Chapter 25 – Support

Thunk. Ven winced and rubbed his head. "Oooph, Sora, how do you even climb these trees? My hands keep slipping on the bark."

These trees were nothing like the ones back home. Their scaly trunks had few branches Ven could cling to, and the bark made it nearly impossible to grip. Sora had made it look easy to shimmy up their long trunks, but it had been anything but.

"Lots and lots of practice," Sora said, offering a hand up. A mischievous impulse came over Ven, and he yanked on Sora's arm. Sora let out a surprised yelp as he tumbled to the ground, then got his revenge by scooping a handful of wet sand and plastering it on Ven's arm.

Ven laughed, and Sora managed a small smile. It was good to see him acting more like himself, even if there was a deep heaviness to his eyes that never fully went away.

"So," Ven said, wiping the sticky goop off his skin, "what was it you wanted to talk to me about?"

Sora's smile faded, his expression growing serious. "Oh, that. Well, it's about Vanitas. When I was…" Sora faltered, then tried again. "He… wouldn't hurt me, even after Xehanort ordered him to."

Ven tried to process this information. Vanitas chose not to hurt someone he had a grudge against? That was huge. And not even after Xehanort had told him to?

Was it possible… could he actually be growing a conscience?

But something else stuck out to Ven too. "Hang on, Xehanort ordered him to hurt you?"

Even though he was connected to Sora and knew how he was feeling, as per Terra's advice, he hadn't asked for the particulars of what had happened. Nor had he told anyone else. All he knew was what Xigbar and Xaldin had already told him. But he could do the math. Sora had been completely alone against Xehanort and his henchmen, at their mercy to torment as they pleased.

Ven wondered which was worse, his imagination or the reality.

"Yeah, but that's not what's important," Sora said, his voice strained and his face losing its color.

Ven took Sora's hand in his and pressed their palms together. It was bittersweet, how Sora's hand was slightly bigger than his now.

"That's where you're wrong," he said. "Our hearts were connected for so long that I can still feel echoes of what you're feeling. What you went through, all that pain, all that suffering – it matters to me."

Sora's face was ashen and his head drooped. "I'm sorry. I never wanted you to feel any of that."

Ven shook his head. "Don't be. You were all alone, and I'd like to think this was my small way of helping you. I may not be in your heart anymore, Sora, but I'll always be there for you. I promise."

He gave Sora's hand a gentle squeeze, and Sora's voice was low when he spoke. "Ven, I—"

"It's the least I can do. You protected me for all those years. You healed my heart and made it possible for me to return to my body. It's about time I helped you for once."

"You already have. More than you could ever know," Sora said softly.

"I mean it. If it ever gets to be too much, just connect our hearts and I'll take care of the rest."

They watched the sunset together after that, the golden light from the sun streaking the sky as it sank lower and lower.

"Ven, what will you do when you see Vanitas again?"

Ven sighed. "He hurt me before. He hurt you and Kairi, too, and a part of me is still mad about that. But if he's showing signs of turning, I have to reach him. I have to try. He and I were once the same person. I'd be a hypocrite if I didn't give him a second chance. Especially since he stood up for you and warned me and Kairi about what Xehanort was gonna do."

"Then… you'll try to save him?"

Ven paused. "Yeah. At this point, he's just as much a victim of Xehanort as I am."

Sora seemed pleased with this answer. He settled back into the sand, putting his hands behind his head and looking up at the sky. "Ven, if you do reach him, we could win the entire battle. No, the entire war."

"Gee thanks, no pressure." Ven poked him and grinned.

Sora scratched his cheek. "Sorry, just trying to consider all our options here."

"That's good. We've gotta be ready for anything Xehanort throws at us. We can't let things end like they did the first time. We have to win."

They had Eraqus's plan, which Sora still didn't know about in case Xehanort tried to find out about it. But they still had to make the most of any additional advantages they might have.

Sora's voice was low, but a fire had lit in his eyes. "I know. And you know what, Ven? I think we just might."

It was good to see Sora acting hopeful again. To see him act like this fight might be winnable. Even if he didn't have the full picture, even after everything that had happened to him, he still trusted his friends and wanted to help however he could.

The sun had sunk over the horizon, and the stars were coming out. Ven stood and brushed sand off his clothes.

"It's a big day tomorrow. We should get going."

"It's a big day for you, you mean," Sora said, refusing to budge. "It's back to training for me."

"Right. Sora… are you really ready to say goodbye to Kairi?"

The time had finally come. Sora had told them he was feeling well enough for Kairi to leave on her journey, and Ven, Aqua, Donald, and Goofy would be accompanying her. Now whether Sora was actually feeling well enough for that was another question entirely.

Sora didn't answer Ven right away. He sat up, zoning out for a few moments as he considered Ven's question.

"Well," he finally said, "a part of me does wish we could be together. But I'm sure she felt the same way all the times I asked her to wait for me, and right now she has an important job to do." He paused, summoning a swirling sphere of dark energy in his right hand and grinning wryly. "How I am right now, I can't really help her with that."

Ven looked at the darkness that Sora had called forth so easily. Once that darkness had been such a tiny part of Sora's heart, and now it was big enough to answer his beck and call. Ven thought of his own darkness, which had once been so great that when Xehanort had pulled it out of him, it had created new life.

Sora had to get a handle on his darkness before something like that could happen. Before Xehanort could use it against him.

"You'll get control of your darkness, I know you will," Ven said. "Riku'll help you figure it out."

Sora sighed deeply and let the darkness disappear. "That's the idea, anyway."

Riku was tying his rowboat to the dock of the main island when Terra found him. It was dark outside, and the stars shone in the sky and reflected on the water. Yeah, Destiny Islands was small, and there wasn't a whole lot going on, but it was beautiful and it was home.

Funny how it took traveling the worlds for Riku to realize that.

"Riku, I know you'll be busy training Sora," Terra said, "but I was wondering if you could take on another student. After I go to Twilight Town, I mean."

Riku's eyes went wide as the implications of that statement sank in. The thought of his hero asking him for training was crazy.

"You want me to train you? But Terra, you were the one who gave me the Keyblade. How could I possibly—"

"I had a dream once, before all of this happened," Terra said, sitting on the dock and looking out to the sea. The wooden poles and boards creaked and groaned under his hulking weight. "I wanted to be a Keyblade Master. It never came true, but I haven't given up on it. You and Sora are the only ones who understand what I've been through, and… I can't really ask Sora for help. Not while he's still recovering himself."

Riku just stared at him. When did I become the person everyone looked up to?

Sora had always looked up to him, of course, but that was a far cry from his hero looking up to him. And not just that. He was training Naminé now, too. Well, when she wasn't off on some other world.

"Riku, I need your help with controlling the darkness inside of me. It's true, I'm free from Xehanort. But I never learned how to keep my darkness in check, which is why I failed my Mark of Mastery in the first place."

"And now you want to learn how."

Terra nodded. Well, that Riku could help with. He finished tying the boat to the dock and settled in next to Terra, rolling his pants up and dipping his feet in the cool water.

"You can't think of your darkness as evil. It's a part of you just as much as the light is. It's what you do with it that matters. Light can be used for evil just as much as darkness can."

Of course, Xehanort liked using the darkness, so that meant they ran into a lot more bad guys who used the darkness than the light, but the general principle still applied.

Terra frowned. "I think I see what you mean. Master Eraqus attacked Ven using the light, and that's what made me snap. I knew what he was doing was wrong, even though he was using the light to do it."

"Exactly. Like I said, your motive is everything. And once you stop trying to repress your darkness, you can start channeling it into something good." Riku summoned his Keyblade and demonstrated. He called on the darkness within him and pulled it out, using his Keyblade to transform it into orbs of light.

"You turned the darkness into light," Terra said, staring at the lights floating in the air around them with a look of amazement on his face. "I didn't even know that was possible."

Riku let his Keyblade disappear. "Once you can do it too, I think you'll have a good shot at your Mark of Mastery."

"Thank you, Riku." Terra stood and summoned his Keyblade. "Now how about you show me how?"

Terra was surprised to see Aqua was still awake when he got back to their room. Her legs were draped over the edge of the sofa, and she was reading an old, weather-beaten book called Potions and Elixirs: An Advanced Guide. Probably one of the master's old volumes, if Terra had to guess.

"You're back," she said, lifting her eyes up from the pages to meet his. She put her finger on her place and sat up. The strap of her tank top slipped down her shoulder, and she hastily straightened it. An innocent gesture, but it drew Terra's attention to her chest, and the thoughts he was having right now were not ones he wanted to have with Eraqus still stuck inside his head.

"Were you waiting up for me?" he asked. She had an early start tomorrow. He'd hate for her to start her journey tired.

"Not that long. I only got back half an hour ago. I was working with Kairi on teleportation magic. She asked me how to create heart barriers, too."

"For Sora, I'm guessing."

Aqua nodded as she set the book on the coffee table, then patted the spot on the sofa next to her. Terra sat down, being careful to leave space between them. When he craned his neck to look, the pages of the book were open to instructions on how to combine potions with barriers to make their protective qualities even more powerful.

Of course. Aqua was always looking for ways to improve her abilities.

He turned his attention back to her. "I talked to Riku. He's agreed to train me after I go to Twilight Town. We practiced tonight some, too."

Her expression softened. "Good. I'm glad to hear that."

"Yeah. Things went well." It had been a good start. They'd only stopped because it had been getting late and they were both tired.

A smile played at the corners of her lips. "And?"

"To tell you the truth, Aqua, I'd rather be going with you and Ven tomorrow."

He'd just been reunited with them, and they were already being separated again. Considering how things had gone the last time he'd been apart from them for too long, he couldn't help but be worried.

"I wish you were going with us, too," she said softly, putting her hand over his. He looked into her eyes and lost his train of thought. "But you'll have Sora and Riku to keep you company."

"I guess. I just wish I had my darkness under control already."

Aqua had never struggled with the darkness the way he had. He wondered sometimes what she saw in him. She was so good, so pure and full of light. His inability to keep his darkness in check must seem pathetic to someone like her.

She brushed a strand of hair out of his face. "You'll get it under control, I know you will. You just have to give yourself time. If Riku can do it, you can, too."

He laughed softly, and she tilted her head.

"You've changed," he clarified, taking her hand in his and massaging her knuckles between his fingers. For once she wasn't wearing her usual gloves, and her fingers, long and thin and elegant, were also calloused from years of fighting.

"Is that... a good thing?" she asked, her voice breathier than usual.

"Yes." He gazed into her eyes, and there was something very vulnerable in them. "The old you wouldn't have accepted my darkness at all."

She sighed. "I drove you away because I was blinded by my refusal to see the world in anything but black and white. If only I'd realized your heart was always in the right place."

She scooted closer, and he lifted his arm so she could snuggle up next to him.

"It's not like I was any better," he said, running his hand up and down her arm. "I assumed the worst about you when you were just trying to do the right thing."

What he'd seen as spying on him had been her merely trying to fulfill the Master's request. But of course he hadn't tried to talk to her about it. He'd just run off and let that come between them. No more of that.

Aqua laughed. "We're a mess, aren't we? Stubborn and impulsive to the end."

"Maybe," Terra said as she rested her head on his chest, "but at least we're a mess together."

"Yeah."

He smiled. It was nice to hear her confirm that they were together in something, even if it was just being a mess. Maybe, when the mess was all cleaned up, there would be something more, but for now, it was enough for Terra that they were figuring out this mess together.

The sun shone bright the following morning on the main island. It was one of those days without a single cloud in the sky. Donald and Goofy were talking to Riku, and Aqua and Ven were saying goodbye to Terra. It was time for Kairi's mission with the other Princesses of Heart. Donald, Goofy, Aqua, and Ven would be accompanying them, as would Merlin and even Master Yen Sid.

The hope was that Xehanort would be so distracted by their mission and the tantalizing prospect of capturing the princesses that he wouldn't realize the other mission to bring Eraqus back and put his plan into motion. While Xehanort knew Eraqus was alive inside Terra's heart, he still had no idea of the true prophecy or of Eraqus's plans. The days of reacting to Xehanort's moves were over. The side of light had taken the initiative for once.

But where was Sora? Kairi craned her neck to see if there was any sign of him. He'd promised he'd come see her off. Surely he hadn't overslept and—

"Kairi?"

She turned around, and there he was. He was panting for breath, and the hair on his forehead was damp even though it wasn't very hot outside yet. His hands were behind his back, and Kairi wondered what he was hiding.

"It's a present for you," he said, handing her a small package. "Open it."

When she did, several fancy envelopes and matching sheets of paper fell out. They were a lilac purple with gold trimming.

"These are really pretty," she said, leafing through them. They looked expensive, too. She hadn't really thought about it before, but she supposed Sora probably did have a lot of munny at his disposal now. The thought that he had used some of it to splurge on a gift for her made her feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

"I want to write to you," he said. "We can't risk Xehanort finding out where the princesses are, so while you're gone, I'm not gonna use our heart connection to talk. Instead I'll write to you in your diary the way you wrote to me during your training. And if you want, you can use this stationary to send me letters on Radiant Garden."

Kairi smiled. It was a great plan, but she saw one potential flaw, considering who their friends were. "They might get read along the way, you know."

"Oh, I've already taken care of that. Donald was Merlin's student, remember? He taught me how to put a spell on the letters so only we can read them."

"Good." She paused and took a deep breath. "Sora, there's something I want to give to you too."

He tensed, and the sharp pang of being unwanted ran through her again. He thinks I'm going to try something, doesn't he?

She knew better than to do that. He was still so careful around her, as if she was a delicate flower that would get torn to shreds if he touched her too roughly. Their kiss was like a far off memory now. The best she could hope for was a hug.

She still had no idea how he felt about that kiss. He hadn't brought it up, and she was beginning to think she'd just imagined the way his eyes had briefly turned blue again afterwards.

"Don't worry, it's not like that," she said. He relaxed, but there was something akin to sadness in his eyes, too.

Well, at least she knew he missed their closeness as much as she did.

"I think I can put a protective light around your heart," she said. "Kind of like the barriers I can make in a fight, but longer lasting."

She'd practiced with Aqua last night, and now was the moment of truth. She stooped and placed the papers and envelopes on the ground, then reached her hand towards his heart, pausing to look up at him for his permission. The last thing she wanted to do was touch him when he didn't want to be touched.

He didn't stop her, so she placed her hand against his chest. His heartbeat was there, steady as ever, but it sped up at her contact. She took a deep breath and focused. Light flowed through her and into him, going around his heart and forming a protective barrier.

"There," she said, allowing her hand to linger a little while longer. "Now maybe Xehanort won't have free access to what's inside that heart of yours anymore."

She lifted her hand, but before she could let it fall to her side, he caught it and pulled her to him. His arms went around her and she let herself melt in his embrace. For a moment, the rest of the world seemed to dissolve away around them.

Ever since he'd found out about what had happened to her when she was a child, the few times they had hugged had felt like he was trying to comfort her, and this time was no different. She imagined how she would feel if she were forced to watch what had happened to him, and she could understand why.

"It's not my heart, not anymore," he said, his voice so low only she could hear it. "It's yours, remember? Has been, for a long time."

She hugged him tighter at the reminder. He wasn't making it easy to leave, not at all. "Sora—"

"Never forget," he said softly. "I'm always with you."

She leaned back, the words of the familiar promise warming her heart. "Hey, isn't that my line?"

He shook his head. "For once, I'm the one who'll be waiting. So this time, I get to say it." He brought her back into his arms, holding her as if he couldn't bear to let her go. "Stay safe. I miss you already."

The longer they lingered in each other's arms, the less Kairi wanted to say goodbye. "I don't have to leave just yet, you know," she said. "If you want me to stay with you a little longer, I can."

He leaned back and gave her a sad smile. "Kairi, if I had it my way, we would never be apart. But the worlds need you. You've got an important job to do, and it would be selfish to ask you to stay with me instead."

"Selfishness isn't always such a bad thing, you know." A part of her wished he would be selfish every now and then. He was too selfless for his own good. But it was also one of the things that had drawn her to him in the first place.

Love was such a complicated thing sometimes.

"Then I will be selfish," he said, "but not until after all of this is over."

Kairi sighed. He might as well have said they could never be together. "But remember what I told you? It'll never be over."

He shook his head again. "You're wrong. It will be over because we're gonna end it. And on that day, you'll get to see just how selfish I can be."

Something about his tone made her heart race and her face flush. She knew his guilt and shame were making it difficult for him to be open with her, so the fact that he was even trying was huge.

A part of her deep down was also glad for the confirmation that the lack of closeness between them wasn't because he didn't want her anymore. Not at all. There was always just something else getting in their way.

What she wouldn't give to tear down every last barrier keeping them apart.

When she'd recovered enough to speak, she said, "Good. It's a promise." For now she could handle being separated. But if they really did win, if they really did defeat Xehanort, she refused to let anything else keep her and Sora from being together.

It was good to finally hear he felt the same.

They hugged one last time before saying goodbye. The look on his face as she walked away was very much like it had been when they'd been separated as the worlds had been restored.

She hoped the separation would be much shorter this time.