Sorry for the wait, all. You can blame Persona 5 Royal for the delay. Yeah... Definitely blame the video game and not the asshole who racked up a 160 hour save file without writing a single word... Totally.
I also apologize for this being a little shorter than usual, but for one, I didn't originally plan to do this chapter. I then realized it might be cruel to carry on the volume 2 events without any reassurance of what really happened to the KH characters. Secondly, I couldn't make the chapter longer without artificially padding it, so I decided on a shorter, quality chapter over a longer, drawn out chapter.
All that being said, I do hope you all enjoy!
The Land of Departure had been overrun. Kairi dashed out of the castle in search of the students, destroying Shadows along the way. As she searched the shrouded world, she came across one of her fellow masters. "Riku!" she shouted, destroying a heartless and falling in back-to-back.
"Kairi!" Riku acknowledged her arrival.
"What happened!?" Kairi cried, "I thought we were protected?"
"We are," Riku agreed. "I have no idea how they've gotten through!"
"What do we do?" Kairi asked
"Ventus tried to use his armor and glide off-world, but he was sent back down by Air Soldiers," Riku explained.
They got a break from the heartless, and Kairi looked over the area. "Have you seen any of the students?"
"I haven't..." Riku shook his head.
"I need to find Ruby," Kairi announced. She began to dash away.
Riku took her shoulder, stopping her short. He knew he couldn't convince his friend otherwise, so he offered a, "Be careful," before letting her go.
Kairi nodded. "You as well." She ran, hoping instinct would lead her to her charge.
The Shadows were everywhere. The Air Soldiers stayed in the sky as if standing guard. "It almost looks like someone is controlling them..."
No sooner than Kairi had had this thought, she spotted someone new. Someone incredibly thin with an unconfident posture, their face shrouded by the hood of an all too familiar black coat. And Darkness… so much Darkness… like I haven't felt since… She raised Destiny's Embrace.
The figure spotted her, turning slowly. Darkness flowed off their back and shoulders and the shadows at their feet grew with each step they took.
"Who are you?" Kairi called out.
It responded in an androgynous voice, "Darkness."
"You are Darkness?" Kairi tilted her head. "What does that even mean?"
"Darkness," The figure continued as though they didn't hear her. Their hands slowly raised to grip their head. "And I have to follow my Darkness. There's too much light here, it burns and I don't know how to deal with that… But if the light goes away, it won't burn anymore..."
Kairi's grip on her Keyblade tightened.
"If the light goes away… I won't have to deal with it anymore!" Darkness seeped from the figure's feet, growing behind them as their posture lowered further. Kairi began to doubt they were in control.
A large black arm erupted from the pool behind the cloaked figure. The figure retreated, unhinged laughter following them, leaving Kairi to face the emerging Darkside. The Keyblade Master stood her ground and stared down the giant heartless.
The Darkside's fist slowly raised and came down onto Kairi's positon. The Keyblade master leapt over the attack, landing of the Darkside's arm as it's fist slammed the ground. She ran up the limb toward the Darkside's head, taking a massive swing with Destiny's Embrace as she reached it. The giant heartless staggered, falling to its knees.
After landing on the ground behind the Darkside, Kairi promptly ignored it. One heartless was irrelevant compared to the sea of heartless flooding the Land of Departure, no matter how large. Finding her student was far more important. But where is she? I swear I've been over the entire mountain by now…
Kairi was running back up toward the castle when Ruby spotted her first. "Master Kairi!"
"Ruby!" Kairi dashed to meet her student, but was cut off when the ground between them fissured, with darkness pouring out of the crack. The world is falling apart. It's too late to stop it.
"Master Kairi!" Ruby shouted, grabbing her attention again. "Master, what do we do? What do I do?"
Kairi knew it was too late for the Land of Departure. There was only one thing she could do for Ruby. She looked her student in the eye and spoke as calmly as she could manage, "Ruby. Follow your heart and stay safe."
"KAIRI!"
A wave of darkness erupted from the fissure between them, and Kairi lost sight of Ruby. The master could also feel the ground beneath her shift. The Land of Departure didn't have much time left. Kairi's hand came up to her chest, feeling out her connections. She soon latched on the one she was looking for, and felt the pulse of Ruby's light. I can give Ruby some of my own light. Shroud her heart to protect her, even if it means damning myself…
Kairi forced as much of her light as she could spare Ruby's way, praying it would be enough. As the ground beneath her crumbled further, Kairi looked up at what little of the starry sky she could glimpse through black and purple clouds. She saw a bright orb of light rocket toward the Ocean Between. "Be safe, Ruby… May your heart be your guiding key."
The darkness blinded Kairi as it finally swallowed the Land of Departure.
The first thing Kairi noticed when she woke up was a starless sky. She shook the fog from her head and tried to push herself off the cold ground. A hand on her shoulder startled her, and she spun her head to see the face of one of her oldest friends. "Riku?"
"You're finally awake," Riku helped her to her feet.
"Where are we?" Kairi asked, even as she feared she already knew.
"The Land of Departure has fallen, and we followed it into the Realm of Darkness," Riku confirmed.
"Is it just the two of us?" Kairi asked.
"Not quite," Aqua's voice to Kairi's other side brought her attention to where others were resting. Behind Aqua sat Terra, Ventus, Roxas, Lea and Xion on various outcropping of rock.
"Well, at least we're all together," Kairi joked.
"Are we?" Lea spoke up, "I don't see the students. Where's Chloe?"
Xion spoke up, "I actually ran into her before the world fell. I gave her some of my light to keep her safe."
"I did the same with Ruby," Kairi told her. "I even saw her get displaced."
Riku and Aqua shared a look and nodded at each other. "Looks like we all had the same idea," Aqua announced. "So our students should all be safe in the Realm of Light."
"Are they, though…?" Kairi wondered idly.
Concerned faces turned her way. Lea was the one to ask, "Whaddya mean?"
"I saw someone… They reminded me of the Organization," Kairi explained. "Black cloak, leading the heartless. And so much darkness… almost too much for a person."
"So we were attacked," Riku deduced thoughtfully. "It does explain how the heartless broke through our barriers."
"Well then we gotta get back quick-like!" Lea shot to his feet.
"We have to figure out how first," Ventus pointed out.
"What?" Lea scratched the back of his head. "I thought the three of you could just open up a portal. Like the old Corridors?"
"We can only open portals through the Realm of Light," Aqua shook her head.
"How were you guys jumping back and forth before?" Lea asked.
"Mickey was able to open a doorway to the Dark Realm," Riku explained. "The Keyblade he uses to do it was one he found here."
"And Mickey was one of the few who couldn't come for Makoto's Mark of Mastery," Aqua picked up.
Roxas, Xion and Lea shared an expression of lament. "So we really are stuck here?" Roxas voiced.
"How did the place fall anyway?" Lea questioned. "Heartless invadin' aside, don't they need a world's keyhole to bring it down like this? How was the Land of Departure's never sealed?"
"The Land of Departure doesn't have a traditional keyhole," Aqua explained. "In fact, what makes the world so special is what made it so vulnerable after the heartless did break through our barriers. It's capable of traveling between the two realms. In fact, it's made the round trip before, when I turned it into Castle Oblivion to hide Ven."
"You did what?" Lea shook his head. "Never mind. If you start explainin' we'll probably be here all day. So what's next?"
"When I was trapped here before, I walked through the ruins of fallen worlds," Aqua told them. "If we can find what's left of the Land of Departure, I can restore it."
"And we can ride it back to the Realm of Light," Ventus finished.
"Any tips for surviving the Dark Realm?" Xion asked.
Aqua nodded. "First of all, we should stick together. Time and space is a little more fluid in the Realm of Darkness. We lose sight of each other for a second, and we might not find one another again for weeks."
"Other than that, the heartless here are especially powerful," Riku added, "but as long as we're together, they shouldn't overwhelm us."
Kairi finally found her feet, a look of determination on her face. "All right, there's no time to waste."