After a few hours of brainstorming, Aqua, Riku, and Mickey had come up with a feeble skeleton of a plan. They wouldn't make the same mistake they had before and jump into the Realm of Darkness without preparing a way out. The first step would be to make sure whatever mode of entry they used would also allow for an escape.

Riku had tentatively proposed dark corridors like Van had once been able to make, but Mickey wondered how stable those would be once inside the Realm of Darkness. He'd taken something called a "Gummi Ship" to go ask Master Yen Sid, who was apparently still alive after all this time, too. Aqua was half convinced the older Master was immortal.

In the meantime, Riku found her some soap and shampoo and not-so-subtly suggested that she take a bath. That was fine by her. Aside from her friends and the sun, which she still had yet to see, showers were probably the thing she'd missed most.

Aqua had never been so happy to see a bathroom. Thankfully the same strange effects that had allowed her to survive without food in the Realm of Darkness had also paused other bodily functions, so the lack of amenities hadn't been a problem. The dark suit even worked to whisk the sweat away from her skin, allowing her to endure the time without showers, even if she didn't enjoy it. Hopefully, it had also protected her hormone implant—

Her hormone implant. She quickly felt under her left arm, and was relieved to still feel the small rod beneath her suit and skin. That had been the least of her worries in the Realm of Darkness, but she should get it replaced soon. At least it still seemed to be working for now. She didn't see even a hint of stubble on her reflection.

Though whenever she did get her implant replaced—and if she wanted to do anything else in the bathroom—she needed to find a way out of this suit.

Having ordered Drizzle to stay outside, she stood in the whitewashed bathroom and tugged at the veins on her arms. The material stretched just a little, like some combination of spandex and rubber. She inspected the waist and the neck, but she couldn't find any seams.

"You would think magical clothing would take these kinds of situations into account," she muttered to her reflection.

The pot-reflection in the kitchen had hardly done her image justice—she looked far worse. Her eyes, though blue again, were nearly as dull as Ven's had been when he first arrived in the Land of Departure.

When he had been unconscious. Broken from having his heart ripped in two. It felt wrong to compare her own suffering to something so harrowing.

She ran her fingers through her hair, wincing when they encountered rough tangles. How had she slept with so much sand and salt matted in it? Of course, she hadn't had much of a choice.

And her suit… She had only seen her whole reflection in Van's helmet before. She'd never realized how, well, dark she looked. Riku had been right to fear her.

Oddly, despite that fact, the suit felt right on her. She hoped that wasn't her darkness talking, but the navy and magenta veins seemed more like a part of her than her old outfits ever had. Maybe it was because those old clothes had been such a patchwork job of hand-me-downs. Maybe it was because the shape of the suit was surprisingly flattering. Maybe it was because the suit had literally come from a part of her.

Or maybe it's because it reminds me of Van, she thought with a slight smile. It was sentimental of her, and redundant at that. She had plenty of other ways to remember her friend.

Still, at that thought, she unweaved the permanent blue color spell from her hair. She would never turn her eyes gold again, but between her disheveled black hair and the dark suit…

"We were never really so different, were we?" she whispered, touching the cool mirror. "If only I didn't have to fall into darkness to see it…"

She shook her head, casting the spell around her hair again. Wishing wouldn't change anything, and even if it could, she wasn't sure she would want to—except to have Van here with her, of course.

In spite of the challenges she'd faced, Aqua didn't believe in regrets. If she had, losing Terra and Ven would have crushed her. She never would have survived it. Instead she chose to believe that everything happened for a reason. All of her experiences wove together to create the person she was today. A person that, in spite of her darkness, she was proud of.

She had finally looked past her stubborn pride to see her weaknesses. If it hadn't been for that, would she have ever seen Van's strengths?

I was just as stubborn as he was. I don't think I ever apologized for that. Well, she would have more than that to apologize for after all of this, she was sure.

Sighing, she returned to the problem at hand. Maybe her distracted train of thought had helped after all, though—if this suit was made of her darkness, could she use her darkness to manipulate it?

The idea made her wince, but she couldn't think of a better one. Besides, she had been training with darkness for the past few weeks. It could hardly do her more harm than the Dark Wind had, right? It wasn't like she was using it to hurt anyone.

As she searched the contents of her heart, she took deep, even breaths. So long as she didn't give the darkness an opening with her fear or anger, it wouldn't be able to rear up again… probably. How badly did she need to use the bathroom?

...Very badly, actually.

Steeling herself, she reached down and seized her darkness.

Instantly nausea slammed into her, like her insides had been flipped upside-down. She fought it back by imagining herself strangling the root of the sensation. She couldn't describe exactly how it worked. It was no wonder Van had had such a difficult time teaching her. Darkness just didn't make sense.

By now she'd had enough experience to do small things with it, though. She felt the connection to her suit, felt each of the individual veins as if they carried her blood.

Recede, she commanded mentally, focusing on her midriff. The tendrils obeyed the firm order and unknit underneath her belt. She cut off the darkness as soon as it was done. She'd learned by experience that if she held it without giving it any specific commands, it was more likely to try to act on its own.

She'd never thought she would need to know that. She'd never thought she would need to know anything about the darkness, honestly.

Maybe if the Master had taught us more about it, I would have been able to recognize and fight off the Dark Wind.

The thought felt traitorous, but it was true. She simply hadn't been prepared. If it hadn't been for Van's knowledge of the darkness, she would have died.

When I have an apprentice, I'll teach her about both, she decided.

She couldn't fight something she didn't understand. Everyone had some darkness in them, and it would only hurt her to keep hiding from it.

At least, those were the thoughts she told herself as she used the restroom and showered for the first time in years.

Though the soap and water finally washed the filth from her body, they couldn't quite wash the doubts from her heart.