but it was something. She had thought that the power of darkness was the only skill. But apparently there were a few others. The power of light, of fire, and of water. Those were the three others that the class were available, and all three had the second floor of the building dedicated to the training center for these powers. How the hell did I not know about these skills?

Coming to their stop, Xemnas opened up the door to reveal the entire floor with no walls breaking them down into rooms. To the very far left was an area and she immediately termed it was for those skilled with fire. The rest of the room seemed to be a mix for the dark and light wielders. "What about those for water?"

"They have use of a pool that is used outside behind the building." He replied, walking along the edge to the right as she watched some of the students train.

"Heads up!"

Zara spun around as did Xemnas as he growled a curse at the ball of fire that was coming for them. He sidestepped but looked at Zara, remembering that she may not have made it in time. But he paused, and studied her carefully to find himself slightly surprised at what he saw.

The ball of fire, maybe two feet in diameter, came flying for her. But she couldn't bring herself to move, but instead almost mechanically she brought her hand up and watched as a wall of darkness appeared in front of her, practically feeling the fire collide with the shield but not feeling any pain. She didn't see, but Xemnas did see the familiar darkening of her eyes, how they went from her deep blue to almost pure black. As soon as she dropped the shield the look in her eyes disappeared, and Zara was blinking almost as if she didn't know what had happened.

"So you do remember some of the lessons." He replied.

Zara looked at him. "What are you talking about?"

"You just fended off the attack." He pointed out.

"I...did?" she was looking at him, before her eyes turned calculating almost as if she was trying to remember.

Xemnas frowned. "You don't recall what you just did?"

"No, I honestly thought I blacked out for a second before I came back around." She admitted with a sigh, running her hand through her hair when a pair of footsteps came running up to her. "Sorry about that Z."

"Hey Axel." She greeted. Another thing that proved to her that the events that had conspired that morning weren't a dream, and that Axel for sure had ended up having his hands light up on fire. To her surprise, she couldn't find herself to be freaked out. This power thing she found others and herself having almost seemed...normal.

Axel had to go back to his training so when she turned back to Xemnas she said the only thing that came to mind. "Teach me."

XXXXXX

Axel sighed as he walked out of his final class for the day, glad to be out of the school and out in the fresh air again. Around him the students all flooded towards the parking lot as he too made his way there before he felt his cellphone going off. It turned out to be a text from his sister. "Hey Axel, me and the others are taking Zara to the mall for a while, I'll be home later on tonight."

He smirked slightly as he found out what he was going to be doing for the day. It only took a half an hour or so before he arrived at Hasan's house and knocked on the door before opening it himself. The maid there took one look at him before nodding, knowing this was natural. "He's up in the study."

"Thanks." He replied before going down the hallway on the first floor. it wasn't long before he walked into the office to see Hasan in there, looking at his notes for school and the upcoming test coming up. "Hey Hasan. How's it goin'?" Axel asked as he walked over. He would have dropped into the chair on the left before stopping himself, seeing Skia resting comfortably on it and only moving her eyes to look at him. Hasan started laughing at Axel's disgruntled look as he opted for the other chair.

"Dad used to hate it when she would sit in the chairs. But since I started letting her do it, well, mostly Zara anyways, it's become normal." He commented, rubbing his eyes in an attempt to wake up. "How have you been?"

"Not bad, had an interesting day today and since I couldn't catch you during school I thought I would share." Hasan raised his eyebrows at this and waited for him to continue. "Dude, you're sister may not remember how to use her powers, but her subconscious sure as hell does. She just about obliterated the training room."

"Zara was in that class today?" Hasan said, slightly surprised.

Axel nodded. "Yeah, Professor Xemnas kept her all day for 'review'." He did air quotation marks with the comment. "Everyone thought she had gotten her memory back with how well she was doing in training."

"Wow, that's good to know, did you see her afterwords?"

"Kairi and the others dragged her to the mall, they shouldn't be back for a few more hours." Axel sighed, leaning his head back against the seat. "So how have things been with you two?"

"Things have been alright, really busy. Apparently Zada kept a journal before the accident, so she's been visiting the places that she wrote about. I've been working on my parent's business, I was able to work it out to where I can finish this year of school before I'll take it over."

"That's good to hear." He agreed. "How's her memory been?"

"She's remembering some things, but, and these are her words, they're the 'unimportant' kind that don't give her hints as to who she's with or where she was. She's actually getting quite annoyed about it."

"If it wasn't for her saying she didn't remember, there's times where I swear she's the old Zara, her attitude is coming back." They both laughed at this.

"I know it, and I can honestly say I have never been so happy to hear her threaten to rip my throat out." Hasan laughed. He then sighed and looked at the notes in front of him, "You feel like studying for that exam we have Friday?"

"No really but I'll help anyways." Axel groaned before dragging the chair over and getting started on the lessons.