Asleep at Dawn

by The Unplanner

Organization XIII was defeated, Kingdom Hearts was destroyed, and the Time Breaks are all closed, but it's too early to celebrate. Unfortunately, it's also to early to send the newest Keyblade wielders off to war. Can Kairi, Lambda, and Xion stop tripping over each other's weapons in time to stop the Keyblade War?

14. One Dream to Another

Asleep at Dawn

Chapter 14: One Dream to Another

-"It Looks Like I Have to Go to Sleep Again."-

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A/N: ...And now, back to our show!

This is the last chapter of Asleep at Dawn. I used to have a plan to drag this out longer, but there's a reason I call myself The Unplanner. However, it's also one of the longest chapters I've ever written, even after skipping some of the filler parts that would just be boring.

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[Training Worlds] Hub...

Once everyone got through the bubble, Roxas got down to business. "Okay, you know the drill: a new door is open. However, the 'Arena Pillar' through this door is actually part of Midnight Town. You might have seen it while you were flying around."

Xion scoffed, "How could I miss it? It's huge!"

Lambda asked, "So to get to the next world, we have to fight our way to the top?"

"Not quite," Roxas replied. "There are onehundred floors in the Arena Pillar, each with a specific set of enemies to battle before you can move up to the next floor. Bosses appear on every fifth floor; some of them are new Heartless types Merlin cooked up, while others are copies of humanoid villains and giant monsters you might have already fought. At the top, you can fight the mysterious Champion, and if you win, you'll get powerful Keychains that Merlin commissioned the Moogles to synthesize for each of you. However, to access the next Training World, you only need to get halfway up the Pillar and defeat the boss of Floor 50."

Lea took a step back. "That still sounds pretty rough!"

"What sounds rough?" Kairi asked as she rejoined the group.

Lambda started to reply, "Roxas was just telling us about - whoa, what did you do to your hair? It's gorgeous!"

Kairi flipped her now hip-length, shiny red hair over her shoulder and let it stream down her back. "Like it? I kept cutting my hair short to keep it clean while playing on the beach, but while I was on the run from Axel - no offense, Lea - I noticed that getting tossed into a wall in Twilight Town hadn't messed up my hair at all. I just asked the fairies about that, and they say it's another Princess of Heart thing: their world's Princess, Aurora, woke up with perfect hair after the curse of eternal sleep placed on her was broken.

"Since there's no need to worry about messing it up, I wanted to try having longer hair, but I don't want to wait for months even after this whole crisis is over to grow it out, so I asked the fairies if they had any magic hair products I could use to speed up the process. Luckily, they just got some magic shampoo from Cinderella's Fairy Godmother - it seems like all the old magic folks know each other. So, that's what I've been up to. Can anyone fill me in on this next Training World?"

"I'll handle it," Namine volunteered.

"Hold on, just let me sit down...okay." Kairi sat on the floor and braced herself for Namine to copy and transfer the relevant information from Xion's memory. "Ah. It sounds pretty simple, if a bit time-consuming."

Xion joked, "Hazama would probably be bored to tears." She took the opportunity to change her T-shirt's slogan: "HERE COMES A NEW CHALLENGER!"

"True enough," Roxas agreed, "But without him, you'll have to rely on your own strength. Which leads me to the catch: all those new Drive abilities you've acquired will be heavily suppressed in Lea and Kairi's case, and completely disabled for Lambda and Xion, inside the Arena Pillar. You'll have to fight with just your Keyblades and magic. Kairi will have to keep her Light to herself, though she can probably still cast lots of Light spells, and Lea will be slightly less powerful with fire than he was in the Organization. Lambda and Xion will be unable to summon any of their unique weapons and drones."

Lea grinned to hide his worries. "Oof. I might actually need to summon a Keyblade for this one!"

Roxas nodded. "That's the point. Good luck, everyone. I'll just be over here...vivisecting Merlin's best copies of various Xehanorts."

Lambda deadpanned, "Tell me again why you haven't just hopped over to the Keyblade Graveyard and preempted Xehanort's whole plan?"

Roxas shrugged. "Because I'm not quite that strong yet. I can take two-to-one odds against these mindless clones, but I'm pretty sure fighting the whole new Organization XIII at once is still way out of my league."

"Even so, the rest of us have plenty of catching up to do," Kairi pointed out. "We'd better get started." She marched over and opened the next door.

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Arena Pillar: Floor 1...

The arena they found themselves in (which would become a very familiar sight for the next few hours) was a perfectly round, flat room that could precisely fit the arena of Olympus Colosseum inside it, corner to corner. The ceiling rose about thirty feet up, giving plenty of room for aerial enemies to swoop around while remaining in range of most common spells. The whole structure was apparently made of sandstone, but it was completely indestructible in that arbitrary way only video game materials and Merlin's magical constructs could be. Golden magic circles glowed on the walls, uniformly illuminating the room and blocking unauthorized teleportation into or out of the arena.

Team Kairi appeared in a diamond formation, with Kairi at the front, Lea and Xion on the left and right, and Lambda at the back, facing off against a horde of twenty Shadows across the room.

Lea summoned his dual chakrams, Eternal Flame. "Right into the thick of it, huh?"

Kairi summoned Destiny's Embrace and jumped into the fray, doing a flip in midair just for style before obliterating the first enemy in one strike as she landed. "Just Shadows? It's like we're playing on Beginner Mode."

Xion summoned Forget-Me-Not and joined the fray at a leisurely pace, swatting aside three more Shadows with her longer Keyblade. "Remember, there are at least fifty floors to work through. We should take it easy while we can."

"I've got your 'easy' right here! Jump, everyone!" Rather than summon Elysium, Lambda pointed her prehensile hair forward and fired her Braid Beam, sweeping it across the entire group and destroying all sixteen remaining Shadows in one attack. Kairi and Xion managed to hop over the beam like a deadly jump rope. "Our Drives might be locked down, but Roxas didn't say anything about our bonus items."

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Floor 2...

Suddenly, the group found themselves back in their original formation on the second floor. No flashing lights or puffs of smoke, no sound effects, no loading screen - they were dumped straight into the next battle. The enemy set this time was a group of floating spellcaster Heartless of various types, all flying at different elevations to lessen the impact of exactly the sort of tactic Lambda had just used.

Kairi sighed. "So our bonus items still work? Good for you, I guess. My new outfit just amplifies my Drive, so it's not going to be much help here."

"Yeah, and improved armakinesis isn't so helpful when I only have one weapon to work with. Well, we needed to work on our fundamentals anyway. Gravira!" Xion's spell squashed most of the Heartless out of the air, leaving them as easy prey for her and Lambda to destroy with good old-fashioned melee attacks.

"You're selling your ability short, Xion!" Lea hurled his chakrams at the remaining few floating Heartless, using armakinesis to guide the spiked disks to each target. "And you shouldn't count me out, either! Got it-"

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Floor 3...

"-Memo...rrgh." Lea gave up on finishing his catchphrase in favor of zipping behind one of the three new Large Bodies and spinning his flaming chakrams into its back. "Good, that move still works. Hey, you three should try wrapping your Keyblades in magic like this! After all, it worked for Sora. I still have nightmares about that Blizzard Raid of his. What was I supposed to do about a sleight of 27 anyway...?"

Lea trailed off into nonsensical rambling as Xion put his advice into practice, imbuing her Keyblade with Thunder magic and throwing an ad-libbed Thunder Raid at the second Large Body. The Keyblade itself bounced harmlessly off the Heartless' jiggly belly, but the magic around the weapon discharged as a massive thunderbolt at the moment of impact, destroying the rotund monster anyway.

"I've got this one!" Kairi jumped, air-dashed with Lambda's copied Ars Magus trick, and then twirled through the air in a manner reminiscent of Sora's Master Form. With this extra-long triple jump, she landed behind the last Large Body, allowing her to deliver a nasty combo to its defenseless back. She dragged the Heartless forward and into the air with a rising spin attack and then knocked it down hard, destroying it. "How's that?"

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Floor 4...

"That combo's definitely worth keeping," Lambda appraised. "These basic Heartless are getting boring, though." She faced down the new platoon of Armored Knights and destroyed them with one sweep of her Braid Beam. "Let's just skip to the first boss."

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Floor 5...

Defeat the Goliath Armor!

"Well, here we are, just like you wanted. Feeling a little regret?" Lea shakily joked, staring up at the first boss.

Lambda calmly scanned the massive, silver-painted enemy. "Scanning: Target name: Goliath Armor. Threat level: B. Physical power: A. Magical power: D. Defenses: C. I'm not particularly worried - it's basically a Guard Armor, but bigger. We could destroy the limbs, but that would just drag this fight out. Getting enough altitude to attack the Goliath Gauntlets and the weak spot on the head of the Goliath Torso might be tough, though. I can fly up there with my Glider, but I don't think I can cast enough spells to finish it off by myself."

Kairi came up with a plan. "Then let's attack the Goliath Hammerlegs first, and force the rest of it to come to us!"

"I'm on it!" Calling on her memory of Sora's fighting style, Xion executed a slick Sliding Dash to close in on the boss' massive left boot. She got in a few clean hits before the rest of the party caught up to her, but then they all had to hop backward to avoid the heavy stomps caused by the Goliath Armor simply wandering aimlessly around the arena, along with the tall but close-ranged shockwaves each step created.

"Firaga!" Lambda followed the fireball she cast back into the fray, dealing noticeable but negligible damage to the Goliath Armor's left Hammerleg with both that and a couple Keyblade strikes, before being forced to retreat from another stomp. "Those shockwaves are probably supposed to stop us from climbing on its feet."

Kairi grinned. "Well, too bad for it. Bind!" A yellow field of static spread out beneath the leg in question, preventing it from rising back up.

Unfortunately, this trick actually warranted the boss' attention. With a bestial roar from somewhere inside its helmet, the Goliath Armor bent over and sent its massive silver fist down at the party, forcing them to scatter in all directions. The other Goliath Gauntlet then came flying right at Kairi.

"I've got you!" Equipping her Keyblade in its Glider form, Lambda swooped across the path of the attack and snatched Kairi to safety before rising high into the air with the Princess in tow. "Let's take the fight back to it!"

Xion called out from below, "Don't worry about us! We'll be fine...I think!" She dodged another giant punch with a hair's breadth to spare.

"Better than fine! Check this out!" The Bind spell holding the boss' leg down faded, but Lea jumped on top of its pointed toe as it rose again, then leaped from there onto the retreating Goliath Gauntlet. "The old Organization's agility training really paid off! Firaga!" Lea dropped a fireball at his own feet, mangling the armored fist he was standing on and launching him even higher into the air with the force of his spell's explosion. Lea surprised himself when he felt the burn from his own fire for the first time - his immunity to fire had been reduced with the rest of his powers - but he kept his wits about him.

"Here, grab on! Cure!" Kairi grabbed Lea's wrist as he rose; her hand glowed green with healing magic to fix the burns on Lea's legs. Lambda was momentarily jostled by the extra weight, but managed to right herself.

Lea grinned. "Nice catch! Now hurl me at that thing's ugly face!"

Both girls did double-takes. "What?!"

"You heard me! Quick, before it can punch at us again!"

"Well, if you say so..." Lambda swooped toward the boss' helmet, grabbed Lea's wrist away from Kairi...and with a mighty YEET, she sent the spiky-haired pyromaniac flying right into the opening of the Goliath Torso's visor.

Despite the visible glowing eyes, it turned out that the interior of the Goliath Armor's head contained nothing but smoky, immaterial Darkness. Now that he was inside the boss' head, Lea shouted, "Let's do some redecorating!" He proceeded to toss Firagas in every direction, creating bumps on the helmet one after another as the metal dented outward. The glowing yellow eyes of the Heartless faded out of sight, right before Lea clambered out of the Darkness under its visor. He gave the helmet a kick for good measure, causing the boss' head to fall from its body and clang lifelessly against the floor right in front of Xion. Lea jumped out into thin air as the rest of the Goliath Armor was wracked with explosions and vanished, limbs and all.

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Floor 6...

Team Kairi was faced with a gang of four Morningstars. Lea wiped his brow with the back of his hand. "Phew, good thing I didn't need to land on my feet after that!"

"That. Was. AWESOME!" Xion gushed.

Lea took the compliment with a cocky grin. "I know, right? 'Off with his head!' and all that."

"Absolutely. But it looks like we're back to boring battles for a while, I guess." Lambda sighed and cast Magnera to immobilize the large, spiky Heartless, allowing Kairi to finish them off.

"Holy!" *PSSSEEEEEEEWWWW!* All four Morningstars were obliterated by a beam of Light from above.

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Floor 7...

"Thank goodness; I was worried that spell wasn't ever going to work again, after Terumi and the Gigas Possessor both just shrugged it off." Xion summoned her Keyblade to deal with the Wizards in the next room.

Lambda shook her head. "You're misinterpreting your anime tropes. Super-moves don't just stop working; the enemies you're fighting have to get tougher or change their innate properties instead." For example, her Braid Beam's non-elemental damage easily destroyed the Wizards, who would have absorbed elemental attacks to heal themselves.

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Floor 8...

Win the boring battles!

...They won.

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Floor 10...

Defeat the Veil Lizards!

Kairi mused in response to the voice only she and Lambda could hear, "Veil Lizards, is it? I don't see them anywhere."

Lambda readied her Keyblade in its Petal Blades form. "That's their gimmick: camouflage. Riku and I fought one before, and there are three of them in this room somewhere. Look for the telltale wavy-air effect."

"...Found them!" Kairi pointed her Keyblade at one and cast a spell, but failed to specify the name of the spell she wanted. Apparently as the default response, a dodgeball-sized globe of Light popped out of her Keyblade and homed in on the Veil Lizard she was pointing at, then bounced off it to home in on the other two. "Wait, what spell was that? ...Pearl? Okay, good to know. And easy to use!" Kairi cast several more Pearl spells, which the other members of her team used to gauge the bosses' locations and launch their own attacks.

Xion noted as she hacked away at one of the bosses, "Once you track them down, there's not much else to them, is there?"

"Not quite. They also have homing laser eyes and a tongue attack." Lambda blocked one such tongue attack and sent the offending limb right back to clonk the Heartless' own head, dazing it. She followed up by skewering the hapless lizard from all sides with her Petal Blades, and then cast a basic Fire spell from all eight of them simultaneously, roasting the boss from the inside out.

Lea wiped away a single manly tear in honor of the fiery carnage. "*Sniff* I'm proud of you, kid." He tore into the last Veil Lizard with his chakrams, spinning them like burning buzz-saws, but the boss simply refused to die until it could finish charging and firing its laser eye beams. One of them struck Lea before the team could move on.

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Floor 11...

Lea scrubbed his eyes, but couldn't clear the dark spots in them enough to see the next enemy set. "Gah, I can't see! Is there a spell to clear off status effects like this?"

Kairi shrugged. "Probably. Heal? Refresh? Purge?" Nope, those guesses did not turn out to be magic words.

"According to my old Panel Grid, the spell you're looking for is called 'Esuna', actually." Namine informed her Other, speaking up for the first time in a while.

Kairi blinked in surprise, then cast the spell. "Seriously? No wonder I couldn't just guess it. Esuna!"

Lea blinked one more time and readied his weapons. "Ah, that's better. Thanks, Namine!"

"You're welcome."

Meanwhile, Lambda and Xion were competing to see who could finish off the most Air Soldiers, and they were so close to clearing the whole set that no one else needed to join in. Xion crowed, "Ha! The final score's 17 - 8! Too slow, Lambda!"

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Floor 12...

Win more boring battles!

"...Acknowledged," Lambda grumbled to both Xion and the voice.

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Floor 15...

Defeat the Trouble Brewer!

"Magnera! Firaga!" Lambda's one-two punch caught the familiar boss from Lotus Academy just as it was about to throw its first potion, igniting the volatile mixture and destroying the oversized punk-chic Wizard with its own explosive. "Target terminated. I certainly wasn't going to let him get away again!"

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Skip a few...

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Floor 20...

Defeat the Darksides!

"I feel like the boss battle difficulty here just took a step backward," Lambda muttered as she cast a few Firagas and toasted the nearest of the three Darksides, which slumped over backwards and died, just like that.

The other two went down with just as little trouble thanks to Xion's high-jumping combo moves and Kairi's Holy spell. Their smoky remains drifted upwards...coalescing into a new boss!

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Defeat the Eye of Darkness!

"Above us!" At Namine's urgent warning, Kairi craned her neck back to gaze upward. A giant, slit-pupiled red eyeball formed of pure, slimy Darkness, gazed back down at her, filling the whole ceiling with its pitch-black sclera. Its gaze flitted from one puny humanoid to the next, seeing not their faces but their hearts. Suddenly, a purple beam shot down from the massive pupil and traced a curving path that everyone had to dodge. Then another beam blasted a seemingly random trail, then another five beams fell...it just kept firing with no pauses.

"How do we even fight that thing?!" Lea scrambled away from one beam, only to skid to a stop as another crossed his path.

Lambda scanned the new boss while staying on the move and recharging her spent mana. "Scanning... Target name: Eye of Darkness. Threat level: A. No physical attacks - physical power defaults to D-tier. Magic attack: S. Defenses: B. No specific resistances detected. The whole thing's a big eyeball to poke out, but it'll take quite a few hits to destroy. The problem is going to be finding ways to actually hit it up there on the ceiling."

"Holy!" *PSSSEEEEEEEWWWW!* Unfortunately, the beam originated from the ceiling, meaning it missed the boss completely. Kairi fell to her knees and screamed at the evil ceiling, "Why, trope? WHY!?"

Even if she was acting silly, Kairi wasn't stupid about it; the fist she was shaking at the heavens suddenly materialized her Keyblade to deflect an incoming beam when the boss tried to capitalize on her apparent vulnerability. She got back up and dusted off her legs, recharged and ready to rejoin the battle.

Xion just shrugged in response to the whole exchange. "Well then...Blizzara!" The chunk of ice she launched from her Keyblade hit its mark and tore into the eyeball, splashing goopy Darkness onto the floor below...and Shadows started to rise from the puddle. "No. Stop that." Xion swept her Keyblade through the puddle, burning the Darkness away with her weapon's Light.

Lambda dashed in with a wide slash to wipe out the Shadows that managed to spawn, then equipped her Glider. She flipped upside-down and launched herself feet-first at the ceiling, weaving around another beam attack as she flew. "Take this...! Pearl! Pearl! PearlPearlPearl..." She drove her right leg deep into the slimy Darkness, then repeatedly cast her newly-learned Pearl spell from both feet until she ran out of mana. She drifted back to the ground as bouncing orbs of Light wreaked havoc all across the Eye of Darkness. "Damage assessment: Moderate damage inflicted. This strategy should remain effective."

Kairi raised her Keyblade and launched her own Pearl barrage, dancing around a beam as the boss returned fire. "Alright, let's give it everything we've got!"

Xion joined in with basic Blizzard spells, going for quantity over individual shot damage, while Lea rapid-fired a short stream of Firagas at a separate area. Meanwhile, Lambda turned her attention to culling the Shadows that spawned after each hit.

As the team's barrage of magic was just starting to peter out, something ruptured right under the surface of the Eye of Darkness. The whole surface of the eye began to quiver as Light spurted from rapidly-forming fissures in the sphere. Finally, the whole thing burst, splashing everyone with its gooey remains.

"Ew ew ew ew-"

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Floor 21...

More battles!

Luckily, the sludge was left behind by the teleportation, so Kairi immediately stopped doing the Face-Splatter Dance and got back to fighting. Four more floors were conquered without incident.

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Floor 25...

Defeat the copy of Xaldin!

"Where's the fun in this?!" A carbon copy of Xaldin stood on the other end of the room, ready and waiting with his trusty dragon-themed lance (which looked more like a spear), Lindworm, in his left hand, two extra copies of it in his right, and three more dancing around him in pockets of wind.

"Good question," Kairi puffed in reply to Xaldin's recorded opening line. "I'm starting to get tired..."

"Then I'll handle him," Xion volunteered. "Just stay as far back as you can; his range with those lances...spears? Whatever they are, he can jab really far with them."

Lea stepped in front of the Replica. "Hey, I was the Organization's assassin, remember? Being ready to terminate any of the other members was literally my job, and I was darn good at it...well, except with Roxas, and that's just because he was hiding a completely different fighting style the whole time I knew him. You should all just sit back and watch a professional at work."

Xion shrugged and stepped back, keeping her guard up. "Okay, you handle him, then, Lea."

"Wind, guard me!" Xaldin raised his Aero barrier and began slowly walking forward. Lea summoned his chakrams and mirrored Xaldin's pace.

"Bad move." Lea threw a flame-covered chakram and parked it over Xaldin's head, allowing the flames to get caught up in the swirling winds and cook the unfortunate lancer with sheer heat. Xaldin was forced to leave his barrier behind when he teleported out of danger, lest the fiery whirlwind follow him.

"Enough!" Xaldin leaped high into the air...and then he simply stayed up by the extra-high ceiling of this boss room, flouting the law of gravity with his wind powers and sheer jumping ability. While he was out of reach, the ex-Number III attempted to throw lances down on Lea's head in several groups of increasing size. Watching for the telltale gusts of visible wind where each lance would fall, Lea hopped and skipped out of the way, while jumping over the shockwaves sent out when each one struck the ground. All six lances then swirled around Lea, trying to goad him into holding still, but the instant they warped back into their owner's hands, the assassin rolled aside and successfully dodged the final massive stab as Xaldin finally dove back down.

Lea immediately zipped right back over to Xaldin and drove his spinning chakrams into the copy's back. "Too slow! Better luck next time, buddy!"

"Take this!" Xaldin began an all-out series of spinning, breakdancing attacks, starting with two lances and adding more in pairs, until he was spinning all six lances end-to-end to mutilate everything within twenty feet of him. Unfortunately, Lea had done his research on Xaldin's Limit Break as well, and he simply skipped backward to lead the lancer-dancer away from the rest of Team Kairi. Lea almost got backed up against the wall, but Xaldin's rushdown ran out of steam right when the redhead thought it would.

"Still too slow! Maybe you need a ride to catch up," Lea suggested, knowing all about Xaldin's finishing move.

"Axel...!" Xaldin jumped into the air, sending his lances beneath him in a line. As they flew, they grew and transformed, until Xaldin stood at the head of a serpentine dragon that circled the arena.

Lea warned, "Everyone get in the air! Go as high as you can!" Lambda nodded, summoned her Glider, and dragged Xion and Kairi up to the ceiling. "Good. As for me..." Lea's emerald eyes widened as he got an idea. "Here goes nothing. Heh heh, 'Nothing'." His chakrams vanished in bursts of flame, and he held his right hand out in front of him. *Froosh!* Another burst of flame heralded the appearance of a Keyblade in his hand!

"You'll wear the face of despair!" Xaldin readied his attack: his lance-dragon's head split open three ways and charged up power, then released a blast of cutting wind toward the center of the room as the dragon swiftly circled the round arena's perimeter, a much deadlier variation of a move he'd tried against Sora over a long, straight bridge. Lea was caught right in the middle...

"Reflect! Reflect! Reflect!" With his new Keyblade, Lea was able to cast other spells besides Fire, allowing him to weather Xaldin's storm with a magical barrier. He cast the same spell multiple times to be sure his defenses would outlast the assault. "Oh, one last thing, Xaldin..." The Reflect barrier shattered with a powerful explosion, but Xaldin wasn't close enough to be hit by it. Instead, Lea jumped onto the dragon before it could collapse into separate lances again, and impaled Xaldin through the chest with his Keyblade. "...I'm. Not. Axel. My name is Lea! Got it memorized?"

With no reply aside from a pained scream, Xaldin dissolved into a swirl of wind, carrying thorns of Nothing up to the ceiling. Lea turned away from the spectacle right before Team Kairi was teleported to the next floor.

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First Quarter Rest Area...

As it turned out, there was a special room waiting for them now that they were a quarter of the way up the Arena Pillar. The First Quarter Rest Area was decorated with bronze-colored furniture (which wasn't actually made of bronze, thankfully), including two comfy couches and a long table between them. Tall glasses of ice-cold water waited on the table for each contestant, along with a platter of crackers and cheese. The team all sank into the couches for a much-needed break.

Xion grabbed Lea's left arm and gushed, "That was amazing, Lea! You were in total control of that fight!"

Lea smirked. "Like I said, knowing exactly how to beat him was literally my job until just recently."

"And you finally summoned your Keyblade, too!" Sitting on Lea's other side, Kairi finally had a chance to admire the new weapon. Its hilt was shaped like one of Lea's/Axel's signature chakrams, and a spiked, red-and-silver Keychain connected it to a charm shaped like a miniature chakram without the red accents. The blade was like a jet of crystallized fire which constantly glowed with heat and Light from the inside. Rather than having skeleton-key teeth sticking out like most Keyblades, the end of the crystal flame hooked back around toward the hilt in an almost complete circle.

Lea scratched the back of his neck as he dismissed his Keyblade. "Y-yeah. Just in the nick of time, too. I actually couldn't have dodged that last attack with my ability to fire-port locked down."

"Lea, that's cheating!" Lambda suddenly stood up from the other couch and pointed an accusatory finger at Lea. (Some cracker crumbs fell from her chin to the floor, disrupting the intense vibe she was trying to project.)

Xion gasped. "Lambda, what's gotten into you?"

Lambda elaborated, "That's not a real Keyblade. He's just changed the shape of his chakrams, the way Xaldin did with his lances."

"How do you know that?" Namine asked.

Lambda pointed at her purple eyes. "You can't fool my scans. Still, it's a pretty convincing copy. I wouldn't expect it to hold up in a blade lock with the real deal, since it's not nearly as indestructible as a Keyblade should be, but it does have most of the bells and whistles real Keyblades do. With this, on top of casting spells, which you already demonstrated, you could free captured hearts from the Heartless, and even seal and release locks on doors and chests."

"Then there's no real difference when it comes to training alongside us," Kairi pointed out. "Although, if it was real, we would have heard a voice telling us the new Keyblade's name when it first appeared. Have you come up with a name for it, Lea?"

Lea shrugged. "Traditionally, Organization XIII didn't give names to the alternate forms of their weapons. It was part of the whole 'we are nothing' theme that Xemnas kept beating into our heads, although for some reason he let us name our weapons' normal forms. As for this thing, we can just call it 'Lea's Keyblade' or something like that until the real deal shows up."

Xion patted Lea's arm. "For what it's worth, I managed to get a lot of mileage out of a fake Keyblade myself. Don't beat yourself up about forcing it to appear early; just do the best you can until your real Keyblade appears...although I bet it'll only show itself after that one breaks." She tried to lighten the mood with a joke: "Above all else, you shouldn't even think about fighting Riku with a fake Keyblade, trust me."

Lea sighed. "Don't worry, I've got your previous work in this field memorized." He took a big gulp of water and stood up. "So, are we ready to move on or not?"

Kairi stood up and stretched her arms over her head. "Just a second...okay, I'm ready."

Lambda nodded. "Affirmative."

Xion hopped to her feet. "Then let's go!"

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Floor 26...

As soon as all the members of Team Kairi said they were ready, they were teleported into the next battle: Wyverns and Defenders and Darkballs, oh my!

Lea slipped behind one of the two Defenders and used it as a practice dummy to get a handle on fighting with a one-handed blade rather than a pair of chakrams. He could appreciate the extra cutting power the new weapon afforded him, but he could tell his footwork was all kinds of wrong. If the enemy could actually hit him back here, he would've been done for, but he managed to destroy it before it could swing its shield around. He glanced over at Kairi for reference as she sliced up the other Defender, using her surprisingly good example to try to make his own stance a little less embarrassing.

Meanwhile, Lambda predicted the Darkballs' teleportation and tricked them into grouping up so she could defeat them all at once, Xion smacked down the Wyverns, and the battle was won in short order.

VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV

Floor 27...

Skip scene Y/N? Y

VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV

Floor 30...

Defeat the Volcanic Lords!

Three of the same large Heartless waited here. Each one looked like a head and limbs stuck on an extremely fat lava lamp...with actual lava. Their stubby right arms gripped long staves topped with fiery meteor decorations.

Lea let out a heavy sigh upon seeing the obviously deliberate selection of fire-immune enemies. "Have I been doing too well with the other bosses? Is that what's going on here?"

Lambda shrugged. "I normally would've scanned these Volcanic Lords, but their strengths, abilities, and weaknesses are just too obvious. And on top of that, it looks like I got their name anyway."

Kairi summoned her Keyblade and took aim at the one on the left. "Then let's just beat them and move on. Blizzaga!" Her target was wracked with violent jiggles, but held itself together and began to breathe fire. Fortunately for the challengers, it was too far away to actually hit anyone...but the fire breath left patches of lava as it swept along the ground.

The one on the right started to bounce around, belly-flopping in the team's general direction and leaving more lava patches as it went. Xion dashed right underneath it.

Kairi paused in her continued assault on the leftmost Volcanic Lord to gape at Xion. "What are you doing?!"

"Watch this!" Xion held Forget-Me-Not straight up over her head, allowing the rambunctious Heartless to land on it. The boss' belly button got stuck fast to the tip of Xion's Keyblade, and she proved that for all its girth, the hollow Heartless was surprisingly light. She swung the boss around in a circle, dragging along one of its fellows, before letting them fly at the third one that Kairi still had occupied. "And there you have it: a picture-perfect 'Firagun'! Sora made up this move when he fought one of these things before."

It was too early to celebrate, however. Back then, Sora had used this move to throw a Volcanic Lord into a Blizzard Lord, its ice-element counterpart. The tactic had never been tried on three of the same element, and the results were less than ideal: the three Volcanic Lords all fused together into one enormous Heartless that took up the majority of the arena! It looked exactly the same as the smaller versions, only MUCH BIGGER.

Lambda scanned the giant enemy as it ponderously moved from the side of the arena to the center. "Scanning...Target name: Volcanic Emperor. Its physical strength and magical abilities are greater than the sum of its parts, but its speed has dropped to match. If we don't stand in front of it, we should be fine." Of course, as she finished the report, she realized: "Oh crap, I'm standing right in front of it! Reflega!"

The Volcanic Emperor breathed out, creating a tornado of fire. Lambda's spell protected her just long enough to lunge out of the affected area, but the vortex dragged her right back in. She screamed as the flames washed over her whole body. When the attack ended, Lambda was left on the edge of consciousness. The outfit Kairi picked out for her was ruined, leaving her in just her bodysuit.

"Curaga!" Kairi spent all her mana to heal Lambda. "Get up, Lambda! Hurry!"

"A-acknowledged." Lambda got to her feet and dashed counterclockwise as fast as she could, which turned out to be pretty fast. The boss spent a moment deciding whether to focus on Kairi and Lambda on its right or Xion and Lea on its left. "Sorry about the outfit, Kairi."

Kairi frowned to hide her worry. "You nearly burned to death, and that's what you're concerned about? If you have time to think about that, then just keep fighting."

"At least we know exactly what's at stake if it hits us," Xion pointed out. "Kairi and Lambda might be able to repair their clothes, but Lea and I can't."

"Then let's just pop this thing into smaller guys again!" Lea jumped up to the Volcanic Emperor's arm and drove his Keyblade into its round, balloon-like belly. *POP-BOOM!* Just like that, the Emperor split into his component Lords in a blast of hot air. Lea peeled himself off the wall where he'd been tossed by the explosion. "Phew, my clothes are okay."

"Let's wrap this up quickly!" Xion imbued her Keyblade with Blizzard magic and tossed a Blizzard Raid that whacked two of the three Lords, then struck them again as the weapon returned to her hand.

"IDEA Engine, activate!" Lambda took advantage of her temporarily increased abilities to swiftly regenerate her mana. "I was just starting to like that outfit. This is for my dress, you jerks!" She equipped her Glider, zipped to the center of the arena, and spun in place as she sprayed Blizzard spells everywhere. The two Volcanic Lords that Xion had weakened began to puff up, bursting into crowds of pathetic little Fiery Globes and patches of magma. As Kairi dove into the fray to clear them out, Lambda used the last of her IDEA Engine time to deliver a brutal dive-kick to the last Volcanic Lord, piercing straight through it. She landed with her Keyblade's normal form in hand as the boss exploded, and cast Thundaga to immediately wipe out the Fiery Globes its demise released. "All targets terminated."

For the next five floors, no one could get a move in because Lambda kept annihilating each group with wide-area Aero and Thunder spells. All her training in magic was finally paying off.

VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV

Floor 35...

Defeat the Dark Inferno!

The team was faced with a single, vaguely humanoid Heartless. It stood taller then even Lea, and on top of that it was constantly floating in midair...which made the spinning wheels of solid whitish-purple fire beneath its clawed feet seem rather pointless. Its horned, purple head sported a jagged glower, and its muscular chest had a heart shaped section missing, letting one see all the way through its body. Oh, and it carried two huge swords with ease. Both blades were taller than Kairi and deadly sharp.

"And right when I ran out of magic, it's time to fight an obviously melee-focused enemy. I hope my swordplay's up to snuff. Scanning..." The large Pureblood Heartless dashed at her in the middle of her scan, hoping to break her focus by swinging its two giant swords. Lambda blocked one while Xion blocked the other, holding the boss at bay long enough to complete the scan.

"Target name: Dark Inferno. I'll skip the minutiae: it's just like an Invisible on roller skates, aside from its ability to string more than one attack together. It'll get faster as we keep damaging it."

Xion grit her teeth and forced the Dark Inferno back, leaving it open for a combo. "I would've known what an Invisible does if you hadn't beaten them all so quickly back on Floor 33." Although, come to think of it, Sora had fought a few of those back in his first adventure, so Xion did know what they were. However, she had never fought one herself, since her time in Organization XIII was cut short.

"Well, what can it even do if we keep it locked down like this?" Lea caught the boss in his own combo when Xion sent it tumbling away. Only two hits into the combo, however, Lea's Keyblade was repelled; the Dark Inferno crossed its swords to block before moving in for a counterattack of its own. Lea was suddenly forced onto the defensive.

"Got you!" Kairi joined the assault, driving her Keyblade into the monster's side as it charged power in its swords for what would've been an unblockable combo finisher.

By now, the Dark Inferno was clearly sick of being ganged up on. With a flash, its momentum and direction of movement suddenly changed, and it bounced all the way to the far end of the arena. Its swords began to glow purple as it powered up and grew faster, then it linked its weapons together, stuck the double sword into the ground, and spun around the makeshift pole, leaving a circle of purple fireballs behind with its flaming roller skates. Then it dove into a short-lived dark puddle and vanished, leaving the fireballs behind to do its dirty work.

Everyone found themselves surrounded by several fireballs that circled around them for a moment before rushing inward. Lambda cast Reflera at the moment of impact, Xion Dodge Rolled out of the way, and Lea took the hits and cast a passable Cure spell to heal himself.

For her part, Kairi nodded to herself and put something she'd read into practice. In a flash of pink Light, her Keyblade vanished and reappeared as a pair of folding fans styled like large flowers, white in her left hand and pink in her right. "It worked! These are my new Dual Fans!" With a graceful spin, Kairi created a tornado of wind and flower petals around herself, dragging the fireballs into circling around at her command. When the Dark Inferno resurfaced, she stopped spinning with a flourish and sent the fireballs right back to it. "Keep up the pressure, everyone!"

"Congrats on your first Keyblade Formchange, Kairi!" Lambda initiated her own Formchange and sent her eight Petal Blades out to skewer the Dark Inferno, giving Xion time to close in and continue the combo.

The Dark Inferno tried to cross its swords and block again, but Xion wasn't so easy to deflect. She used the momentum from rebounding off the boss' defenses to execute her unique offensive reprisal. "I should come up with a name for that move. Counter Lunge, maybe?" She tabled the thought as she continued attacking, until the boss flashed and escaped again.

The Dark Inferno's swords now turned red as it powered itself up further, and it immediately launched into a vicious, all-out combo, occasionally flashing and using its sudden bursts of momentum to switch targets. Only Kairi had much success weathering the assault, since her Dual Fans were primarily defense-oriented. Each swish and spin of her fans produced a wall of pink-hued wind that could repel swords and redirect spells.

The rest of Kairi's team had been knocked to the ground by the Dark Inferno, so Kairi decided it was time to finish the fight. A spotlight shone down on her as her dancing picked up speed and energy, forming a mighty cyclone that briefly obscured her from view. Glowing petals began flying out of the cloud with all the speed and sharpness of shuriken, ripping the Dark Inferno apart. However, her allies were instead healed when the petals touched them - a little bit at a time that really added up from the sheer number of petals that were released. As the cyclone faded, Kairi struck a pose, and beams of pink Light rose up all around her, circling outward like a Faith spell and finishing off the boss while leaving her allies unharmed. Her Dual Fans then reverted to her Keyblade's normal form. "You've all been a wonderful audience!"

"You should call that one 'Miracle Dance'," Lambda suggested.

Kairi grinned. "Sure! I don't usually shout the names of my attacks unless it's part of a spell, though."

"But you do name 'em?" Lea asked.

The next battle started before Kairi could answer.

VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV

Skip to Floor 40...

Defeat the Demon Towers!

The next boss seemed to be two tall stacks of Shadows, endless hordes of tiny, weak Heartless climbing up each other and falling down the middle. One of the stacks suddenly emitted an aura of Darkness and began to twist and fly around like a single entity. Lea dove to the side to avoid it, while Lambda scanned these things. After ramming, the stack stopped moving around for a while.

"Target ID: Demon Tower. Collective physical power: A. Magic power: D. Defenses: B. There's definitely some kind of core inside the Towers, controlling these swarms of Shadows. Watch out, having a manager has made them scarily coordinated!"

"Let's not wait for the cores to expose themselves." Kairi cast Aerora, blowing Shadows every which way off the stationary Tower...but there were just more Shadows underneath. "Geez, how many are there?"

"Analysis: more Shadows spawning at a rate of 13 per second. I guess this battle is supposed to simulate an enemy that can gather endless reinforcements straight from the Realm of Darkness."

"Then what the heck can we do?!" Xion dodged away from the second Tower

Lea was the one to answer, surprisingly. "Keep killing 'em until they back off. Any set of Shadows could spawn indefinitely, but they never do. It's just how they work."

Kairi nodded and raised her Keyblade. "It's worth a shot. Let's just see if this works... Holy!" *PSSSEEEEEEEWWWW!* The beam of Light that crashed down from the ceiling did manage to smash one of the Demon Towers apart, but the Shadows just scattered and regrouped underneath Kairi, smacking her into the air. Then the stack somehow started flying around to go after her, but Xion drew its attention with a Fira spell.

Lambda cast Firaga, dividing the Heartless' attention further. "Analysis: Moderate damage inflicted. Looks like that spell wasn't absolutely worse than useless." Suddenly, the other Demon Tower - which everyone had ignored - snuck up behind her and swallowed her whole!

"Oh, no! Lambda!" Kairi whacked the exterior of that Tower with her Keyblade, but it wasn't enough to make the Heartless spit out its soon-to-be meal.

"IDEA Engine, activate! Aeroga!" *SHEENG!* A maelstrom of wind blew the Demon Tower apart from the inside, scattering the Shadows so badly that they lost their organization completely. Lambda was left in the middle, mostly unharmed. "...Phew. I don't know what I would've done if that wasn't a QC. Thundaga!" *SHEENG!* "What? Two?!" A crackling storm of lightning struck every inch of the arena, making Lambda very glad that most magic didn't hurt one's allies as the scattered components of the Demon Tower were eradicated. "Firaga!" A normal Firaga launched at the remaining Tower, dealing moderate damage but not accomplishing anything special. "...Didn't think so." The green glow from the IDEA Engine faded.

Kairi raised her Keyblade. "Our teamwork can match that, I know it can! Xion, Aero with me on my mark! Three...two...one...Aeroga!"

"Aerora!" The combined spells managed to scatter the Demon Tower.

Kairi wasn't about to let the Shadows escape or reform. "And now...Thundaga!"

"Thundara!" Xion used her spell to cover a different area from Kairi, wiping out most of the remaining Shadows.

"Firaga! Firaga! FIRAZA!" Lea pulled an innovative trick, holding back a bit of the mana from each spell to fuel a stronger version than he could normally cast. The resulting explosion obliterated the last few Shadows, although it was much smaller than the one Lambda cast while battling the possessed Neuroi Hive's reinforcements.

Lambda resolved to mix that spellcasting trick into her own fighting style. "That was impressive, Lea! Where'd you learn to do that?"

"Instinct and experience, I guess? I've been in this business a decade longer than you. Got it memorized?"

VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV

Floor 41...

Yet more battles!

Everyone was pretty much tapped out for mana, but that wasn't much issue against the Neoshadows in the next room. The team took it easy in the next few fights to be ready for another crazy boss battle.

VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV

Floor 45...

Defeat Azure Silhouettes: Set 1!

The next arena was unusual: each member of the team found themselves cordoned off from the others by magic barriers, forcing them to each contend with their own enemy. A globe of deep blue energy waited in each mini-arena, which swiftly transformed into copies of people who didn't exist in the Heart Timeline.

Lambda stared down the copy of herself, except the duplicate was equipped with an IDEA Engine that replaced Lux Sanctus: Murakumo's Battle Mode. Having faced this enemy before and used all its moves herself, she didn't need to scan Lambda-11 Mk. 2.0. "How many times will I have to fight myself before this is all over? I guess this time, there's no other way out."

Kairi faced off against a woman with long hair as red as Axel's, wielding what looked like a weaponized book and quill pen. Unlike Lambda, Kairi didn't hear any voice putting a name to this new face. "Who are these people?"

Lambda summoned her Petal Blades and got into a blade lock with all eight of her enemy's floating swords, giving her time to scan the other enemies for her allies' sake. "These are all people from the Azure Timeline. Luckily, the data I received all at once from the Azure is ridiculously comprehensive compared to what I've had to gather bit by bit from Kingdom Hearts. Here's a rundown:

"Kairi, that's Tsubaki Yayoi. Her weapon, 'Sealed Weapon: Izayoi', can change into many different forms as it steals light from her surroundings and herself to power up its attacks. Defeat her before she does too much of that, or that weapon might interrupt Roxas from Observing Xion! That's its real purpose.

"Xion, that's Relius Clover. I know him too well; he's the one who designed me. His weaponized wife, Detonator: Ignis, will attack alongside him. Watch out for crazy machines from under his cape. I didn't see much of his abilities the one time I faced him.

"Lea, it looks like you're fighting BANG SHISHIGAMI! Apparently, his name is always in all caps because he shouts so much. He's a close-quarters attacker, but he has a limited number of nails that he can use as various projectiles. Watch out for his powerful grab moves. The data claims he's a ninja, but I just don't see it. Which might just mean he's even more ninja-like, who knows?

"As for you, Lambda-11 Mk. 2.0, I don't need to scan you to know your name, your strengths...and your weaknesses." Lambda backed off from her replacement, and was ready when it used Act Parcer Zwei: Cavalier to follow her. It then brought all its Petal Blades down in successive overhead slashes, which was where Lambda exploited a weakness in its fighting style: Murakumo Units always swung all their Petals along the same line, as though wielding a single sword. Lambda snuck one of her own Petals away from the new blade lock and sent it to stab her copy. "Firaga!" By launching a fireball from the Petal Blade already impaled in the copy, Lambda dealt massive damage. The Azure Silhouette flickered like an old TV with a bad signal, then vanished entirely. "It looks like we only need to deal a little damage to beat these things!"

"That would be great if I could get past this lady's crazy shifting weapon!" Kairi's opponent was a skilled swordswoman, but that was the least of her worries. From moment to moment, Izayoi could transform from a short sword to a claymore to a mace to a spiked whip and back. And that was all independent of Tsubaki's floating shield, which formed a nigh-impenetrable defense. Kairi didn't even bother trying to cast Holy on this enemy, since she'd already seen Izayoi suck light (and capital-L Light) out of its surroundings to enhance Tsubaki's speed and striking power with her various special attacks. A divine laser from above would probably just power it up even further.

Frustrated with her inability to push back against Tsubaki's seemingly endless rushdown, Kairi changed her Keyblade into its new Dual Fans form and made use of the fans' defensive abilities. She managed to get Tsubaki off balance, but trying to strike back was about as effective as, well, slapping a soldier in the face with a paper fan. "Firaga!" Spellcasting mixed strangely with the new weapon, creating a brief whirlwind of fire around Kairi rather than a projectile fireball. However, that was just what she needed to get past Tsubaki's small shield. Now the fight was on Kairi's terms, and it only took a couple more close-range spells to put down the Azure Silhouette.

Xion was caught in a hectic, two-on-one melee, trying to defend against Ignis' extendable claws and the extendable arms from Relius' back. Luckily, after only a few volleys, Ignis seemed to overheat and temporarily shut down. Xion tried to use the opportunity to attack Relius, but he spun on one foot and seemed to phase through her attack, leaving her off balance. Then a giant fist the size of a motorcycle rose up from the ground beneath him - where did he keep all of these arms?! - and punched Xion through the air. She was lucky that Ignis was downed, or it would've followed up the attack.

"Fine, then! Let's see you dodge this!" Xion kept her distance and tightened her focus on her two targets. Orange energy gathered at the tip of her Keyblade as she charged up her copy of Sora's Ragnarok move, but as a Shotlock instead of as the built-in special move of her jaw-sword Ouroboros. Two dozen orange trails burst from her Keyblade, snaking through the air and exploding against her enemies. Try as he might, Relius couldn't use Led Ley to dodge forever, and Ignis had barely restarted itself before it was knocked out of commission again. The dual Azure Silhouette vanished.

Lea ducked in and out of melee combat against BANG SHISHIGAMI, matching his chakrams against the loud ninja's gauntlets. Unlike the other Azure Silhouettes, BANG SHISHIGAMI always shouted his attacks' names at maximum volume, which meant he could only surprise Lea with them once each. "HEAVENLY PHOENIX!" Case in point, Lea bent sideways as BANG SHISHIGAMI'S burning midair rush passed by him. The ex-Nobody tossed a chakram after the ninja, but BANG SHISHIGAMI bounced off a strange floating bumper he'd placed earlier - "SUPERSONIC!" - launching himself over the flying disk and back in Lea's direction. Lea found himself grabbed by a sweaty fist. "BANG TAIJUTSU: ULTIMATE! BANG! DROP!" Lea was punched skyward, then kicked further up, then punched back to the ground, only to land on BANG SHISHIGAMI'S raised fist.

"Ow...for a sweaty oaf who's as dumb as a bag of nails, this guy can really fight!" Lea backed away and focused on throwing chakrams from a distance, but BANG SHISHIGAMI blocked one with a glowing gauntlet and vanished, reappearing behind Lea.

"BANG'S SHADOWSTEP JUTSU!" Luckily, this was the most predictable new trick BANG SHISHIGAMI had used yet, and Lea managed to block the burning punch with his other chakram. Shifting to his Keyblade, Lea retaliated with a heavy swing and cast Thunder for a guaranteed hit.

"Hmm...I bet these Azure Timeline guys don't have much resistance to our timeline's magic. Bind!" Just as Lea predicted, BANG SHISHIGAMI was caught by the staticky field and was left unable to move or teleport away. "Gotcha now!" Lea shifted back to his chakrams and pummeled his adversary with fiery disks that curved around BANG SHISHIGAMI'S guard.

The ninja tried to toss an umbrella full of nails over Lea's head: "BANG'S STEEL RAIN!" but the final Azure Silhouette vanished before the umbrella could open up.

After that tough set of solo battles, the return to standard Heartless hordes for the next four floors was a welcome change of pace.

VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV

Floor 50...

Defeat the Iron Imprisoner IV!

"What the heck? That's not a Heartless!" Lambda scanned the huge, demonic-looking enemy, which seemed content to just float menacingly in the center of the arena for the first few moments of the battle. "Scan complete. Enemy class: Unversed. Target name: Iron Imprisoner IV. Apparently there were three other variants, but we get to only fight the strongest one. Lucky us... Physical strength: S. Magical strength: S. Defenses: A. It mainly uses fire to attack via explosive teleports and that giant hammer, but it doesn't seem to be immune to fire. Here we go!"

The boss finally started attacking by spinning its massive, flaming maul around in circles and zooming around the arena. Team Kairi scattered in all directions, barely avoiding the first rush. After three changes of direction, the Iron Imprisoner scattered flames all across the arena. This arena was just a bit too small to keep running from its attacks; the team had to Cure themselves after weathering the assault.

"Blizzaga!" Kairi's spell did some damage, but the Unversed didn't react to the hit at all. Instead, it spun around and somehow drilled its way underground. A tremor heralded its return under Kairi's feet, which thankfully helped her time a Reflega spell to avoid damage and counterattack. She got some distance from the boss as quickly as possible, which turned out to be a good idea when it suddenly exploded!

A trail of embers snaked from the site of the explosion to the other side of the arena, where the boss reappeared. A vortex inside its hollow hammer started sucking everyone closer as the boss prepared to explode again, so Lambda equipped her Glider to fight its pull. Her allies linked hands with her and tried to hold their ground, which slowed their approach just enough to avoid the blast. The boss then continued teleporting and dragging the team around two more times, preventing them from doing much to retaliate, before vanishing entirely and filling the room with a red haze.

Suddenly, the boss reappeared, looking around in confusion. Apparently, that attack relied on some part of the environment that wasn't present in this arena.

"Holy!" *PSSSEEEEEEEWWWW!* Kairi wasn't expecting the spell to do much damage, but it did finally cause the boss to stagger as she moved in for a rising corkscrew attack. She kicked off its chest and launched another Blizzaga spell as she bounced away. Lea picked up the assault with several throws of his chakrams while Lambda traced lines across it with her Braid Beam. Kairi cheered, "Keep it up, everyone! It keeps staggering every time we hit it with a strong attack!" Unfortunately, she was out of mana for the moment, so she wasn't able to contribute much more pressure against the boss.

Xion had been hanging back, charging another Ragnarok. She unleashed it successfully, but she was surprised at how much it took out of her to cast even two Shotlocks without a break. Still, she rushed after her orange trails to deliver some heavy melee attacks as the magic blasts exploded all over the boss.

The giant Unversed finally succumbed to the assault and dissolved into wisps of Darkness that started to trail away to somewhere before bursting into Merlin's signature magic smoke puffs.

VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV

Second Quarter Rest Area...

The team reappeared in another break room, similar to the previous one except for its fancier, silver-colored furniture. "We did it, everyone! What a day!" Kairi dropped into one of the four cushy chairs set at the middle table and picked out a bite-sized chocolate from the platter sitting there.

"Ooh, chocolate!" Lambda immediately started popping chocolates into her mouth one after the other.

"All those battles really add up!" Xion took a moment to catch her breath and sip some fruit punch. "But we really learned a lot, didn't we?"

"Yeah, we've got all kinds of new powers now!" Lea agreed with his mouth full, between sips of punch and bites of chocolate.

"I wish I could've been more helpful," Namine wistfully mentioned.

Kairi assured her, "You did fine! If it wasn't for you, the Eye of Darkness would've got the drop on us. And you made sure I didn't slip on any bananas from the Bouncywilds on Floor 42." Kairi always made sure to keep track of all the ways Namine helped out, and this training exercise was no exception.

Lambda asked, "Now that we've made it this far, should we keep going to the top of the Arena Pillar, or move on to the next Training World?"

Kairi thought about it. "Actually, I think we should leave to check on Sora and the others. I bet they're ready for us by now."

Lambda nodded. "That, or you're underestimating the time dilation effect over this place, but sure, we can head back to the real world for a while."

"Sounds like a plan," Lea agreed. "I don't think I could stand more arena battles right now, anyway."

"I wonder what Mickey wanted to tell Riku?" Xion mused. Now that everyone agreed, they all vanished from the Rest Area and reappeared back in the central Hub of the Training Worlds.

VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV

Training Worlds: Hub...

Roxas was waiting for them, as usual. "Congratulations on reaching Floor 50, everyone! If you go back through the door you just left, you'll be brought right to Floor 51 to continue your challenge. Or, if you want to continue your adventure in the Training Worlds, you can go through the next door..." He gestured at the next door in line:

Training World 6:

Kagutsuchi

Lambda stared at the name on the door. "I now regret our decision to hold off on further training. But we did already make that decision, so I suppose we're not going to go explore the Azure Timeline right now."

Roxas explained, "Just as you suspect, Lambda, through that door is a recreation of a series of important events in the Azure Timeline. A few things had to be changed, but you'd be following in the footsteps of the 'Grim Reaper' as he made his way to the top of the 13th Hierarchical City Kagutsuchi to try and destroy the Cauldron hidden there. Honestly, I didn't pay much attention to the books Merlin left about the world government and history of the Azure Timeline, but I bet Lambda will be able to fill you all in on the important parts. That is, if you ever come back to train again..."

Namine replied, "I'm sure Sora would love to visit this new world; we should bring him here if we run into Merlin while traveling together, Kairi!"

Xion nodded, although she knew that Team Kairi would be split up from here on, and they probably wouldn't all be in the same place very often. She hoped there was a way to keep in touch...

Just in case they didn't get a chance later, Kairi pulled everyone in for a group hug farewell, dragging Roxas and Lea into the embrace as well. "I guess Team Kairi is officially disbanded for now. But if the opportunity ever arises, I'd love to fight alongside all of you again!"

Lea sniffled and wiped a tear from his eye. "Okay, that's enough of the sappy goodbyes. Let's...just go." He broke away from the hug first and stepped into the magic bubble in the middle of the Hub.

Lambda broke away from the hug. "Yeah. We all have Keyblades; there's no way to keep us from meeting again. Have fun with your own teams!" She passed through the bubble.

"I hope Hazama won't be too upset that he missed this session," Kairi mused as she, too, left the Training Worlds.

"Well then...shall we?" Roxas offered his arm, and Xion linked hers through it as they passed through the bubble together.

VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV

A/N: And so, another book of the Time Break Saga comes to a close.

This story was never meant to be more than an interim situation to get everyone in place for the next and possibly final book in the series. Everyone has grown much stronger and more capable with their Keyblades, which is exactly why they needed this training in the first place. Now they're ready to rejoin their friends and loved ones as Xehanort's newest plan casts a dark cloud on the horizon.

Don't worry, we have Gummiphones now. You can't have a game or game-based fanfiction nowadays without some way to take selfies, so everyone will be keeping in touch as we move on to the next book: Clear Skies. Not to be confused with Blue Skies, the one-shot compilation within this 'verse that's currently lying dormant on my profile.

A big thanks to everyone for sticking with this series so long! Holy lasers, it's been more than five years since I posted the first chapter of Dark Clouds! That's partly because I update so slowly, of course. And I know I haven't been able to please everyone, particularly since it's abundantly clear that I can't write a decent tragedy to save my scruffy neck. Of course, if you wanted to feel bad over Kingdom Hearts, you could just play the horribly paced narrative train wreck that is KH3.

An extra-special thanks to The Mighty Gyarapie for always reminding me to update. Thanks a bunch! Love you, bro!

As always, I really enjoyed my PM conversations with Titano Man XIII. You helped me get my thoughts together, and I can always count on you to respond constructively and/or encouragingly to my writing!

There are a bunch of other people who favorited, followed, and/or left reviews as I worked on this story. Every single notification gives me a nice warm fuzzy feeling. Thank you all for your support! Even you, angry "Ultra Beast" guest reviewer person. I did mostly deserve your criticism, as noted above, but I still contend that that is exactly how all Stop magic works, Stopza included.

I'm going to do my best to improve the flow of the story, give all of the teams and minor characters enough time in the spotlight (including the Final Fantasy characters in Radiant Garden, where Team Roxas will be spending a lot of time), absolutely avoid Kairi's lamentable canon fate, let Lambda keep throwing new ideas at the multiverse until something sticks, and just generally create my best version of KH3. And of course, we can't count the Azure Timeline or its refugees out just yet, either. I hope you all look forward to it!