Chapter 6: The Realm of Darkness
As Sora stepped into the light, he appeared in COMPLETE AND UTTER DARKNESS. That's right, Sora had indeed escaped one prison, but only traded it for another, slightly more expansive and less murderous prison.
"This isn't right," Sora said after he took in his new surroundings, "this isn't right at all."
But, in the distance, Sora saw a bright glowing light. He decided to go towards the light. However, as he was going there, a ball of darkness appeared out of nowhere, along with winged heartless with swords that looked like black angels. He summoned his keyblade and lunged at them. But as he struck and struck, it looked like it was doing no damage at all.
And then suddenly, the angel's sword struck him launching him into the air and onto the ground. Dizzy and slipping in and out of consciousness, he took out the light grenades and lobbed them at the heartless.
A flash of light and a huge bang signified the explosion of the containers of light, severely damaging the heartless.
Sora quickly got up and ran away towards the light. As he got closer, he saw a cage of chains, with a glowing person fighting against a white-haired person in the middle.
Suddenly, a black hand showed up and pulled hime deeper into the abyss. That and the damage he took from fighting the darkness knocked him unconscious.
He blinked his eyes open after a long period of unconsciousness. He looked around the area he was in, and it looked like he was trapped deep in the Realm of Darkness. He moved to turn his head, but pressure on his chin dissuaded him from doing so.
A blue-haired girl with a black dress adorned with a silver emblem on it was pointing a keyblade at his chin.
"Why are you here?" the lady asked.
Sora tried to speak, but it came out all muffled. "I dun' knum"
The lady pressed more into his chin, cutting off his ability to speak. "Tell me!"
Sora then pointed to the blade at his chin, and the lady realized that he couldn't speak. She loosened it up enough for him to speak properly. "I don't know! I was trapped here after I escaped from this weird interrogation thing with a person chasing me named Vanitas! I'll tell you what you want to know okay! Even my name! It's Sora by the way! What's yours?"
The lady's eyes widened at the mention of Vanitas. "My name is Aqua. I knew a Vanitas. He was the cruelest person imaginable, and he always wore this black helmet."
Sora nodded as much as he could. "That's him. I'm glad that he was crystallized after I escaped!"
Aqua narrowed her eyes. "What?"
Sora quickly mumbled, "Nothing," as he was unsure of what happened himself.
Aqua released her hold on his chin. She seemed to be thinking of something. "Sora! You're that boy from the island!"
It was Sora's turn to widen his eyes in shock. "How'd you know that?" he exclaimed.
Aqua seemed to reminisce on memories from long ago. "It was on that island that I met you and Riku. I saw that Riku already had a keyblade and decided to not give you one, as that would have ruined your friendship."
Sora shook his head in shame as he summoned his keyblade. "Well, unfortunately, I got one. Well, at least I'm glad Kairi's not here with us."
Aqua shifted her gaze directly to Sora in shock. "Kairi? Strawberry hair, blue eyes?"
Sora blinked dramatically. "You know Kairi?"
"She was the girl on Radiant Garden that I helped save. She was taken to the ruler's castle for safety, and I never heard from her again."
"Wow! She ended up on our Island around nine years ago."
"So who trained you to become a keyblade wielder? Yen Sid? Or was it Xehanort?"
"Who? I'm self taught."
"What? You must have had some master!"
Sora said, "Nope," while popping the p.
"Well, you're gonna need one if you are gonna survive out here. I, Master Aqua, do take you as an apprentice to train you in the way of the keyblade."
"Yeah, I'll need it. Those heartless over there are really strong…"
Aqua gasped. "HEARTLESS? How do you know about the Heartless? Unless…"
Sora slumped. "I'm afraid so. Heartless have been appearing in the worlds again. It's how I ended up here, documenting different worlds until I was transported to an empty void with Kairi in it. I was lucky to be able to send her back."
Aqua stood up. "We should start now then."
And so our new pair of master and apprentice set out to train.
"The most important thing a keyblade wielder needs to fight is a good posture. How do you hold the keyblade now?"
Sora demonstrated by swinging his keyblade like a sword.
"Good! That's actually perfect! For someone with no formal keyblade training, you sure take to it like a professionally trained one."
"Weeeeeeeell, I did play fight with the fellow islanders."
"Great! Now that I know that you can fight well, I'll teach you my area of specialty, magic!"
"Woah! Donald only taught me fire. I'd love to learn to do more."
Aqua paused as if trying to remember if she had heard the name, Donald, before. "Great. We'll start with Blizzard."
And so Aqua taught Sora the basics of magic. A lesson on zero gravity would go like this:
"Sora, now we're gonna think of falling. Picture that you are falling off a building, but there's no wind in your face. Just nothing under you. Now imagine instead that this pot is going through that exact same process. It is now weightless, nothing is under it, and it's just floating, indefinitely falling."
Sora then would go along with the visualization. And the pot would smash instantly the first time he would do it. But a few times later, it would hover a centimeter above the table. Then after what felt like hours of practice, it would hover a foot above the ground.
He did it!
But after that, it was onto the next piece of magic or focusing on making his magic stronger through magic merging.
That all changed when they spotted a black figure near their camp. The heartless hadn't bothered them in a while, not wanting to get hit with magic, but if a heartless was brazen enough to attack now, they'd have to ask fast.
But as they approached, it was actually fuzzy, with round ears.
Aqua gasped. "King Mickey?"
The mouse responded. "It can't be? Aqua?"
Aqua nodded. "It's me, Your Majesty. I've been training Sora, a kid from Destiny Islands who's been trapped here in the Realm of Darkness."
"Yep," Sora confirmed.
"I'm here to seal the Door to Light. Can you guys help me?"
They both nodded.
"Sure!"
"Yep."
"Okay, let's go! If my calculations are correct, we simply follow this path and we'll be able to get there."
So, they went forth to the door. They kept fighting the heartless, with Aqua targeting them with slow, but heavy-hitting magical combos, Mickey hitting them with light, and Sora using fast-acting battle magic to rapidly hit the enemy with as much damage as possible, and interspersing it with hacks from his keyblade.
But one fight was too much. The heartless seemed to focus on Sora specifically and dogpiled him.
He tried to hack and slash at the ones nearest to him, but that didn't stop one of them from trying to consume his heart. It took all his strength to stop that heartless from doing so, and to disperse them, he decided to use a move only used in desperate measures: Mega Flare.
But he did not get to use it. For as he was gathering strength to cast it, an inky blackness began growing under him. First, it was the size of a dime, then a quarter, and now it was the size of a frisbee!
Sora didn't even notice it until Aqua pointed it out. "Look out underneath!"
But then it was too late. For it had grown to envelop his feet, and he began to drown in it like quicksand. But Aqua nor Mickey could do anything to save him.
So he sunk deeper and deeper into that black sludge. And when his head was the only thing above the line, Aqua and Mickey finally broke through.
Aqua knelt down to Sora's level. She then put a brown Wayfinder around his neck, matching his hair. "This is to keep us connected however far apart! I promise we'll find you!"
But by that point, Sora had fully been submerged into the darkness. However, things were not as bleak as it would seem. For in that darkness, Sora was being twisted and turned into the Realm of Light.
First, Sora felt his legs dangling free, then his arms and finally his head was free. Wait. His head was free. Almost like those animations, he looked down and realized that he was floating in the air. And then, he fell to the ground.
"Woaugghhhh!"
And then his hoodie got caught on one of the wall fixtures. He had to think quick, or he'd plummet to the floor. He remembered the magic lessons with Aqua, especially the one with zero gravity. So he cast Zero Graviga on himself, and let himself drift to the floor.
He looked around, and it seemed to be a circular chamber, with green fire lighting it. It had stone arches all the way around, and an expansive entrance.
Sora began to panic. "Where am I? That doesn't matter. What matter is how I get back to Aqua!"
His mind was pacing at a million miles per second that he didn't notice a silver haired boy rushing into the chamber.
"Sora?"
