I exit the corridor of Darkness in the Sea of the Skies, and I am immediately struck with overwhelming sense of familiarity.
I haven't even entered the World I've been lead to, but this World...
Where did you guide me to, Kingdom Hearts? This World is...
It resembles, far too closely, The World. The feeling of it is... almost exactly the same as The World. Slightly diminished, but only slightly.
I look at it, look upon it, and I see...
A Fragment of The World, which went unconsumed. The nexus from which all Worlds had taken shape...
Scala ad Caelum.
Oh, what a place... Kingdom Hearts... to lead me here...
I enter the World.
It is, immediately, obviously, empty. No people were within...
Yet still, the signs of them remain.
This World is a world of water, and upon that water floats great towns, mountainous and condensed closely and carefully, with a tower that stretched into the sky at their centers... There are countless numbers of these floating towns; they stretch from horizon to horizon, linked together by long cables that stretched between them. Trams ran back and forth, automatic and unceasing.
Nobody had been here in quite a long time, yet still, it was pristine. The white buildings were perfect. The gold was shining... The Magic in the air was strong...
Except...
That was only what was above the surface of the water. I could sense the Darkness lingering below it; could feel the old memories and loss that stained it. Emotion remained, even after all this time...
I let myself fall into the water. It is, appropriately, dark and obscured, but I don't have a problem with either...
I swim down, orienting myself away from the surface. Upside down, I can see what those floating towns a built on; an equally mountainous underwater town, an almost-mirror of the city above...
But the town below the water is damaged, shattered. The broken pieces hang together in rough way, instead of sinking deeper into the depths...
And it's because of that fact that I can recognize this underwater place. The tower in the center really cements it, even broken and ruined, I know it quite well.
After all... It was once a seat of power to all Keybearers...
Daybreak Town.
It's certainly seen better times... But the simple fact that even these remnants survived at all already puts it in a much better position than the rest of The World.
Although it certainly has a number of copies... Each and every floating town was a copy of the others. Magnificent, each, but not different from each other.
Still...
This World... yes. Upon the ruins of Daybreak Town, in such a special World as this...
For the future, there could be no greater place.
Ah, look at me. My free time just about vanished, and here I am, happy about it.
Ba-bum.
Hah... I didn't need your reassurance, though it is nice to have it.
Alright. In order to get this going, I'd need a few things.
I'd need a base, a place to teach, a place where they would be safe, and could return to.
I'd need infrastructure, to keep up with all of their needs, physical or otherwise.
I'd need a way to travel around the Worlds, applicable for other people. The Dimensional Barriers currently prevented easy travel.
I'd need a way to communicate with them, again usable for other people. Again, the Dimensional Barriers currently made that incredibly difficult.
That...
That was basically the four big ones. Base, infrastructure, travel, communication. Everything else would be handled by me and then follow on afterwards. A few apprentices for me now who could take their own apprentices later.
I had a location, and it was a good one. Scala ad Caelum was both safe, and a perfect place to teach, and even came with plenty of infrastructure here, all ready for use. That covered two problems.
And as for the other two...
Both basically came from the same problem, and that problem was that, in this time period, the Worlds still have their Dimensional Barriers up, and so long as those barriers are up, there's only three ways to cross between Worlds, none of which are easy.
The first option was Gummi Blocks.
Now, I've said that before, however, it bears repeating: Gummi Blocks are the materialized form of Dimensional Barriers, and that lets them pass through those same barriers. This makes inter-World travel possible, even when those Barriers still existed.
In the future, those Barriers would have been torn down by the Heartless, cracking them wide open. In turn, that would spill Gummi Blocks everywhere. There'd be enough of the things to build entire fleets of Gummi Ships.
In the future. Right now? I had somewhere around three hundred blocks. That sounds like a lot, until you realized that all of them put together would get you a block maybe slightly larger than me. A Gummi Ship, that didn't make. A small sliver was enough for me, sure, but other, normal people?
No.
The second option was Keyblade Gliders. Those could travel the Lanes Between and get people from World to World just fine. The problem, however, is that Keyblade Gliders are... rather small. Really just personal-scale. That was, admittedly, less of concern to Keybearers, but it was still a problem.
The final option was Magic, of the really potent kind. A sufficiently powerful Mage could teleport things from World to World, even through a Dimensional Barrier, but...
That was a difficult Magic. I could probably do it, but even if I devoted my teachings towards that specific Magic, it'd be something that would take decades to learn. And until then, it would be reliant entirely on me.
Quite the conundrum.
It was only more complicated thanks to the communications issue. Being able to contact people, to find them no matter how far away they were, that was something really important. Hearts would lead people to each other, but that was no real substitute... If someone needed help, then being able to immediately ask for it was vital.
There... were ways of doing it. I could think of two or three.
Let's see. I had some Gummi blocks, half of the χ-blade, Magic, three Keyblades, a pure mote of Light, an imitation of a Keyblade, Kingdom Hearts' blessing, and I was in the World that all the other Worlds had sprung from.
Yeah... Yeah, I can work with that.
I've done a lot more with a lot less. Let's go.