In an ideal world, this would have been like two or three K longer.

Life is kind of mean like that, though.

Edit: Fell Heart will currently be going on Hiatus. For how long I'm not sure, but I definitely want to start wrapping the story up by December. This will be the third or fourth time I've missed one of my deadlines and I think taking a step back will help me get over this slump.

Thank you all for reading Fell Heart, and I hope that when I return, it's with a vigor this story deserves.

Having come from the awe inspiring sight of the some three hundred keyblades previously, the juxtaposition of the crossroads formed by the inert blades was sobering. No one said a word as they trudged along, shoes scrunching along the dirt and stones, a verbal silence that wasn't broken until they stopped at the center of the crossroads.

"And here I was thinking that cavern was bad," Lea muttered. "Yeesh."

Aqua let out a solemn sigh as she looked around. Compared to her memories, these keyblades looked no different than before. A variety of blades and handles, colors muted by a thick layer of dust that seemed inherent to every single blade they had come across in this desolate world. "This is just the meeting place," she voiced, staring straight ahead. "Whether by choice or by happenstance, when Ven, Terra, and I fought against Master Xehanort over a decade ago, it wasn't here. We moved elsewhere. These keyblades just bear witness to our gathering."

"How very right you are, Master Aqua."

She frowned as a familiar figure came into view, six cloaked figures on either side of him following behind until they stepped past him, stopping so that he himself was at the very back of their formation.

"Indeed, these ancient wielders are not here to participate, only to bear witness to us as we leave our mark on fate, much like they did over a decade ago." Xehanort looked at each of them, his gaze lingering no more than a fraction of a second. "It has taken more than a few failed attempts, and much patience, but together, we shall unlock the Keyblade War's secrets."

Both she and Grima tensed as Xehanort summoned his keyblade, the master raising his weapon into the air. "Now, we shall forge anew: the ultimate key!" With an agileness she had forgotten he had, Xehanort plunged his glowing weapon towards the ground, lines of darkness shooting out and breaking off randomly at right angles.

Without any warning, stone walls that felt reminiscent of cathedral-esque architecture rose out of the ground, surrounding them and showering their surroundings in a cascade of keyblades, all clattering metallically off the ground or each other. From high above, standing upon a rock spire that towered even the wall that the twelve cloaked figures stood upon, Xehanort stared down at them, smirking to himself before turning away.

Sora did much the same, turning to face them with a surprisingly serious look on his face. "Let's go, guys."

Aqua steeled herself before setting off at a light run, Ven and Grima flanking her. Though there were still some vestiges of tiredness in her limbs, the elixir she had downed prior to approaching the crossroads had done much for reinvigorating herself, an act that she and Grima made sure the others mimicked.

Once again the same crumbling sound of moving stone rumbled out. Aqua spared a glance behind her, catching Lea doing the same. "I don't mean to worry anyone," he began, "but I think we just got cut off from the others."

Kairi was the first to stop, turning around with a worried look on her face.

"Hey, hey! They'll be okay!" Lea raised his hands placatingly, giving Kairi a reassuring grin. "Sora's the baddest of the bad among all of us, Riku's right there beside him, and King Mickey's the oldest keyblade wielder on our side!" When Aqua gave him an unimpressed look, his face fell slightly as he responded with a 'what can you do' expression. "Right now, we just need to worry about us. We'll catch up with the others later, promise."

After a moment's hesitation, Kairi nodded to herself. "You're right. The others—"

"Look out!"

Ven's warning had her throw up a Barrier, a flurry of ancient keyblades wreathed in Darkness clinking against her defense dissonantly, driving her back as the torrent endlessly continued.

"Axel!"

"I'm okay!" Lea shouted back to Kairi; pained, but not enough to warrant concern. "I— woah!" The clash of keyblade against keyblade rang out. Aqua stared in disbelief as a familiar silver blade with a yellow handguard locked against Lea's curling flame.

"Eyes up front!"

Aqua let out a yelp as a quartet of knives raked across her face, her spell hand reflexively casting a low level Cure as she brought her head back up.

"Miss me?" The blonde haired woman known as Larxene gave her a sardonic grin flicking her wrist to fling the blood off her blades. "Don't worry. We'll have a nice and long chat to catch up with each other."

"Aqua!"

She charged forward as Ven called her name, swinging low while Wayward Wind swung high. Neither of their weapons hit anything, though the following roar of heat suggested that one of Grima's arrows successfully landed. She let out another hiss as Larxene's knives raked along her upper arm, the woman laughing as she repositioned in rebounding lines of electricity.

"What's the matter?" she taunted. "Can't keep up?"

"Give the poor master a break, Larxene."

Both her and Ven tensed up at the voice, a familiar helmeted figure dropping down from above and landing firmly against the ground. "She's finally trying out the Light again. Poor thing just can't manage without Darkness."

She said nothing at the jab, electing to let them believe what they wished. While it was true she wasn't able to properly keep up with Larxene's speed, she was able to track her. With just one alteration, victory was a guarantee.

"I don't fancy fighting in a hallway though," Vanitas continued. "Too cramped for so many people. Larxene!"

"Yeah, yeah." The Nobody stepped forward as Vanitas stepped back through a Dark Corridor, bouncing a loosely clenched set of knives in her right hand. "You know, your friend's up ahead, Master Aqua." The title dripped off her tongue like venom. Larxene gave another grin, focusing her gaze on Ven. "But see, there's just one too many in your little group. The others are all fighting in pairs or on their own, but you three? Somebody needs to stay behind and play with little old me," she cooed, acting as if there wasn't a quartet of knives each in her hands. "I get awfully lonely and jealous, you see, I just couldn't bear missing out on all the fun."

Grima— Robin? Definitely Robin— stepped forward. "You two go on ahead," he said, sending his bow to his weapon space. "I don't mind babysitting a little."

"Aww, you hear that, Master Aqua? Your precious little boy toy is going to spend some time all alone with me!" Larxene grinned salaciously. "Aren't I just lucky?"

"Don't take too long," she whispered to Robin.

"You two focus on yourselves," he whispered back. "If that's Xehanort in Terra's body up ahead, you're going to need all the focus you have."

She nodded. Regardless of how the battle between Terra's body and Terra's armor had gone, the fact that it was his possessed body that said who the winner of their match was telling. "Ven, let's go."

He nodded in response. "Robin, be careful."

"Don't worry, Ven. Any risk I'll take will be perfectly calculated. Now you two go on. If we're quick enough, we can go help Lea and Kairi wherever they were chased off to."

/ - /

Aqua slowed down as they approached a massive archway. In the middle of the empty lot beyond it, Vanitas rested on his Keyblade, impaled into the ground, while the possessed form of Terra stood beside him, head bowed.

"Terra!"

She threw out a hand, blocking Ven from continuing forward. "Ven, that's not Terra," she chided. "Don't tell me you can't feel his presence," she stressed.

Ven shook his head. "I don't care. I know that Terra's still inside there, somewhere. I'm not going to give up on him. No matter how thick the Darkness surrounding him is, we have to light his way home!"

She pursed her lips. That was the truth, wasn't it? That despite how much pain his body was capable of delivering, underneath it all, somewhere, Terra was still there. Aqua grit her teeth and looked up. "Terra, wake up! We know you're inside there!"

Vanitas scoffed. "Terra this, Terra that, Light, tear a piece of my heart out so I don't have to listen to this crap anymore, why don'tcha?"

"Vanitas, you're coming home, too."

Aqua narrowed her eyes slightly as she glanced at Ven. If he wanted to bring Vanitas with them back to the Land of Departure, she could eventually learn to deal with the whole ordeal, but she highly doubted Vanitas would agree to such a thing.

The sheer dumbfoundment at the remark was something Vanitas seemed to share, the helmeted teen bringing his free hand up to his helmet and tapping it. "Hey, you still sleep-addled? My home is in you. If I go home, I'll just disappear inside you forever. Don't you have any love at all for your brother?" he drawled.

"We're not brothers," Ven countered, "we're the same."

Vanitas' cackle of disbelief set her on edge. With keyblade in hand, it was hard to tell whether or not he would immediately set upon them. "That's what you believe? You really are naïve!" He leveled his keyblade at them, the aspect of Xehanort beside him raising a brow at the action. "You might find this shocking, but we're not the same like you think. I was just hiding deep inside you for a really long time. All Xehanort did was tear me right out of you!"

"Then go back to where you came from!" Ven shouted back, Wayward Wind materializing in his hand.

The moment Terra's body moved to speak, she summoned Master Keeper, keeping it by her side in case she needed to react.

"If you're searching for Darkness, Ventus," Xehanort grinned, "then I have more than enough to help you."

Aqua clenched her spell hand, mentally pushing down the surge of anger that wanted nothing more than to cease discussion and immediately engage in combat. "Disrespectfully, Xehanort, shut up! Leave our friend's body and return him to us!"

"A Keyblade Master bearing her key in anger?" he chuckled. "Shameful."

"There's no shame in utilizing anger," Aqua responded, shifting into a ready stance. "Just as there's no shame in utilizing Darkness. The only shameful thing here is that you abused the trust our friend had in you for your own goals!" The Darkness that bubbled within her reacted poorly with the current form of her keyblade, but with the additional Light that her mantle offered, the burning sensation in her hand was minute enough to be ignored. "Xehanort, this is where you leave Terra's body forever!"

It was not through magic that Aqua rushed towards Xehanort with, but her own two feet, nor was a spell the first attack she made. No, the first strike she made towards the parasite within her friend's body was that of a simple downward slash; a telegraphed maneuver she made no attempts to conceal.

Xehanort stepped back with a smirk, following up with an upward slash that she dodged in turn. The beating that Terra's armor had delivered was by no means negligible. Though he carried himself with confidence, his entire body was splattered with visible layers of dust, and as she continued to trade whiffed blows with Terra's body, she started to notice more and more of the lingering injuries his previous battle left behind.

It was the way his swings to the right were just the slightest bit slower; how if she leapt back so that he had to take a step with his left foot, he would always land heavily just the slightest. Tiny little things that Xehanort never realized he was giving away, so convinced by her opening move that she was so lost in Darkness, the intricacies of higher level combat were lost to her.

Aqua danced around Xehanort's plunging strike and to his right, throwing up a Barrier that lasted fractions of a second to block the ensuing explosion off Darkness before she shot out a shrapnel blast of Firaga. In the space her sudden strike created, she leapt back and fired off a chunk of Blizzaga whose fragments honed back in on their epicenter, following up with a lightning heralding Thunder Raid that sent resonating sparks throughout the mist of ice.

She dared not think it was enough though, and when a dark silver keyblade came swinging out of the cloud of elements, she crouched underneath the strike, lashing out as she rose and landing the first physical blow of their fight against his ribs.

Xehanort's nostrils flared as he straightened out. "You've become stronger since we last met."

"Surprising what ten years can do to someone," she answered, putting a fraction of attention on the sounds of combat behind her. "Meanwhile, you're not a day over our last meeting."

He chuckled. "And yet I'm stronger than ever." Xehanort crossed his arms slightly, Darkness beginning to exude from his body. "Here, why don't I show you!?"

Pitiful. That was the first word that Aqua thought as Xehanort's aura washed over her. It was little more than the presence that a particularly strong Heartless might have. There was no sense of unease that came with the waves of energy; no particular scent that made her face scrunch up. It was nothing more than an essence she was passingly aware of.

Aqua watched Xehanort's keyblade pass by her, her hair and clothes rippling from the sheer force that his strike held. She let the backswing pass by her harmlessly, thrusting forward to test if his defenses had changed any. When Xehanort raised his keyblade to deflect it, she leapt backwards, shooting out a low powered Firaga that exploded upon his striking elbow. From the cloud of smoke and flame, Xehanort's keyblade rushed out, a simple slash of Master Keeper knocking his blade above and a pulse of Arcwind throwing her to the side.

"Aqua!"

She glanced towards Ven, tracking a shadowy mass rush along the ground. As it neared, it suddenly bulged upward, Vanitas shooting out and launching a blue-black hued ball of flame at her. Even through her Barrier, she could feel the heat, a sensation immediately eclipsed by the pain of Xehanort's weapon smashing through her Barrier and impacting against her barely raised keyblade, dispersing the blow enough that rather than being forced to her knees and likely coughing up blood, she was instead wincing as she slid across the ground, the ache of Master Keeper forced against her torso etched into her mind.

"Back to square 1," Vanitas mocked, resting his keyblade against his shoulder. "Between you and me, Master Aqua, I think you came off the worst of all of us."

She said nothing as she cast a weak and subtle Cure on herself, keeping the ache to a particularly persistent memory.

Xehanort smirked. "Indeed, Master Aqua. To have your Barrier broken so easily?" He chuckled. "Dare you try again?"

Dual beams of lightning struck out, impacting against Xehanort and Vanitas, the excess energy dispersing into the ground and sending up plumes of dirt. "You two doing alright?" Where Ven shouted out Robin's name in relief, she simply nodded at him, rushing forward towards Xehanort's dust cloud and trusting in her companion to provide the opening she needed.

A salvo of blue tinged arrows were her accompaniment, the first of which created a diagonal glacier that she used to launch herself into the sky. The next two generated frozen crystals in a similar fashion, reducing how much space Xehanort had to operate and limiting his options. With a quick spurt of Aerora magic at her feet, Aqua flipped herself upside down, leveling Master Keeper at the still stunned body of her friend and unleashing a ball of lightning that exploded, tendrils of electricity arcing between the masses of ice and Xehanort himself. Right as she landed, she fired out a salvo of projectiles, the multi-coloured orbs of magic crashing against Xehanort's body in rapid succession.

Were it any other enemy, Aqua would have continued the assault. Would have rushed forward and through the haze of smoke and dirt and struck at where she thought her foe was. But this was Terra. Even before Xehanort took over his body, she always had to be careful when engaging in physical combat. Miss an opening and she'd be sent skidding back if not outright launched by an attack. It was with that thought in mind that she dashed forward, fully intent on only—

A minute? Ten seconds? She wasn't sure how long her muscles spasmed as electricity crackled across her body. The only thing she cared was how hard she was panting as she rolled to her feet, instincts making her summon Master Keeper back to her hand.

"Sorry about her, Aqua. Thought she'd be down for longer."

"Funny how things work that way, isn't it?!" Larxene shrieked. Much like Xehanort, the tolls of battle were visible, dirt marring her face and tears adorning her full body coat.

"Buy me some time," she whispered, dismissing Master Keeper even as the echoes of her previous injuries made themselves known. As she attuned herself to the memories of Ethel, she glanced towards Ven, frowning upon realizing he was squaring off against Xehanort while Vanitas lounged about away from the battle like a predator circling its prey.

"So round two, then?" Robin called out, striding forward with a whirling ball of visible Wind magic in his hand.

"How about round die!"

Aqua let out sharp breath and dropped to the ground, placing her hands on the floor and sealing herself away into her mental space. Magnetic Velocity was not like Master Keeper or Fell Legacy; it was a fledgling form borne from bonds less than three months. The ties it represented were strong, yes, but not like those of her other two forms. When she next opened her eyes, it was to a dome of layered purple and red surrounding her and Robin, bright flashes of light rapidly slamming against the barriers of magic. Twice from the front, once from the side, another from above, once from behind, before it repeated itself in reverse. Aqua rose from her crouch, preemptively tracking Larxene's movements as she plotted out her opening move.

"Lower on my signal, then go help Ven," she told Robin.

Left, above, behind, above, right, front; front, left, above, behind, right—

"Now!" Aqua danced to the side, magic aiding her movements as she slashed forward. The red lined shaft of Magnetic Velocity slammed into Larxene's upper back, the woman crumpling to the ground as their two trajectories clashed against each other. This was not Terra. This was someone who had tried to kill her. To reduce her to nothing but a memory. There was no need to hold back.

She raised her keyblade, twisting it to the side as Larxene's knifed fist made contact with the shaft and locking her into place. "When we last fought, you made me tremble in pain." The follow up slash from Larxene's free hand she dodged by leaning back, four parallel lines of yellow-gold burning themselves into her vision. "I felt as if I had no control over my muscles and could only writhe on the ground."

She briefly dismissed Magnetic Velocity, crouching over slightly and delivering a left straight into Larxene's gut as the woman lunged forward for another slash. A rising uppercut created the opening she needed to fire out a raw blast of Firaga, Larxene flying back from the point blank detonation.

Aqua willingly embraced the cold anger that crawled forth from her core, narrowing her eyes as a chill began emanating from her blade hand. "From one specialist to another, why don't we compare notes?"

Fell Heart will return early-mid December.