AN: Hey, guys! Back again with another chapter for you guys. So, I decided to split my adaptation of Kingdom Hearts 0.2 into more than one chapter, just because I kind of don't like writing huge chapters anymore. I would prefer slightly shorter chapters done more quickly than huge chapters done more slowly.

I want to address something that was brought up a few times in the reviews for last chapter. Yes, I am aware that a person can be Recompleted if their Heartless and Nobody are both destroyed. However, Aqua does not know about the Nobodies, and therefore does not know about Recompletion. This lets me create a sense of finality when a character turns into a Heartless, since as far as the characters are aware, it's the same as death.

Also, I played and finished Melody of Memory, and let me tell you, it is SO not worth 60 bucks. I was able to finish the main "story" in only a few hours, and even though it's fun and the music is excellent, it's priced that same as KH3 was when it first came out, and it is nowhere near the same value. It should have been 40 at the most. And you have to finish the entire story mode before you see anything new to continue the story of the series, which you can save yourself the time and just look up. It'll take like 10 minutes to watch the cutscene. And we have no news so far for what's next, so I have no idea how long we'll have to wait before we can go get Sora back. Ugh! Why are you doing this to me, Square Enix?!

Anyway, on with the chapter! Enjoy!

Chapter 25

Ruby was awakened by a hand roughly shaking her shoulder. She opened her eyes to see Yang was the one that woke her. She realized that they were lying in the middle of a path in a dark forest somewhere. Weiss was sitting off by herself.

Something about this place just felt…wrong. She couldn't describe it.

"Are you okay?" Yang asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Where are Mom and Blake?" Ruby asked.

"They're taking a look around," Yang said, before turning to Weiss, who had stayed silent. "What the hell was that?"

"What was what?" Weiss asked in response.

"All that stuff back in the dorm!" Yang yelled. "What was that about Mom being a Schnee? Are you out of your mind?!"

"Well, how else could you explain it?!" Weiss yelled back. "People don't just appear!"

"Sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction," Mom said as she returned with Blake. "Good to see everyone is awake."

"Mom!" Ruby said.

"So, how'd scouting go?" Yang asked.

"The path ends back there," Blake said. "And by 'ends' I mean 'bottoms out into a void'."

"What?" Weiss asked.

"We're apparently standing on a rock floating in a void," Blake reiterated.

"Where on Remnant are we?" Weiss asked.

"…We're not," Aqua said after a second of silence.

"What does that mean?" Weiss demanded.

"Wait, you don't mean…?" Ruby asked.

"We're in the Realm of Darkness?" Yang finished.

"I think so," Mom said.

"But how is that possible?" Ruby asked.

"I'm not sure," Mom answered.

"What are you people talking about?!" Weiss yelled.

"What's the Realm of Darkness?" Blake asked. Mom sighed.

"I'm just going to rip this bandage right off," she said. "Weiss, you said that it wasn't possible for someone to just appear out of thin air. Well, I actually did appear on Remnant 10 years ago out of thin air."

"What?"

"I'm not from Remnant," Mom said.

"That's ridiculous!" Weiss yelled. "How could you not be from Remnant?"

"I was raised on a world called the Land of Departure," Mom explained. "10 years ago, I fell into the Realm of Darkness, ended up on Remnant, and met Ruby and Yang."

"Wait, Mom," Yang said. "Are you sure you can tell them this? Other worlds are supposed to be a secret."

"I think that ship has sailed," Mom said. "They've seen outside of their world. We can't keep it a secret anymore."

Blake and Weiss stared at them.

"This is impossible," Blake muttered. "It has to be."

"I'm dreaming," Weiss said, in as much disbelief as her partner. "Other worlds aren't real."

"I know you're going to need some time to process this, but we need to keep moving," Mom said. "The air feels suffocating. We can't stay in this much Darkness for too long."

"Where do we go?" Ruby asked.

"We can't go backwards, so we can only go forwards," she answered. "Besides, I know where we are." She pointed forwards, and drew the girls' attention to a large white castle off in the distance. "I've been to this world before."

Aqua led the group towards the castle, her daughters following dutifully behind her, while Blake and Weiss were clearly still in a daze.

She felt sorry for those girls. While ideally, they would never find out about the existence of other worlds, they were probably going to find out anyway, being on a team with a Keyblade wielder. She would have much rather preferred that they not find out this way, when they had no time to process it, due to being in the middle of hostile territory.

"What world is this?" Ruby asked.

"It's called the Castle of Dreams," Aqua answered.

"Seems a little on the nose," Yang commented.

"Yeah, it is," Aqua said. "I met a girl named Cinderella in this world. Helped her meet her true love, too." She remembered the mad scramble to keep the King's retainer from leaving so Cinderella could try on the glass slipper, and the Fairy Godmother making her small so she could help out her mice friends.

This was also the first world where she ran into Terra after they left home for the first time.

She felt her heart ache in a way that it hadn't in years.

"You've never told us that story," Ruby said.

"I'll tell you more when we get back," she said. She looked back at Weiss and Blake. "I'll explain everything to you, too. I promise."

"You'd better," Weiss snapped.

Aqua sighed.

The group was approaching a clearing in the forest, the cobblestone forming the path making a circle, with a lamp illuminating it.

Black forms appeared in front of them, several of them Shadows, along with small dark brown bats. Aqua and Ruby reflexively summoned their Keyblades, and she heard the other girls draw their weapons.

"Okay, girls," she said. "You know the drill."

"You're lying," Weiss accused after the Heartless had all been taken care of. "We're still on Remnant."

"Look, Weiss, I know it's hard to believe—" Ruby said.

"Stop!" She yelled. "Everyone knows Dust doesn't work outside of Remnant's atmosphere. So how do you explain this?" She picked up her rapier, turned the dial on the handle to red, and launched a stream of fire from her blade. "Well? If we're not on Remnant, how is my Dust still working?" Aqua, Ruby, and Yang blinked for a few seconds.

"Huh, that's a good question," Yang said. "Mom, got anything?"

"No," Aqua answered honestly. "I have no idea. Granted, this is the first time I've been off Remnant since I first arrived, so I've never had the chance to test it out."

"Unbelievable," Weiss said. "And to think, you almost had me thinking that we left our world."

"Weiss, I'm not sure that they're lying," Blake said.

"Why not? Of course they are!" Weiss said angrily.

"I've been told some pretty major lies in my life," Blake said. "One thing that's constant about lies is that the liar wants you to believe them. Why would they lie about something this outlandish? Besides, you didn't see the literal void this rock is floating in."

"Well, I'm not going to believe this without proof," Weiss said, stubbornly crossing her arms. "For all we know, this could be some elaborate Semblance."

"Regardless," Aqua said. "We need to keep moving. Save this discussion for later."

"…Fine," Weiss eventually relented. "You still own me a lot of answers," she added, pointing her finger aggressively at Aqua. She walked ahead of them, but then Aqua grabbed her arm and pulled her back.

"Hey!" she yelled.

"Watch your step," Aqua said, and they watched as the ground in front of them fell away, revealing the void underneath, and leaving a large gap before them. Weiss audibly gulped before yanking her arm out of Aqua's grasp.

"Well, now what?" Blake asked.

"We can use that," Ruby said, pointing at a large root that spanned the gap.

"Ruby, Yang and I can slide that easily," Aqua said. "Weiss, can you use your glyphs to help yourself and Blake across?"

"Probably," the heiress answered, thrusting her rapier into the ground and creating a path of black glyphs over the gap.

"That works, too," Aqua said, and the group crossed over the gap easily. In front of them was what looked like the remains of a town gate, and beyond it, the town surrounding the Castle of Dreams that Aqua remembered.

Except now the ground was broken apart, resulting in sudden drops and rises. In fact, some pieces of the buildings were even floating in mid-air.

The most disturbing thing about this once-familiar world, though, was just how quiet it was. What was once a lively town now contained not a single living soul.

"Where is everybody?" Blake asked.

"They're gone," Aqua said quietly. "This is what's left of worlds when the Heartless are through with them."

"What does that mean?" Weiss asked.

"The Heartless have a goal besides just stealing people's Hearts," she explained. "Ultimately, they're after the Hearts of the worlds themselves."

"Worlds have Hearts?" Blake asked skeptically.

"Yes, they do. And it's ultimately the job of people like me and Ruby to keep the worlds safe from them."

"Why you two specifically?" Weiss asked.

"It's our weapons," Ruby said. "They're called 'Keyblades'. They can seal a World's Heart so that the Heartless can't get to it."

"Every world has something called 'The Keyhole'. It's basically like the door to that world's Heart," Aqua continued. "If the Heartless get to it before we do, then the world is swallowed up by Darkness and ends up here, in the Realm of Darkness. If we can find it first, then we can lock the Keyhole, and that makes sure that the Heartless can never destroy that world."

"And that's what happened here?" Blake asked. "The Heartless found the Keyhole?"

"I can only assume so," Aqua said. "I've been gone from the Realm of Light for ten years. It must have fallen at some point."

"Well, why didn't you seal off this world the last time you were here?" Weiss asked.

"I had something more…urgent at the time," she said. Namely, finding Ven and bringing him home.

"It's sad," Ruby said. "All these people are just gone, and most of them didn't even realize what was happening." Yang put a comforting hand on her sister's shoulder.

"We should keep moving," Aqua said sadly. It was one thing to know what the Heartless did to worlds. It was another to see the destruction for themselves.

And for Aqua, who had been to this world before it was destroyed, this was a world that she had failed to save.

The group had finally made their way through the broken town, fighting any Heartless along the way, until they approached a large open gate. Beyond the gate was a long bridge leading to the castle. Aqua motioned for the group to stop moving before they actually reached the gate, though.

"Why are we stopping?" Weiss asked.

"I have a bad feeling," Aqua answered, summoning her Keyblade. Suddenly, with a mighty roar, a mass burst from the ground in front of them. It looked like hundreds of Shadows climbing on top of each other, creating a continuously-moving blob of Heartless.

"What the hell is that?!" Yang yelled.

"I don't know, but we have to take it down!" Aqua yelled, pointing her Keyblade at the mass. "Freeze!" she yelled, launching a Blizzaga spell and making a few Shadows fall off the pile. Yang and Blake shot at the ones on the ground, while Weiss launched her own ice attacks at the tower. Ruby, meanwhile, changed her Keyblade to its scythe form, and launched that form's Shotlock, swinging her weapon and throwing dozens of scythe blades at the various Shadows making up the tower. Aqua followed her daughter's lead and used her own Shotlock, gathering energy into the tip of her Keyblade, and launching multi-colored balls of energy at the tower.

"Everyone!" she yelled. "Just rush the mass!" The girls stopped engaging the Shadows on the ground, and focused their attention on the tower. With a rush of blows, Heartless were falling off the tower in groups. The tower moved and tried to scoop up Ruby, but she launched a quick Thunder spell to hit an area around her and free herself. The tower flew towards the ground before disappearing.

"It got away," Blake said.

"What even was that?" Weiss asked.

"This is the Realm of Darkness," Aqua said. "This is the Heartless's home. We're bound to run into all kinds of monsters here."

"Let's go before it comes back," Yang said, hurrying towards the bridge. She didn't get much farther than the gate before the bridge completely crumbled in front of her. "Oh, come on!" she yelled in frustration.

"I've got it," Weiss said, summoning more glyphs to create a path.

"Thanks, Weiss-Cream," Yang said. "What would we do without you?"

"Don't try to flatter me," Weiss said sternly. "Besides, that name wouldn't work anyway. Let's just cross."

The group crossed the bridge of glyphs and entered the foyer of the castle, complete with a grand staircase. Yang let out an impressed whistle.

"Bet this place was nice," she said, looking around the foyer.

"This was where Prince Charming lived," Aqua said. "He was Cinderella's true love that I mentioned earlier."

"Wait, you helped someone marry a prince?!" Ruby asked excitedly.

"'Prince Charming'?" Blake asked with an eyebrow raised.

"That name sounds like it's from some children's love story," Weiss added.

"Well, that's what everyone called him at least," Aqua said. "He threw a ball to look for a bride, and fell in love with Cinderella after dancing with her. She had to leave before he could get her name, and only left behind a glass slipper. He sent his men out into the kingdom to find her by having all the women try on the slipper. Cinderella's step-mother used her as a slave, and tried to lock her away so she couldn't try on the slipper, but we were able to break her out in time, and she left with the Prince's retainer to get married."

"Aw, that's so romantic!" Ruby swooned.

"You can't fall in love with someone after one dance!" Weiss yelled.

"I agree," Blake said. "People can change very quickly."

"Well, she seemed happy at the time," Aqua said with a pout. "Besides, it was a better option than staying with her step-mother and step-sisters."

"You did your best," Yang said reassuringly.

"You just don't understand love!" Ruby said.

"Aqua!" they heard a male voice call out. They turned around and saw a young man with dark brown hair, a black shirt, lose brown pants, and a single piece of armor on his shoulder walking down the stairs.

It was a face she hadn't seen in years.

"Terra!" Aqua exclaimed in surprise.

"That's Uncle Terra?" Ruby asked.

"Hm," Yang hummed appreciatively.

"Yang!" Ruby yelled. "That's gross!"

"What? He's not our actual uncle," Yang defended. "We've never even met him before."

"Terra, what are you doing here?" Aqua asked, ignoring her daughters' argument. "You should be in the Realm of Light!" He reached the end of the stairs and stopped walking, instead just standing still. "Did you not make it out? Have you been here all this time? Did something happen to the Realm of Light?" He still said nothing. "Why won't you say anything to me?" She tried to reach out to him, but her hand passed right through him, making the entire group gasp. "Is this just an illusion? But why?" After a few seconds, he disappeared.

"Who was that?" Weiss asked.

"…An old friend of mine," Aqua answered, looking sadly at where Terra once stood before shaking her head. "Let's keep moving."

After the group ascended the stairs, they walked into what should have been the entrance to the ballroom. However, they instead walked out into a forest clearing.

"Huh, that's weird," Yang commented.

"This is another world I know," Aqua said. The small cottage in the clearing was what gave it away. "This is the Dwarf Woodlands. A girl named Snow White lived here with seven Dwarves."

"Snow White?" Weiss asked. "That sounds dumb."

"And she lived with seven men?" Blake asked, a light dusting appearing on her cheeks.

"I'm jealous," Yang said.

"Yang!" Ruby scolded. "Stop being gross!"

"But why did this world fall too?" Aqua asked, once again ignoring the argument. "What's been happening in the Realm of Light? Have I been gone too long?"

It was then that Aqua noticed the glass coffin that previously contained Snow White's body before the prince woke her up. Except it wasn't empty. She ran towards it, and gasped when she saw who was lying there. It was a boy with blond hair, sleeping peacefully.

"Ven?" Aqua said, placing a hand on the coffin's lid. But in a flash, Ven disappeared. "Ven," she said sadly. "I'm so sorry it's taking me so long to wake you up."

"What's that?" Blake asked, walking up to the coffin.

"It's nothing," Aqua said.

"Hey, check out this mirror," Yang said, walking up to a large oblong floating mirror. Aqua instantly recognized it as the Evil Queen's Magic Mirror, and rushed to stop her daughter.

"Yang, wait! Don't touch that!"

"Huh?" Yang asked, looking back, but then a hand reached through and grabbed her wrist. "What the hell?!" She yelled, and the whole group grabbed onto her to try and pull her back, but the force was too strong, and all five of them were sucked into the mirror.

The group landed roughly on the floor of an underground chamber, one that Aqua recognized as the Evil Queen's underground lair, except the layout was different. Instead of being a single chamber, the room was now shaped like a wheel, with a round chamber in the middle, and hallways extending out from the center like spokes. Instead of the old stone walls, they could see only an abyss surrounding them. After dusting themselves off, they saw that there were three identical mirrors floating around them. The mirrors flew off and placed themselves on the wall at the end of three of the hallways.

"Well, Weiss," Yang said. "Still think we're on Remnant?"

"I'll admit," the heiress said uncertainly, "I'm starting to become convinced."

"How do we get out of here?" Ruby asked.

"Maybe the mirrors are a clue?" Blake suggested. The group walked up to the first mirror they saw, and were surprised that they couldn't see their reflections. In fact, the image reflected wasn't even the room they were standing in. Instead, they saw what looked to be the interior of a mine, complete with discarded pickaxes and shining stones still sticking out of the rocks.

"It looks more like a portal than a mirror," Yang said.

"But how does it work?" Ruby asked. There was suddenly a flash of light, and everyone shielded their eyes. The light died down after a second, with nothing having seemingly happened.

"Everybody okay?" Aqua asked.

"Yup," Yang said.

"I'm good," Ruby answered.

"Where's Blake?" Weiss asked. The others looked, and sure enough, Blake was nowhere to be found.

"Blake!" Yang called.

"Where are you?!" Weiss yelled out.

"Guys, look!" Ruby yelled, pointing at the mirror. They all huddled around it, and to their surprise, they could see Blake, by herself in the middle of the mine shaft, looking around in bewilderment.

"How did she get in there?!" Weiss demanded, looking angrily at Aqua. "Get her out!"

"I can't!" Aqua yelled back. "There has to be an exit from her side. If she can find it, maybe she can get out."

"Blake, hang in there," Ruby said quietly, watching the mirror closely.

Aqua and the girls could only watch Blake helplessly, hoping that she'd be able to find her way back to them.

Blake was on her own now. And there was nothing any of them could do.

AN: It is a much bigger pain in the ass to adapt the events of a game than I thought, since so much of it was gameplay. But, this has also been a section I've been enjoying adapting.

So first off, Weiss, Blake can still use Dust, mainly so that they can still fight. I don't want them to be totally useless.

I've mentioned this before, but it seems odd to me that in canon Aqua didn't know about the Heartless or the Keyholes, since she was confused how worlds she was familiar with were in the Realm of Darkness. What in the world was Eraqus teaching her? I also realized that since she didn't know about the Keyholes, she didn't seal them when she was visiting the worlds in Birth By Sleep, so they fell sometime during the proceeding 10 years.

We also have some new abilities for Ruby:

Thunder: Basic Thunder Spell

Scythe Mode Shotlock: Throws multiple scythe blades at her enemies.

So, next time, we'll be hopefully wrapping up the adventure in Dark World.

As always, thank you very much for reading, and I'll see you all next time!