Castle Oblivion was hollow. Yet even with that, it somehow felt alive. As if one was not entering a castle of stone, but the belly of a monster. That there was an ever present threat that Castle Oblivion would swallow at any moment and you'd be dragged deeper into its recesses.

The porcelain white flowers that adorned the halls enhanced this feeling. A mimicry of life, perfect imitations even. But the monochrome solid white of the petals, stems, and leaves, matching perfectly the white of the vase, which in turn matched the white of the pedestals on which they sat, matching set with the long, empty stone halls...it was wrong. As if the world needed painting to become alive.

Steps and railings, chandeliers, carpets all shared this trait. The only breaks in the solid white were from the shallow grades of stone that cast miniscule shadows, breaking up the monotony.

Even Aqua felt unnerved by her creation. Originally a fortress to guard one of her closest friends, it had taken on its own kind of life. She and her companions, the strange walking hulk her more scholarly companions had referred to as the "Lingering Will", and a robed Zexion, were silent as they made their way towards a golden gate. It wasn't exactly subtle in its role as a barrier to the further levels.

"Wait," Zexion's hand was in front of Aqua, preventing her from moving forward, "the next floor's active…" he let his voice wander from him as he studied the large door before them.

"Someone's inside?" Aqua surmised.

"Possible," Zexion said, folding his arms, "I don't know when the last time the castle underwent an inversion was."

"You think someone came through looking for Ven?" Aqua hypothesized, "It is possible that there hasn't been an inversion since Master Yen Sid retrieved him. as well."

"Possible, but mathematically unlikely." He glanced at the Keyblade Master from the corner of his eye, "Do you have any way of telling? You did create this world as I recall."

Aqua smirked, "If you're asking if I have some kind of umbilical cord to it, no. I'm as lost as you are."

"We should operate under the impression that the castle has indeed reset its data since then," Zexion concluded, "and keep our eyes open for foes."

Pressing into the room, they found a familiar sight, a purple-pink sky locked in an eternal evening. Streets and buildings seemed to rise around them, even though the doorway back to the pale white castle hung open like a gap in reality behind the trio.

Though Aqua's brain was distracted by other things, staring constantly at the suit of armor that followed herself and Zexion, "Sooo…what was it you called this thing?"

"'The Lingering Will'..?" he replied in some confusion.

Aqua nodded emphatically, "Hmm, that's right. Doesn't sound like a name. But it's not exactly Terra, is it?"

After some silence from the suit of armor, Zexion finally answered, "It would seem not."

Nodding once more, Aqua stood straight up, skipping ahead a bit, "I'm going to call it Will."

"Will?"

"Well we can't keep calling it that long thing, right? And it would be too weird to refer to it as Terra."

Zexion raised an eyebrow, but seemed to decide to leave well enough alone, "If you insist."

"Will it is!" Aqua led the trio down a street filled with shops and apartments, some sort of market perhaps, with huge pane glass windows leading into darkened spaces, reflecting some low light from the sun. Turning a corner they found themselves on a rather familiar sight, a huge, towering complex, like an old university, with a fountain and small garden like area out front. The brick pathway led to a huge door, and there were several benches in this combination welcoming atrium and city park.

"Wait. Isn't this...Radiant Garden?" Aqua drew the name from her memories.

"Indeed," Zexion responded, "We're at Ansem's old laboratory…Why would we be here?"

"Xehanort searching for data on the Heartless?"

Zexion shook his head, "Xehanort already knows all he needs to from Ansem about the Heartless. Most knowledge gathered on them was done under Xehanort. No, it must be something else."

"Well," Aqua offered a hand to a huge structure, it looked more like a castle than a laboratory, "We should check it out ourselves then, right?"

Zexion nodded, walking forward with Aqua, but froze after a few steps. Quite literally, as the space around him suddenly seemed to chill.

Aqua took a few seconds to notice her companion's pause, the Lingering Will pausing as well. Though in the latter's case, it was more like a dog waiting on its Human handlers than any apparent concern for the young man. "Is something wrong?"

Zexion found himself rubbing his arms for warmth against his will, "Don't you feel the chill? It's as if the heat vanished from this place."

Aqua looked around confused, shrugging and walking up to her associate, standing inches from his position. "Seems as nice and balmy as the Radiant Garden I know."

Zexion flinched, "Figures," he mumbled, "has to be right...here…" The cold seemed to matter little to him anymore, as he frantically looked around, his mood completely serious. "Master Aqua," his hushed voice asked her hurriedly, "have you seen a single soul since we entered this chamber?"

Aqua looked around concerned, "Now that you mention it, I haven't. That should have been part of the program, that you'd encounter old faces. I wonder why it's empty even after being activated." She looked back to Zexion, but his eyes were averted, and he was biting his lip pretty hard. "Do you know?" she asked.

"It's an oversight in the barrier," Zexion explained. "A being of Darkness cannot draw on the memories of the Realm of Light."

Aqua's eyes narrowed, but her voice still wavered with confusion, "So Xehanort's here?"

"No," he shook his head, "it's me."

"You?"

"This spot," Zexion's arms indicated where he had felt the chill, "is where my parents were killed. I was saved by Ansem and his apprentices, but they were too late to…" he let his thought hang unfinished. He looked up at the towering buildings around them with a new concern, "Anything could be untrue. A false reality he created. We must be careful."

"So...nothing else will be here? Just him?" Aqua asked for clarification. Apparently even being the creator of this world hadn't prepared her for options she had never considered.

"No. Darkness can reside in dark hearts," Zexion spat, "Unversed, Heartless, even Nobodies. We must be careful."

"Or, just me," an echo of his own voice called out from a rooftop. All three companions turned to look up at the figure staring down at them. "Do you ever miss mom and dad?" he asked whimsically, or at least Ienzo (for that is indeed who he was) recognized his own flat, cynical tone. "I think of our current predicament quite like that. Watching all my friends die, waiting to be rescued. But no rescue is coming, is it? Just time...time until I become one of him."

Ienzo stepped forward, tilting his head as he studied his doppelganger, "You haven't attacked. Why?"

"I know where Terra is," came the curt reply.

"Where?!" Aqua stepped forward, "His heart? Tell me what you did with it!"

Zexion the Nobody leapt from his rooftop position, "It's right where you think it is," he said cooly, "Well, and…" he gestured at The Will helplessly, "part of him is inside that."

"A Heart can't exist in two places at once," Ienzo replied, his dead eyes skeptical, "It takes considerable power to split a Heart, only Master Xehanort has ever achieved that."

"Maybe Xehanort isn't so special," Zexion shrugged, "Maybe he was taught how to do that. By his master. Did you consider that possibility?"

Aqua's eyes narrowed suspiciously, "You mean...Master Eraqus?"

"Precisely," the Zexion Nobody nodded. "Part of Terra resides here, and there. But he is not alone. Master Eraqus resides both in this armor, and in the body of Terra."

Ienzo seemed less than convinced, "And how did you discover this?"

Zexion pointed to the keyblade at Aqua's side, "I gathered data on a piece of the Lands of Departure." As if for demonstration, he summoned a book from thin air, which Aqua recognized by the Nobody symbol branded on the cover in metal.

Ienzo spat, "Tch," was the only disapproval he gave.

Aqua looked back to him, "Is that the same book?"

Ienzo nodded, "I told you that it was dangerous to use too often. There is only one Book of Retribution." He turned his attention to his Nobody, "Why did you set this up, though? To tell us this?"

Some of the pages in the illusionist's tome flipped, as if by their own will, while the Nobody replied, "I have orders to merge with you," he said simply, "but I wanted to tell you. Xehanort is ready to move. I don't have much time," he scanned through the pages of the book, searching for something specific it seemed to the others. With no more words, he opened a dark portal behind himself, the swirling black threatening to encompass him completely. Before he was taken in, he lifted his head to look at the pair, "I can deliver one final message on our behalf before Xehanort takes me, one way or the other. I've taken your trace out of the Book," he snapped the tome shut. The replicant Zexion then offered one boyish smile, a look that almost seemed unnatural hidden behind his silvery hair, "Just don't use it again, right? Or he'll be able to find you." The smile began to fade, but before it died completely, the Nobody was swallowed up by the darkness, vanishing.

Aqua offered a weak smile to Ienzo, "I guess he wasn't all bad."

This prompted a snort of amusement from Ienzo, "I wouldn't count on that."

"What makes you say that?"

The silver haired young man in black looked around, "Psychological warfare...he wanted me demoralized. But something must have changed his mind, playing his options right to the end." He knelt down, putting a hand to the cobblestone ground, whispering quietly, "Goodbye mom and dad," before standing upright again. His attention was now focused on The Will, "So part of Master Eraqus resides in here?"

"That's what...he said," Aqua fumbled on how to properly address someone's Nobody.

The Will looked up, it's head moving in a jerking motion, "Home," it said in its metallic, scratched voice.

Aqua placed her hand on the suit of armor's shoulder, "Yes, Will, we're home."

The Will only moved on through the simulated city, and Aqua and Ienzo felt compelled to follow it. It came to the door to the next floor, until it reached an un-used gate. Waving its keyblade over the gateway, energy sizzled between it and the input console, where one would normally insert a simulated memory card. The gate opened and without waiting for any confirmation, The Will led the way into the gate to the second floor, Aqua and Ienzo in close pursuit.

Aqua was rendered speechless by the sight. It was small, not even a whole world. It shouldn't have surprised her that the memories in The Will were sparse, but it compounded the sadness she felt at looking upon her creation after so many years. At the time, she had felt the only happy place left was her own memories, and would use them to guard Ven. But The Will lacked even those.

But it was a memory she herself remembered quite well. It was an arena, an oblong oval with wooden walls surrounding it. There were spectator seats towards one of the ends of the arena.

Ienzo, of course, was clueless, "Master Aqua...where are we?"

The marine haired keyblade master ran her fingers over the walls, "The Mark of Mastery exam," she answered quietly.

That was when an old voice called to her, "Aqua?" The young woman froze, unable to turn her head to confirm or deny her ears. It had to be some sort of mirage. It spoke to her again, "Hey, Aqua, yoo-hoo...are we going to get going or not?"

Even through her watery eyes Aqua recognized the spiky brown hair of her old friend. She shook her head as the hot water ran down her cheeks, Don't do this to me...Don't ruin this for me…

Terra lowered his head to look her more square on, concerned, "Aqua? Is everything okay?" he lowered his massive keyblade to the floor.

Aqua must have looked silly, she thought, her legs were barely giving her enough power to move, let alone run like they were asleep the whole way. Still, she managed to find her way to him and threw her arms about her old friend's neck, unable to even speak his name, simply bawling her happiness into his shoulder.

"Whoa, hey there," Terra seemed a bit uncomfortable at the sudden display of emotion, patting her on the back, "What's the matter? Did I do something wrong?" But even this Aqua couldn't answer in words, though her voice tried pitiably to reassure him, so instead she opted to shake her head 'no' against him.

"You'll need to give her some time," Ienzo stated, coughing to the side, standing shoulder to shoulder with The Will.

Terra finally seemed to take notice of the pair, as if they had been invisible to him until they announced their presence, and looking embarrassed for a moment, but not feeling right to let go of his dear friend, smiled sheepishly at the pair of strangers, "Oh, hello...I don't believe we've met?" he inferred.

"Not yet," Ienzo said cryptically. The Will remained silent.

Aqua finally had regained enough composure to speak. Her rational mind was handling it better now. Yet no matter how many times she had prepared herself that it was only shadows and illusions, actually having her lost friends face to face was overwhelming after so many years of loneliness. "I'm...so happy to see you," she finally spoke weakly.

Terra took a long look at The Will, "You...seem familiar though…" his nature as an illusory program unable to comprehend he was staring into his own future.

"Master Aqua?" a scratchy, elder voice called out from across the arena. The group turned to see Master Eraqus approaching, his long beard unmistakable even at this distance, dark eyes and tanned skin giving him a rugged look, his flowing garb and tied up hairstyle completing the picture of their mentor.

"Master!" Aqua beamed, moving forward to greet him with a gentle bow.

"Aqua, we don't have much time."

"Time? For what?" his old pupil asked curiously.

Ienzo stepped forward to listen, intrigued by Eraqus's speech, "Xehanort will use the graveyard to begin his war," he explained. "I am still connected to him. I feel it, he will try to form the X-Blade."

Aqua shook her head, "Master, we foiled that plan many years ago," she assured him.

Eraqus shook his head, "No, not Ventus, the princesses!" he hissed. "Their hearts, he plans to use them at the graveyard!"

"To what end?" Ienzo asked.

"I do not know," Eraqus shook his head, "I only observe, I do not know his thoughts."

Aqua looked from Eraqus to The Will curiously, finally understanding, "You are Will, aren't you? You're connected to Terra's body still."

"Yes, my child. I am," he nodded to The Will, "that entity. As is he," he indicated Terra's illusion, "but he is far less aware in this state than I." He reached out, taking Aqua's hands in his own, "You must return home."

"This is our home, Master. I changed it-"

"No, no my home," he tried to emphasize, but the words seemed to fail him. Shaking his head, "The Graveyard, you must return to the graveyard!"

"But we came from there, Xehanort has the place locked down!" Ienzo protested.

"Faith in the Light," Eraqus smiled, "Through it all things are possible! You must assemble the army of Light to battle Xehanort now, before he has a chance to implement his plans!"

As if….agreeing, The Will stamped its keyblade's tip into the floor, "Home."