There were only two options. Two evils; one above, one below. A raging storm of wind, or a dark and hungry ocean.

After a moment spent summoning his helmet, Vanitas dove into the water. Terror swept over him, but his greater fear of the Dark Wind overhead kept it in check. He couldn't see anything, not with a layer of dark glass between him and the already murky water. Maybe that was for the best though. He would be even more terrified if he could see anything lurking in the deep.

Aqua's final Curaga, in addition to restoring his strength, had also mended the crack in his helmet. Thank the Void; the last thing he'd need would be to let that awful water in. It was already all around him, fighting his limbs, sucking him down…

No. No, it wasn't. He could touch here, which was a relief, since Aqua hadn't taught him how to swim underwater—as if he would have ever voluntarily done that—and he was still too weak to propel himself with Aeroga. But if he could just hide long enough to get to shore…

The ocean shifted, swirled, and panic gripped him. A Shoegazer leapt from his back, only to flail and disintegrate in the water.

Then the current ripped him sideways; he tumbled head-over-heels in the suddenly deep water. His head surfaced just long enough to hear the Dark Wind's voice.

"You are a fool, Vanitassss. You could have made it to the Realm of Light. You could have left her. Now you ssssee that she wassss only usssing you."

In spite of the wind whipping about him, trying to scoop him out of the water and into the air, Vanitas laughed.

"That's what you think happened? You're an even bigger idiot than I thought."

The Dark Wind hissed, obsidian tentacles shooting out to grasp him. He barely submerged himself in time; the mist sprayed out like steam on a hot pan when they hit the water. Somewhere, in the irrational back of his mind, he felt that the water had protected him on purpose. That its link to Aqua might go beyond just its name.

Crazy though it was, the thought gave him courage to strike out beneath the waves. A little bit of magic had returned to him; he used it to cast Aero and shoot himself forward. Well, somewhat forward, somewhat down. His helmet hit the sand at and angle, but he shook it off and crawled shamelessly along the seabed for the rest of the way.

There better not be any kind of crab Heartless down here… he shuddered at the thought. It was just an imaginary fear though; his foe above was real. Maybe he should just stay down here… No, he would run out of air soon. But he did take a moment to try to come up with a plan.

Pfft, what plan? Aqua's gone. He was facing Darkness itself, and he barely had the strength for a simple wind spell. There was no escape for him this time.

But that had never stopped him from trying. In fact, thinking of how impossible it was only stoked his stubborn streak.

Yeah, he was going to die—but he was going to make this monster pay while he was at it.

He burst from the shallow water, dashing the last few yards to shore. There were a few rocks clustered together there; he threw himself behind them and summoned a Blue Sea Salt from his anger. A quick keyblade to the face destroyed it, allowing him to scoop up the bounty it left behind. He crushed the Ether in his hand. Sweet magic poured into his veins, making up for the pain of destroying the Unversed.

The funnel cloud found him effortlessly. He made the mistake of staring up—it was like looking into a black hole. He barely rolled out of the way of a purple lightning bolt that crashed where he'd been seconds earlier, deafening him and fusing the sand into dark glass.

"You ssssstill fail to sssssee. Your friend isss gone. Your essscape isss gone. Your hope isss gone."

"You're wrong," he spat at the wind, shoving himself to his feet with his keyblade. "Hope doesn't die 'til I say so."

"Sssstubborn fool. You are one. We are many."

"If you're so 'many' and I'm really that helpless, why don't you just kill me?" Vanitas challenged.

Stupid. He was facing down a force he couldn't defeat. He didn't want to die. Keeping it talking was really his best bet.

"Becausssse you cannot essscape." It laughed. "Now there is no rush to dessstroy you. You are too interesssting for that. We may not find another light for agessss.

"No, firssst we will make you ssssuffer."

One of the purple bolts hit home, striking the tip of his keyblade like it was a lightning rod. The current shot through him, exploding his nerves, searing his skin, smothering his scream.

As soon as it struck, the mist forced itself down his throat. To his surprise, he recognized the feeling of his own Dark Curaga. While most of the pain remained, the healing spell kept the agony from killing him.

It was only then that he understood: the Dark Wind really didn't care if he died. No—it didn't want him to die. If it had, it could have killed him a million times over.

Death would have been too easy. It wanted to see his anguish.

Thorns of mist tore at his flesh; smoke scoured him and healed him at the same time. Ripping, healing, burning, healing—all smothered in the cruel laugh that echoed like thunder.

"Yesss, you had hope. We let you have hope. That much better when we could rip it away."

Their hope… their goal… their quest for the Realm of Light… They had only made it this far because the Wind had let them, had wanted them to. Had wanted Aqua to, at least. It was a fluke that she had made it out without dragging the monster along with her. Only Vanitas's sacrifice had made it possible. That was something the Dark Wind couldn't have been able to anticipate. Vanitas hadn't anticipated it himself.

There are things it doesn't know. He clung to that thought as another purple bolt fried the air around him. It doesn't know I helped Aqua escape on purpose… it doesn't know about love.

Love. Had that emotion returned to him? No, the Flood had made it through the portal; he could feel its consciousness far away. Very, very far away. It was a testament to how strong the Inversed was that he could feel it at all.

It would be with Aqua. Without any commands from him, it would never leave her side.

Mist swallowed him, choked him, flushed the thoughts from his mind. Only raw, volatile emotion remained.

"Yesss, your feelingssss are sssstrong. You will lasssst ussss a long time."

His feelings… they were strong. Stronger than the Wind could ever know.

I'm sorry Aqua… I wanted to leave a piece of me with you, but I need it more right now.

Stretching his mind across the gap between realms, he called to his Flood. Of course, it couldn't physically come to him. If it were that easy, he could've sent some to get help ages ago. No, it couldn't come as it was—but its emotions were still part of him.

Those emotions could always find their way home.

Through the void between worlds, his love returned to him. It flooded him like a physical force, like a well of power, stronger than it had ever been before.

Because I used it for the first time, he realized.

"You… what…?"

He was right: the Dark Wind didn't understand. It couldn't understand, no more than Vanitas himself would have been able to before.

"You say you're so many. Well guess what?" he taunted, glowing with the strength of his emotions.

"So am I!"

Inversed exploded from him—Floods, Protectors, Archravens, White Hot Chilis, Chrono Twisters. Everything he could pour out. Not just his love for Aqua, though that fueled a large part of it.

His hope for her safety. His pride in how much he'd grown. His gratitude for her forgiveness. Every positive memory, every positive feeling, all of the best parts of himself.

He was left feeling like an empty shell. But he was an empty shell surrounded by an army of Inversed numerous enough to flood a whole world.

"Thissss… thissss changesss thingssss." The Wind sounded intrigued.

The mist pulled back; the purple lightning stopped raining around him. It seemed to gather in on itself, as if it were retreating. Had he really scared it off that easily?

Of course not. He watched its transromation happen with a sick fascination. The funnel of smoke pulled up, then lowered to the ground.

And then the eyes appeared. Hundreds of them. Bright yellow Heartless eyes, blinking open all across the surface of the dark cloud. The cloud which was growing more defined, morphing into… something hideous. Hundreds of Heartless antennae, limbs, faces, all jutting out of one gruesome body. He had thought the keyblade-eating Heartless had been disgusting, but this was a whole new level.

"Count yourssself lucky, Vanitassss." Hundreds of mouths—Wyvern, Defender, Darkball, and many he'd never seen before—hissed in unison. "You are the only human to ssssee our true form. Now, you will ssssee how well your pathetic feelingssss do againssst our darknesssss."

Then the Heartless conglomerate swept towards him in a deadly wave.

"Go!" he commanded, pointing his keyblade for his Inversed to charge.

His wave of whites and pastels crashed against the flood of purples and blacks. Pain tore through him as some of his creations were clawed and chewed apart, but he forced it into a corner of his mind. Aqua and her friends had destroyed Unversed in countless numbers before; he could handle this monster doing the same. At least, that was what he told himself.

Instead of anger and hatred forcing their way back into him when an Inversed died, love and hope refilled him. It was hard to let it go, push the positivity back into more of his creations. Hard to keep that hope flowing at all—and harder still not to let negative emotions taint it. If one Unversed of his fear or rage escaped, his whole army might turn on it. The Dark Wind—or maybe the Dark Horde would be a better name now—would use that opportunity to strike.

He stayed pressed against the rock, digging his heels into the sand as Inversed coursed in and out of him. The pain was nearly as bad as when the Dark Wind itself had tortured him. Still, he forced himself to keep searching out the positive, the light.

Aqua is alive. The Dark Wind has a physical form. That means I can hurt it.

He wasn't attacking it with his hatred—hatred that he certainly felt, but kept bottled up like a Prize Pod trying not to spill its ingredients. Instead, he attacked with his hope. Hope that if he could defeat this monster, he could find a way back to Aqua. A vain hope, probably. But he didn't think about that. Any hope that gave him strength was worth holding on to.

While spawning a few Mandrakes from ones that had died, he forced himself up on top of the rock. He needed a better vantage point to see how his Inversed were faring.

To his surprise, and in spite of the torment he felt at them being ripped apart, they weren't doing half bad. Yes, he could feel each one's demise, but each one brought down a couple Heartless with it. The Dark Horde was breaking apart, sending out clusters of Neoshadows and Darkballs and other Heartless to face off against his creations.

"Your feelingssss are not sssso sssstrong after all," the Heartless said in unison. "You will weaken. You will lose hope. But we can alwaysssss gather more Heartlesssss."

"You underestimate me," Vanitas shouted. "I've been the darkness before. I know you. But you will never know me!"

"I have ssssseen your heart. There isssss ssstill fear there."

Fear. The first thing the darkness preyed on, along with anger. Yes, the emotions both still churned in his heart, fighting to escape in the stream of Inversed that flowed from him. He could only lock them up for so long.

So he'd get rid of them.

He faced the battlefield, staring down the monster that continued to divide and reform, picking off his Inversed one by one.

It's just a Heartless. A lot of Heartless. I don't have to be afraid. What's the worst it can do? Torture me? Kill me? It can't escape. It can't get to Aqua.

He had accepted that he could die. He hoped he wouldn't, but he accepted that he could, and it would be about the same as being trapped here. If there was any other kind of hell, he doubted it could be worse than this.

So why fight? Why not just die? If he gave up, the Dark Horde might kill him by accident before it could torture him any more.

That was the struggle that played out before him: to have the strength to fight, he needed to hope for something brighter to come. To destroy his fear, he needed to accept that the worst that could happen wasn't that bad. Could he not fear death, and still hope to live at the same time?

"Yeah," he realized, a strange peace sinking into him. "I think I can."

He would do all he could do. That would either be enough, or it wouldn't. But he wouldn't die before finding out.

His Inversed surged forward with renewed strength. Axe Flappers sliced through Wyverns; Sonic Blasters targeted Darkballs; Shoegazers stomped Shadows. Could he… could he actually be winning?

The thought, true or not, spurred on his Inversed. He cast Curaga, healing some of the physical strain creating so many had put on his body. It had been so long since he'd tried creating a horde this big, and never before with positive emotions. He was amazed it had worked at all.

The Dark Horde hissed, and the Heartless all backed up at once, the free-roaming ones as well as the giant monstrosity. It looked much smaller than it had originally been. For all of the Horde's talk, it didn't appear to have created any more Heartless. Meanwhile, Vanitas could keep up his Inversed as long as he still had positive emotions. And as long as he was living, of course.

The Horde seemed to realize this. It released a column of Wyverns that melded and split apart, pulsing in a giant column through the sky.

Heading over the Inversed, straight for him.

A Protector leapt up onto his rock, throwing its arms around him. Archravens and Axe Flappers took flight, homing in on the airborne enemy.

Shielded by the Protector's embrace, Vanitas didn't see it happen, but he felt his Inversed being shredded by talons and wings. When he did get the chance to look up, though, the Wyverns were gone as well, vanquished back into dark smoke.

"Not so… tough… after all," he said through ragged gasps, casting Curaga again. He could never thank Aqua enough for training him in that spell.

"You have fought well. But today is jussst the beginning. We will ssssssee you, Vanitasssss."

With those words, the hydra-like Heartless slowly dissolved back into mist, blowing back towards the center of the Realm of Darkness. It retreated, flying over the arching stones, until it vanished in the distance.

Vanitas fell to his knees, the Protector barely keeping him from tumbling off the rock.

"We… we did it?" he asked, dumbfounded. Not that the Inversed could answer.

Drawing a deep breath, he pulled most of them back into himself, leaving the Protector by his side along with a few others. If this was just a fake-out, he wanted to be ready.

That many Inversed flowing back into him felt almost like being thrown into the cold ocean again. Shocking, but it made him feel more alive. More whole.

Why had the Dark Wind left? It would have killed him eventually. He was pretty sure of that. Was this some kind of mind game? Or did it just need to collect more Heartless to amass into itself?

He slid down from the rock, his Protector hopping off next to him, and huddled in the shadowed side. With the Dark Wind gone, he had the first opportunity to realize just how alone he really was. The Protector held him close, sensing his loneliness, but it wasn't the same.

Aqua… What am I going to do without you?

A hole seemed to open in his chest. It felt like he was trying to release an Unversed, but there was nothing there.

Aqua was gone. She was safe, but she was gone. He would never see her again. He'd sacrificed himself, and for what? She was never going to be able to thank him, much less repay him.

Idiot. You know why you did it, and it wasn't for that.

It was because he loved her. In what way, he didn't know; it wasn't like he had much experience with love. But as the hole in his heart grew wider and wider, he became ever more sure of his feelings.

"She was the first one to make me feel like a real person," he murmured to the Protector, as if it could comfort him. It did pat him softly on the back, a rather ineffective form of sympathy. "She was the first person who ever cared…"

And she would be the last.

Tears dripped from his eyes, the hollow sadness he had been pushing aside for so long finally catching up to him. His hands unlooped the Wayfinder from his belt. Miraculously, the fragile-looking thing had survived the chaos of the day.

At least… I'll always have a piece of her.

He pressed the red porcelain to his lips. The faintest trace of light touched his nose, the scent of clean cotton. Her scent.

There would be no sleeping tonight, not with the Dark Horde out there, ready to strike when he least expected. There would probably be no sleeping again as long as he lived.

So instead, he held his Wayfinder close, and he cried.