Linked Hearts.
Kairi woke up, after the whole trio actually offered to help her train, Aqua told the new student to take a room in the castle, and rest as the friends prepared the training.
"I still can't believe the two of you just suddenly jumped in and made yourselves teachers." Aqua said shaking her head.
"Kairi really seeks and need that strength; I just had to help her." Terra answered.
"Same thing, honestly, I have no idea if it is due to being on his heart for so long, but when Kairi needed help so much… I had to jump in and help." Answered the younger wielder while thinking.
After a while, Kairi presented herself to her new masters, ready for their teachings.
"Very well Kairi, first… before we do any of the actual teaching, I need to tell you something. " Aqua stated in a worried tone.
"What is it, Master Aqua?" Asked the student.
"Your self esteem. You consider yourself too weak, but we know it's not true, we want to show that to you, so then you can learn without trying too much or in excess."
"….." Kairi did not answer to that.
"So, take this as your first lesson, we'd like you to have a sparring match with Ven, that way you can see your own strength, and meanwhile we can also see what you can do." Terra started to talk.
"Also, the reason I was choosen it's because I'm fast, and use both magic and physical attacks a lot, so you have to react to different things!" Explained Ventus.
"I… have to fight you?" Questioned the princess.
"That's correct! C'mon, it will be fun." Promised the blond wielder.
"Very well…" Accepted Kairi as she summoned Destiny's Embrace in her hand.
Ventus summons his own Keyblade, a fancy and ornated mostly silver one, Lost Memory, wielding it backhanded and spinning it on his hand.
"Kairi, Ventus, this is just a sparring duel, so don't hurt each other too badly, otherwise, feel free to use your different abilities to win." Stated Aqua.
Both young wielders nods, Ventus bows to Kairi, and Kairi bows back, then they begin the duel.
Ventus obviously moved first due to his speed, quickly rushing towards Kairi and starting to slash his Keyblade at a fast speed, Kairi was able to react to his speed, and extended her hand, casting a barrier around her entire body, blocking the rush of attacks, then she shattered the barrier on a small explosion, but as Ven has seen Aqua using her barrier a lot, he rolled away before the explosion hit him.
Lightning suddenly covered Ventus, and he quickly charged forward using a Thunder Surge, Kairi barely evaded it by sliding away to a side and casted a big Firaga, but the Surge nullified the spell when it did contact, then the lightning disappeared.
Ven's Keyblade got cloaked in wind, and the wielder threw it, Kairi recognized the classic Strike Raid that Sora used a lot or some variation and casted her barrier… but right before hitting it, the Keyblade moved to a side, circled her, and attacked Kairi from behind right as her barrier vanished, hitting her and sending the princess some feet into the air as the Wind Raid now strikes her several times.
Ventus wasn't done, with Kairi being mid air now, he jumped, fire appeared around him, as he performed a Fire Dash to close distances and attack Kairi with it, but his opponent managed to recover, and started to glide away, evading the Fire Dash, for then cast Thundaga from above Ven, hitting him as he had just stopped from the dash, staggering him a bit. Kairi took the chance, and threw her Keyblade towards Ventus, suddenly teleporting there, grabbing again the Keyblade, and landing a combo.
"You are doing pretty good Kairi!" Complimented Ven.
"Thanks, you are doing great too." Answered Kairi.
Deciding to push Kairi harder, from the fire he just did for the Fire Dash, a spark ignited on Lost Memory, as it got covered by Fire, Ven just used the Firestorm style.
Kairi didn't have time to be surprised, as since she was still relatively close from the previous combo, Ven managed to strike her with his fiery Key, then he slammed her towards the ground, and casted a Fission Firaga, Kairi quickly casted Waterga, a barrier of water protecting her from the fire ball and following explosion, and at the same time a water orb was sent towards Ven, who did a single Aerial Slide to dodge it.
Afterwards, Ven threw again his fire Keyblade towards Kairi, she jumped to a side and dodged it… but she did not expect Lost Memory to make three fire lines on impact, still hitting her, Ventus called his key back, and the fire disappeared.
"Is this all you can do? C'mon Kairi, I thought you were stronger than that." Ventus said with a smirk.
Terra smirked at the phrase, and Kairi looked at Ven, obviously he would know very well about how Riku was and is, Riku telling her that she can't go with him to find Sora flashed again in front of her eyes. She made tighter the grip on her key, and Ventus's smirk disappeared as he heard some too familiar lock on sounds.
Kairi jumped into the air, and several magic orbs that looked like small meteors appeared next to her, then she began to glide towards Ven as the meteors were fired, Ven attempted to glide away, but a bunch hit him, and explosions covered him, staggering Ven, so Kairi proceeded to throw her Key and teleport again next to him, and casted a point blank Blizzaga, freezing Ven.
Aqua and Terra gasped, the painful image of a frozen Ven returning to them… but before Kairi did anything else, the ice around Ven broke.
"You know, I'd rather to not freeze this time!" Shouted Ven with a kinda angry expression.
Right after he said that, Ven teleported to a side, Kairi suddenly could feel how she was frozen in time by a Stop effect, Ven then started to strike her several times while teleporting around to hit in every part, after some seconds, he moved away, the time stop ended… and every single hit that Ven did during that hurt Kairi all at the same time. That was one of Ven's strongest techniques: Time Splicer.
"Ah! Ough, so much for sparring… though I guess I did throw meteors first" Kairi said. "Heal!"
She casted Curaga on herself to heal part of the big damage she just took; she didn't have any magic left now for a while, so she'd need to get through a bit without it.
Seeing as she just used her magic for a Curaga, Ven charged energy for a second, and then he started to spin, Light pillars suddenly appeared around him from all sides and started to move, the first ones hit Kairi, but then she started to slide around, managing to dodge a big part of this attack, Salvation.
After it was over, Ven looked better than before.
"That Light attack probably even healed him too…" Mentally guessed Kairi.
And then, after doing the attack, a light green aura covered Ventus, as he was now in a different style, his signature Fever Pitch.
Suddenly, he did a super fast speed Sliding Dash, moving far faster than his already fast movement from before, closing distances before Kairi could react to his speed boost, and did a quick combo of multiple hits, ending that combo with a jumping thrust forward.
"Aah!" Kairi exclaimed as she was launched back.
She then got up from the ground and looked towards Ven, she couldn't do it… Ventus was too overwhelming, he actually had far more experience, and had more abilities, only Sora could really consistently beat the other Guardians…
Suddenly, she could feel a warm light inside her, a very familiar one, the light grew on her, and she could notice it giving her memories and skills she did not have…
Her stance holding the Keyblade changed, and then she looked at Ven with a smirk.
"Huh? What's so funny?" Asked Ventus.
Quickly, Kairi threw her Keyblade towards Ven, performing a Strike Raid, Ventus rolled to a side, but Kairi recalled her Key and threw it again, catching Ven at the end of his roll.
"What just happened with Kairi?" Wondered Terra.
"The stance, smirk… I think that the thing she told us that happened in her dreams just happened again." Aqua answered, looking curious.
Now, to quickly close distances, Kairi charged energy for half a second and then thrusted forward with her weapon several times, performing a Sonic Blade, getting close to Ventus, and striking him many times.
"Augh! I didn't know you learned this." Said Ventus surprised.
Deciding that he'll have to try to overwhelm Kairi again, Ventus charged energy on Lost Memory, and started to wildly attack with his charged key, using Ars Arcanum.
Kairi noticed which attack this was, so she cloaked her Keyblade on Light, and performed too an Ars Arcanum, the two wielders clashed blades 13 times, ending the attack on a stalemate.
The Fever Pitch style wore out on Ven, so he prepared another spell…
"The battle is over." Suddenly said Aqua getting in middle.
"Aw, what? It was just getting awesome!" Protested Ven.
"You two were starting to release too powerful moves and holding back less, and could get really hurt." Argued Aqua.
"I have to agree there, but don't feel bad Ven, you fought great, and you too, Kairi." Said Terra.
"Well, thanks Terra!" Ven said cheerfully.
"Yeah, thanks, it was a very good battle Ven." Complimented Kairi.
"You fought great too! Though Strike Raid, Sonic Blade and Ars Arcanum… when did you learn them?" Wondered Ventus, very curious.
"Honestly? Right now, and I don't feel like I'm capable of performing them again on this moment." Answered the princess, as she felt the light inside her get smaller.
"I think that I understand what just happened… Kairi, I think that Sora helped you again like when you fought Xehanort in your dreams." Said Aqua, thinking.
"Sora… helped me again?" Asked Kairi surprised.
"I have a good idea on what might have happened both times, you performed a Dimensional Link with Sora, so you got his strength." Kept saying Aqua.
"A Dimensional Link? What is that?" Wondered the student.
"It's pretty simple really, sometimes, when you make a connection with someone else, their heart in a way becomes part of you, so you can call on them to get their power and abilities. That's a Dimensional Link, or D-Link for short." Explains Terra.
"So Sora… saved me once again." Stated Kairi, suddenly feeling useless again.
"No, Kairi, when you use a D-Link, that power is yours, and being able to perform D-Links should actually make you feel better, it only speaks about the strength of your heart and how you can make connections." Argued Aqua.
"Kairi, Sora always said that his friends are his power, Links are literally that, you have seen how strong Sora is… and this proves you could obtain pretty similar strength by just making friends!" Said Ventus, trying to help Kairi.
"… That… is true, a big part of Sora's power comes from having so many friends on his heart, and I'm a part of his heart… the same way he is part of mine." Kairi slowly said, looking at her chest, at her Heart.
"Well, I think that you two should rest for now, that fight really got quite intense." Said Aqua.
"True, I feel kinda tired now to be honest…" answered Kairi.
"Using a D-Link heals your body too, but you can still get tired from a tough fight, makes sense." Stated Terra.
"Well, see you later then." Said Kairi as she returned to her room.
"See you, Kairi! Ventus said as he went back to his room too.
Terra and Aqua waves to them.
Dimensional Links:
Use D-Links to borrow power from a friend, Links changes your moveset, skills, and even grant passive abilities, though to get more out of them, one must defeat enemies while Linked to level it up.
Sometimes, enemies may drop Stars which gives a massive amount of experience to the current Link.
Back in her room while lying on the bed, Kairi called her Keyblade and looked up to it, remembering when she was wielding Sora's Kingdom Key for some seconds when he saved her in the realm of sleep.
"Sora… never change, you will always be part of my heart."