The first thing that entered her awareness was a metallic taste in her mouth, slowly followed by a full-body tingling and then a persistent ringing in her ears. Naminé groaned as she slowly pushed herself off of the ground to see she was still in the room with Radiant Garden's Keyhole, which was now glowing far more brightly than it had been before. Glancing around, she saw Sephiroth was still in the room, casting what appeared to be a Cure spell over a stirring Aerith. The Cetra pulled herself into a seated position before looking at her helper.

"Sephiroth? Is that really you, or are you…"

Sephiroth let out a hollow chuckle. "You needn't worry about having been absorbed into the lifestream. I am not the SOLDIER that you knew, but merely the manifestation of Cloud's trauma. Your cast of Holy was successful, and having felt that rush I can understand why my source was so consumed by exposure to Jenova's essence. The lifestream could easily become intoxicating."

Naminé could only glance between Sephiroth and Aerith in a silent plea for some additional context, but Aerith seemed to get what the black-winged angel was saying. "Well, I never thought I'd see this happening, but thank you for helping me. I'm a bit surprised you didn't attack me while I was helpless."

Sephiroth turned and started walking away. "Doing so would be counterproductive. If you were to die, Cloud would likely fully lose himself to the darkness. I will end our battle under my terms, and I refuse to claim victory due to outside interference."

Aerith laughed. "You may be able to fool others, but I knew both the original Sephiroth and Cloud too well to know that there's more to it than that. You sound just like them when they were putting on an act."

Sephiroth paused mid-step. "I will admit I was interested in seeing if the whole 'helping others' thing would be a productive use of my time. After all, I will need some hobbies to fill my time while my fight with Cloud is on hold for a few years."

From the little bit Naminé knew about Sephiroth based on Sora's interaction with him shortly before he stormed The World that Never Was, it seemed highly uncharacteristic for him to be willing to put aside his feud with Cloud. Aerith was apparently on the same page, as a distrusting look crossed her face. "Okay, what are you saying? You and Cloud have each made it your life's mission to destroy the other, and now you put it on hold?"

Sephiroth smirked over his shoulder at the Cetra. "Well, I am Cloud's darkness given form, but I am still a product of his heart, and there are some lines I won't cross. I'm not going to deprive an unborn child of its father." With that, he teleported away, leaving only a few feathers floating down and so many questions in Naminé's head that she couldn't even start phrasing them, but it seemed Aerith only had one. "Wait, does that mean Tifa's pregnant?"

Naminé could only shrug. "No idea. But if you're done casting Holy, is there anything else we need to do to stop the attack?"

Aerith sighed. "That should be it. Holy works as a massive purge to wipe out threats to the planet, but it's not really a one-time thing. Since the cloaked man did something to the world itself that then summoned all the Darklings and unicorns, the spell would have removed that and will continually push out any similar invaders for the next couple of weeks. Some things might still be able to slip through the cracks, but nothing near the scope or strength of what we just dealt with."

As if to prove her point, her Gummiphone started ringing and when Aerith answered it Naminé could see Leon on the other end of the line. "Great work with that, Aerith. Looks like everything's safe now, so I'm having a meeting at City Hall to debrief everyone. Will you be okay to make it? I know Holy can be a major drain, but if you can give your side of the story it will probably be better than what I picked up on it."

Aerith nodded. "I had a bit of extra help recovering, so I should be good. Might have to take it a little slower getting there but I'll be fine."

With that, she ended the call and turned back to Naminé. "You had some friends from off-world visiting, right? We should probably grab them as well on our way to City Hall. I imagine after this it will be best for them to head home while we start to work on rebuilding."

Naminé nodded. "That's probably a good idea. But as we're heading back up, would you mind explaining what Sephiroth was talking about? I'm a bit confused by...well, just about everything."

Aerith sighed as she started heading back towards the ramp leading up to the main part of the castle. "I don't know the full story, but I do know a bit more than most. This all went down around 14 years ago, but it's also important to get some ancient history for context. At some point after the formation of our world, either a powerful creature from another world or maybe even the embodiment of another world crashed into ours, and its essence began corrupting the life of this world. The ancient ancestors of the Cetra managed to use Holy to drive the invader Jenova into submission, and her existence faded into legend. But no legend waits buried forever, and unfortunately Xehanort was far from the only darkness festering behind the power in our world of light."

Aerith stumbled as she started climbing the ramp, but Naminé quickly reached out to catch her and let the older woman lean on her as they continued up the ramp and she continued her story. "A former weapons manufacturer turned energy company named Shinra eventually found Jenova's body when they set up a new mining facility. Their scientists must have done some genetic experiments with it, and they ended up using its DNA to create augmented soldiers. They never revealed the source of their process, but they unveiled three members of what they dubbed project SOLDIER and worked alongside Ansem's predecesor as king to start a much wider military project. One of the first SOLDIERs was Sephiroth, and after he helped single-handedly quell various revolts interest in SOLDIER spiked among the populace. According to Shinra, the augmentation would only work on people who were still growing, so registration was only open to pre-teens. One of the first people to sign up was the boy I was dating at the time named Zack Fair, and he was never a stickler for the rules which is why I probably got more information about SOLDIER than anybody else outside the program."

"Anyway, things seemed fine for a couple of years, but then one of the first generation of SOLDIER went rogue and tried to find Jenova. Shinra sent the remaining two original SOLDIERs along with plenty of the new recruits to try and stop the traitor, but something must have gone wrong and woke up Jenova. From what Zack wrote in his letter, Sephiroth went crazy, there was some kind of explosion, the mining town named Nibelheim burned to the ground, and there were only three survivors: Zack and two local kids named Cloud and Tifa."

Naminé glanced up and saw they were only halfway up the ramp and sighed, really wishing the castle staff would just install an elevator if trips down to the Chamber of Repose were going to be a common occurrence—and since she had been down there twice in the last two months it might be a recurring theme. Taking a brief moment to shift Aeith's weight on her shoulders, she continued the climb. "So, I'm guessing that's how you first met them then? Zack must have brought them back and introduced them to you."

Aerith grimaced. "I wish that was the case. The official story was that there weren't any survivors of the Nibelheim incident. Without any way to communicate with the outside world, Zack at the age of 14 had to lead two seven year old kids safely across the wastelands until they could find another civilization. It would have been nearly impossible under normal circumstances, but things weren't normal. When Jenova awoke, it did something more than just burn down the town. The survivors all went through some strange changes. From what Zack described, he was lucky and only got enhanced fighting abilities. Tifa would start glowing somewhat randomly with strange light powers, and every time Cloud would have a nightmare, wisps of darkness would form and start attacking randomly."

Naminé gasped. "It sounds a lot like what Vanitas could do when he formed Unversed! Is that what Sephiroth meant when he called himself a physical version of Cloud's trauma? Because I read about when Sora fought Sephiroth and he seemed a lot stronger than any Unversed we've ever heard of."

Aerith grimaced. "There's a reason for that. Cloud and Tifa started off pretty weak with their powers, and in the couple of months their group wandered back to civilization they gained a bit of control so there weren't any more flare ups. As soon as Zack was able to make calls again, he made sure to get the two of them to one of Shinra's medical facilities since Shinra had the best chance of treating whatever might have happened to them. He also gave me a quick call wanting to talk to me, so I made plans and headed over there as soon as I could. Unfortunately, what Zack didn't know at the time was that the chief medical officer for Shinra, a Dr. Hojo, was a strong contender for the title of 'least ethical scientist' and that's including Xehanort in the mix. He did...something to Cloud and Tifa, and whatever that was it sent them into overdrive. When I arrived, the lab was collapsing on itself, and this manifestation of Sephiroth was crossing swords with Zack before they both disappeared in an explosion of darkness."

Naminé winced. She saw first hand from Kairi how difficult it was seeing someone you cared deeply about disappearing right in front of you eyes, and she had never guessed that someone as seemingly composed as Aerith had dealt with that when she couldn't have been more than a young teenager at the time. She was about to say something when the sound of rushing footsteps interrupted her, and she had to instead shift Aerith's weight so she could free up an arm and summon her Keyblade in case it was another threat. However, the footsteps soon revealed themselves to belong to Even, who was sprinting towards them with a black cloak in hand. The scientist managed to stop himself just before he crashed into the pair and bent over panting.

"I...thought...you...could...use...something...to...get...to...city...hall...faster…"

Aerith just smiled and took the offered cloak while Even tried to regain his composure. After a bit of struggling she managed to get it on, and Naminé opened a dark corridor that would lead them right outside city hall. After what had happened during the last attack, Leon had decided it would be best not to have any Dark Corridors suddenly appearing in the middle of the command center during a time of crisis. Now, there was a designated space in the courtyard where Dark Corridors wouldn't trigger any alarms. A short trip later and Naminé emerged in the midst of a group of minor Nobodies, and it only took her a half a second to recognize them and not default to combat mode.

While she knew there were a handful of Nobodies that had chosen to continue to serve their former masters from the Organization, she hadn't interacted much with them on her occasional visits to Twilight Town so it was a bit of a surprise to see the slight changes that came to all of them. The original members of the Organization had always had the possibility of growing a new heart to replace the ones they had lost, and now that they had been forcibly recompleted they were trying to help the so-called lesser Nobodies regrow their own as well. To this end, they were helping encourage any form of individuality they could, including letting the Nobodies pick individual names. Admittedly, watching over the lesser Nobodies took more time than everyone had available, which meant they were often left to peruse the various books, movies, and other forms of media available between the library in the Old Mansion and the personal collections of Hayner, Pence, and Olette. That probably explained why most of the names the Nobodies chose were lifted directly from works of fiction.

Still, the names and ability to express themselves seemed to already be having an impact on the Nobodies, as a quick glance around the assembled group showed differences from what was considered the default appearance. Ferahgo, the lone assassin that remained loyal to Lea, now had visible blue eyes and hands at the ends of his bladed arms which he chose to accessorize with red gloves. In contrast, the last samurai Jack was only distinguishable from before by now having a full five fingers on each hand and swapping out the gray Nobody cloak for a pure white one. But the biggest change was in the pair of Berserkers. One of them now went by the name of Casca, and she had swapped her outfit with a brown robe while her Claymore had shrunk down to a more reasonable size compared to her body mass. The other seemed to have gone in the opposite direction, as Guts's chosen weapon was now a black sword that was twice as large as he was and his robes had been replaced with black armor. All of the Nobodies seemed to be in a state of general distress, but as Naminé had never been taught the shared language of lesser Nobodies and none of them had regained the ability to speak yet, she wasn't able to ask why and instead led Aerith into the building.

As soon as she entered, her eyes were immediately drawn to the scene in one corner, where Riku and Isa were hovering over a cluster of bodies as the sound of sobbing filled the air. Hearing her enter, Isa quickly strode over and shifted Aerith over to his shoulder, letting Naminé straighten up and get a better look at the pile. It seemed like Xion was currently crying over a pink plush that she remembered one of the Dusks—with the chosen name of Black—wearing like a hat. Surrounding the crying girl in a massive group hug was Roxas, Lea, and a ball of Dusks where she could recognize the straw hat of the one named Yellow and the baseball cap of the one named Red but couldn't make out if Green and Blue were also there or not. Isa and Riku had obviously been giving their support as well, but as neither of them were the hugging type they were keeping a little bit more distance.

That last thought stuck in Naminé's head for a bit when Riku turned, saw her, and immediately ran over to pull her into a bone-cracking hug. She almost fell over from the force of the collision, and while she took a short moment to merely enjoy the fact that Riku was hugging her, his quiet voice in her ear immediately drove that thought out of her mind.

"Naminé, I'm so glad you're okay." That simple statement almost immediately sent Naminé into a panic. It sounded like he was about to start crying, and judging by the way his body was shaking maybe he already had. Naminé had seen how Riku reacted to getting cast into the Realm of Darkness, finding his best friend in a coma, getting overtaken by the form of the spirit that had possessed him, and being one of the last survivors in an alternate timeline of the Keyblade War before Sora fixed things. She had never seen him cry. What had happened to him while she had been stuck in the castle?

Unsure of how to best help him, Naminé just returned the hug and patted his back. "It's okay, I'm fine. We held the castle just fine. Do you want to talk about how you're doing?"

Riku sniffed. "I'm...well, I think I will be okay. Just really shook up. Give me a minute and I'll probably be able to talk about...Xehanort!?"

With the way Riku tensed up as he finished his sentence, Naminé knew it had been an expression of surprise instead of what he had originally meant to say. She immediately spun around and summoned Way to the Dawn, only to stop in confusion. It looked like the Xehanort possessing Terra's body had just entered the room, but why were his eyes still blue and why was he holding Ends of the Earth instead of Xehanort's Keyblade? For that matter, why did he look so sheepish? A cackling laughter from behind the newcomer answered the question but raised a few more.

"I told you everyone would think you were the old man. What is that, 2000 munny you owe me now for our little bet?" The speaker walked through the door to reveal Ventus—or at least, Ventus with the golden eyes, Keyblade, and speech pattern of Vanitas. Terra just sighed.

"We'll deal with that later, Ven." Turning to the rest of the room, he added, "Sorry about any panic. We came from the realm of darkness as soon as we got the message, but as you can tell we're still dealing with some side effects from getting our own darkness under control. We have it mostly taken care of, but I still look like I age 40 years, Ven still gets more in touch with the asshole side that became Vanitas, and Aqua—"

Terra was forcibly cut off as the woman he was speaking of dashed into the room and wrapped him in a giant hug. "I can't believe you couldn't join me! That puppy was SO CUTE! The two of you would have LOVED HIM!" Naminé could only blink in shock. She supposed with Terra's explanation she could see why he and Ventus would have reacted like they did to using darkness, considering they had distinct experiences in their past with darkness and any new use of darkness would probably flow down similar pathways. But if Aqua had come out of more than a decade stranded in the dark realm as a withdrawn and weary woman, why was the darkness now making her overtly happy-go-lucky...and why was she wearing a headband with cat ears on them?

Before Terra or Ventus could respond, Aqua's statements were answered by...another Aqua? "Seriously? It was bad enough that you kept gushing over the guy in the unicorn mask, but now you've got to embarrass me even further?" The speaker entered and with the golden eyes, hair bordering on silver, and patches of skin that seemed to be covered in ink the new arrival fit more with what Naminé had expected would happen to Aqua based on Terra and Ven's reactions to their darkness. The happier clone of Aqua just pouted in response.

"Oh come on, you're me so I know you would have loved it too. But I guess it's not fair that I get to have all the fun, so let's merge!" She let go of Terra and reached for her dark doppelganger, only for the dark Aqua to summon a Keyblade that appeared to be made from flowing water—if the water was taken from the ocean's floor where no light could reach. "Oh no, we are NOT doing it that way here!"

Ventus snorted. "Oh come on, I can tell you that I certainly enjoy the show when that happens!" Something about how Ven said that, along with the obvious blush that came to the dark Aqua's face, told Naminé that she really didn't want to know exactly what they were referring to. For her part, the light Aqua just pouted and summoned her own Keyblade, which had the same shape as her dark counterpart's but looked like the crest of a wave instead of something from a deepsea trench. The two Aqua's bumped the hilts of their Keyblades together, and with a flash suddenly there was only one Aqua there holding Stormfall. The Keyblade Master chuckled nervously.

"Sorry about that. I still can't get the hang of using both light and darkness, but I picked up my phantom's ability to make duplicates so when I need to fight with both I have to split myself to do it." Finally convinced there wasn't a threat, Naminé dismissed her Keyblade and reached back to Riku, who quickly wrapped her hand in his but seemed to have recovered enough that he wasn't needing to full body cling to her anymore. If Aqua noticed anything, she made a show of not pointing it out.

"By the way, Riku, how long has it been since you last saw us? I know time acts weird in the Realm of Darkness and I'd like to see how our perception there matches up with what happened here."

Riku seemed glad for a neutral topic to discuss. "It's been about two weeks. Why, how long was it for—"

Before Riku could finish his question, Leon walked in. "Alright, sorry about the wait. We'll have to hold this meeting in the next room though before we can get to talking about just what happened." Naminé wasn't quite sure why they couldn't talk where they had already started to gather, but on entering the larger meeting room the reason was obvious as Mickey was currently sprawled out on the table and seemed to be reluctant to move.

"Your majesty, are you alright?" The mouse just gave Naminé a sad looking smile as he softly replied. "I've been better, but I'm sure it will be fine. Just some bruised ribs and some weird magic effect that makes Cure spells useless. Minnie's got some stronger stuff than that though and Donald's already on his way here so I should be back on my feet in no time…" He had started sounding more cheerful as he finished his sentence, but he must have talked a little too hard and aggravated his injury. He gave a noticeable wince and Naminé felt Riku's hand clench around her own as if in reaction to Mickey's injury. Before he could say or do anything, though, Leon started his story, and between everyone else in the room they managed to put together a timeline of events.

The man in the unicorn mask had at least offered a name—Master Ira—but other than that he hadn't been friendly when he demanded Leon hand over the captive Heart of Pure Light for the onset of what he termed the Final War with Darkness. Not one to give into the demands of random strangers, Leon had merely corrected some of Ira's assumptions and tried to be reasonable in getting to know more, but as Ira became more belligerent Leon had been just about ready to draw his gunblade. Ira's silent companion then did—whatever spell he did that warped the world and called forth not just the Darklings and the unicorns but also snakes, panthers, and bears made of light. Leon had to struggle just to make it out of his office without being torn to pieces and had then focused more on just trying to get the people of his city to safety while dealing with the swarm.

Without much to add, Leon opened the floor to the other fighters gathered to fill in their stories. Lea, Isa, Roxas, and Xion had all been together when the swarm started attacking, and between sticking together and calling on their Nobodies for backup they had easily carved their way through Darklings and light constructs alike. However, their success came to a stop when Gula appeared before them and began fighting them. Despite starting at a thirteen to one advantage, they found themselves on the losing end. Gula had immediately destroyed Black, and seemed almost surprised at how frail the lesser Nobody had been. Xion had started attacking in a frenzy trying to avenge her friend, but even with the ability to turn into light she still wasn't able to keep up with Gula's speed as he outpaced her and continued attacking the group. When it became clear that only Roxas and Xion had any chance of keeping up with the ancient Keyblade Master, Isa and his Berserkers physically dragged Lea and the other Nobodies away just so they couldn't be used as leverage in the fight. That group had continued to fight the weaker enemies, while Roxas and Xion tried their best to just hit Gula. They managed some glancing blows just thanks to working as a team and being able to attack from Gula's blind spot a couple of times, but the Keyblade Master didn't seem to take any real damage and was simply too fast for them to get more than a basic impression of his skills. By the time he disappeared when Holy was cast, they were already on their last legs and weren't sure how much they'd need to improve to stand a chance against him.

Terra, Aqua, and Ven took over at that point. They had received the distress signals on their Gummiphones and jumped over seemingly as the fight was beginning, which was incredibly lucky considering how time acted in the Realm of Darkness and they hadn't been sure if they would arrive days before the fight or days after it. They had quickly split up to help as much as they could, and while Terra and Ven had nothing noteworthy about their battles with the swarm, Aqua had run into Ira. At first, the man in the unicorn mask hadn't seemed to view her as more than a distraction as he headed to the castle, but when Aqua persisted and declared her status as a Keyblade Master when she stated her intent to stop him it sparked a reaction, and he had decided to fight her to test how the Keyblade Masters of this age compared to his own skill.

In some ways Aqua was glad for this as it meant a dangerous opponent was focusing on her instead of on someone less able to defend themselves, but as the fight wore on she realized she was still outmatched. It reminded her of when Eraqus had sparred with each of his students shortly before they took the fated Mark of Mastery exam. While her master had obviously held back, he had wanted to show that just earning the title of Master was merely a step in a journey instead of an end goal. To do that, he decided to fight each of his students in their own preferred fighting styles—just at a much higher level to show that where they were now was certainly good enough to make Master, but there was always room to improve. Ira had a similar fighting style to her old master and seemed just as far ahead of her as he had been back then.

Of course, just because Ira slightly outclassed her in the potency of his magic and more severely outclassed her in physical combat didn't mean Aqua didn't have tricks up her sleeve. When she baited Ira into using his spears of light to try and counter the blasts of her Prism Rain, she got enough time to activate her newest Eclipse command style, splitting into her light and dark halves. This split allowed her light half to transition into her ultimate attack in the Lightbloom Shotlock, while her dark half used Eraqus's old trick to conjure chains that bound the Foreteller in place. However, the ancient master seemed more surprised than worried about the attack, summoning forth a seemingly endless rain of light arrows that shredded the chains, cancelled out Aqua's Shotlock, and forced each Aqua to haphazardly dodge around when the attack almost overwhelmed their Barriers. Ira at least gave them a bit of time to recover as he asked where they had picked up that attack since it was the signature move of his protege Brain, but since Eraqus had only mentioned off-handedly that his grandfather had taught him the skill Aqua wasn't able to fill in the generational gaps between the Keyblade War and her master's grandfather. The fight had resumed and with the two on one advantage Aqua was at least able to hold her own, but the fight quickly became a war of attrition and the activation of Holy left it unclear who would have actually won.

Unfortunately, the same could not be said for Riku and Mickey. The two of them had both arrived on-world at about the same time in the town square—which was unfortunately where two Foretellers had been starting their attack. King Mickey started telling his side of the story, although he had to keep his voice low and talk slowly to avoid putting himself in more pain. He had started focusing on the woman in the snake mask, but apart from her being named Invi and her mastery of magic that let her pull out spells Mickey had never heard of, he hadn't had much of a chance to study her fighting style. She had hit him with a variation of Silence where he was still able to cast spells, but the spells had no effect once they were cast in addition to his current affliction that made it so Cure spells and Elixirs had no effect on him so any hit he took stayed with him throughout the fight. Mickey was forced to fight using only physical combat, but considering his opponent was also able to propel herself on jets of water and cloak herself with electricity to make any contact damaging to Mickey the mouse had royally struggled with his opponent.

When everyone glanced to Riku, he tried a few times to start the story but it was clearly a struggle to recount for him. After a few starts, he seemed to gather himself enough to provide all of his information in a detached monotone. He had seemingly faced the opposite problem as Mickey—his opponent in the bear mask Aced had been a simple opponent who was so vastly overpowering that nothing Riku could do seemed to phase him. It was similar to his fight with Lexaeus—both in the earth-based attacks they threw around and in the knowledge that his opponent would be able to completely break him if he let them get a solid hit in. Even glancing blows where he dodged out of the way of the main attack and raised a barrier against the shrapnel still ended up leaving him in need of a Curaga to keep fighting, and any hit he landed just seemed to make his opponent angry instead of actually hurting him.

He had just been keeping himself in the fight until the battle ended up crossing paths with Mickey's, courtesy of the mouse getting blasted into the ground next to him. The brief moment he took to cast what turned out to be a pointless Curaga proved costly, as he wasn't able to adjust to one of Aced's shockwave attacks and ended up thrown in the air. He started an Aerial Recovery but knew he wouldn't have time to avoid the follow-up attack from the master's Keyblade—only for Mickey to jump between them and take the hit straight to his chest. Even without taking the hit himself, Riku was blasted into a wall and blacked out, only coming to after the fight was over.

With the stories told, Ven snorted. "Alright, so we've got Gula who is so fast that even our embodiments of light can't keep up, Invi who has magic none of us have ever heard of, Ira who is able to take two Aquas without breaking a sweat…" He paused to snicker at his own phrasing before continuing, "Aced who sounds like a Terra on steroids, and that's not counting Luxu who did something that messed with the whole world. Is it sad that I'm starting to miss fighting the old man?"

Leon quirked his eyebrow. "And how do you know that the robed figure is named Luxu?"

Ven rolled his eyes. "Oh come on, it's an easy guess. Back before the Keyblade War, there was the Master of Masters and his six apprentices. While five of the apprentices wore animal masks and we've seen four of them, the Master and Luxu were both known for wearing black coats. And considering Luxu's big role was to take on apprentices to pass down the Master's Keyblade, he'd be able to wield Xehanort's Keyblade since he was a previous wielder anyway. And since the Master never was one to keep quiet, I think it's safe to say Mr. Tall, Dark, and Brooding was actually Luxu."

Leon sighed. "Fine, we can call him Luxu. But we've still got a lot of work cut out for us regardless. Something tells me this won't be the last we see of them, and even if this world will be safe for a little bit thanks to the lingering effects of Holy we really need to work on a way to deal with them that doesn't revolve around weaponizing a planet."

Aerith chuckled. "Especially since I won't be able to do this again for a while, and I'm not even sure if other worlds even have a race like the Cetra that would even be able to wield it for their worlds. We can't just keep funneling them here and hoping the spell will keep working."

Aqua sighed. "Well, today may not have gone well, but we're still in a much better position than we were after our fight with Xehanort twelve years ago. We know more about what we're going against, and we've got a lot more capable fighters left than we did back then. It seems like we're just going to have to double down on our training while still looking for Sora and taking care of our other duties."

Nobody else seemed to have any better ideas, so everyone agreed with Aqua's suggestion and started heading out, with the locals starting plans to rebuild from the damage while those from other worlds started heading home. It was only as Aqua was walking away that Naminé remembered their previous conversation.

"Speaking of other duties, Aqua, it sounded like you were about to ask us...well, ask Riku...something before the meeting started. What was that about?"

Aqua's eyes widened, apparently just now remembering. "That's right! Our time in the dark realm felt like a few months, and what felt like yesterday we got a call from Aurora. She was hoping to get us as some additional protection for some meeting she's trying to arrange with Maleficent's forces. Since we've still got a lot of work to do in the Realm of Darkness, I passed on Riku's number to her first so she could see if he would be available instead." She sent a sheepish smile at the other Master. "Probably should have talked to you before then, and we can rearrange things so we can go, but I figured you were the Keyblade Master with the most open schedule at the moment."

Riku squeezed Naminé's hand tighter before responding. "Well, I should be able to make that work. I was planning on checking in on Anastasia's progress soon anyway, and the Kingdom of Dreams is pretty close to Enchanted Dominion. Probably could make a day of visiting both if it works for her schedule."

Mickey's voice cut in. "I'm going too—at least if I've had time to heal first. What Maleficent has been doing with messing with the destinies of worlds is dangerous, and I need to make sure she can never do that again."

Naminé glanced at the king, wondering why he felt so strongly about this that he was ready to jump after Maleficent now even when things like her capturing six Princesses, threatening Disney Castle via time magic, and kidnapping Queen Minnie hadn't warranted a stronger reaction. Maybe it was the fact that he had always had the looming threat of the worlds falling to darkness to focus on before, but something definitely seemed to be up with his stronger reaction now. But she wasn't about to pry into his life when he was currently injured, and she had her own upcoming task to focus on. With everyone leaving, it only made sense that they'd have to leave too—and going back to Destiny Islands meant explaining to the parents that their peaceful little trip had plunged into a major battle. This was probably going to be more difficult than her fight with the Heartless…