Once Xehanort-Sora left the area, the others followed, but they didn't forget to leave something behind. The tower was destroyed, and would clearly take months to fix.
Despite this however, Riku, Kairi, Sora's lingering will, Tony, and Bruce, who was in a new pair of clothes after the Hulk incident, were all in Yen Sid's study, with the wizard himself sitting at his desk. Not too long ago, Roxas, Xion, Namine, Lea, Mickey, Aqua, Terra, and Ventus had returned, and ever since than it has been silent in the room.
"So does this mean we lost?" Namine asked, breaking the silence.
Terra sighed. "Xehanort is going to waste no time opening the Door to Darkness, and once he does that… Well, then we lose."
Terra then looked over to Aqua, who hasn't even looked at Sora since she got here. He figured that it was hard for her since not too long ago, he was in that position, so she must have hated seeing Sora like that too.
At the same time, Kairi looked over to Sora's lingering will, who hasn't said a single word since they arrived here. She knew that most lingering wills (the good ones at least, like how Terra's was) didn't speak much, but Sora was such a talkative person she was shocked he didn't speak.
"I know it is hard to look at the bright side of this, but we need to at least try to stop Xehanort from what he is doing!" The red head announced.
"Kairi is right," Xion added, "We can't let Xehanort free Chaos like this, he'll live up to his name upon the worlds if he does."
"Do you really think we can take down a god though?" Roxas asked.
"We won't know until we try," Ven said, "Who knows, we might be able to defeat Xehanort before he can even attempt to open the door."
"I agree," Yen Sid said from his desk, "We need to stop Xehanort, and the only way to do that is to act as soon as we possibly can."
Tony snickered. "I hate to break it to yah, but you're going to need a bigger army than just this." He then looked over to Bruce. "I mean sure we have a green giant, but even this isn't enough to fight Xehanort off."
"I am aware of that," Yen Sid continued, "I hate to put more lives in danger, but we are going to need assistance from all the worlds we can. If we lose this battle, every world will be under the imprisonment of Chaos and Xehanort, and we cannot let that happen."
"So we're going to war again officially?" Namine asked as the wizard responded with a nod.
"Gosh, a lot is at stake here, maybe even more than the Keyblade War." Mickey spoke.
"I fear that the worlds will suffer much more if they become imprisoned by Chaos, the Keyblade War was only Xehanort, and I know that the god of discord is viler then him."
"We can't get worked up with this," Lea spat in his carefree manner, "As long Sora leads us into the battle, keyblades a blazing, we have a chance!"
However, when Lea said this, Sora's lingering will began to shake his head rapidly, which took everyone back. "I am afraid that Sora is not going to be able to lead us into the battle this time." Yen Sid answered for him.
"He has to, how else are we going to win this battle?" Terra asked.
"I believe I am speaking for him when I say he is not capable of doing the things he normally could since he is a lingering will." Yen Sid spoke. Upon hearing this, the will nodded before he also tilted his head to the side, which Yen Sid seemed to understand. "And it appears that he does not want to lead."
"What? Why?" Riku was the one that asked this time.
Sora's will then gave Yen Sid one last nod, and the wizard smiled. "He wants someone else to lead."
Everyone was confused and shocked at the same time when Yen Sid said this. Before anyone could wonder who Sora wanted to lead, the will walked over in front of Riku and pointed his finger right at the silver haired teen.
Kairi gaped at the scene. "He wants you to lead us."
"What?" Riku was awestruck, how could Sora want him to leave, when he was partial the reason he was like this? "I can't, how could I?"
Sora's will only stared at Riku before he took his finger and pointed it to his chest, right were his heart would be. Was Sora trying to tell him that he had a heart strong enough to lead them?
"Now I am not allowed to tell you what this reveal is, but you need to know that when this event happens, I need you to stay strong and lead yourself and your friends out of the situation."
The words seemed to flash back to Riku quickly. That is what Cosmos said, to lead everyone out of the event that would change their lives forever. Was now the time? Was Cosmos telling him that now was the time to lead his friends?
Riku looked at Sora's will, which nodded. Riku then looked down at the ground for a moment before he looked back up. "I'll do it," he finally said, "I lead us."
The will nodded again, Riku figuring that it was trying to say about time, which the silver hair teen smiled at. "Are you certain you are ready to do this Riku?" Yen Sid asked.
"I know I can," the teen responded, "I promise, I'll lead us and we will stop at nothing to stop Xehanort for good."
"Well then what is our first act of business, leader?" Kairi asked with a smile.
"We need to go to other worlds for help," he responded, "We should split up, head to different worlds and tell them to meet us at the Radiant Garden before we depart for battle."
Riku and the others then went over the plans for the battle, with everyone except for Riku, Kairi and Sora's will (who were going to go to the Radiant Garden to prepare everything) to head out to other worlds to ask for help.
However, it seemed only Terra was the one who noticed Aqua walked out of the room as soon as they were finished going over the plan.
Sighing, Terra followed his girlfriend, who had traveled down the stairs and went outside. When Terra arrived there, he looked to see Aqua standing in the ruins of the castle. "Hey, is everything alright?" He asked her.
She didn't turn around to reply. "I'm fine; I just needed to clear my head."
"Why would you need to clear your head?" He asked her again.
This time Terra walked right behind her and she turned to face him. "I just am overwhelmed with this whole going back to war thing is all, I'll be fine." She replied.
Terra looked her in the eyes. "Aqua, you and I both know you are a horrible liar," he stated, "There is something else bugging you, what is it?"
Aqua tried to look away again but Terra grabbed her by the shoulders in a comforting way so she couldn't look away. "I just can't handle seeing him this way…"
"Who?" Terra saw her sea blue eyes were beginning to get glossy.
"Sora, who else?" She spat, "I just… I don't want to look at him."
"But I don't understand why," Terra loosened her grip on her shoulders, which Aqua reacted to right away by turning around.
"Because, Terra, every time I look at him, I only see you," she finally admitted, "When I saw you as a lingering will, I did not know what to think, all I knew was that it broke my heart to even glance at you. And once your will was destroyed, when the armor literally fell apart right in front of me, I was afraid that you were gone forever…"
Terra placed a hand on her shoulder, but she didn't respond and only kept talking. "That pain I felt, the pain that came to me when I saw that, it hurt more than anything. Kairi and Riku are probably more hurt than anyone right now about that, but the thing is, I am too since I just see us three inside them: me, you, and Ven. It's almost like, whenever one of them feels pain, I feel it too, because of that."
"Aqua," Terra tried to calm her down but she did not stop talking.
"And now that Sora was turned into a lingering will because of that monster, I can't handle it. I am just so afraid that they won't be as lucky as we were to get you back, that they might lose Sora in this fight. Everyone is going to be devastated if that happens, but I feel that I am going to be the most because I see us inside of them. And not only that but Sora is out friend to so I think that the pain will triple and—"
"Aqua!" Terra then forced her to look at him. "I know you're scared, we all are, but you can't think negatively like that."
"But—"
"You don't need to worry," Terra cut her off, "As long as I am still standing, I promise you I will not let anything bad happen to us or to our friends in this battle, alright?"
Terra didn't even notice he was holding Aqua's face in his hands until she nodded at him. He also didn't notice that he pulled her into a passionate kiss until she wrapped her hands behind his back and kissed him back. When was the last time they kissed? Weeks? Months? Years? At that moment it didn't matter, they were just glad to be in each other's arms.
When they finally stopped kissing, they looked at each other in the eyes before Terra finally spoke up. "Now what do you say we go get our army ready?"
"Yeah, let's settle this," Aqua replied before the two summoned their riders and rode off into the stars, preparing for the battle ahead.
OVER 400 REVIEWS! THANK YOU GUYS SO MUCH!
I promised you guys I would give you a Terra/Aqua moment, so there you go! Hope it lived up to your expectations!
Anyone ever hear of the song Ready Aim Fire by Imagine Dragons? (its on the Iron Man 3 soundtrack so big surprise as to how I found it) well it is great and describes this story like perfectly, you should check it out!
So it is the last day of E3 today :( lets hope Square gives us some awesome info about Kingdom Hearts III before the event closes!
Oh, and by the way there is a new poll up on my profile from a few days ago :p it is just a curious one, but I would still love if you guys could vote on it!
So in the next chapter we are going to be seeing a lot of familiar faces, and at least one new one! So please R&R and look out for the next chapter!
