Starting Point

The final step before their departure, was helping the Emperor cultivate as well.

Beiyue told her 'father' how she paid a visit to Xihe's Border Camp and gave them 'a little leg up'.

'It's your turn now father...you've gotten kinda rusty since being confined to a desk all day for years and you're still young.' Beiyue encouraged, giving her UNCLE the training sword upon appearing in Dongli, in a particularly rich area of qi but highly-dangerous to get here due to powerful beasts out and about. 'We'll give them a little trouble in Cultivating.'

'Mm...tell me, how is Wei Wuchen's cultivation?' Fengshuang asked his 'daughter' with a dark look on his face. 'He will never be forgiven for his crime to your mother and I.' he growled in anger at memories he recalled his days of suffering under torture during war...and he only got wind what his sister had done to save him that they conceived Beiyue years later and that he is her true father from his mother, and he found out after his sister died, and his youngest child suffering since she was a 'known failure' until she vanished!

'He's ten steps away to Divine Cultivation father.' said Beiyue just as darkly. 'The only one outgunning him is the current Honglian of Guangyao Hall. Her Swallow Sky Red Python just became an adult, a freshly-there Rank 1 Divine Beast and Dongling, whom I made Rank 5 because I helped her get an Arcane-Class Gemstone Dragon...and made them Divinity.'

'I see...then I too, shall exceed that bastard!' and Fengshuang amassed so much energy as much as he could. For at his current age, he can be a 9-Star Divine-Class by making his summon a Rank 12. The highest peak of cultivation Summoners can afford and even then, only 1 out of 10 million can get this far.

The first, being his beloved sister who once was the master of Spirit Deity.

'Help your older siblings too, Yue.'

'Yes.'

Thus, one by one, Beiyue helped them all on his wish. However, to avoid unwanted questions, she has to make it as realistic as possible in Yingye's case as well as that of Weiyi's due to their ages. At least Jing and Zhanye can get away with it. Jing was now a 9-star after all. Jing was a graduate of Lingyang School with top honors as royals must set an example to their subjects, that Jing the eldest worked hard to graduate as Top Student. Zhanye, Weiyi and Yingye must follow tradition. The only one who didn't, was Beiyue. Jing who was a no-show since, can 'suddenly show up strong'. Zhanye, nobody can accurately measure an Arcane Summoner. He too, can get away with impunity hence.

'We have to do it in Dongli why?' Yingye asked her.

'Just to take a laaaaarge chunk of Dongli's power, as a little revenge for what Wei Wuchen has done.' Beiyue smirked. 'This is a sacred mountain where qi is at its thickest and most pure, privileged only to Dongli's royal family for cultivation training and their...hero, Wei Wuchen.' she sneered the word hero. 'Every year, I will take you and Weiyi here just to be believable in the eyes of the nobility. The only ones who can get away with the full package are the older brothers.'

'Oh...darn it for being fifteen!' Yingye grumbled unhappily. She was 3-stars as of last year up to now, and jumped to 5-stars. She and Weiyi will jump 2 stars every year until they too, can get away with impunity.

'Can't be helped.' said Weiyi. They were the same age but he was slightly older by two months and they were on the sacred mountain with Beiyue. 'People would want to know, and like hell will little sister help them for what they've done.' he said with a sneer, aware of the truth as soon as he got home. Weiyi was in Beiyao's equivalent of Lingyang in its Imperial College due to his situation. But now that he's back home, he applied for Summoner Course and understandably, graduate later than all his siblings, and classmates with little 12 year olds, starting at the beginning with good reason.

At least he got a legal excuse to be left behind without losing face.

Beiyue also said goodbye to Dongling, but...

'Miss, take this with you.' said Dongling, bringing out a carved black jade. It was flat and round about an inch thick, with very detailed animal carvings. 'It seems to be a powerful ancient relic. I have no idea what to do with it. It won't allow me to dig deep...all I know is that it contains profound energy but the rest, I'm barred off.' she said. 'It scares me and I have children here, makes me wish I never found it.' she admitted fretfully.

Beiyue took the jade.

'I'll have master look into it.' Beiyue told her. 'And I'll keep it away.'

xxx

'That took us a while.' said Riku, returning to Twilight Town. They stayed in Cultivator World for nine days.

'Yeah. Stuff happened, but at least, some things are resolved.' said Beiyue. 'Only Zhanye knows the truth about me now...and he'll never tell because uncle can't take any more heartbreak.'

They went to look in the mansion to find it empty with a letter from Namine.

We have to keep Axel trapped in the system to keep him from interfering with Roxas.
Last we checked he's still living in the simulation world, having forgotten Roxas again.
I have to convince him to return to Sora so they can all heal.

It was hard as Roxas lived a lie 'all his life' in the Simulation that it was sort-of-better
making him forget what happened with Organization XIII. Somehow while within the
simulation, they got past our memory block DiZ and I took steps.

Somehow, you guys got delayed in wherever you are we have to improvise. Sora is
awake now with Donald and Goofy, and we both went into hiding so they won't find
us while those three went on as normal.

We'll be away until the time is right. And when Axel remembers again, the system
is designed that he can leave and go out with his memories as a trigger.

-Namine

'Well, now what do we do?' Beiyue asked Riku.

'Well, let's travel. Just the two of us.' Riku grinned, putting a hand on her shoulder. 'Our days of being bad guys are officially over, we can be ourselves again.' Beiyue beamed at the idea and Riku chuckled that she liked his suggestion.

'I'd like that!'

'But first, let's check our simulation.' said Riku as they went to the computer room to check if Axel is still there, but...the computer room was trashed and burned.

They exchanged looks.

'He's mad.' Riku mused, stating the obvious. Considering what they've done, ANYONE will be angry...

'Yup, he is.' Beiyue agreed grimly. 'I guess we continue our adventure.'

'That sounds about right.' said Riku. 'Let's change into new stuff to wear too.'

They went shopping in the business district, picking out stuff to wear.

Riku wore two zip-up shirts. One black undershirt that showed his belly button and over it is a cropped white one with a bright yellow collar and trim. Then a pair of pants with deep side pockets that was thigh-deep secured with a plaid white-and-black belt, and sneakers that matched his shirts. On his left arm is a loose wrist warmer that covered up to the knuckle of his thumb which hid the bracelet and sword Beiyue lent him until he gets his keyblade after training.

That, and he didn't bother with getting a haircut.

Beiyue got a haircut alright, down to shoulder length, and wore half her hair into two cute side ponytails on both sides of her head with two purple ribbons over the rubber bands that secured the style. Her outfit was a bright purple and black tartan top, and leather mid-thigh length black flared skirt. On her wrists were loose wrist warmers in the same style as Riku's only, in black. On her legs were above-the-knee sheer tights, and punk-rock calf-length boots.

After changing and paying up, they left Twilight Town to check on Kairi at Yen Sid's place, by riding the magical train together.

Upon arrival, they went straight to the fairy godmothers first.

'Ohhh! Welcome back Beiyue dear!' Flora cheerfully welcomed Beiyue. 'And who is this handsome fellow?' she asked, looking at Riku from head to toe.

'My name is Riku ma'am.' Riku greeted politely. 'How is Kairi?'

'Yen Sid took Kairi to the training grounds Beiyue used to train in dearie. They're veeeery busy and extra hard, considering what that poor girl is, just like our dear Aurora.' Flora shook her head sadly. 'However, since Ansem opened the final door, Aurora was able to pass on her powers to the next princess...whoever she may be.' she said. 'However, Kairi hasn't passed on hers yet due to special circumstances...that her heart coming out of Sora was the trigger to opening the final door, and she wasn't treated like the other girls and used her heart like theirs to open the final door.' she explained. 'Had it been done the traditional way, she could have 'retired' thus she won't be in danger.'

'I figured as much.' Beiyue moped. 'Its why I trained her in magic before sending her to Master. And she'll be safe here.'

'Its for the best, child...Sora has been here too, goodness knows his clothes are so small on him it looked weird on him.' Flora shuddered. 'That's an incredible growth spurt!'

'Thanks to us.' said Riku wryly. 'While he slept in his pod, we made sure to feed him well.'

'Mm. Now then, your clothes are just as defenseless my dears.' said Flora as with a wave of her wand, they were in bathrobes over their underwear and barefoot. 'We'll enchant your clothes like we did Sora's. Goodness knows we can't let you travel with no defense whatsoever! Be right back in a few!' and she was gone.

'Well, might as well have some tea while we wait.' said Beiyue with a sigh. 'When it comes to clothes, they mean business. During my stay here, everything I wear is always enchanted.'

'Enchanted with what?'

'Defense against Heartless so they can't easily steal our hearts, and Combat Forms.' Beiyue chimed as she summoned a teapot and teacups with sugar cubes and stirring spoons on the table. Then the snacks were fruit-flavored petit fours with a dessert fork. So the two teenagers added sugars the way they liked it and took a cake of their choice. 'I haven't the chance to use those yet but I got a funny feeling we'll need them soon.'

'With those guys? No doubt.' Riku snorted before sipping his tea, thinking of the organization. 'Axel defected thanks to you but we sorta pissed him off. He'll be his own side most likely.'

'We'll deal with that when the time comes.' Beiyue told him. 'For the sake of what we call our own, we'll do anything.' she said as they shared the same determined expressions.

'Yup, for our two trouble-magnets, we'll go far.' Riku agreed. They ate as much snacks as possible, until Flora came back.

'Here are your outfits dears!' Flora said happily, as with a wave of her wand, they have their clothes back on. But its all in various shades of red and pink! 'You'll discover the surprises I put in when you need them most!' she said with a smile. 'Good luck dears!'

And so...

'Its all...garishly red and pink.' Riku helplessly looked at Beiyue as they left the tower to go to the edge of the floating island where the tower is. 'When you said 'business', I thought they'd be good.'

'Magically good with enchanting AND designing clothing templates that are actually very trendy, but they're not very good with colors.' said Beiyue sheepishly, fixing their clothes back to original colors with a snap of her fingers. 'Only Aunt Flora is around it seems, otherwise if Aunt Fauna and Merryweather are here too, they'll end up squabbling on whether an outfit should be pink, green or blue! Master Yen Sid often has to break up color fighting.' she said wearily. 'My clothes during training days are yucky-colored he usually fixes that mess.'

Riku laughed at that.

'You forgot garish!' he joked as by the edge, Beiyue took out her Magic Ticket to summon the train. Because on this island, she can't use the Dark Corridor. Yen Sid made that impossible so the Nobodies can't find Kairi by tracking down places with access to Dark Exits as they know Beiyue can travel with corridors.

'Yeah, that too. I just couldn't complain because they mean well.' said Beiyue weakly as when the train came, they got on and sat down near the doors. 'Other than enchantments against Heartless and Magical Combat Forms, its also designed to never get wet, dirty, rip and tear, and no body odor. In short, we can wear this until we outgrow it and never need laundry ever again until then.' she explained. 'We only need a bath and we can put it on without worries! The magic extends to our underwear too.'

'Makes me wish my closet back home is just like this.' Riku grinned. 'But mom will find it weird if she never sees my stuff in the hamper.'

'There's that. At any rate, you boys be grateful to me since I kept up your grades in school while keeping up the masquerade!' Beiyue reminded him. 'After this mess with Organization XIII, you two will go back to school until at least, be physically present for graduation!' Riku chuckled while raising his hands in surrender because she glowered at him, wondering how the girls got by with the masquerade.

'Yes yes. Hopefully this issue will be over before Summer Vacation ends and we can return to just being teenagers.'

Upon getting off in Twilight Town, they can now travel as normal.

'Say Riku, how's your sword progress?' Beiyue asked Riku.

'Well, I've gone to see Aqua.' said Riku to her shock as he returned her bracelet to her. 'I found why Terra chose me that day. I remembered it and my resolve. So I went to see her in Hollow Bastion. Now that Maleficent's gone, people live there again and so do Leon's gang. And she's with Ventus, the guy who Roxas resembled and they trained me both until I'm close to forging my heart so until then, I used your sword until its time for it to come out.' he said. 'They didn't want to go home without Terra, but Aqua as the Master of both Castle Oblivion and the Land of Departure, it's true form detected intruders thus sent me to check on it with her authority...leading to our first meeting with Namine and Nobodies.'

'Sora freed two hearts that day and Aqua told me his heart was lost, until she got an alarm from her magic that Ventus woke up...how could we have known that Sora's extra other heart was his?' he wondered. 'Ten years ago after Xehanort ruined their lives, Ventus' heart took shelter in Sora...and why a 5 year old Sora at that? No wonder his Nobody looks like him...and he hasn't aged a day because. Aqua also hasn't aged a day as there was no concept of time in the Realm of Darkness.'

'Yeah, one can live there as an immortal, assuming you survive the natives.' Beiyue scoffed. 'Physically 19 and 15 for ten years when they're waaaay older than us. As for Ventus' situation? No idea. Ah, well. Why hang around Leon's gang?'

'They decided to hide that they're around from Xehanort until the time is right.' said Riku grimly. 'Ventus is retraining his rusty body. That counts as vulnerable.'

'Right...'

xxx

First step, was confirming if the other princesses indeed retired, other than Kairi.

Appearing randomly in Wonderland, Castle of Dreams, Agrabah, Beast's Castle, Dwarf Woodlands, and Enchanted Dominion...

'No kidding, all of them retired...now where could have these hearts gone?' Riku wondered.

'I hope its to NOBODY near us.' Beiyue grumbled with an armfold. 'Bad enough Kairi still has hers.'

'There's that...' Riku sighed. 'Counting on you to find the next six.' he said. With her power, its very easy for her to find them and she memorized the presence of that unique heart, having studied Kairi while Riku went looking for Sora.

It has been a year, since the Castle Oblivion thing.

358 days during that time AND working to acquire Roxas and 'something' they forgot. Only DiZ and Namine knows now, having Beiyue's scroll of records. Plus the nine days spent in Beiyue's world...that's one year and two days, making him 16, Sora and Kairi 15 and Beiyue 14.

He should be a senior in school now, but Beiyue took up the slack for both him and Sora. She ensured she had Namine implant memories in them on how she handled pretending to be them in school and hopefully, improve Sora's sucky Math skills.

Namine had been horrified at how bad Sora was she didn't hesitate to fix his schoolwork knowledge.

'Riiight...'

After checking out the Princess Worlds, they visited Hollow Bastion...at the same time Sora just arrived.

On a Gummi Ship, it takes days to reach other worlds while in Dark Corridors, its just moments.

'Riku! Beiyue!' Sora greeted happily, glomping on them, causing both to slightly bend backwards from his weight. 'It's been a while!'

'Hey yourself, sleepyhead!' Riku chuckled. 'We decided to travel for fun this time since danger's out for the most part.'

'Yeah, we want to enjoy traveling worlds, after everything that's happened.' said Beiyue softly. Sora recalled everything they basically went through though its mostly him and Riku active, not the girls.

'Well yeah.' he snorted. 'What about Kairi?' he asked, not seeing Kairi with them.

'She's back home.' Beiyue lied incase of eavesdroppers. 'She said she's not cut out for ahem, a life of excitement. Guess it's just us.'

'Guess so. Ah well! We'll just bring home souvenirs!' said Sora as they walked around. 'Hollow Bastion's gotten a little brighter than last time.'

'Maleficent's gone that's why.' said Beiyue. 'The skies are a little clearer now when last time its skies are dark, like almost night but it never becomes night...and the darkness here was thick, but not thick enough to cause me gray hairs.' she joked. 'I'll clean up this world of darkness and I'll need your help, Sora.' she told him. 'Lock this world's keyhole after I banish the darkness in this world.'

'You got it!' Sora grinned, taking out his keyblade.

Then he looked sheepish.

'...where's the keyhole again?'

Everyone face-faulted.

And so, it took them a while.

Beiyue banished the darkness Maleficent had gathered, effectively making it hard for her to travel by Dark Corridors by having nothing to use here in the coming days, though she cannot banish the heartless present, just effectively weaken them by equalizing the presence of light and darkness. Nothing but two places, can ever be pure light or dark. Even she cannot go against nature indeed.

Riku then ran inside.

'Beiyue it's working! Sure it's still sunset colors, but it considerably lightened a lot!' he called out in amazement.

'Good! Sora!' Beiyue called out as a signal to Sora who sealed away Hollow Bastion's keyhole, tightened on his will.

'And that's that!' Sora grinned cheekily. 'Now we can visit Leon and the gang.'

'And have lunch. I'm hungry.' said Riku flatly.

xxx

'So that stunt of yours was to balance this world out before sealing it with the Keyblade.' Leon mused as the kids explained everything while eating a lot.

'Yes. Nature must always be balanced, governed by two ultimate forces. Light and Dark.' said Beiyue. 'Either cannot overpower the other lest it causes imbalance in everything as we know it. Hollow Bastion became nearly a dark world. 60% done by Maleficent, and that went up to 100 when Ansem used the Princesses to open the Final Keyhole to get to Kingdom Hearts, leading to a dimension we could heartbreakingly call, the graveyard of all worlds destroyed by Heartless.' she said to her group's dismay. 'No words can put what we saw to justice. Nothing is more sorrowful than seeing all you know and held dear, is gone, on the whims of a madman drunk on power and wanted more and more, who cares what was gone and killed in his wake.'

The gang could understand. They all lost their home ten freaking years ago and stuck in Traverse World for years.

'The only time either can overpower the other, is when things went too far to restore things as to how it should be.' Beiyue continued. 'Ansem's stunt nearly destroyed this world too, if not for the Princesses who held darkness at bay. But for some reason, yeah, I restored this world's balance...but there's something small, but powerful preventing me from making a perfect 50-50. The most I could do was have Sora lock this world's keyhole after restoring the force of Light by opening a tunnel to use to suck the excess darkness of this world.'

'Leave investigating that to us.' Leon told her. 'You guys have done enough for everyone here, so we'll do the rest.' he promised them. 'Sooo...what about that pool of Heartless down the outskirts?' he asked them.

'As of now, none of us are ready.' Beiyue shuddered, remembering Maleficent's massive collection of Heartless outside of town. 'Take on that many with just us? Are you for real?'

Everyone paused at that.

Bad idea!

'Maybe when we have more Keybladers.' said Riku wryly. 'Asking Sora to take them all on by himself to free the hearts is pretty onerous. He needs support. And there's a damn good reason why those two cannot show up just yet.'

Aqua and Ventus, they all thought.

They were very out of shape, no thanks to Xehanort. Aqua being trapped for ten years in the Realm of Darkness until Beiyue found her. Ventus was comatose due to his heart being gone for years, until Sora stabbed himself to free two extra hearts inside him. Kairi's and his. They were re-training as they were very vulnerable ducks. They are in hiding hence.

'Right. We were investigating this Xehanort fellow's history ever since Aqua told us her story.' said Cid. 'And to sum it up, their life is a ruined mess. They too, have to recover.' he told them before he gnashed his teeth angrily. 'Xehanort and Ansem. Two men who screwed up all our lives and we want our damn answers.'

'But getting all we want, will take time.' said Aerith. 'And we must be meticulous as to not miss anything. Slow and steady we go so we can put an end to all this.'

'That's right. We're working for ten years, what's a little more time?' Leon snorted. 'We have plenty of time. So you kids take time too. Leave no stone unturned.'

'Right!'

xxx

Meanwhile...back in Cultivator World...

He is wandering.

He felt it.

It's presence that has awakened.

However, it vanished again.

As if...it ceased to exist?

No, that cannot be!

Who has it, and why did it disappear?

He tracked down its presence...or what's left of it...to an orphanage? Managed by a young girl.

Someone was here with it, and vanished. This orphanage is meant to mislead anyone who felt it as who'd leave something that valuable and powerful unguarded amidst children? That doesn't make any sense!

Or did they make the transaction here and disappear?

No. Impossible still.

That thing is blood-locked.

It can only be awakened by the Blood-Owner.

That man is dead seven years ago.

Since it awakened, it means he left behind children and they now have it.

He must have it. His time is running out.