In hindsight, this was not the most intelligent thing I've done.
But it is something that I wouldn't hesitate to do again.
It turns out that the Keyhole could elude me for a very long time.
Like, going on 3 years, long.
It is absolutely fucking nowhere to be seen, I swear, no matter where I look. I've gone throughout the entire elemental nations, searching for it, and I've found precisely zip. Nada, nil, naught.
I've searched most of the Land of Fire, and found nothing. I went to the Land of Wind, and found nothing. I went up to the Land of Earth, and found nothing. I checked the Land of Sound, and then the Land of Hot Water, and then the Land of Frost, and then the Land of Lightning, and found nothing.
Now, I'm in the Land of Water, the last of the largest countries for me to search.
I have the fairly odd feeling that I won't find any luck here, either.
I've been here 5 days already, which had allowed me to cover a significant amount of land. Not needed to sleep, eat or rest had its benefits.
At the moment, however, none of that mattered.
At the moment, I was in the southern parts of the Land of Water, far away from any civilization. Swamps surrounded me in every direction, save forwards, where the pretence of something other water existing was dropped. We were near the edge of the Land of Water, at the edge of the ocean, not quite there, however.
I say we. There is a good reason for that.
Rather unusually, the near omnipresent mist that surrounded the rest of the Land of Water was notable lacking. There is a good reason for that.
Under normal circumstances, I might not have actually gone here.
But I had to.
I really did.
I'd been wandering by, minding my merry business, merely searching for the Keyhole. You know, the usual, the thing I've been doing for years.
So why was I out here?
Simple.
I had felt Hatred. The pure, burning hatred of a being with a powerful Heart.
And alongside that Hatred was Pain. Pain and Fear. The Pain of a tortured Soul, the Fear of an equally tortured Heart.
How, feeling that Hatred, that Pain, that Fear, could I possibly ignore it? It drew me in like a moth to a flame.
And so, I went, diverting from my path to follow that Hatred, that Pain, that Fear.
I went further and further away from civilization, and the feeling became more and more palpable, powerful.
And now, I stood here, taking in the sight of the source.
A large, powerful Heart. Bound in chains.
A massive, old, tortured Soul. Screaming, as black, evil Chakra forced it into servitude.
A gigantic blank red eye. Larger than I was tall.
And three, humongous tails.
Sanbi.
The Three-Tailed Bijuu.
A screaming, raging Three-Tailed Bijuu.
In hindsight, this was not the most intelligent thing I've done.
But it is something that I wouldn't hesitate to do again.
I dodged, evading the massive Bijuu as it raged, trying to hit me with its massive limbs and larger tails.
It didn't, and couldn't, hit me. It was slow enough that I had more than enough time to react to its attacks, more than enough time to turn into shadow or vapor, and even if it somehow did manage a hit, it could never hurt me.
Just the same, however, applied to it.
I had very, very little that could hurt a Bijuu. Less that could hurt it without killing it. And absolutely nothing that could contain it.
And therein laid the problem. I didn't want to hurt it, or kill it.
It was suffering. Forced to obey a will not its own. A control imposed on it by Tobi.
Fuck your control. I have a Keyblade.
Lucky, then, that I had options to break that control.
I just had to get it to stay still for a moment.
Which was... actually fairly easy.
It screamed as it attacked, outwardly sounding like rage, but inwardly a scream of pain. The black, hateful Chakra existing like iron hard, unbreakable bonds.
Irelevant.
I summoned my Keyblade, becoming a shadow and ducking into Corridor of Darkness at the same moment, appearing above the Sanbi.
A fun fact about Keyblades; they were natural conduits of magic.
I crashed into the Sanbi Keyblade-first, unleashing the strongest Stop I could. It wouldn't last long, especially not on something the size of the Sanbi, but it would give me just enough time to do what I wanted to do.
I quickly jumped up towards its head, landing just to the side of its left eye, almost directly in the middle of its opened left eye and closed right eye.
I quickly touched my Keyblade to its skin.
Connection.
Just in time, too, because not even an instant later, the Sanbi started moving again.
Its left eye shot to me.
I twisted.
And the black Chakra constricting its Soul shattered like glass.
The Sanbi screamed. A loud, terrible sound, ringing out through the environment, leaving a solemn silence in its wake.
Its eye slowly closed, and the Sanbi began to tip sideways, falling into the water from which it had emerged.
Whew. Managed to end that one quickly.
It took nine hours for the Sanbi to awaken again.
A slow stirring of consciousness as it woke up, for the first time in a long time, in full control of itself, not bound by anything, or anyone.
"Uuuggghhh."
Slowly, oh so slowly, its left eye opened, first looking up at the sky, before moving down to settle on me.
I nodded at it, an action only barely visible thanks to my cloak. "Greetings."
It blinked.
"Greetings." It rumbled, the sheer size of the Bijuu enough to let the sound echo through the silent swamp.
Equally slowly, its eye closed, and it seemed to sigh.
I looked up.
"And... thank you. I... had wondered if I was ever going to be released from the control of that man."
I looked down.
"You're welcome."
The Sanbi didn't speak after that. And, for once, I didn't feel inclined to do so.