"Here again…" Sora looks around in the dark emptiness. He was the only flicker of light in this never-ending path. "This place feels so bizarre. It feels like I've been here so long. What is this place anyway?"

"In a way, you're in a realm where your consciousness lay. This is a place between dream and reality. Mind and matter." A voice came behind Sora. He looks around to see a young man, no older than he was. He had slightly tanned skin, back hair that was tied in a short, high topknot, and wore a white, red-lined haori with a blue shirt underneath. "This place is your heart when you sleep."

"So this was kinda like what Ventus felt for all of those years? Sitting in complete darkness like this?" Sora asks.

"In a sense, no. Ventus was a special case. His heart left his body and resided in yours. Your heart is still there. You're just unconscious is all. You'll be fine after a bit of rest." The boy says with a soft comforting smile.

"Thank goodness… By the way. Who are you? And how do you know Ven?" The boy motions Sora to walk with him. The two of them walked down the lane.

"I'm Eraqus, Sora. I'm the original owner of-" Eraqus extends his hand as Master Keeper appears in his hand. "This Keyblade. You've made a connection with this Keyblade. That way, a lingering remnant of me is currently sleeping in your heart."

"A lingering remnant?" Sora places his hand on his chest before looking at Eraqus. "But wait. If you're the original owner of that Keyblade, why did Aqua have it?"

"I would say but I'll think you find out by someone other than me. Really, the only reason that I'm here is to wake you up from your slight coma." Sora pauses, not really understanding. "You've been gone for about a week Sora. A lot has happened since then. You need to wake up."

"And what about you? What will happen to you when I wake up?" Sora asks as Master Keeper disappears from Eraqus' hand.

"I'll go back to sleep. The only reason I really woke up was that your heart wasn't really feeling anything. It's something that happens when you're out for so long." Eraqus gives a furrowed brow before looking at Sora. "Well. It doesn't matter anyway. You won't be able to remember this conversation anyways."

"What do you mean? I mean. I clearly remember everything that happened before. Why would I not remember this?"

"Well in a way. You'll remember this. It'll be close to your heart. That's something I know for sure." The light surrounding Eraqus starts to shine even brighter, blinding Sora a tad bit. "But for now. I think that this game is starting to reach the rising action. Don't you think?"

Eraqus' light flashes Sora consuming the darkness surrounding Sora.

The Final Piece

By: NexusMHX

Chapter 14: Hostility

One week has passed since the small attack on Beacon Academy unfolded. The fight itself wasn't that impacted besides a few people injured. But the last ten seconds that happened at the end of the event was the one that impacted all of the students in the academy.

None of the Keyblade wielders could blame Ventus for what had happened. He had no choice and barely had any time to react. But everyone else seemed to overlook this fact. No matter where he went, Ven could feel the painful gazes of anyone throughout the academy. And it wasn't just him. After what Yami did and how secretive the group was throughout the whole situation, everyone has been keeping a watchful eye on both Team SRVX and RLIK. Even the members of both Team RWBY and JNPR kept their own distance from the Keyblade Wielders, unsure of everything.

Even inside the classrooms, people would whisper to each other, speculating what the secrets were behind these weird students.

"They're obviously letting on more than they know." One student whispered to another.

"It's like they knew who those guys were… Maybe they're some kind of criminals trying to overthrow Beacon." Another student stated.

"That's impossible, idiot. Ozpin would have noticed that from a mile away."

"I fail to see how this has anything to do with the assignment." Professor Goodwitch says with a firm voice, shaking it out of the whispering students in fear. She takes a peek over at Team SRVS and RLIK with a watchful eye while she substitutes a class of Grimm Studies.

"The way it seems, this is part of some kind of massive plan. To plant a seed of doubt in the academy." Ozpin said, talking to an astral globe on his desk. "It seems as if though they're trying to pit everyone against Sora, Riku, and the others. Perhaps to target them, if something were to happen."

"A tactic like this, especially after a tragedy of someone's dead in front of everyone. It indeed seems like whoever came up with this, thought about this very carefully." The voice on the other side of the astral globe, Yen Sid stated from his Mysterious Tower as always. "However, I do not believe that this plan was one that Master Xehanort made. In it, lies someone with more wit about how minds of young people act."

"While I do believe that whoever is responsible for this event is definitely something to look into, my hands are tied at the moment. I've been keeping a close eye on your students." Ozpin looks over at Glynda.

"So far, there has been nothing really major besides a few glares and rumors. A few of the Professors have tried to keep it contained but we can't really do much." Glynda said looking through a few security monitors. "However, Ventus has been harassed quite a lot while he's alone. He doesn't seem to put up a fight or anything."

"Ventus is a rare case of someone, pure of heart. His previous master quoted quite the number of times of how pure and childlike, Ventus was sometimes." Yen Sid with a faint smile before thinking about it. "Whoever these new people are, they're wild cards. Unpredictable."

"What about King Mickey? What is he doing right now?" Ozpin asked as Yen Sid stroked his beard.

"Mickey, as well as his companions, Donald and Goofy are currently on a journey, looking for someone. So for now, they are currently unavailable."

"I see. Then that's all for the moment. Farewell for now." The image disappeared as Ozpin became deadly quiet as he processes the whole situation. "There is one enemy that is the worst to deal with, no matter what… The masses. This could be very damaging to our Keyblade Wielders, psychiatrically."

"No matter how you look at it… They're hiding something from everyone." Weiss states to her teammates once they all were inside their own room. "The guy from the forest was praising Ven for his work after "accidentally" killing the guy."

"You got to admit. It was pretty fishy. They were whispering to themselves back at the ship." Yang comments.

"But Sora got extremely injured from these guys. They wouldn't just harm one of their own like that!" Ruby objected to the two statements.

"Ruby does have a point. They did seem to know who was behind this… They talked about some kind of Organization." Blake closes her book a little, thinking about the subject.

"I heard about it too. If it were some kind of organization, you would think we would hear about it, right?" Weiss' claims did leave the other three to nod slowly.

"Even if they were small, that way that they controlled those Grimm like creatures was insane. I've never seen anything like it. I didn't even know that Grimm could be controlled like that." Ruby said with a hint of uncertainty.

"If anything, Beacon Academy archives should have something on people like them." Blake jumps out of her bed, heading to the door. "If they're that powerful, there must be something on them."

"Who knows? Maybe I should go hit Roxas and the others. They might be able to spill some beans of these guys seeing their history." Yang said, catching her fist with her other hand.

"I'll come with you Yang," Ruby said as she received a message from her Scroll. She picks it up as her eyes open wide.

"What's up?" Yang asks.

"It's Sora. He's awake!"

"I'm telling you guys. It's nothing. Especially after what everyone did here. And an elixir for safe measure." Sora stretches as he stands up in his normal outfit, though he notices that none of the other guys were smiling. "Hey. What's wrong?"

"We need to tell you something… While you were unconscious, some stuff happened." Lea grunts with a defeated look.

"Apparently, one of the new Organization XIII members, Yami, came and did a dirty tactic on us." Isa started to explain.

"Another one of them was overwhelming Axel and Ven so much that Ven had to…" Kairi couldn't even finish the sentence.

"I killed someone…" Ventus' voice was weak, but enough for Sora to hear.

"You did what?" Sora couldn't comprehend as his head ached a little still.

"Afterwards, Yami patted them both on the back, making it look like this was all one big elaborate plan from the start. Now everyone at the academy has kept their distance from us." Riku states with a frustrated look. "For now. Our hands are tied. It's like everyone is against us."

"Everyone? Even Ruby and the others?" The door opens behind everyone. They look out to see Ruby and Yang walking in. "Ruby! Yang!"

"Hey, Sora… Are you feeling better?" Ruby asks without her usual cheerful tone.

"We came here to talk. What's this about an Organization?" Yang questions the whole group. No one said a word about the group. "Seriously? It's obvious that you all have some kind of history with them. We all saw the guy talking to Ven, all casual-like."

"I don't know the guy! How many times do I have to repeat myself?!" Ventus yells out rather suddenly. The boy wasn't one to raise his voice in that type of manner which definitely came as a surprise to his friends. "I've heard that question so many times. No matter what, none of you seemed to listen!"

"I don't know. It sounded very convincing that you guys were buddies back then." Yang comments.

"Hey! Ven already said that he didn't know the guy! Plus right before you all showed up, the two were fighting!" Lea shouts trying to defend Ventus. "What more do you need to know in order for you to believe him anyway?"

"How about a name for this "organization" as a start?! None of us have ever heard of the guys before last week! And according to Blake. One of them had a Keyblade like you all do." Yang shouts with Ruby trying to calm her down.

"So what if they had a Keyblade? It all depends on the wielder." Roxas folds his arms.

"Well. Nobody has even ever seen the thing before you guys showed up. Not even Ruby knows and she knows almost everything!"

"This is leading nowhere. Why don't we all just try and stay calm? All we're doing is just creating chaos here!" Xion exclaims trying to calm the tension in the room.

"Forget this. I knew that we wouldn't get anything from talking to you guys." Yang turns around and walks away with Ruby blubbering about the whole situation. She looks out of the door before looking back towards Sora.

"Sorry." Ruby runs off leaving everyone by themselves.

"Great… Now, look at the mess we're in." Lea groans to himself.

"This can't get any worse…" Kairi sighs.

"Then… What can we do? They're our friends, right? We can just tell them about Organization XIII, can't we not?" Sora asks the group.

"Sora. We can't. Remember. We aren't so say anything that could disrupt the order." Riku states with a firm brow. "It would make things so much easier if we could tell them about everything. But there are rules."

"Good point…" Sora looks down, in deep thought trying to find some way around this situation. He turned around suddenly, thinking that he had heard something as he peeked his head outside the door, only to see a few of the doctors moving around.

"What is it?" Xion asks as Sora shakes his head.

"In any case, let's go back to our Dorm Rooms. There we can think about stuff." Kairi says with everyone agreeing, leaving the hospital wing.

Meanwhile, Ruby slowly leaves the corner as she makes her way to Yang. "Did you catch anything?"

"I did… But I don't know. It seemed wrong." Ruby said with a bit of hesitation.

"... I know sis. But we got to know what exactly we're dealing with here." Yang said before taking out her Scroll, calling Blake. "Hey! We may have found something."

On the way back to their Dorm Rooms, Sora trailed a little back behind from the group as he could feel it. Everyone keeps a close eye on the group, like a hawk, hunting for its next meal. It's definitely making the Keyblade Wielder feel uneasy. No matter where he looked, people gave him glares. It was slowly getting the better of him. Suddenly a guy bumps into Sora so much that it knocks him into the ground.

"Hey…" Sora groans as he stands up. He looks back at the guy who didn't even say anything. "He didn't even apologize."

"Hmph." The student grunts, waving Sora off before walking away. Sora just lets out a heavy sigh before continuing walking down the hallway by himself, though enough to still see his friends walking in front of him. Suddenly, almost out of nowhere, something hits Sora in the head. He looks down to see an empty soda can. Almost like a gatling gun, stuff was being thrown at him from every direction that Riku and the others caught notice.

"Get out of here!"

"Bastard!"

"Criminal!"

"Monster!"

Each word felt like a gunshot to Sora. He didn't know why, but it felt slightly painful to him growing with each insult. He had never experienced such hate like that before, maybe that's why.

"Hey! Cut it out!" Lea yells towards the others. Isa rushes over, preparing to summon Lunatic, driving the others away.

"Sora! Are you okay?" Riku asks shaking Sora a little. Almost as if something snapped into Sora, he looked over at everyone before pulling away from Riku as he ran away. "Sora! Wait a second!"

But Sora was already long gone from the group.

'Why… Why am I feeling stuff like this? If anything, Ven should be the one suffering the most. So why can't I look them in the eye?' Sora thinks as he rushes through the hallways, passing by everyone.

Yang had called the members of Team JNPR to join Team RWBY at the library where they're looking through both physical and electronic records.

"Jeez. We've been searching for so long! I'm getting bored." Nora groans loudly.

"Yeah. None of the physical files have shown anything. Are we sure that what you said was right?" Jaune asks.

"I heard it myself. Whoever this mysterious group was, they explicitly referenced them as "Organization XIII"." Ruby said with a sigh.

"If you ask me, that sounds like a really dumb name," Yang says with a frown.

"There's barely any results on this Organization XIII from these online records. Even if we look into any keywords like the Keyblade and such, there's nothing really substantial..." Blake states looking at these records. "Hold on! I may have found something!"

"Finally. We have some good news." Weiss states as everyone huddles over the computer.

"It says here, "The mysterious organization of only thirteen members led by Master Xehanort has one goal. Retrieve the strongest weapon in the universe and control the ultimate power." Blake reads out loud.

"Well. At least there's a start. Though we have no idea what exactly they're talking about." Ren states with a sigh.

"Blake. How about you look through the records for this Xehanort?" Pyrrha asks with Blake typing in the keywords as a few more things pop up.

"Which are we referencing to? There are four results!" Yang cheered with everyone shushing her down. "Sorry…"

"Well, what are we waiting for? Let's see what these bad boys are about!" Nora cheered.

Blake tries to access these files with a massive error blocking her from it. "These records are saying that they require a certain level of access. By the looks of it, even only a few of the Professors are able to look through these files."

"Does that mean that whoever this group is, they're so dangerous that they have to keep it a secret from normal people?" Jaune wondered with a hint of fear in his voice.

"It does seem suspicious. But for now, this is definitely a dead end…" Ren said, thinking a little before a bit. "What about those weapons they had?"

Blake types it into the record with no result. Weiss lets out a sigh at the result. "So we're still back to square one, after finding nothing on these guys."

"Then… Wouldn't it be best if we went to talk to Ozpin himself?" Ruby states. "The school is practically a madhouse with how everyone is so antsy about this."

"Ruby… I don't think that asking them will get any results, even if the school is in this condition." Pyrrha said with a frown. "If they're trying to hide it, then it's for a good reason."

"Anything is fine. It's just that I'm uneasy. Sora and the others are our friends. But it feels like everyone is holding out secrets against us! Them… the school. I just want something… Anything! Anything to clear any of this doubt inside me!" Ruby yelled out, snapping everyone out. "I… I want to believe in them. I really do! But what is this faith if I'm doubting myself all this time! That's why… I'm even doing this at all! We may have spent only a few weeks together… but it felt genuine! I want to fully trust them!"

"Ruby…" Yang looks at her little sister with her eyes, almost seems to be shaken awake from this. "Do you really think this?"

"I… I don't know. But for now. I want to trust them."

"That's just childish naivete…" Weiss' words stung in Ruby like million daggers, all in an instant. "I can understand what you mean Ruby. But that's just a child's dream."

"Weiss! That's not called for!" Yang growls.

"It's true, isn't it!" Weiss looks over at Ruby, clearly hurt by those words. "I'm sorry… That wasn't called for at all. What I mean is. I just can't see it. There's definitely something wrong about all of this. There's no way that something is wrong with that group."

"Ruby. Sora, Roxas, Riku, all of them. They all seem like good people. We just need to know that we can trust them." Jaune tries to reaffirm Ruby. "And. In order to do all of that, we need all of the facts."

"I… I don't know what to think." Ruby sits down, clearly stressed out from the whole situation. She takes a minute to herself before standing up again and walks off, without not saying a word.

"What if Ruby is right? What if this is one big whole mixup?" Jaune asks with a soft voice.

"I don't know Jaune," Ren responds.

Wassup my homies! This is NexusMHX here with another chapter of The Final Piece. Let me real with you all. I actually had no idea how to execute this idea before now. But now that I do, I'm glad that I did. I just know in some way, shape, or form. There had to be repercussions for what had happened. Now I need to tell you all something. Sora is a mentally unstable person and it shows a lot throughout Kingdom Hearts 3. I'm not sure if you all noticed, but Sora has been looking a little less unstoppable in that game. If anything, he is way more vulnerable than ever before. And if you tell me, I think he has some sort of trauma, especially after the events of Dream Drop Distance. So I thought that it would definitely be a small influence into this story. With that being said, thank you for reading. If you enjoyed it, please make sure to follow/favorite/comment for content. This is NexusMHX signing off! Stay Classy!

PS: Loving FF7 Remake.