Sora opened his eyes slowly, getting a view of a white ceiling. The ground was cold beneath him, and all his aches were gone, despite the fact that he had just finished fighting Xemnas.

What happened? He wondered to himself, sitting up and bracing a hand against his head. He blinked several times, trying to acclimatize his eyes to the bright light of the room. It was a big leap from the Dark World. He had just… been sitting with Riku, on the beach. And Kairi's letter had shown up and then the Door and then…

Nothing. He couldn't remember anything after that.

"Sora?" A voice asked and he opened his eyes and looked to the side.

"Kairi!" He exclaimed, seeing the other fifteen-year-old sit up much like he had done. Wait, there are others here?

With this new revelation, he looked around himself, taking note of the bodies around him, all in different stages of awakening.

Riku was laying on the ground next to him, clearly just starting to awake. Axel was blinking his eyes open from his place against the wall, a blonde-haired teenager and a black-haired teenager leaning on each of his sides. Naminé curled up in a fetal position, arms curled around a sketchbook that was no longer there. A boy who looked identical to the boy next to Axel was laying on the ground between a brown-haired man and a blue-haired woman. Their hands were all clasped together. Mickey was shaking his head as he sat himself up. A black-haired male was asleep on the ground, face hidden by his back.

"Sora?" Kairi asked again, looking around the room much like he had. "Where are we?" He opened his mouth, wanting to reassure her, but found that nothing came out. He… didn't know.

The room was all white, pillars inlaid on the walls. There were no windows or doors and one of the walls was darker than the rest, a black square against the white wall.

"Sora?" Riku murmured, eyes opening, and Sora looked down at him in relief.

"Riku!" He replied, a smile breaking across his face. He was glad Riku was okay. He had just gotten Riku back. He wasn't going to lose him to some magical white room. "Are you okay?" He asked after a second, reaching a hand out and helping Riku sit up.

"Yeah, I'm fine." Riku dismissed his worries quickly and usually Sora would push more, but his own injuries had been healed by this place, so Riku's probably were too.

"Gosh," Mickey said, dragging the three teenagers' attentions to him. The king had stood up, looking around the room.

"Mickey!" Riku breathed out and the mouse turned to them, a smile crossing his face when he laid eyes on the teenager. "Do you know where we are?" Mickey's smile disappeared.

"I'm afraid not," the king admitted. "It reminds me of Castle Oblivion, but those rooms had doors."

"Castle Oblivion?" Came Axel's drawl and the four of them then turned their attention to the other. His green eyes were blinking awake, and Sora noticed with a frown that the markings that had been under his eyes were gone. "I did enough there, why do I have to come back?"

Also, wait…

How was Axel alive?!

"Axel?!" Sora yelped out, finally managing to shove himself to his feet. "How are you here? I watched you die!"

Axel blinked slowly at him, apparently unbothered by what Sora said.

"I know," the older male said easily. "Ain't this the afterlife?"

"It can't be," Kairi said quickly. "I'm not dead and neither is Mickey. We were just on the beach, waiting for Sora and Riku."

"Sora and I were walking through the Door of Light," Riku revealed. "Before that, we were on the beach, in the Dark World."

"Well, I was dying," Axel continued, continuing to be blasé about his own death. "And Roxas and Xion are both dead as well, so…" Riku made a noise of surprise at Xion's name, but Sora was distracted by something else.

"Wait, Roxas?" Sora asked, voice dropping his volume a little as his eyes moved against his will to the boy leaning on Axel's side, who was also starting to wake up. Same with the girl. "I thought Roxas was gone. He was a part of my heart." His Nobody, he thought as he stared at him. It was a little… surreal. Not that meeting him before hadn't been surreal either.

"You aren't dying Axel," Mickey said gently. "You're recompleting." Axel raised an eyebrow at the mouse.

"Pardon?" Roxas and Xion shifted at his sides and his attention was instantly off the mouse and what he had been saying, instead looking back down at the teenagers.

"Where…?" A hoarse voice said slowly, and Sora wasn't the only one to turn. The blue-haired woman was sitting up slowly, a hand coming to her face. She cringed away from them, curling into herself and Sora felt the stab of concern that went through him.

"Hey, are you okay?" He asked her, taking a step forward and reaching out a hand. She flinched at his voice, before looking up at him. Or as much as she could, with her hand still covering her eyes.

"Yes," she murmured quietly. "It's just been so long since I've been outside the Realm of Darkness. The light is… too much."

"You were in the Realm of Darkness?" Riku questioned and the woman nodded. But whatever she was going to say next was cut off when Mickey streaked across the room to catch her in a hug that nearly bowled her over.

"Aqua!" He shouted in joy. "You're here!"

"Mickey?" The woman, Aqua, asked in confusion, finally removing her hand from her eyes. She blinked rapidly, reflexive tears dripping from her eyes as they settled on Mickey. "How is this possible?"

Mickey shook his head. "I don't know," he chirped out while smiling broadly. "But you're here, that's awesome. And you're not alone." Aqua paused at his words, before looking to her side. She suddenly looked gutted.

"Terra?" She whispered out, a hand reaching out and touching the brown-haired man's face. He twitched under the touch, and it was clear he was going to wake up next. "Ven?" Her hand moved to the boy, resting on his shoulder. "How…? Last I had seen, Terra was possessed and Ven near dead, what happened?" But Mickey didn't have any answers for her, and she swallowed, a complicated expression on her face.

"What?" Another voice asked, sounding more… annoyed than the rest of theirs and Sora turned to see Roxas pushing himself to his feet, Axel's hands reaching out and helping him stand steady when he staggered. The other girl had yet to wake. "What's going on?" His gaze snapped to each of them, growing wide when he saw Sora and turning angry when he saw Riku.

"As I tried to tell you," Axel said drily, pushing himself to his feet and holding Xion in a bridal carry as she continued to sleep. "We don't know. You, I and Xion are dead while those four aren't. And I can't speak for the rest of them." Roxas shot him a look, but Axel didn't back down and Roxas sighed, taking a step back so he was closer to Axel and his cargo.

"I think we're all in the dark," a soft voice said, and they all jumped in surprise, none of them realizing that Naminé had awoken. The girl had pushed herself into a sitting position on her knees, rubbing at one of her eyes. Kairi blinked in surprise when she noticed her Nobody. "This place… reminds me of Castle Oblivion, but it can't be, can it?" None of them could answer her and she sighed, getting to her feet. When she stumbled, Kairi crossed the room and helped her stand, allowing Naminé to lean on her. The Nobody smiled.

"Aqua?" A deep voice asked, and Terra sat up, an action that looked like it took a lot of effort and Aqua gasped, before lunging forward, carefully avoiding Ven, and wrapped him up in a hug, pressing her face into his shoulder. Terra let out an oof as she impacted him but wrapped an arm around her back. "How is this possible?"

"I don't know," Aqua said, voice muffled by Terra. "But you're here. You you." Riku made a soft noise and Sora turned to him.

"What is it Riku?" He asked the other boy quietly and Riku shook his head slowly.

"I don't know," he murmured back, shifting on his feet. "I feel like I've seen him before but… I must be mistaken, right?"

"I mean," Sora muttered. "Wouldn't be the craziest thing to happen in the past year."

Terra's eyes widened at the sight of them, and they swept the room he had found himself in, ending at Roxas.

"Ven?" he asked in shock and Roxas blinked at him.

"Who?" The boy questioned and Terra looked taken aback.

"Ven's on the ground next to us," Aqua murmured to him and Terra looked down, eyes lighting up at the boy who was curled up next to him. "I don't know who everyone else is. Except Mickey."

"Well, I'm Sora," Sora introduced himself and Aqua pulled away from Terra to look at him. "This is Riku, Kairi, Axel, Roxas, Naminé, and the unconscious girl is Xion."

"Sora?" Aqua asked, a mystified look in her eyes and Sora suddenly felt like he was on the spot. He rubbed the back of his head with one of his hands.

"Yes?" He said and Aqua relaxed slightly.

"Nothing," she replied. "It's just… you've grown a lot. I should have known that time passed differently in the Realm of Darkness."

"Wait, you know me?" Sora asked in bewilderment and Aqua nodded.

"I met you once," she revealed with a small smile. "When you were very small. You and Riku. I made you promise to look after Riku." Sora blinked, a fuzzy memory of a woman smiling down at him and Riku, a gentle look in her eyes as she had Sora promise to stay by Riku's side and protect him.

"Wait, that was real?" He exclaimed. "I didn't hallucinate that?" Aqua giggled and shook her head. Protect Riku, he hummed in his head. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to keep my promise. He felt his smile dim slightly at his thought and Riku shifted from next to him, not looking at Sora.

Luckily though, before the tension could get awkward, a groan interrupted them, and Xion moved in Axel's arms, blinking her eyes open.

"Xion!" Roxas exclaimed, hurrying forward to almost hang off of Axel's arm to gaze down at the girl. "You're okay!"

"Ro…xas…?" She wondered quietly and Roxas nodded quickly, having to back off for a second to allow Axel to place Xion shakily on her feet.

"Hey kid," Axel told her, a smile flickering across his face, more genuine than Sora had ever seen.

"What's… going on?" She asked, leaning on Roxas's offered arm when her legs wouldn't hold her up completely.

"None of us know," Naminé replied and Xion started in surprise, turning her head to gaze at the blonde-haired Nobody.

"Naminé?" She questioned and the girl nodded in response to the unasked question.

Scraping on the floor announced the awakening of their final member and both Terra and Aqua gasped quietly as Ven opened his eyes slowly.

"Terra? Aqua?" He asked quietly. "You found me?"

Aqua laughed quietly, quick and brittle, and reached down to pull Ven up for a hug, Terra wrapping around Ven's other side. "Not exactly," she admitted, with a tear-stained smile. "But, close enough." Ven blinked in confusion, slowly extracting himself from their hold to look around. His gaze fell on Roxas.

"What?" He asked blankly and Roxas raised an eyebrow.

"I have no clue either," he snarked, folding his arms across his chest and several glances looked back and forth between the two.

"They're exact copies," Kairi wondered quietly and both Roxas and Ven looked offended at that.

"Hey!" They both exclaimed, only to pause and give each other another look. Sora was tempted to laugh but guessed that it wouldn't be taken to lightly.

"Okay, things are officially weird," Axel muttered. "Xion, Roxas, and I are alive, Ven's somehow still the same age, and Riku isn't Ansemed."

"Wait, Axel," Roxas turned to the older man. "You know Ven?" Ven blinked, turning his gaze to Axel, scrutinizing him closely.

"In a way," Axel shrugged. "I met him once, when I was younger. About ten years ago, actually. And yet, he somehow looks the exact same age."

"Ten years?" Terra wondered and Aqua pressed a hand to her mouth. "We've been… gone for ten years?"

"Yeah," Mickey said sadly, and three gazes turned to him. "No one's seen you guys since that day. I tried to look for Ven, promise, but Aqua, you hid him really well."

"'That day'?" Riku questioned and all four of them made faces before the sound of a groan cut them off. All of them turned.

Scratch what Sora had said about Ven being the last member.

Their actual final member, a boy with black hair, was pushing himself to a sitting position slowly. He shook his head, as if trying to dispel a headache before looking up at them.

And Sora found himself frozen as he stared at a mirror.

Everyone else was moving though.

"Vanitas!" Aqua spat out, surging to her feet and gripping Ven's shoulder, tugging him backwards and behind her. Terra's eyes widened and he was just a second behind Aqua standing to his feet. Mickey shouted in surprise, moving to stand next to Aqua, while Ven stared at the new addition in bewilderment. The rest of them were simply frozen in shock.

"What?" Aqua asked after a second, looking down at her hand in shock. "Why can't I summon my Keyblade?" Terra frowned in confusion, looking down at his hands as well, and Sora jolted. These people were Keyblade Wielders? How was that possible?

But brushing aside his panic, he reached inside himself, trying to grasp the small spark that usually sat in his heart and gave him his Keyblade. Except, he couldn't grab it. It was like it kept slipping out of his grasp, just beyond his fingertips.

The boy sitting on the ground laughed, throwing his head back for a slight second before looking back to Aqua.

"Having some problems with your weapon, Master Aqua?" He asked joyfully, his voice sounding similar but different to Sora's. "How painful." Aqua glared at him, vitriol in her eyes, but Axel cut it off before anything bad could happen.

"Um, who's this?" He asked, hands placed on Roxas's and Xion's shoulders as if preparing to yank them back if Vanitas proved to be hostile like Aqua and Terra were implying.

"Vanitas." Aqua all but growled his name. "A parasite who attempted to kill Ven and destroy numerous worlds. A being made of darkness and evil."

Vanitas leaned his head on one of his hands, a lazy smile on his face. "Aww, you're going to make me blush," he drawled, eyes flashing with malice as she glared back at him.

"Why can't we summon our Keyblades?" Terra wondered, staring down at his hands in confusion. Sora felt the same confusion moving through him.

"It's probably this room," Riku brought up. "We're already here, something else that was impossible." While Aqua grit her teeth and Vanitas didn't let up his smile, Naminé, having distanced herself from Kairi, moved forward a step and crouched down, frowning in confusion when she noticed something on the floor.

"Hey guys?" She asked quietly, reaching towards it. It looked like a small metal disk, a picture of an hourglass etched into the side. "There's something here." Lifting it into her hands, she turned it over in her palms, shivering at the sparks that flew from it. None of the others noticed her, however, too caught up in the situation with Vanitas, so no one stopped her from tracing the hourglass symbol on it.

A second later, she shouted in surprise, drawing everyone's attention to her as light exploded from the disk, causing her to drop it to the floor. In its place, an image of a boy Riku's age, with black hair and a black hat appeared, standing on the floor. The disk seemed to be some sort of holographic projector.

"Hello," the boy said, addressing the room at large. "I assume you're all awake, as the disk has appeared and activated itself. My name is Brain."

"What's is go-" Mickey started but was cut off by Brain.

"Apologizes if you just tried to ask something, but this is a recording. I can't answer your questions, even though I'm sure you have plenty. Let me instead offer an explanation. You see, I am a Keyblade Wielder from Daybreak Town. You've probably never heard of it. I'm not surprised. By the point in your future, it's been destroyed and abandoned for centuries. I am the holder of the Book of Prophecies, which allows me to look into the future. And the future I have seen, I cannot let pass.

"So, I have used all my magical ability and the magical ability of my close friend to create this… pocket dimension, if you will. I pulled you all from a certain point in time and while I would have liked to go earlier, the consequences of that were… bad. As well as going later. Thus, this is the time we have to deal with.

"This pocket dimension will show you both the past and the future. You need to learn lessons from the past and know what is to come if you are going to stop the future from coming to pass. And each of you is important and needed to make that happen."

Even though Brain was a hologram who couldn't see them, it almost looked like he aimed his gaze for a second at Vanitas. But that couldn't have been possible.

"In order to make sure no… fatalities occur, your ability to wield your Keyblades is temporarily stripped from you, to make sure no harm is done to each other. This room should conjure everything you might need, and you all will be released to the exact moment you appeared from, once the watching is over."

Brain sighed. "In truth, I don't know if this is going to work. Perhaps it will be unable to stop darkness from prevailing and light expiring. But I have to hope that this will help in some way. I don't know what I'll do if it doesn't.

"Good luck, all of you."

A second later, the hologram flickered out and disappeared, along with the disk. No one said anything.

"Well," Axel eventually said. "That's some sort of explanation."

"Gosh, an Ancient Keyblade Warrior sent us here?" Mickey wondered. "To learn about the future?"

"And the past," Aqua murmured, momentarily distracted from her hatred of Vanitas, who looked miffed at being ignored. "What could be so bad that someone from the ancient past had to intervene?"

"I think we're about to find out," Riku said as the lights around them dimmed and the black screen against the wall started to lighten.

"Um, room?" Kairi asked suddenly, looking up at the ceiling. "Could we have somewhere to… sit?" A bunch of couches and chairs suddenly appeared and everyone but Vanitas and Riku jumped. "Well, at least the room is listening to us."

"Are we really about to do this?" Roxas asked, raising an eyebrow. "Whoever that was could have been lying."

"I don't think we have a choice," Axel told him before striding across the room and lifting Vanitas up to his feet by the back of his shirt, ignoring the snarl that Vanitas made. "C'mon, up. Ancient Keyblade Wielder said we all had to do it." Vanitas glared at him, but Axel seemed immune to his look, simply turning his back on him and walking over to the sitting arrangement, claiming one of the couches for himself. Roxas and Xion took a seat on either side of him.

Sora looked to Riku, who shrugged helplessly. It seemed they were doing this.

Taking a seat on another one of the couches, Riku settled down on his left side and Kairi his right. Aqua and Terra took the final couch, Ven squished between them, while Mickey and Naminé sat in two of the chairs. After a second, Vanitas rolled his eyes and sat in the final chair, but not before pulling it backwards so he was further from them. Aqua looked just fine with that arrangement.

"Here we gone," Riku murmured as the images on the screen finished forming.

Brain hit the ground with a groan as aftereffects of all the magic used hit him all at once, making him feel like he was going to throw up. A second later, Lauriam's hands landed on his back and Brain felt the essence of healing magic ripple through him.

"Stop," he forced out of his mouth. "You used just as much energy as me." Lauriam didn't respond vocally but the energy stopped flowing and Lauriam kneeled down in front of him.

"Are you okay?" He asked quietly and Brain paused for a second before shrugging.

"I'll live," he decided on and could tell it wasn't convincing Lauriam at all. The other boy moved forward, and Brain felt himself being lifted slightly and placed down in a chair. Lauriam took the one in front of him.

"Do you think it worked?" The pinkette asked and Brain paused. He didn't actually know. He hoped it did, he desperately hoped so, but in the end, they could only speculate. It certainly felt like it had worked.

"I think so," he murmured out, the other side effect of magic starting to kick in, making him extremely sleepy. "It needs to."

A moment of silence passed between the two of them, both of them pointedly not looking at the book open on the table in front of them, the book that had started this whole debacle.

"Do you think Ven recognized you?" Lauriam asked quietly. "We know he's going to be there but… without his memories."

"I don't know and at this point, I don't think it matters." Brain's hand started to slip from holding his head up and Lauriam took the position instead, allowing Brain to lean back against his chest. He rested the side of his hand against Lauriam's chest and listened to his heartbeat. If everything the book said was true, he wouldn't be able to hear it for much longer.

"We just have to hope they'll do good things with the information they're given."