Ch.10

When Aqua opened her eyes, she was met with the light streaming through the window of her room. Even though she knew she had to get up, her mind was still a bit groggy. She hadn't had a proper sleep in a long while. She rolled her shoulders slightly before turning onto her other side. Soon enough she would get herself away, all she needed was a couple minutes more.

What she didn't expect though was to turn onto her side to see Zack practically right in front of her. She let out a short scream as she backed away, startled by how close he had been. She could have sworn that they had fallen asleep as far apart as they could, how did they end up so close.

Zack's eyes shot open right away. "Huh? What? Who did wha-"

As soon as his eyes locked onto Aqua he let out a huge gasp and stumbled back… all the way off the bed. He hit the ground with a hard thump and Aqua crawled to the edge looking down on him. "Zack? Are you okay?"

"I-I wasn't trying anything! I wasn't! I mean you know! I don't know how it happened. I was just sleeping and… and I…" Zack's face was turning as red as a tomato.

All of Aqua's worries and fears faded away as she looked at poor Zack's confounded expression. She started to laugh as she sat back on the bed. "It's okay Zack, I believe you. I was only a little startled. I'm sorry I screamed."

"Yeah…" Zack breathed out deeply, his cheeks still a strong red. "Yeah it's cool. Still, I am so sorry."

Aqua nodded. "We should get going though, today is a rather important day."

"Yeah that's for sure… are we really going to be able to do it though? This whole keyblade battle?"

"We must, it's for the safety of all worlds," Aqua replied. "We will succeed though just as long as we stay strong and stick together."

"Right, yeah… just a really big thing for me. I'm still thinking it over… I'm here. I'm going to be a part of a battle that will save the worlds."

Aqua stood up, moving closer to him before she held out a hand to him. "You deserve to be here, Zack." She helped him up to his feet. "You are just as strong as the rest of us, I wouldn't have it any other way."

Zack grinned. "Thanks, Aqua. I'll meet up with you in a bit.

Aqua nodded before Zack headed out of the room, leaving Aqua to get dressed for the battle. After that was done, she headed out of her room and met with Ventus and Zack in Yen Sid's office. He wished three of them luck before they were picked up on the gummi ship to head out to the keyblade graveyard.

When they arrived and began to walk through the land, Zack watched his surroundings carefully. The land was empty of all life, only desert and rocks for what seemed to go on for miles. Though, the further they walked, Zack did start to notice something else besides all of the rocks.

There were keyblades.

Hundreds upon thousands scattered across the land, plunged into the ground from eons ago. Something about seeing all of those old keyblades made Zack feel unsettled. He had figured that a place known as the 'keyblade graveyard' would have been a battle ground. He knew that battles did happen and people did die, but this seemed far more extreme.

Zacl exhaled, trying to place his fear somewhere else. He needed to focus. The battle was just ahead of them and if he wasn't careful, he feared that he, along with his keyblade would end up like the rest that came before him. He made a quick glance at Aqua, who walked alongside him. Seeing her calm and composed look as she walked brought him some comfort. As long as she was by his side, he knew that he would be able to pull through this.

Eventually, the man known as Xehanort showed up to confront the group. Zack listened as they exchanged words, knowing that he was still not quite used to having to deal with this type of situation. When more of Xehanort's team showed up and caused the sky to go dark, it rained down Heartless and many other creatures around them.

Everyone drew their weapons and went right into attacking. Zack tried his best to stick close to Aqua and Ventus, but many of the creatures warranted him to end up on his own for part of the battle. He still did what he could, trying to take out as many of the creatures as he could.

"Geez, there must be thousands of these things… I thought we were going to fight that Xehanort guy, but I guess this is just the preliminaries. It's like back at Olympus… this is the bottom tier and Xehanort will be at the top, waiting for us…"

When the Heartless and other monsters were finally cleared, he met up with the others who were already moving ahead. He ran quickly over to Aqua. "Hey Aqua, are you okay?"

"I'm fine," Aqua answered. "You fought well back there. I'm glad."

"Aw well you know," Zack rubbed the back of his head. "I gotta keep trying, came this far anyway."

"Right, and I'm glad for that."

Sora soon came along, checking in with everyone now that they were all caught up. Everyone gave their nodded, though suddenly Ventus looked off to the side. He gasped as he looked at the dusty plains out in the distance. Someone was out there, standing rather still.

Though the clearing dust, Zack saw that the figure seemed to be familiar. The height and the build was ringing a bell in the back of his head. But before he could figure out anything, Ventus spoke up first.

"Terra!"

"Ven!" Aqua called out before she could stop him.

"Is it really him?" Zack thought to himself as he saw Ventus grab onto Terra's arm. The taller man still stood there, almost too perfectly still.

"Terra! We found you!" Ventus shouted rather joyfully.

Aqua and Zack gave each other one look before they ran over to meet up with Ventus. Zack knew that he wasn't as close as the three of them were, but they still were his friends. They were the friends he made that made a huge impact on his life. If it wasn't for the three of them, he knew he wouldn't be there today alongside them.

"Terra, please say you're in there," Aqua asked gently.

"Yo! Terra?" Zack added.

There was something odd about the way he stood there, barely even reacting. Slowly he lifted his eyes and stared at Aqua, his vacant eyes starting to widen slightly. The way he seemed so expressionless yet could stare like that sent a shiver down Zack's spine.

Aqua stepped back, pulling both Zack and Ventus along with her guiding hand. Ventus looked at her confused, clearly not offset by the gaze Terra was giving. "What gives, Aqua?"

"I know that you're not him," Aqua accused. "Now, let our friend go!"

Zack watched as the supposed Terra started to smirked. Right before his eyes he watched Terra's brown hair go silver, and when his eyes opened they were gold. It was just like Xehanort's and the others, they all had the same eyes. Terra, or a past version of Xehanort possessing Terra as Zack eventually found out, was a part of the Organization XIII.

Once he began to talk, speaking of how everyone would lose, that was when things truly became far crazier than Zack had ever expected. In the blink of an eye the possessed Terra, Terra-nort, moved forward towards Ventus.

Zack only had to take a few steps to the side and he soon found himself nearly stumbling back. Terra-nort had his keyblade locked with Zack's, his face scrunched up into annoyance. "Out of the way."

"Not a chance!" Zack yelled. He glanced to the side and saw Aqua staring at Terra-nort, her eyes wavered and uncertain. He wasn't too sure what the deal was, but he could tell Aqua was unsettled.

Terra-nort grumbled deeply before darkness encased his keyblade. "Move out of the way, you are not important to this matter."

There was a flash and then a force of energy that coldied into Zack. He cried out as he was forced back, tumbling to the ground. The others around him seemed to be running forward after that, all trying to attack Terra-nort, but slowly he was starting to over power them.

Zack struggled to get back up just as he saw that Sora was blocking an attack. Both Ventus and Lea had already been knocked back, and Aqua still stood there like she was frozen. Everything felt like a blur before Terra-nort had nearly knocked every keyblade wielder to the ground.

It all happened far too fast, but before Zack even knew it, Terra-nort was being blasted back by a magic attack from Donald. He was gone, but still half of the team was nearly out for the count. Zack struggled to push himself up to his feet as he walked over to where Aqua was, now kneeling down next to Ventus.

"Aqua?" Zack asked as he moved closer to her.

"I just… stood there while he… he attacked you and Ven," Aqua muttered.

"Hey, he's still breathing. He's okay," Zack said. He moved his hand to her shoulder, trying to give her a bit of reassurance.

"Yes, you're right," Aqua said, brushing back Ventus's bangs. "Come, let's join the others. They need our help."

Together they walked forward, heading towards a pool of darkness that had pooled recently. Heartless spewing out in all directions, flying up high into the sky as Sora and Riku walked. Aqua and Zack walked right up besides them, watching the Heartless swarm together, growing larger by the second.

"We stand together," Aqua said, her tone now much more serious.

With a nod, the group ran forward to the explosion of Heartless that was still forming. Quickly, Aqua informed the remaining who were not injured to stay back and watch over the others. Though Mickey thought it was best to leave since things had gotten much more severe, the four of them didn't budge.

Zack readily held his keyblade, ready to fight when the wind suddenly picked up. He looked all around and watched as Heartless from all over started to be picked up by the winds of this now apparent Heartless tornado.

With his eyes widened, he felt a little fear sneak into his chest. "There must be thousands of them! They just keep coming!"

"Stand your ground!" Aqua yelled as dust picked up.

Zack shielded his eyes for the moment, waiting for it to calm down. He could hear the sound of the Heartless swarming through, growing louder and louder. When Zack opened his eyes again he gasped at the sight that he saw before him.

The Heartless tornado had grown at least 100 times more than it had been before. It swirled slowly, rotating the Heartless round and round. There had to be more than a million by this point, and it seemed to still be growing larger.

"H-How are we going to take on this thing?" Zack asked, looking between the other wielders.

His eyes landed on Aqua and his heart sunk. Her eyes were fearful as she started taking steps backwards. "It can't be… No…"

Zack ran over to her, just as he saw her keyblade slipping from her grasp. "Aqua! What's wrong?"

"It's… I see…" Aqua muttered as she stared. Heartless were flying out of the main tornado and coming directly at them.

"Aqua! You need to move!" Zack shouted frantically.

The Heartless were coming closer and Zack only had a few seconds to act. With a deep breath he pushed Aqua off to the side with his body, while holding out his keyblade to try and block the oncoming Heartless.

He felt the impact of the Heartless collide against his keyblade, but the force was much greater than he had expected. They swarmed over him within seconds and everything started to fade away into nothingness. Through his last conscious moments within the swirling darkness that formed around him, he swore he heard someone calling his name. Someone… important to him. If only… he could remember who…

When Zack opened his eyes he found himself in the keyblade graveyard with everyone else. Everything felt a bit hazy in his head, but this almost felt like déjà vu. He looked over to Aqua, seeing that she was smiling at him like before. There was a nod of agreement from everyone before they proceeded forward.

The strange feeling never left Zack, and as soon as he saw Terra standing there, he knew he had seen this before. Something about this whole situation was very familiar. He almost couldn't process what was happening. He knew he had seen this before, with Ventus running up to Terra and Aqua going after him.

He knew he had seen this before, but he couldn't remember what he had done. There was something he had done before.

Once he saw that Terra wasn't actually Terra he started to run forward. He wasn't going to let anything happen this time. Running forward he was ready to fight again, when suddenly dust kicked up around where Terra-nort was and Zack came to a halt.

Someone in armor now stood there, blocking the attack.

"Who are you?" Terra-nort asked.

"Got you, Xehanort," the armored person replied.

"Wait a minute… I know that voice," Zack thought to himself as he finally made it up to where Aqua and Ventus stood.

Zack could see the visible worry and confusion etched into Aqua's face. With a slow exhale she spoke. "Terra?"

"So it is him!" Zack thought again as he watched as the two engaged in battle. He saw the keyblade do things he never thought it could do, and watched as the two engaged in a deep battle. It wasn't long though before Heartless poured in from all sides.

That was when the déjà vu struck him again. He swore he had seen this all before, the Heartless flying around in big swarms. The only difference was that this time everyone was prepared to fight and no one was out for the count.

Zack stayed by Aqua and Ventus's side during the fight. He knew after he wanted to talk to them about what they saw. But taking care of all the Heartless came first, though it was growing increasingly hard the more that came along. But Zack never stopped trying, he wasn't going to give up or fail, not this time.

The battle with the Heartless seemed to be endless by this point. After clearing one wave, someone from the Organization would just bring in more. Zack still hadn't even had time to really catch his breath and talk properly with Aqua like he wanted.

"I guess a hero's work is never done…"

Once again he thought he was going to have to fight even more Heartless but this time, when they were surrounded, Yen Sid himself had shown up to clear a pathway for everyone to make a run for it.

Finally things seemed to be kicking into action for the final battle. Xehanot had set up a maze practically of the stone that rose from the ground. The members of the Organization seemed to split up after that and Sora and the others agreed that they would do the same, going after the different areas.

Zack followed after Aqua and Ventus as they ran down one corridor towards where they assumed some of the Organization members would be. Finally while they were just running, they had no interruptions, he could finally speak.

"Hey, Aqua?"

"Yes, Zack?"

"What do you think happened back there… with that armor?"

"That was… the armor was Terra's. Ven, Terra, and I all have our own. But I don't understand how…" Aqua sighed. "I don't know what happened, but," Aqua sighed as she trailed off.

"But it really was him?"

"Maybe… I wish I could know the answer."

Zack reached over and placed his hand on her shoulder. "Hey, we can do this. We'll get to the bottom of whatever it is, and find Terra. Or save him. Or whatever it is."

"Yeah!" Ventus interjected. "We will save Terra! We just gotta!"

"Together!" Zack nodded. "I know that you guys have been friends for way longer than you've been friends with me, but Terra is still my friend too."

"We wouldn't forget about you, Zack. You're part of the team now," Ventus replied with a smile.

"We're happy you're here," Aqua added with her usual kind smile.

"Aw well thanks! Now come up, there is an opening up ahead!"

The trio headed forward, reaching an opening from the maze. In the center of the area stood two of the Organization members, and it just so happened to be Terra-Nort as well as Vanitas. Now came the moment that they had been waiting for, the next grand battle.

I forgot how long the cutscenes in the early section of the Graveyard were. But next time it is the return of Terra and that shall be fun! See you all next time!