The Tides Go Out

by Regiss

Four months later, the war between Maleficent's Heartless and Braig's Nobodies threatens to consume all worlds. In the middle of the conflict, Sora, Xion, and their friends continue the search for Riku while also dealing with Vanitas, who will stop at nothing to get Ven's heart. Sequel to Remember the Tides.

19. Black Feathers

Chapter 19: Black Feathers

"That's it, Unca Donald. Over here!"

"No way, it goes here!"

Kairi laughed as Huey, Dewey, and Louie directed Donald back and forth and all over the back room of Scrooge's shop, stacking piles of potions and mountains of ethers into his hands and sending him around in circles. For her part she carried a decently sized box full of golden orbs that Scrooge called drive boosts, but she wasn't sure what they were for; they were certainly pretty, though. Goofy, meanwhile, was tangled up in a tent that he was trying to put back into its packaging.

"Unca Donald, the hi-potions go this way!"

"Uh-uh, Unca Scrooge said to put them with the elixirs!"

Donald groaned behind his strained smile as he moved to the next location, knowing full well that as soon as he reached it one of the triplets would change his mind and drop a few more items onto his pile before directing him somewhere else. Kairi set down her box of drive boosts next to others like it and moved over to Goofy, still having trouble with the tent.

"Need some help?" she asked while taking one of the rods in his hand.

Goofy nodded. "That'd be great, Kairi. Thanks!"

Kairi kneeled down next to Goofy and helped untangle him from the tent's thick fabric. She could hear Jiminy talking to Scrooge in his office while they work, helping him go over inventory while the rest of them moved things around out here. Kairi was glad to be of help, but she had to admit she was jealous of Sora and Xion. They had gone with Cloud and Tifa on a patrol of the town, both the rebuilt sections and the ruins; if there were any Heartless left, it'd be a good idea to have Keyblades.

Goofy, now untangled from the tent, stood up and held a hand out to help Kairi to her feet. "So, what do we do with this?" Kairi asked, looking at the mess of fabric and rods scattered on the floor. "Where did he want it again?"

Goofy scratched his head. "Well, Mister McDuck wanted all the tents stacked nice and tidy behind the counter where customers could see 'em."

Kairi glanced to her right, where unopened tents lined the wall from top to bottom. "Why does Scrooge need so many?" She picked up an empty box and a roll of tape from the floor and handed them to Goofy while she started gathering the tent's pieces up. "It's not like anyone's going camping."

"They're for the refugees comin' in," Louie said from atop his cardboard box perch. "For them to buy, I mean. Unca Scrooge says he can't make any munny if he just gives 'em away." He paused and then looked to his left with a mischievous grin. "No, Unca Donald! The power boosts go there, not the megalixirs!"

While Kairi silently chastised Scrooge's morals – seriously, there were so many tents, why not give them away if people need the shelter? – Donald grumbled at his nephew and picked up the large crate he had just set down, trying to replace it with another one without dropping both on the floor. It was an exercise in futility. Donald slipped up, dropping everything in his hands and scattering items and trinkets of all sorts all over the room. The ducklings grew quiet and wide-eyed, jumping down to help Donald up.

"We're sorry about that, Unca Donald!" Dewey said quickly, tugging on his soaking wet clothes. "At least the splashing potions healed the cuts from the glass, though!"

Donald was surprisingly quiet as he stood up and removed his hat, squeezing it and wringing it through his hands to get rid of the potions soaking through the fabric. Kairi had to say she was impressed, she expected him to snap at any moment.

"Boys…" Donald said after a moment, closing his eyes and placing his hat back on his head.

"Yes, Unca Donald?" The three spoke in unison, glancing down at the ground and holding their hands behind their backs.

Donald's momentary serenity was gone, his smile falling into a grimace and his face growing red as he began one of his famous temper tantrums. He jumped up and down, screaming incomprehensibly and gesturing at the boys, the door to Scrooge's office, and the mess at his feet. Throughout his ranting Kairi also caught the words 'Gummi ship' and 'castle', so it seems that this was all his pent-up stress spilling out at once. The boys, eyes wide, wisely backed away from their uncle.

"Maybe we went too far," Huey said.

Meanwhile, the door to Scrooge's office slammed open and he marched outside with a look on his face that warned of a temper nearly as short as Donald's that was about to break. "Oh, pluck my pinfeathers! What's all the ruckus about- Ah!" Scrooge's eyes bulged almost comically as he spotted the mess, he pinched the bridge of his nose – er, beak – and sighed deeply, evidently trying to fight the urge to snap as his nephew had. "Donald, what happened here?"

Donald had calmed down slightly, but cast a glare over his shoulder at the boys before turning to Scrooge. "Uncle Scrooge, it wasn't my fault!"

"Wasn't yer fault? Donald, you were holding the dang things!"

Donald shook his head back and forth rapidly. "The boys-"

"Aye, I heard the boys as well." Scrooge slammed his cane on the wooden floor. "Now go get mops and brooms, all four of ye. And I won't take 'no' for an answer! Hop to it! This is comin' out of yer pay."

Kairi blinked in confusion. "Wait, you're paying us?"

Scrooge turned his head and grinned, changing from the stern manager of mere moments ago to a kindly old man. "Aye, a whole twenty munny to each of ye!" Well, maybe he didn't change completely. "Actually, lass-Kairi, isn't it? I'm terribly awful with names, ye have to forgive me."

"No, that's right."

"Wonderful!" Scrooge walked over to her and reached into his pocket, pulling out a small green chip with gold circuit lines running across it. "Can ye go deliver this to Cid up at the Gummi hangar? I have no idea what this confounded thing is for, but he asked that I deliver it to him." Kairi took the chip and held it up to the lamp hanging from the ceiling, examining the way the circuitry reflected the light. "I imagine it's probably for yer Gummi ship," Scrooge continued.

"Sure thing, Mister McDuck. I can give this to Cid." Kairi slipped the chip into her pocket, but then frowned. "Although I was going to help Goofy…"

Goofy shook his head and held up two of the metal support rods for the tent. "Don't worry about me Kairi. I got this in the bag." He moved forward slightly and promptly slipped on another rod lying on the ground, which knocked him onto his back and tangled him back up in the tent fabric all over again. While Goofy laughed and let out a soft "Woops," Kairi sighed and moved over to help him. Scrooge stopped her with a hand on her wrist.

"Dunnae worry about him, lass. I'll have Donald help out when he's done cleanin' up the mess."

Kairi glanced down to Goofy, who was laughing to himself as he climbed out of the tent - he had somehow managed to prop it up perfectly during his attempts to free himself – then turned back to Scrooge. "Okay. But I'll be back soon."

"Aye, I know ye will. Hurry off to Cid, then!"

With a quick wave goodbye over her shoulder, Kairi made her way out the shop and into the marketplace, passing the four grumbling ducks carrying mops and brooms as she did so. In the couple of hours since she had been outside (having returned to Scrooge's from Merlin's through the tunnel), clouds had come in between the earth and the sun, shrouding Hollow Bastion in a dreary grey. Kairi couldn't help but glance at the castle as she moved toward the hangar. The dark sky seemed to make it even more ominous as it cast the half-constructed towers in shadow. She hurried the rest of the way to the hangar, no longer feeling safe outdoors.

The inside of the hangar was a storm of sounds and heat as machines tore apart the Highwind. From her position in the doorway Kairi could see right through Xion's room into Donald and Goofy's, and all the way to the small kitchen. Cid had been busy—or rather, the machinery had. Cid himself stood against the wall watching the cranes and robotic hands work as he leaned against his cane. He noticed her come in and tried to smile, but the expression on his face made Kairi laugh; it looked like he wasn't used to it.

"What are you doing here?" Cid's tone as he asked the question was rough, though not unkind. Kairi had come to learn that that was just the way he spoke. She reached into her pocket and pulled out the chip, handing it over to him.

"Mister McDuck said you asked for this."

"Ah." Cid rubbed his chin while examining the chip. "Yup, this should do it. This will be a good replacement for a key part of the power grid; Donald completely totaled the thing. I had to go digging through about thirty different scrapped ships to repair the rest. Most of those were supposed to go to my Shera, but them's the breaks I suppose."

"Uh huh…" Kairi really didn't know anything about machines, so that was all over her head. She had a feeling, though, that Cid expected her to ask about the Shera so he could start talking about it—he seemed like that type of guy. So instead, she asked a question that had been on her mind for the last several hours. "So when do you think the patrol will be back?"

"Well…" Cid scratched the side of his cheek in thought, clearly not expecting her to change the topic like that. "Right about now they're probably in the slums, I figure."

Kairi's brow furrowed. "The slums?" That didn't fit her picture of Radiant Garden much at all. Hadn't it been a paradise with flowers and clear blue water everywhere?

"Sure." Cid moved past her and through the doorway, out into the marketplace. He took a deep, long breath on his cigarette – wait, hadn't he been using a toothpick at Merlin's? Did Aerith know he was smoking? – and then exhaled the smoke into the dreary air. "Radiant Garden may've been the city of light, but every light has its shadow. Most of us livin' in the fancy parts of town tried to ignore the slums, but ignorin' somethin' doesn't mean it ain't there." Cid frowned and looked out into the distance toward a particularly ruined section of town that sat under the castle's shadow.

The wind picked up and Kairi brought a hand to her face to keep her hair out of her eyes. In the distance, a bird crowed. Cid placed the cigarette back in his mouth and turned around, hobbling on his cane as he returned inside the hangar.

"If I remember right, that's where Cloud met the person who saved his life."

x-x-x

"Looks like rain," Tifa said, holding a hand out in front of her as if expecting a raindrop to fall into her palm any second. Xion glanced up at the cloudy sky and shivered as a chilly breeze blew by, causing howls as it passed through the cold, empty ruins of stone buildings. She really envied Sora's jacket going over his shoulders right now.

They had traveled through ruins of all sorts during the last few hours on this patrol, but the buildings in this new area were far creepier for some reason. Rusted halves of metal rods with jagged tips sat long forgotten in pools of water and oil, while the dirt-coated ground was barely visible under tons of trash and debris. Tifa and Cloud had marched ahead of Xion and Sora without fail when they initially set out, but when they arrived in this district Tifa had grown hesitant and Cloud had slowed down considerably. And Tifa had also been rather open with Xion and Sora, chatting with them regularly, but now her lips were sealed.

Just what was this place that it disturbed them so much?

Sora stepped into a puddle of black water and accidentally splashed some near them. Cloud spun around immediately, watching Sora's wet shoe with wary eyes.

"Be careful!" he shouted; well, actually, he didn't shout. But he raised his voice above a monotone, and that was close enough for him. Sora winced back, unsure of what he had done wrong. Xion shrugged helplessly. She had no idea either.

Tifa frowned and marched up to cloud, putting her hands on her hips and standing in front of him. "Cloud, you didn't have to snap like that! Sora wasn't watching where he was going. What's your problem, anyway? I know the slums aren't exactly your favorite place in the world, but-"

"Check what Sora stepped in again, Tifa," Cloud said calmly. Tifa stopped chastising Cloud and, curious, glanced over his shoulder at the black puddle. Her skin paled and her gaze snapped over to Sora's shoe—wait, no, to the exposed skin right above his shoe. Sora looked down at himself and tapped his feet on the ground awkwardly. Xion looked at his ankle, as Tifa was. She couldn't see anything strange.

"He didn't get wet, Cloud," Tifa said at last. Xion double-checked; nope, only his shoe was wet, not his skin. So, what, was there something in the water?

"He almost did. This place is dangerous enough as it is with all the crumbling buildings and rusted metal. I'm not risking any of us catching geostigma." He glanced over his shoulder, blue eyes drilling holes into Xion and Sora. "Stay out of any black puddles. They're not water."

Sora glanced behind him at the puddle before nodding, though confusion was still evident on his face. "Uh, sure."

Cloud turned back around and said no more, continuing on through the ruins as if nothing had happened. Xion wasn't about to let it go, though, and walked up beside Tifa with a new goal: information.

"So, what's this geostigma thing?" Sora was beside Xion as well. He wanted to know too. Tifa frowned and glanced at Cloud for a moment, as if wondering if he'd want her to tell them. When she looked away her shoulders drooped ever so slightly.

"This area we're in was once Radiant Garden's slums," she explained quietly. "It used to be just another district of the city, but one day a disease called geostigma sprang up—they think it arrived through an infected water supply. The symptoms included weakness, hallucinations, and open sores that ooze a black sludge-like liquid. It had a one hundred percent morality rate; everyone who contracted geostigma died." Xion glanced around them at the puddles and felt her blood run cold. There were so many of them. "The doctors had no idea how to combat geostigma so eventually the district was put under quarantine, with no one allowed in or out. After that it sort of…wasted away, forgotten by the rest of Radiant Garden."

"How could Ansem allow that?" Sora asked, horrified.

"This was early into Ansem the Wise's rule, when he was still a young man," Cloud replied. He had been listening, then. "The head of the government's medical division at the time, a man named Hojo, apparently kept it a secret from him, saying that he could handle it. Ansem probably never found out in his entire life. He never left the castle, really." His eyes grew even more downcast. "Ansem was a good man to be sure, but he was blind. He should have seen a lot of things coming before they happened."

"So," Xion asked, "if it always killed the people it infected, how did you guys escape? I mean, I'm assuming it lasted for a few generations if the area became a slum."

"We didn't live in the slums." Tifa's reply surprised Xion. Given their reactions and the way Cloud clearly knew where he was going, she had figured they had. "And because of the quarantine it never entered any other districts."

"But then how do you guys know this place so well?"

"Cloud does, not me," Tifa admitted. She looked out in front of them, where Xion could see a tall stone building rising above the ruins. "And you're about to see why."

Compared to everything else, it was remarkably unharmed; sure the roof was collapsed and several windows were shattered, but at least Xion could tell what it was supposed to be: a church. Not as large as Notre Dame, but decently sized. Its white stone, though stained with years of dirt, stood out among the black and grey ruins around it. What windows weren't shattered were grimy to the point they could no longer be called windows, and one of the two steeples atop the church was completely missing, torn off by some unseen force. But still the church gave off a sense of hope for being the only relatively intact building for miles around. Cloud walked up to one of the wooden doors, rotting and chipped, and pulled it open without too much trouble.

The inside wasn't quite as well preserved as the outside, however. Wooden benches lay broken and out of place as they walked down the aisle, ages-old floorboards creaking under them. The stone pillars holding up the ceiling were stained with grime and dirt, and chipping away in places. Cloth tapestries hanging from the walls, once beautiful, were torn and barely fluttered in the cold breeze. Planks of wood that had fallen from the destroy ceiling littered the ground and, much to Xion's surprise, lay in a small garden of yellow and green flowers that despite all odds still sprouted from the earth.

Xion kneeled down and picked one of the flowers, its yellow petals covered in dew that caused it to glisten in the light coming in through the broken ceiling.

Tifa kneeled down beside Xion and ran a flower's petal between her fingers, though she didn't pick it. "This is the only place in the whole district where flowers still grow."

"I guess even a quarantined slum is still part of Radiant Garden," Sora said.

Cloud moved past the flowers, gently walking around them rather than over them as she would have expected from him, and stopped at the altar against the wall. Pierced into the rotting wood floor in front of the altar was a sword with a long, thin blade. Its curved hand guard looked like it had once been gold and the hilt was blue. The sword was marked with a decade of wear, tear, and rust.

Cloud ran a hand over the once-vibrant hand guard and gripped the hilt softly before his arms fell limply to his side. Engraved on a copper plaque next to the sword were three short lines:

"Embrace your dreams.
If you want to be a hero,
you need to have dreams."

"Tifa, can you give me a few minutes?" Cloud's voice was quieter than normal, if that was even possible.

"Of course." Tifa stood up from the garden and motioned for Xion and Sora to follow. "We'll be right outside, Cloud. Take as much time as you need."

"Wait, we're going already?" Sora asked. "What happened to seeing why Cloud knows this place so well? What's with the sword?"

"Those questions are ones only Cloud can answer. Even I don't know the whole story. Come on."

Xion frowned and looked over her shoulder at Cloud. His shoulders were shaking. Was he crying? Shaking her head, she followed Tifa and Sora outside, her footsteps leaving hollow echoes in the ruined church.

The weather hadn't improved during the few minutes they were inside. Not that Xion was expecting it to, though; they really weren't in there for very long at all. Stepping carefully over a puddle of what she now knew was geostigma sludge, Xion moved over to a relatively clean stone block and sat down. Sora joined her a moment later while Tifa leaned against the outer wall of the church, glancing inside every few minutes.

"What do you think that was all about?" Sora asked. Xion glanced over to him and he motioned to the door of the church, where they could still see Cloud standing in front of the sword. He hadn't budged.

"It reminded me of a grave," Xion said with a small shrug. The whole thing had a very melancholy atmosphere surrounding it, which was only strengthened by the grey cloud-covered sky. "I wonder what happened."

"Cloud and Tifa didn't grow up in the slums," Sora reminded her. "So I wonder how they knew whoever it was?" That was a good question, and one that she had been asking as well. Actually, though, Tifa didn't seem to know him; she had said that some questions only Cloud could answer. Xion called some of Sora's memories to the front of her mind, recalling when he had first met Cloud at the Olympus Coliseum. He had been so broody then; not that he wasn't broody now, but he had been even more so back then. Had whatever happened here been why?

"I wonder what happened…" Sora said softly.

"His name was Zack."

"Huh?"

Tifa still leaned against the wall of the church, her hands behind her back and her eyes locked firmly on the ground. But she had been listening to their conversation and spoken up, finally giving some sort of context to the sword and the church.

"That's pretty much all Cloud has told me. The sword's owner, his name was Zack."

"So you weren't there for it, then?" Xion asked.

Tifa shook her head. "Before the Heartless arrived, Cloud went missing—for months. We couldn't find him anywhere. Next time I saw him was on the night Maleficent attacked, while searching for survivors to take on Cid's ship. That's when I met Aerith. She was caring for him inside the church, and he was crying over that sword." She looked up at the sky. "For years I never knew the full story. I still don't. But Aerith told me one day that the owner of the sword was named Zack."

Xion felt a sharp but brief pain in her heart when the name left Tifa's lips, like someone had jabbed her with a needle. But the pain left as swiftly as it came, and Xion couldn't figure out what had caused it. She certainly didn't know anybody by that name, and sifting through Sora's memories she knew that neither did he. Yet still there was a longing nostalgia in her heart. And Roxas hadn't been born yet when Radiant Garden fell, so of the people connected to her heart that left-

Cloud emerged from the church, breaking Xion out of her thoughts. He ran a hand over his face and grimaced. "Humid out here," he said. Liar.

"Are you ready to keep going, Cloud?" Tifa asked with concern. "We're almost done with patrol, but you can go back to Merlin's if you want. We can finish it on our own.

"No, let's keep going." Cloud shook his head and moved forward, adjusting the large sword on his back to get it more comfortable. Xion and Sora gave each other concerned glances before standing up from their seat on the stone block. If Cloud didn't tell Tifa about any of this for years, then they weren't going to get answers any time soon either.

"So where next?" Xion asked, hoping to alleviate the depressed looks of their two older companions by changing the subject.

Tifa pointed east. "We'll finish up in the slums and then head to Winhill. That's the neighborhood where Leon was born, though he grew up in the main part of town with the rest of us. After that we should be done."

Cloud was already walking before Tifa finished speaking. "There aren't any Heartless here and there probably won't be in Winhill. Let's finish up and go back home." However, despite his stated intent, the next thin Xion knew Cloud was standing in a defensive position with his sword in his hands and his eyes trained on something in the air. "He's here."

"Cloud?" Tifa stood with her fists up and ready to punch someone at a moment's notice. Xion and Sora called on their Keyblades and stood back to back, keeping their eyes on the shadows in case any Heartless appeared. "Who is it? Who's here?" she asked.

Cloud reached up and caught the object he had seen – whatever it was it was black, so it didn't stand out against the ruins - in his grasp, holding so tight that his knuckles must have been turning white beneath his gloves. Then he tossed it aside, not watching as it fell to the ground and settled next to a puddle of geostigma goop.

"Cloud, can you tell us what's going on?" Sora asked while scanning the ruined buildings. "Is it Braig? Heartless? What's going on?"

"I know you can hear me!" Cloud shouted into the empty ruins. "Come out and fight me! Stop hiding!" He swung his sword through the air to emphasize his words. "Sephiroth! Face me, Sephiroth!"

Tifa's eyes grew wide and her face paled. She looked around frantically, much more scared than she was before. Xion looked to the object that Cloud had snatched from the air and then tossed to the ground: a black feather. What was its significance?

"Sephi-who?" Sora asked.

A bird's cry echoed around them. Xion glanced up to see a raven leap off a broken stone tower, evidently scared off by Cloud's shouting. Black feathers fell from its wings as it flew away in the direction of the castle, causing them to float down on the area. Tifa saw the raven, too. Immediately she jumped into action, wrapping her arms around Cloud's to stop his swinging.

"Cloud, it's just a raven! It's just a bird! It isn't Sephiroth, he's not here!"

Cloud's swings slowed and his movements became sluggish, but he didn't stop. Xion dismissed her Keyblade and picked up the crumpled feather, and then jumped up and grabbed another one from the air. While Tifa fought to keep Cloud from chopping their heads off, Xion ran in front of him and held the two feathers up.

"Cloud, look! It's the same as the one that fell off the bird, see? This 'Sephiroth' guy isn't here!" Cloud's bright blue eyes looked wild in the dreary darkness, but his movements finally came to a halt. Tifa hesitantly released her hold on his bicep and Cloud stabbed his sword into the ground and slumped down onto his knees, resting his forehead against the hilt.

"Just a raven…" He whispered so softly that Xion could barely hear it above the cold breeze. "Sephiroth isn't here… It was just a raven…"

Tifa placed a hand on his shoulder. "Cloud, let's cut the patrol early and go back to Merlin's house."

"Yeah. Okay."

Tifa helped Cloud to his feet and he returned his sword to its resting place on his back. Without another word he turned back the way they had come, moving away from the church and back down the several hour walk to the main part of town. Tifa wrapped an arm around him in a comforting half-hug as they continued down the path.

Xion lingered behind for a moment, though. She stared at the two feathers in her hands, one crushed and one pristine, before loosening her fingers and letting them flow away in the wind. They were pitch black, like the color of a Shadow. Xion was no expert on birds, but weren't ravens typically a blue-black color? Admittedly she had only seen a handful, and most of those she had seen were just inside the other Twilight Town.

"What was that about?" Xion looked up to see Sora standing next to her.

"I don't know." Xion shook her head honestly. That was so out of character for Cloud that she didn't have any rational explanation for it. "But both Cloud and Tifa look really freaked out about it. Let's not bring it up, I don't think they'd appreciate that."

Sora frowned and crossed his arms, but then he shrugged. "Sounds good to me. They'll tell us when they're up for it." He pointed with his thumb over his shoulder. "Come on, let's go catch up to them."

And then suddenly, far in the distance, there came an unbelievably loud explosion. Xion and Sora exchanged horrified glances while Cloud and Tifa further down the road came to a halt.

"What was that?" Sora asked. Xion broke into a run, moving to the nearest, tallest pile of debris she could find. Climbing up it was no easy feet with the loose pieces, but eventually she pulled her way up and found safety on a relatively stable half of a car. Sora was right behind her, having an easier time of things with his gloves providing extra grip. "Xion, do you see anything?"

"I-I do." Neoshadows, Lance Soldiers, and Guardians crawled across rooftops while Bolt Towers and Angel Stars flew through the air with Tailbunkers higher above. Behemoths marched through the streets, crushing entire buildings with every heavy step. Darksides rose up high and towered above everything else, sweeping their clawed hands low as they struck at the city. And throughout it all Nobodies flowed from the castle in an endless swarm, weaving their way here and there among the hundreds of Heartless in the beginnings of a battle.

Hollow Bastion was under attack, and this time the Heartless weren't content to stay in the ravines and canyons.

x-x-x

Chaos was breaking out all across Hollow Bastion as Heartless rose from every shadow and crack, followed tirelessly by the disgusting white husks sent to defend the castle from the Heartless—the castle that was rightfully hers. Maleficent stood atop the new wall surrounding town with a pleased smile on her face. Next to her, Pete winced as the wall rumbled and small chunks of stone fell, but their perch was still stable.

"I-Is this what you were waiting for?" Pete asked.

"Indeed it was." Maleficent's grin widened and her bony fingers tightened around her staff. "I called the Heartless back from all across this world in preparation. And with my magic interfering with their petty security system and the Keyblade wielders off searching for their missing friend, nothing shall stand in our way!"

"Is that so?" Pete asked, backing up from a pair of Assassins that got too close while chasing after an Aerial Master. "And uh, any particular reason why we're standin' up here?"

"Why Pete, I thought you enjoyed a good show?" Maleficent waved her hand out over the city. "Can you not hear the symphony? The people of this world have become too complacent. They must come to learn who their true master is."

Out in the city, a Darkside's powerful fist crushed a mob of citizens who were trying to flee the chaos. However, as it stood up from the flurry of Shadows its attack had unleashed, a large Nobody – a Twilight Thorn, Maleficent thought they were called; how quaint – appeared out of thin air and crashed its body into the Darkside. The Darkside responded by slamming a fist into the Twilight Thorn's sorry excuse for a face, to which the Twilight Thorn countered by sending out black and white bolts of energy to the Darkside. The two titanic creatures continued their battle in the city as hundreds of smaller clashes between Heartless and Nobodies raged around them.

Pete stopped hiding from the shaking long enough to look at Maleficent. "So once we're done showin' the town what we're made of, we're gonna go attack the castle, right?"

"All in due time, Pete," she replied with that grin still on her face. "All in due time."

x-x-x

While all hell broke loose in the city below, Hollow Bastion's castle was as still and silent as ever—and as unprepared for an intruder as ever. True, Braig had set up Dusks and Snipers as guards among its many lifts, balconies, and corridors, but he had only ordered them into areas deemed important. And not everyone had similar ideas on importance.

In the silent and forgotten library of the castle, one of the tall windows shattered without warning. As golden shards of stained glass rained onto the floor, a figure stood up with smoke enveloping his body that faded away over the course of a few seconds. His skin was deathly pale and marked with scars, especially around the eyes and throat. He ran a hand through his slick black hair and adjusted the loose black shirt that exposed his chest—which was also scarred. Blinking his dark eyes and glancing at the dim lighting, his pale lips twisted into a frown.

"Dreadfully bright in here," he said with a dry hoarseness, as if his voice hadn't seen use in years. "Now…where do I begin?"

The man stepped over the remnants of the window he had destroyed and moved to the bookcase. There were hundreds, maybe thousands of books gathered in Hollow Bastion's legendary library, but throughout all the years he had spent here he had never actually set foot inside of it. He had no idea how it was organized. Still, everywhere has a place to begin. He made his way to the nearest shelf and pulled out a book a random. It was a dusty old tome titled The Grimorum Arcanorum; not what he was looking for, then. Placing the book back in its place, he fingered through its neighbors. The Shepherd's Journal, Spells of Astoroth,one simply labeled 3… These were all books of ancient magic, hardly what he was looking for.

"So where are the scientific journals?" The man moved up the wooden staircase with creaking steps. He traveled to a new bookcase, one filled to the brim with journals rather than ancient tomes. Now this looked far more promising.

First on the agenda was a journal written by a man named Even. That was the name of the head scientist before Maleficent took over, wasn't it? Certainly he'd be the most logical choice to look at first. Flipping the book open to a random page, the man began reading.

"Subject VII – Strife, age eleven, male – underwent the procedure to divide his heart into separate entities of darkness and light. Despite my predictions, the experiment did result in a new entity being born from Subject VII's darkness. However, the boy's heart collapsed after the darkness was forcibly torn from it and he's in a vegetative state—utterly useless. I will have Dilan toss him out into the slums so he does not take up valuable cell space, though the being born from the dark side of his heart will stay for further experiments."

The apprentices' experiments with the heart, hm? Though interesting, that was not what he came here to look for. Returning Even's useless journal to its spot in the shelf, the man looked over the other options on the shelf in front of him. Even was too recent, so something further back would work better.

"Here we are. Professor Hojo? It certainly looks old enough."

"If my hypothesis is correct, the disease – from here on referred to as geostigma – is born from the district's water supply. The aqueducts run near to the castle, where earlier hypotheses from men far more learned on the subject than I believe the heart of our world rests. I think prolonged exposure to that energy to be harmful to the human body, for you see…"

He slammed the book shut. Ugh, completely irrelevant; and not at all interesting, either. The man returned the journal to its proper place and looked to the next one. It belonged to a man named Cid Lufaine – what a coincidence, Cid was also the name of that brutish engineer – and the pages were yellow and rough. It appeared to be at the very least a century old, and that was very promising indeed.

"…and so it is I discovered that the human body is comprised of three components: the heart, which contains our memories and emotions, the soul, which give us life, and the body, which house the heart and soul. And so it seems that because of my research, the Bastion of our beloved Radiant Garden has tasked me with creating a superweapon to turn the tides in the war against Onrac. I do not know how I can be of help, but I will help the nation in any way I can."

This certainly looked promising. With a smile growing on his lips, the man flipped to a later entry.

"Through manipulation of the body and soul, it should be theoretically possible to create an artificial human. The heart should not be required in theory, but what is a person without a heart? I will include one for the sake of research, to see how a human being would react emotionally to coming into life already matured. Although I am not quite sure how this ties into the superweapon the Bastion has asked me to create."

Closer and closer still. A superweapon was exactly the kind of upper hand the black-haired man was looking for. Pulling up a chair and sitting at the old oak table nearby, he turned to another entry.

"Project Manikin continues unhindered. The subject is physically a perfect example of a fit adult male. Mentally he is an infant, but he shows great curiosity about learning everything he can, though on occasion during our lessons I catch him gazing longingly out the window. I will have to ask the Bastion if we can spend time in the gardens during our meetings together."

Another few entries later:

"I have largely been separated from the development of Project Manikin, save for the weekly checkups. During the most recent he told me of the rigorous battle training he is put through nearly every hour of the day, with little time for rest. Absolutely appalling! I know he is meant to be a weapon in the war, but no man can go on that long. He simply must be allowed outside. I need to talk to the heads of Project Manikin about this."

He flipped absent-mindedly through the next few pages, as they were largely the same. Cid Lufaine met with the subject of this 'Project Manikin' every week for a physical checkup, though eventually that became every two weeks, and then every month. He was never allowed to even get near the military higher-ups, let alone ask them about letting the subject out for air. And at every checkup, the subject grew more and more depressed. Until at last, in the final journal entry, it happened:

"I… I don't know what has happened; or rather, I do but do not know how to express it. My hands shake as I write on these pages. Just this morning I received a call from the Bastion that the subject of Project Manikin had committed suicide by stabbing himself through the heart. The man on the other end didn't seem terribly concerned and immediately tasked me with getting to work on creating a new artificial human, but how could I do that? A dear friend of mine was dead.

"Despite protests from the guards, I made my way to the castle morgue where he lay still with a cloth over his corpse. There, while I was mourning the loss of a dear companion, he stirred. At first I thought I was seeing things, but no; he was definitely moving, and eventually he even sat up, the cloth falling down and revealing a brutal scar across his chest. But despite only stabbing himself that morning, the wound had healed completely save for the scarring. At first he didn't know where he was, but upon realization he glanced down at his hands and asked me in a shaking voice:

"'Will I never be free of this torment, Cid?'

"I did not have an answer. I still don't. News of his miraculous recovery spread quickly throughout the Bastion and soldiers came down to take him. Despite my protests my dear friend was taken from me yet again. A man I recognized as a General in the Garden's army approached me soon after and said that my role in Project Manikin was done. I am no longer necessary.

"I fear I will never see my friend again. I can only pray that whatever experiments they perform on him, he will survive to one day see the beautiful blue skies of our Radiant Garden."

"And they all lived happily ever after."

The black-haired man slammed the old book shut with a satisfied smirk on his face. He had found exactly what he was looking for. Standing up and walking down the creaking wooden stairs, he slid the book inside his open shirt. Without a word he climbed up onto the sill of the shattered window he had come through, and as smoke began to rise from his pale skin he leaped out into the open air.

A pitch black feather fell to the earth.