I don't own anything associated with Kingdom Hearts or Silent Hill. They belong to Square Enix/Disney and Konami respectively.

And I lied before: this is the final chapter.

Chapter 32

She was alone in her room, sprawled out on the bed with her sketchbook. So many drawings, so many memories . . . there was so much for her to do. But, with a shake of her head, Naminé ignored those calls, and turned her mind back to her current work. This tale was too important for her to leave unfinished.

Outside, the remains of the dark world died away. Where once buildings had been burnt to the ground, they were now standing again, awaiting the next set of guests. The fog was no longer as thick as it had once been, but the storm was very violent, reflecting its master's fury. Naminé, safe in her room, surrounded by the light, paid it no mind.

She hummed as her crayon scratched against the paper. Slowly, very slowly, it created three figures. She hesitated, studying them closely, and then her face was enveloped in sorrow. Even though they had bested Vanitas, even though they were gone, they were still here in her drawings.

No one ever truly escaped Silent Hill. Not without leaving a part of them behind.

Master Eraqus sat at his desk, scanning the contents of a scroll. At least, that was what he would have told anyone who asked. In reality, the words swam in front of his eyes, not registering. His mind was too occupied with the mystery of his old friend's disappearance, a mystery not even Yen Sid had been able to shed light upon.

"I have seen neither head nor tail of him for months now." Yen Sid had told him. As it turned out, Eraqus' knowledge of Xehanort's last whereabouts was the only clue they had. Thanking Yen Sid for his help, Eraqus had returned to his castle, and now he was waiting for his apprentices to bring him news.

He was optimistic about their findings. They had been gone longer than he had expected, and that must have meant they had a lead of some sort. So, he sat patiently at his desk, awaiting their arrival.

Just then, there was a timid knock on the door.

Eraqus had only just started to speak when the door flew open and Terra barged in. Eraqus blinked, for the first time in his life, too stunned to speak. Terra looked horrible. His hair was matted and stuck to his face from sweat; there were long scars, similar to his own, under his left eye; and his eyes . . . oh, his eyes. They were yellow, dilated with fear and paranoia and Eraqus was so entranced that he didn't notice Terra move until his hands slammed onto the desk.

"Tell me you didn't know what was in that world," Terra rasped.

"Terra, I do not . . ."

"Tell me!"

He froze. It had been a long time since Terra had ever spoken to him like that. "It was a perfectly ordinary world; there was nothing strange about it."

Terra suddenly slumped, his forehead resting against the desk. Eraqus stood and ran over to his side, fearing that Terra had fainted. But a tap on his shoulder yielded soft moans, and then Terra sprung to life, wrapping his arms around Eraqus and burying his head into his chest like a child.

Terra, the oldest and strongest of his apprentices, the one who always strove to hide his weaknesses, was crying.

Terra had told everything he knew; Ven could tell by the Master's carefully phrased questions. Ven did his best to answer his Master, to explain his part in this tale, but as time went on, he didn't understand how Terra could bare his soul like that. There was something private about what he went through, and sharing it with an outsider felt like a violation. There were details he neglected to mention or events he glossed over without realizing, not until Terra pointed it out.

Still, he was doing better than Aqua.

While Ven was reluctant to speak, Aqua simply refused to do so at all. The most she would offer was a murmured confirmation of their stories. In fact, it fell to Ven to even tell the Master that her keyblade had been destroyed. Between him and Terra, they were able to explain most of the things that had happened to her, but there was some crucial things missing – like how she had been possessed by darkness in the first place.

The closer they came to that topic, the more ashen her face appeared. Her hands began to shake, and even Terra's reassuring whispers failed to make it stop. The older boy sat in the middle of them, gripping Aqua's hand to the left of him, while his right shoulder touched Ven. Terra seemed to crave the contact and whenever Ven shifted, Terra did too until they were touching again.

The Master tried to press the issue, tried to force an answer out of Aqua. All he managed to do was trigger a panic attack and as Ven heard her breathes grow shallow and short, his own mouth ran dry. Luckily, before he also went into a panic, Terra acted. He draped an arm around her neck, pulling her to him where she grabbed his shirt and refused to let go. Terra didn't seem to mind, and he spoke to her with a softness Ven hadn't seen before. But that illusion of gentleness was broken when, over her head, Terra levelled a blazing-hot glare at their Master.

The Master seemed poised to say something, but the word died, half said, when Terra's eyes suddenly flared yellow. From the side, Ven noticed this absently. Ever since Terra had invaded the church, his eyes had been switching between blue and yellow. It wasn't that big a deal.

But the Master didn't think that. He shouted, ordering Terra to get away from Aqua, and he made a move that looked like he was reaching for her . . .

Terra roared. The darkness answered.

He knocked on Aqua's door, strangely nervous. At the sound of her voice, he turned the knob and entered, finding her on her bed, wiping a stray tear from her eyes.

"How's the Master?" she asked.

"He's fine," Ven said. "Just needed a few Curagas."

Aqua bit her lip, and he knew what she was thinking: if she still had her keyblade, she would have been the one to heal him.

"And Terra?"

Ven rubbed the back of his neck. "Honestly, I don't think he remembers much of what happened. He just said that he remembers feeling really angry."

She laughed bitterly, sniffling a little at the end. "He needs to work on controlling his darkness."

Ven jumped onto the bed next to her. "And I quote Terra: 'My darkness is what got us out of there alive'."

"I guess he's right, but . . ." She trailed off into silence, staring at her feet.

"Yeah." Ven sighed. "But it's over, right? It's done."

She gave him a watery smile. "Yes . . . yes, it is."

Ven fell into her, and wrapped his arms around her neck. They stayed there, basking in each other's presence. Yet, despite the peace and tranquillity, things still felt wrong.

Ven could still sense the weakness of Aqua's heart.

It seemed strong, whole, but when he pushed against it, it crumbled like a paper bag. He buried his face in her shoulder and wondered how long it would take her to recover from this. Could she recover from this?

The hollowness of her heart nagged at him. It would be so easy for someone to take advantage of it, for the darkness to possess her or for Vanitas to take her away. His fists clenched at the thought. No. Not on my watch.

He reached out with his light and –

He threw himself away from her with a shriek. Aqua jumped back, startled, and before she could ask what had happened, he ran out of her room and down the hall.

What . . . what had that been? He could still feel it in the back of his mind: that primitive instinct that screamed at him to go back, reach out with his light and leave his mark before Vanitas took her away again.

He ran further away from her room, hands clamped over his ears in a vain attempt to drown out the voice that screamed at him to claim her. What was wrong with him? Where had these thoughts come from?

He ran until his lungs burned. Panting, he slumped over with his hands on his knees, fear making it hard to catch his breath. His eyes stared blankly at the floor in front of him, at the shadow that stretched from his feet . . .

Shadows . . .

Darkness . . .

His darker half . . .

Memories flashed in front of his eyes. For a brief time, in that church, he had been Vanitas. Their hearts, however much he wanted to deny it, had been one. This possessiveness . . . surely, it was a remnant from Vanitas' heart. Did that mean that part of Vanitas survived inside him? That he, unwittingly, had invited the monster straight into their home? Ven already knew he had inherited memories from Vanitas.

What else had been passed onto him?

Not my thoughts, not my thoughts . . .

The cool water ran down her face. Slumped forwards, her hands on either side of the sink, Aqua sucked in air greedily, releasing it again in a choked sob. Her fingers trembling, she groped for the mug on the counter next to her, and swiftly raised it to her lips. The coffee burned her throat, but she gulped it down, anyways; she had to stay awake.

She stumbled out of the washroom, and leaned against a wall for support. She was fine. She just had to wait for the caffeine to kick in. Moving slowly, she made her way down the hall towards her room, a little bit stronger with each step.

But all that process was erased as an image made itself known: it was her, under the stars, giving the green Wayfinder to a black-haired boy . . .

"No!" Her shriek ripped the picture to shreds. "That didn't happen!"

She grabbed the sides of her head, sliding down the wall until she was on the floor. Her fingers curled into her scalp, nails digging into the flesh as if they ached to tear out that false memory. He was gone; this was supposed to be over!

But it wasn't. Every time she closed her eyes, she could feel the darkness pressing in around her. She could feel him. Though the medicine Ven gave her was supposed to have chased away the darkness, it hadn't worked as well as the boys believed. The darkness was gone, but Vanitas lingered, and so did the things he had planted inside her mind. Thankfully, the memories Vanitas had stolen from her had returned once Terra had defeated him, but his false ones still remained.

And she had a suspicion why that was.

In desperation, she ran to her room and tore through her books, looking for some way to break the connection she had made with her Wayfinders. But the books only talked about how deep the love was between people who were bound like that. None of the passages even seemed to consider that a connection could be created through a mistake, that it was possible to be bound to a monster. She screamed and threw one of the offending books at the wall, before quickly cleaning up and leaving before someone came to check up on her.

And so continued her life. Three sleepless days passed before Terra got suspicious. Ven wasn't, but only because it seemed that he was trying to avoid her. She suspected the Master also noticed her odd behaviour, but was attributing it to her ordeal. There was consent among the men that she was handling things the worst.

On the fifth day, she saw him. He was standing in the middle of the hall, just staring at her. She freaked out so badly that Ven and Terra dragged her into the latter's room. She was forced to sit on the bed, with Terra afterwards pacing the small room and Ven sitting in a chair in the corner, staring at the floor.

"He's here," she slurred, "in the hallway, I saw him!"

"You're hallucinating, Aqua," Ven said from his corner. "Lately, it doesn't seem to be that unusual."

She frowned at him. "What?"

Ven said, "Remember when you were asking Terra where the coffee was this morning?" She nodded, and he continued. "He wasn't actually there."

"And for the record, I hid it," Terra said. "These hallucinations . . . they're caused by sleep deprivation, aren't they?"

"I-I don't know what you're talking about."

But that moment of stuttering was all Terra needed. "When's the last time you slept?" Terra growled, practically spitting into her face.

"Easy, Terra," Ven said, causing the older boy to back off.

Aqua shivered, hugging herself. Any answer she gave Terra would upset him.

But it appeared that Terra, that neither of the boys needed an answer. "You're not leaving this room until I personally see you fall asleep," he said, with Ven nodding in affirmation.

She tried to reason with them, but they wouldn't back off; Terra looked ready to pounce even if she just tried to get up. She fought hard, but within a few minutes, sleep beckoned her. The next minute or so was filled with her pleading with her friends, her desperation so great that it brought tears to her eyes.

But despite her efforts, sleep took her.

And she was back on the streets of Silent Hill.

It was exactly as she remembered: beaten-down, cold, foggy. With a whimper, she travelled the streets, hoping to find a way out, or failing that, find out why she was here again.

And she saw him, bent over, straightening up again to drop something in his left palm. His head turned suddenly, his eyes fixing on her. She froze, her legs refusing to move no matter how much she wanted them to.

Her gaze drifted down his body and to his open hand, and her eyes widened as the true reason for his haunting came to light . . .

"It'll take a while," Vanitas said, dropping another piece of her shattered Wayfinder into his hand, "but I'll put it back together."

"Aqua?"

With his index finger, Vanitas traced the curve of one of the larger shards. She shuddered, her heart jolting violently; if felt like he was holding a chunk of it in his hand and squeezing.

"Terra, the drapes!"

"They can't keep you from me forever," he said darkly. "I won't let them."

"Terra, do something!"

"Aqua, wake up!"

It was Terra's hands on her shoulder that finally roused her. She screamed, not knowing who it was, and her nails drew blood as she clawed at his arms. For his part, Terra bore the pain with only a grimace, concentrating instead on shaking some sense into her.

"Shh, it's okay," Terra said, pulling her into a tight hug. "You're safe."

Aqua said nothing.

"Well," Ven said, as he kicked at a shred of what used to be the curtains, "at least we know you still have your magic."

She blinked, and looked around. Terra's room had been completely trashed - by magic, apparently. What wasn't burned had been frozen, or crushed, or electrified. She should feel guilty, she knew, but she only felt relieved instead because maybe, just maybe, it meant that Rainfell would return to her.

"Aqua," Terra whispered, "what happened?"

The relief was gone to be replaced by horror. She thought she could feel the darkness' taint deep inside her. What did that mean for her, for them?

All of them jumped when Master Eraqus burst into the room. Breathing heavily, he took in the scene, the destruction. "What happened here?"

All eyes fixed on her, and Aqua couldn't hold it in anymore. She broke down and cried as Vanitas' words echoed in her head:

"You were always my favourite."

In the secret room below the church, Vanitas stared into the void. The Station was supposed to be here, he knew, but Terra had destroyed it.

Terra had ruined everything.

It was a strange affection Vanitas felt for him, built both on hate and love. Love, from those earlier days when Vanitas had seen through Ven's eyes, from a time before anyone in that trio had stepped foot on his world. And hate, suffocating hate born from the reality that Terra had crushed his dreams.

He thought of what he had been so close to achieving, what he had lost again, and thought that just maybe, the hatred for Terra was stronger than the love.

He closed his eyes. His hand, held out, palm up, shut. At the action, a huge shard of glass rose from the depths of the void and shot back to its proper place. Vanitas opened his eyes, face blank. He would rebuild, prepare, and next time, he would be ready.

Because this wasn't over yet. It wouldn't be, not until Ventus laid dead by his. And then, when that time came, Vanitas would finally claim what – whom - was rightfully his.

He would make sure of it.

And that is the end of the BBS trio's adventures in Silent Hill and the longest thing I've ever written.

Yes, this will have a sequel. That fic isn't a priority for me right now (it's still in the planning stage), so I can't say exactly when I'll start posting it, but I will someday.

To everyone who's reading this, thanks for sticking around this far! It's been a pleasure to write this story for you :) And to everyone who's reviewed, thanks for all the support!