Chapter 75
Abandoned Armor
Sora knocked on the study door before letting himself and his friends in. He noticed that the room was far cleaner than it was during his last visits. The broken glass had been removed completely and replaced with new beakers and test tubes. The portrait of Xehanort was gone completely, and someone had drawn over the DTD diagram on the wall to make the faded pictures and words more legible.
"Hello, Sora, Riku, your Majesty, Donald, Goofy, Kairi," Ienzo greeted when he saw them come in. "Welcome back. Thank you for knocking."
"Hello, Ienzo," Sora returned the greeting.
"I regret to inform you that, while we have done a thorough search, we have not found any trace of Xehanort nor uncovered any clues regarding what he may have intended," Ienzo lamented.
"We heard," Sora replied.
"But we found something that might help," Mickey said. He took the flash drive out of his pocket and held it up for Ienzo to see.
At the same time, Aeleus came in behind them, forcing the party to make way for him to enter. The hulking man gave them a respectful nod.
"Hello, Aeleus. One moment, please," he said, raising a finger in Aeleus' direction. He turned his attention back to Mickey. "What is that?"
"We took a look at Ansem's computer in Twilight Town and copied everything he had on Xehanort," Mickey explained.
"Intriguing," Ienzo muttered thoughtfully. "Perhaps this could indeed provide the clues we need." He crouched down and took the flash drive from Mickey.
Dilan walked in from behind the group. Donald and Goofy stepped aside to make room for him to pass through. The lancer nervously stuck to the wall and made sure to stay as far away from Sora, Donald and Goofy as possible.
"Hello, Dilan. Have there been any patterns in the Heartless appearances in the castle corridors?" Ienzo asked.
Aeleus and Dilan shook their heads. "Only a scarce few have been found scouting out each floor, only appearing in larger droves when they spotted us," Dilan explained.
"Then I suppose Xehanort and Maleficent have not left any more secrets or sources of dark energy within the greater part of the castle," Ienzo surmised. "In any case, we might come across leads for our other examination. Even!"
The blond scientist entered the circular room through the steel-lined hallway behind Ienzo. "What is it, Ienzo?" he asked.
Ienzo showed him the flash drive. "Our friends managed to retrieve some of Master Ansem's files from a computer he had set up in Twilight Town. This contains information that he was able to gather on Xehanort."
Even raised an eyebrow. "Fascinating," he said as he took the flash drive from Ienzo. "Perhaps this will finally push our investigation along. I shall start looking through it right away."
"Before we do that," Aeleus interrupted, "isn't there something you wanted to show them, Ienzo?"
"Oh, of course!" Ienzo exclaimed, recalling what Aeleus was talking about. "You will not believe what we found." He walked through the hallway to the computer room, and the party followed him. He typed something into the search bar and hit ENTER.
"Chamber of Repose?" Sora read, wondering what that meant.
"It is a hidden room far below us where Xemnas would often go to meditate," Ienzo explained. He typed a password in, then typed six more words, then proceeded with the operation. "Follow me." He led the party and his colleagues out of the room and to the elevator that led down to the Heartless Manufactory platform.
When they stepped out of the elevator, they saw two panels slide apart, creating an opening in the floor. A ramp materialized leading down into the hole, so Ienzo led them down. The last ones to get on were Aeleus and Dilan, and once they had stepped off at the bottom, the ramp vanished and the panels above closed up.
Sora, Donald and Goofy looked over the ledge and saw that the spiraling ramp went down so far that it was too dark for them to see the bottom.
"How deep do you think it is?" Donald asked.
"You can find out and tell us," Riku jokingly suggested.
"That's not funny," Donald shot back, annoyed.
"I dunno… Anyone have a stopwatch?" Sora joked.
"As interesting it would be to take that measurement, we need not concern ourselves with it at this moment," Even interrupted the banter that they were having at Donald's expense.
"Come along. The exercise is good for you," Aeleus advised.
"I climb mountains," Sora complained. "And there's usually something to see along the way." Nevertheless, he started the slow, tedious descent along with the others. After a minute, he found himself getting incredibly bored. He tried to pass the time by thinking of other things, such as the mystery of Xehanort. He knew so little about Xehanort. What he seemed to have wanted twelve years ago clashed with Ansem and Xemnas' goals. For instance, if Xehanort knew what Kingdom Hearts was and wanted to reach its power of light, why was his Heartless so convinced that Kingdom Hearts was pure darkness, particularly when all he was doing was opening the door to the realm of darkness? How did he become a seemingly-amnesiac young man? And how did his later plots as Xemnas correlate to what he had been up to so long ago? If they could understand what he had been planning, perhaps they could figure out why he had not reappeared with the rest of the apprentices, and maybe stop whatever he was planning…
Finally, they reached the bottom. They turned and entered a hallway with white walls. The sudden light caught Sora, Riku, Kairi, Mickey, Donald, and Goofy by surprise, and it took them a moment for their vision to adjust. Sora, Kairi, Donald, and Goofy gulped when they saw the doors with barred windows, which gave off the impression that they were walking through a prison hallway.
"Gawrsh, what is this place?" Goofy asked fearfully.
Ienzo sighed. "This is where we conducted our early experiments on the Heartless, and our forbidden research into the nature of the heart," he explained, his voice filled with regret. "I was the one who convinced Master Ansem to install this heinous laboratory, before he realized that the heart was not to be tampered with. The rest of us did not listen, however."
"How many?" Mickey asked solemnly. He did not specify, but the meaning was clear.
Ienzo shook his head. "Too many."
They reached the end of the hall, and the set of doors in front of them slid open quickly. They all stepped into a circular room, and the doors closed behind them. The design on the wall and floor seemed familiar to Riku and Mickey. However, the six who were new to this location were perplexed, as the room appeared to be empty save for a single throne-like chair.
"So, what did you want us to see?" Sora asked, utterly confused by the absence of anything interesting.
"Allow me to tell you more about this chamber," Even began. "Oftentimes when Xemnas retreated into this room, Xigbar would eavesdrop. He would claim that he was speaking to a 'friend', but he did not hear anyone else in here."
"And that's supposed to explain…" Sora trailed off to indicate that he was still confused.
Dilan stepped around the party and sat down in the chair. The black-colored chains on the wall and floor turned white. A panel on the floor in front of Dilan vanished, and a platform ascended to take its place.
Sora, Riku, Kairi, Mickey, Donald, and Goofy were taken aback when they saw the rusted pieces of armor. They all gasped in unison when they noticed the strange weapon. It was made of what appeared to be blue metal bars that intersected with each other and had a diamond-shaped cross-section. The head vaguely resembled the outline of a crown, with silver metal shaping two upright squares in the corners of the left and right points and a diagonal square in the corner of the center point, with each point having a short length of metal jutting out. Just above the handle guard, the shaft opened up to create two diagonal squares in the negative space. The guard seemed to be more curved and smooth, and it appeared to be made up of four pieces: the upper piece was black, the two middle pieces were gray, and the bottom was off-white. The handle appeared to be a simple, thin, silver metal rod. The pommel did not have a chain attached, but the weapon's nature was quite apparent.
"Is that…" Donald began.
"A Keyblade?" Kairi finished.
Aeleus nodded. "It would appear so," he answered.
"They were near Xehanort when Ansem, Braig and I found him in the town square, more than a decade ago," Dilan explained. "At the time, we simply held onto them for safekeeping, even though we didn't know what they were."
"Aqua…" Mickey said under his breath. "I was wondering why you didn't…" He stopped when he realized that his friends were looking at him in surprise.
"Mickey, did you say Aqua?" Riku asked.
"Was this Aqua's Keyblade?" Kairi asked, putting the pieces together. Now that she thought about it, the weapon did look familiar, although the teeth were more elaborate than the one she had seen the blue-haired Keyblade Master use.
Mickey nodded. "Yes. It was," he confirmed.
"You said that Xemnas referred to this armor as his 'friend'?" Riku asked, directing his query toward Even. "Even if he did remember her, why would he think of her as a friend?"
Even shook his head. "Alas, I do not believe any of us have met this 'Aqua', so I could not tell you," he lamented.
"Perhaps Master Ansem might have known…" Ienzo mused. "He put much effort into gaining an upper hand against the Organization. He must have been able to uncover some of Xemnas' secrets. The secrets of this armor might be among them."
"Good idea," Sora commended. "Well, let's…" He trailed off as he realized that this would mean they would be going back up the seemingly-endless ramp stairwell. He groaned. "Well, we might as well get going."
Donald laughed at Sora's expense, until Riku reminded him that his legs were shorter and he will have to take even more steps.
Sora and the gang crowded around Even as the academic plugged the flash drive into the computer console, eager for something interesting to happen.
"Back up, children," Even scolded. "I need some breathing space." They complied, taking a decent-sized step backward. "Thank you. Now, let us see what special secrets Master Ansem uncovered."
However, before he could open anything up, they suddenly heard a shout from the hallway just out from the computer room. "YOU GUYS! HEY!" Even groaned at the interruption.
Yuffie followed up on her yell by appearing right next to the group. They had not heard her open the study door, nor had they even heard her footsteps. Even with her ninja skills, her enthusiasm should have allowed those simple sounds to betray her arrival. She had her Fuuma Shuriken slung loosely over her back, apparently having used it to fight her way up to the castle and through its halls. In her right hand, she held tightly to a glass bottle with a cork.
"What is it, Yuffie?" Kairi asked.
Yuffie held out the bottle, and Kairi took it. The redheaded girl examined the bottle and saw a rolled-up parchment inside. The edge of the paper was printed with a familiar seal. She turned around to face her friends and uncorked the bottle. She dumped the paper out into her hand and showed it to the others.
"Minnie!" Mickey gasped when he noticed the seal. "Gosh, I hope nothing's wrong."
Donald shook his head. "If something was wrong, she would have summoned us directly to the castle," he argued.
"Then I wonder what it is," Goofy mused.
"How about we read it, then?" Kairi asked sarcastically. She unrolled the paper and turned around so that the others could read it at the same time as her. Her jaw, as well as Donald and Goofy's, dropped when they saw the photograph taped to the parchment. They recognized the blue-haired woman in the picture. Mickey gulped.
"Gawrsh, is that…?" Goofy began.
"Aqua?" Donald finished. A hushed tone filled the room, as almost everyone froze as they realized what this meant.
"Who's Aqua?" Yuffie asked, genuinely confused as she was the only one present who was not in the loop.
"What's the letter say?" Riku asked.
Kairi regained her composure and cleared her throat. She began to read aloud:
Mickey,
I was looking through the photo album earlier and, to my absolute surprise, I found this picture among those you took when you were in the Realm of Darkness. As I had met Aqua once, many years ago, and I knew that the two of you were friends, I became quite worried when I saw this and realized that she had been in the Realm of Darkness. And then, I realized that this picture could only exist if you had come across her.
Please, as soon as you can, send me a note and tell me what happened. How did you meet her? What happened to our friend?
Sincerely,
Minnie
Mickey was looking downward, in contemplation and possibly in shame. He did not notice anything happening after Kairi had finished reading the letter. A sharp "Ahem" drew his attention, at which point he looked up and realized that everyone was looking at him. Riku seemed to be trying hard not to glare at him.
"Mickey? Did you meet Aqua in the Realm of Darkness?" Riku asked, having more luck in managing a surprised and concerned tone rather than a cold one.
Mickey sighed. After a short pause, he gave his answer. "Yes. I did. I told you that I had no idea what happened to her, Ventus and Terra after I last saw her, but that's not entirely true. It was over a year ago, around the time that Sora, Donald and Goofy first fought Ansem in this castle and completed the final Keyhole. Actually, it was not long after that." He looked up and met everyone's gaze. "I met Aqua, once, in the Realm of Darkness."