"So, in short, who's Xehanort?" Sora asked after a second, looking to the older Keyblade Wielders. Terra took a deep breath while Aqua curled her hands tightly together, interlocking them.

"Well, before everything happened, he was my Master," Ven started, taking the other two off guard as they didn't realize that the younger boy was going to start.

"He was?" Kairi asked and Ven nodded.

"He found me, or so I was told, alone with no memory," Ven said, voice dull and more focused on recounting the story than allowing any of the emotions to slip through. "He trained me for… six months, I think."

"A year more like," Vanitas interjected, giving into the urge and pulling his knees to his chest, hiding his most vulnerable spot, and wrapped one hand around them, holding them close.

"Really?" Ven questioned and Vanitas nodded once. Unlike Ven, he hadn't lost his memories of their training under Xehanort, before they split. "Okay, so a year. And then, through… actions taken by Xehanort, he ended up splitting me into myself and Vanitas." He nodded his head in Vanitas's direction, not hearing Vanitas's soft mutter of "us" during Ven's explanation. "Darkness and," he pressed a hand to his chest. "Light.

"After this, he took me to the Land of Departure, when I had lost my memories again, and gave me to the care of Master Eraqus, their Master." He indicated Aqua and Terra. "After about four years, he returned to the Land of Departure in order to be a judge at their Mark of Mastery. Aqua passed. Terra… didn't." Terra looked to the side at this and Aqua bit her lip, wanting to reach out and comfort Terra like she had always been able to do but not knowing if he would take it as salt in the wound. "Terra then left the Land of Departure, I ran after him, having been warned very cryptically by Vanitas that Terra wouldn't be the same when he returned, and Aqua followed us both, under orders from Master Eraqus to bring me home and keep an eye on Terra. Which… wasn't a very good look for us at least." Ven took a deep breath. "After some, now very clear, manipulation by Master Xehanort, we ended up in a fight against him and Vanitas, now not really as united as before, and well… it didn't end well."

At the end of his explanation, he leaned backwards, looking drained, and fell into Terra's embrace, the older boy wrapping his arms around the younger Keyblade Wielder without prompting. "I don't know how it ended," Ven said, eyes closed, and hands reaching up to grasp at Terra's arms. "Because I was asleep due to the two of us," he gestured blindly in Vanitas's direction. "fighting and then destroying our then combined heart. And I have no idea how we're alive." There were a few moments of silence as they all processed that, Axel's arms having wrapped around Roxas and Xion, and Riku's hand no longer attempting to leave Sora's embrace.

"Oh,"' Kairi said, voice faint, and Ven had to tamp down the hysterical urge to laugh slightly. Yeah, "oh", that's a good reaction to it, he thought. How on earth did we screw up so badly that this ended up happening?

"And during this fight, Terra ended up possessed?" Axel asked after a second, trying to formulate the timeline in his head, and Terra flinched, something Ven felt. He looked up, trying to catch the older boy's eye, but couldn't.

"Yes," Terra admitted, voice low and quiet. "I… struggle with darkness in my heart, something that a Keyblade Wielder shouldn't have." Riku froze at that. Wait, what? He shouldn't…? But he did, he learned to control it? Was he… wrong for doing that? "Master Xehanort… He was the only one who didn't act differently about that." Aqua's eyes closed, hearing the way that Terra hadn't singled her out either. She shouldn't have pushed him away, shouldn't have led him straight into Xehanort's web. She hadn't meant to cause it, but she did. "I thought I could trust him, but by the time we figured out what was happening, the darkness in my heart was too strong and Master Xehanort was able to use that to possess my body, supplanting my heart with his own and locking mine away."

"Like with Ansem," Riku murmured. "Except that was actually Xehanort."

"But was it your Xehanort?" Axel questioned, getting several looks of confusion, even from Xion and Roxas. "While I don't know much, I wasn't that far in the loop of information, I know that for the first few months after Xehanort appeared in Radiant Garden and was taken in by Ansem, he had no memories either."

"Yeah, Aqua beat him so bad he developed amnesia," Terra muttered, ignoring the slight happiness that bubbled in his chest at those words. He shouldn't be… happy about another suffering, that was just another for of darkness, but… it was Master Xehanort. Was it… that bad that he was happy?

"I did?" Aqua asked, sounding thoroughly surprised, and Ven moved his head to be able to see her as well. Her eyes were wide, and mouth was slightly parted. Terra looked over at her and suppressed the smile that wanted to make it past his lips. While the others would probably only see her surprise on her face, he could see the slight vindication in her eyes, the way they were a tad bit too wide for just simple confusion.

"Yeah, you did," he admitted, allowing a quiet chuckle to make its way along with his words and she turned to him, he probably being the only one able to see the slight stars in her eyes. Ven laughed as well and unnoticed by all of them, Vanitas's eyes widened, and he gazed at Aqua in utter confusion. How…? No one could beat the Master, no one at all. He had tried, both in training and out of it. Master Xehanort was strong, powerful. He had backup plans to his backup plans, was careful and meticulous and if he had been an apprentice under Ansem the Wise it must have been for his plans. It was because Miss "Keyblade Master" beat him into amnesia? Was that even possible?

"Well, it explains why he 'disappeared'," Mickey said thoughtfully, expertly pushing away the thoughts of failure, he was still out there, you knew it, you should have done it, and instead shook his head slightly. "I always assumed you had killed him that night and that battle had taken down the two of you." He gestured to Terra and Aqua with his head. "Yen Sid believed so as well. But…" That clearly didn't happen.

"During the amnesia, I don't think I was awake," Terra spoke up, bringing the conversation back around. "Or… not in any meaningful way, it was… strange and I can't remember most of it. But after, once Xehanort regained his memories, so did I. I… could see everything out of his eyes, and I tried to stop him, but I couldn't and-" He cut himself off with a gasp of air and could feel his nails bite into his palms again. Ven gazed up at him in concern and Terra half wanted him to stop doing it because he didn't deserve it, he had done this to himself, everything was his fault, and he couldn't-

"You were awake?" Axel asked and Terra blinked, dragged from his thoughts. "You saw… everything?" And Terra knew what he was asking about, could remember the two young teenagers who had become apprentices basically a week before everything went down, a week after Xehanort remembered himself, and he remembered them attempting to save the girl from the cell while everything was starting to collapse, as darkness started to eat at the world, not collapsing it yet, but that the light was starting to fade. He could remember the experiment done on them, their painful and bloody transformations into Nobodies, covered in the black cloth that they had been testing, the way he had tried to stop Xehanort because they were Ven's age and nothing more than kids and Xehanort had already twisted the minds of the others except for the young child that didn't say anything, and there was nothing Terra could do-

"Yeah, I did," Terra responded.

"Have you been awake… for the past ten years?" Sora questioned; the words slow from his mouth. "Like, after Xehanort split himself?"

Terra sucked in a breath, trying to push away the echo of the headache that wanted to split his skull.

"Maybe," he admitted and got several concerned looks in the process, Aqua looking sick to his side. He didn't know why; she had seen him in the Realm of Darkness if that was even real and not his broken mind trying to give him some semblance of safety. "It's not… coherent, by any means, and it's mostly painful and dark, but there have been times where I've seen flashes of things. If Xehanort split himself into a Heartless and a Nobody, then I don't really know what happened to my heart and where I've been for the past ten years." He wasn't telling them everything, how could he tell them about the verbal spats with Xehanort the few months before Xehanort split himself, how could he tell them about the darkness circling around his wrists and throat, the boredom and silence, the headaches, the circle of light around him that got smaller and smaller as Xehanort's influence grew. How could he tell them about the scenes, seeing Sora on a world of islands, seeing the two of them fighting against him in the city of white, seeing the graveyard where it all started, flashes in his head that made no sense and-

His thoughts were cut off when some shuffling came the from couch he was sitting on and Ven moved slightly. He looked down, only to be taken off guard when Aqua, who had used the space that Ven just created, threw herself at him, curling up in his side like she did all the time when they were growing up and wrapped her arms around him, pressing her face into the crook of his neck.

He froze. When was the last time…?

On instinct, his arm came up and wrapped around her, holding her in return, and he didn't know what to say. Maybe because it had been ten years since he had any time of positive physical contact. Maybe because it was Aqua and she meant the world to him just like he meant the world to her because before Xehanort and Vanitas and Ven, it had been the two of them, growing up in the Land of Departure, the two of them running through the grass and comforting each other after nightmares, the memories of their pasts, of their home worlds, slipping from their minds like water as new memories took their place. Maybe because is was Aqua and he had watched and screamed as Xehanort fought her, using his body, thankfully not his voice, using his skills, using his light and darkness, and while he was partially a thousand miles away at some points, he was still there at some points, and he had wanted Aqua to defeat Xehanort, to win the battle because he had almost never won against her and he didn't want this time to be the one he did.

"It's okay," were the words that came from his mouth instead of the myriad of thoughts swirling in his head, because these were his problems to deal with and Aqua no doubt had a myriad of her own to deal with. "It's okay."

"It's not," and her voice was barely above a whisper, barely over a breath, only meant for him and him alone. "It's not." It has to be, he thought. Because we can't fall apart when there are the younger Keyblade Wielders to care for. We failed them by disappearing on them. Should have been there for Riku, for the rest of them. We can't fall apart when they need us.

He blinked once, allowing his thoughts one more moment to run around his head before banishing them carefully back to their boxes. Ven shifted on the couch, and he looked to him, slightly surprised to see the same sad expression that had been on Aqua's face on his. That couldn't be right, Ven wasn't… He was supposed to be strong for Ven, so Ven wouldn't be sad or scared or covered in darkness like Terra was.

Aqua pulled back and Terra only got the briefest glimpse of her face, expression sad and worried, before she had placed the mask back on, schooling her expression to one more calm and even that only Terra could see through.

"After Ven fell unconscious, I fled the battlefield with his body," Aqua announced the room, taking up her part of the story. "I hid him in the Land of Departure and went back to find Terra. We ended up in Radiant Garden and I had to fight him, well Xehanort. After I won, he started sinking into the Realm of Darkness, so I placed him on my glider and sent him out. That's how I ended up i-"

"You did what?" Terra interrupted, his turn to be surprised by something as he whipped his head back to face her from where it had fallen. Ven's eyes went wide in surprise, an expression reflected on Vanitas's face, and Mickey blinked. He didn't… know this part.

Aqua flinched slightly, looking to the side. "Yes, I know it was a bad decision, but it was you, well not you, but still you and if you had a chance of coming back I couldn't just leave you there."

"You shouldn't have done that," he told her. If only she had let him sink. He had always thought that it had been some machination by Master Xehanort that allowed him to escape and survive Aqua. He had seen their fight, had seen it all until they had fallen unconscious. He had thought that one of Xehanort's helpers, like the man from before, had been the one to find their body, perhaps stopping Aqua from finishing him off and gave them to Ansem after they realized that their memories were gone. He hadn't thought that Aqua had… sacrificed herself… for him.

And what have you done to deserve that? Nothing at all. She should have just let him sink. Or finished him off. He would have gone into Kingdom Hearts happy if it meant that his death had also been Xehanort's death.

"Well, I did," she refuted, giving him a look that was reminiscent of the arguments they would have as children, where they were both too stubborn to ever entertain the idea that the other had been right and instead would ignore all logic until they both forgot about the disagreement and went back to normal.

"So, Xehanort is a Keyblade Master who is good at manipulation," Sora summarized, looking faintly scared and worried. "And he is the reason the three of you have been… absent the last ten years?"

"Yeah," Aqua replied, looking away from Terra. "He wanted to summon Kingdom Hearts, for what reason, we don't know. He also killed our master." Terra flinched, remembering how it was his fault, you fault, you helped, you murdered him. But he was going to murder Ven. He didn't… There should have been more, been a better option, but Ven and Master Eraqus and he could only act-

"And he hasn't stopped trying," Roxas said. "Xemnas was trying to create his own version of Kingdom Hearts."

"But why?" Naminé murmured and there was no answer the older Keybearers could give them. They didn't know either.

In the Gummiship, Sora and the others moved towards the darkness. Sora realizes that Ansem must be somewhere in there.

Several of them blinked in surprise when the screen started up again. Aqua shifted back to her position from before, so Ven was able to sit comfortably between them again, and Sora tensed up slightly when he remembered everything they went through. Kairi gritted her teeth.

Donald says that the king is probably in there as well, with Goofy adding Riku.

Well yes, but actually no, Riku thought. We're on our way though.

Sora says they should go, and Donald guides the ship into the darkness. They end up on an island in the middle of the darkness, stepping out of the ship and into the cave.

"Where are you?" Kairi asked, eyes widening as she saw the place and Sora grimaced.

"I think it was what was left off all the worlds that disappeared," he replied, thinking back to the brief moment he thought he was on Destiny Islands. "In the heart of the darkness."

Sora sees something off in the distance and Goofy wonders if this is all what is left of the worlds that the Heartless destroyed.

Kairi and Riku both shivered at that, thinking about Destiny Islands and the fact that it had ended up there. Scattered into pieces, the people in it lost to the darkness. Because of you, Riku thought. Your fault.

Sora says that the worlds will be restored when they beat Ansem and Donald agrees. Goofy wonders what will happen to them and the place when the worlds are restored.

"Sora," Aqua said, taking a deep breath in carefully. "Tell me you had some concrete way to get out of there if the worst happened and the place started to collapse after you beat Ansem."

Sora didn't reply.

"Sora?" Riku asked, worry rocketing into his heart. At the time, he had already seen Sora do a suicide maneuver to save Kairi. He didn't think it had been a habit. Please don't let it be a habit.

"Well, we didn't have a… plan, per say," Sora eventually settled on. "But we had the belief that our hearts couldn't disappear, even if the place did. We… would have been fine."

That belief wasn't fact, Riku wanted to tell him, but bit his tongue. He knew how Sora thought; he knew him better than anyone sitting in the room with them. Sora's beliefs could sometimes become fact, especially once magic and Keyblades and all that had gotten mixed up in their life and it wasn't like that was a particularly new concept, but at the same time…

"Sora," Kairi groaned out, dropping her forehead onto his shoulder.

"What? We had to save the worlds!" Sora responded, turning to give her a look, and Aqua shook her head quietly.

"Not at the expense of your life, remember?" She told him, echoing her previous words from when they watched him stab himself. "Not at the expense of your life."

Donald doesn't have an answer for that and Goofy says they might just disappear. When Sora gives him an uneasy look, Goofy clarifies that even if the place goes poof, their hearts will remain, and they'll find their friends again.

"And I did," Sora said, giving his two friends meaningful looks. "I survived this." He tried to remind them, because he had a feeling they weren't going to react well to the fight. They hadn't really whenever they had watched him fight at all.

Sora agrees with him and looks down at Kairi's charm, smiling at it.

Kairi couldn't help the warm bubble of happiness that grew in her heart when she saw Sora holding onto her charm. It had meant so much to her, to create that to give to him, a little piece of her heart given to his. A little declaration of her feelings. It hadn't been a coincidence that it was slightly shaped like a paopu fruit. Maybe, once they got out of there, they could share one for real. Bind their lives together like Kairi wanted them to.

As they start walking through the world, they fight several Heartless on their way. They end up near some stone pillars, where a giant Heartless emerges for them to fight.

"Guys, if this worries you, I don't know how you're going to get through the rest of it," Sora said with an eyeroll as both Kairi's and Riku's hands tightened around his arms and shoulders. "I can fight well with my Keyblade, remember? I've gotten plenty of practice."

For some incomprehensible reason, that didn't reassure either of them in any way.

They fight the Heartless until it disappears, revealing a crack in the stone leading down. Goofy wonders if that is where Ansem is and Donald says maybe if they jump down there, they'll find him.

"Sora, please don't-" Riku started but was cut off by Sora sighing.

"Yes, we jumped down there, no it probably wasn't the best idea but it was the only idea we had and it ended up working so nothing has to be said about it." At the end of his short rant, he crossed his arms and leaned back into the couch with a huff of air. Kairi and Riku exchanged glances over Sora's head.

"They aren't saying you're a bad decision maker or fighter," Aqua said gently, well used to the way that Ven would sometimes get when he felt that Aqua and Terra were 'smothering him'. "They're just worried about you."

"I know," Sora refuted. "Just…" Kairi didn't say anything in response, simply reaching for one of Sora's hands, taking in gently in hers and holding it tightly. Something that the two of them shared, and that Riku used to share, was their habit of taking each other's hands to show comfort. Perhaps it was because it was a common action in Destiny Islands as a whole.

Sora says let's go and the three of them jump into the fissure, landing on a shelf in a cave with strange rock formations and Gummi blocks embedded into the walls.

"Woah," Xion whispered, looking at the sight on screen. It looked… really pretty, now that she was thinking about it. Her eyes were drawn to the sparkling Gummi Blocks in the walls, and she got the strangest urge to create a bracelet out of them.

They look around, but a Heartless pops up behind them and shoves them off the shelf, sending them further down into the cave.

There were several muted gasps of surprise, not just from his two friends, and Sora didn't feel as bad about it. That, to him even, had been truly surprising. They hadn't expected it, which was slightly foolish on his part. But it had ended up being a good thing, as they had found Ansem through it.

The three of them land in the bottom of the fissure, with Goofy falling on top of Donald, much to the duck's displeasure.

Mickey couldn't contain a giggle at the duck's offence, something he saw copied by several of the people in the room, many of them the teenagers that he, and he was sure Aqua and Terra, were worried about. To his surprise however, he saw a smile, or what was the start of a smile, curl up Vanitas's lip as well. He paused for a second. He didn't… completely know how to feel about the young darkness user. While he wasn't as happy with him, due to all the actions he had taken a decade ago, now, sitting in this room with at least five other teenagers, it was clear, painfully clear, how young Vanitas truly was. It had been easier to ignore, when he was just a demon in a mask, but now, with a face that was identical to Sora's and an age that reflected Ven, the body he had come from, it was clear that he wasn't any more an adult than Sora or Riku were. And that… made Mickey think.

The three of them look around and Sora sees a bright, blue light. Sora walks up and touches it, sending the three of them somewhere else.

"Is that Traverse Town?" Roxas asked, gazing at the screen as Sora, Donald, and Goofy appeared in the new place. "But it didn't fall to darkness, didn't it? You sealed the Keyhole."

"Oh yeah, it's fine, I'm pretty sure," Sora responded. "We just went on a really quick crash course of all the worlds we had gone to during our adventure." He shrugged, a calm expression on his face.

"Why?" Naminé asked, thinking about it. It didn't really make complete sense why they were visiting all those worlds when none of them had fallen to darkness.

"No idea," Sora replied. Which seemed to be a common answer. Which also made sense.

Sora, Donald, and Goofy look around the streets of Traverse Town, only to be beset by many Heartless. As they fight them off, Sora sees another blue light and touches it, sending them to Wonderland.

"Why would you touch it again?" Vanitas asked with an eyeroll. "You touched it once and it sent you to a random place. Why touch it again?"

"It was that or fight all those Heartless," Sora defended, gesturing to the screen with one of his hands. "Plus, I had a feeling it would send us to where we wanted to go." He paused. "Eventually."

They really quickly go through all the other worlds, before pausing in Neverland. Goofy wonders what exactly is happening, and Sora theorizes that they're going to all the places where Heartless invaded the specific worlds.

Aqua wondered why that was. Maybe the Heartless left behind some… residue almost? Or something of the like.

They touch the light again and they end up in an unknown set of corridors.

Axel went abruptly stiff when he saw the hallways of the underside of the Radiant Garden Castle, thrown back into memories of sneaking through the hallways to visit X with Isa, running through them after Ansem disappeared, trying to get to X before she vanished as well, and walking through them calmly, newly stripped of his heart and wondering how long the darkness was going to last before it swallowed the world, helpless to do anything to stop it.

Mickey blinked in surprise as he recognized part of the Castle of Radiant Garden. Or what he suspected was Radiant Garden. The wall decorations were distinct enough from his few visits of the place.

Donald says that they haven't been to this place before and Goofy spots an emblem embedded into one of the walls, saying that it looked a lot like the Keyhole created by the princesses. Donald notices a door and they go inside, seeing many pipes going up the wall, surrounding a hemisphere of pod shaped things.

Kairi pressed a hand to her head as a pang of pain went through her temple, quickly passing as soon as it came. What…? She furrowed her eyebrows at the screen. Had it been… the place that gave her the headache? But that made no sense. Unless, this could be Radiant Garden, a place that Sora and the others hadn't been. Perhaps she had seen it once in her childhood. But why was she down there?

Sora steps closer to a panel in the front, wondering what it could be. Goofy warns against touching it, citing that a bunch of Heartless could come out, but Sora brushes him off and pushes a lever on the panel.

At this point, most of them weren't really that surprised by Sora's actions. It was clear that he didn't really think before doing certain things.

"Oh, those born of the darkness, devoid of hearts…"

"Who is that?" Aqua wondered, the voice of what had to be a man lilting and songlike almost. Like the person who had recorded this, because it had to be a recording, was… amused almost, by what they were saying.

Sora shrugged, perhaps unnecessarily. He hadn't ever met someone during his travels that had a voice like that.

"Mickey?" Terra asked, wondering if the king had any insight but the mouse shook his head. He didn't know either.

Donald realizes that it's talking, and Sora shushes him. "Ravage all worlds and bring desolation. Seize all hearts and consummate the one great heart."

"Is he implying that the Heartless only serve to create Kingdom Hearts?" Ven wondered, tipping his head to the side in an effort to dismiss the headache that had taken a hold of him again. The voice… it almost sounded familiar.

Unnoticed by him, Vanitas was making the same face. The voice… it was almost from a dream…

"Maybe," Axel muttered. "But that's now true. Heartless have always existed, even before Maleficent and Ansem started manipulating things."

"Has that always been their purpose then?" Naminé wondered. "And Maleficent and Ansem just tried to highjack it?"

None of them had an answer for that.

"All hearts to be one and one heart to encompass all."

"Kingdom Hearts," Ven and Vanitas both whispered under their breath, the memory of the gold blue heart in the sky above them as they fought in the Keyblade Graveyard for a second time.

"This is the realm of 'Kingdom Hearts'. The great darkness, sealed within the great heart."

"I thought Kingdom Hearts was light," Xion said, remembering the small things she had picked up from Xemnas's different speeches throughout her year in the Organization. "That's how it was going to give us hearts."

"Well, Xemnas was wrong about that," Axel corrected her a little reluctantly, not wanting to spoil a little of her happiness from the year in the Organization.

"But it was light," Sora interjected. "It was how I defeated Ansem. The light destroyed him."

"But that wasn't Kingdom Hearts either," Mickey said with a grimace. "That was the Door to Darkness, the Door to Kingdom Hearts of Worlds' Hearts. There's a difference."

Kairi leaned over and rubbed at her temples, letting out a long sigh. Her action was slightly copied by Aqua.

"I'm suddenly realizing why it was necessary for Master Eraqus to have such a large library and why he insisted that during his time as a Keyblade Apprentice, there were those who were just dedicated to studying the history of the Keyblade and the Keyblade War over and over, trying to discover their secrets," she murmured. "I thought it wasn't possible that someone could spend their whole life doing that. I am now corrected."

"Progeny of darkness, return to the eternal dark."

Like me? Vanitas wondered. Is that where I am? Wherever darkness goes?

"For the hearts of light shall unseal the path. Seven hearts, one keyhole, one key to the door."

"How does the voice know all this?" Riku asked, growing offput with the apparent knowledge the voice seemed to have. "This is a recording, right? How does it know the future from whenever it's been recorded?"

"I have no idea," Sora replied, leaning back into Riku's chest, wanting to be nearer to the older boy as their separation came closer to being seen. He wasn't going to lose Riku, not again. Never again.

"The Door to Darkness bound by two keys."

Does that mean it will be bound by two keys? Aqua wondered, giving Mickey a look. While she didn't know that much about what was about to happen, not having that much time to talk about it when she had been fighting for her life trying to protect Mickey in the Realm of Darkness, she knew that this somehow got sealed. Her memories confirmed that. But if Mickey's Keyblade was one of the ones to seal the Door to Darkness, and it was a carbon copy of Sora's, had Sora's been the other Key to seal it? And if that was the truth, did the voice mean it required two Keyblades to seal it? Or that those two specific Keyblades will seal it?

She didn't know if she liked either implication.

"The Door to Darkness, which seals the light. None shall pass but shadows, returning to the darkness."

Riku flinched. He knew he shouldn't be completely listening to a mysterious voice that somehow knew the future but… only shadows shall pass. Did that make him a shadow?

"Oh, those born of the heart, those with no hearts, fallen children of the dark, devour every heart until the Door to Darkness opens!"

All of them shivered then as they listened to the way the voice upturned at the end in amusement, as if he was going to start laughing before the recording cut off and everything went silent. Sora didn't know how he had managed to listen to that the first time without being scared. Maybe because he had been running on some much adrenaline, it wasn't even funny.

Sora wonders what Kingdom Hearts even is.

Sora sighed. Part of him wanted to go back to the naïve boy who didn't know anything except that he wielded a mystical weapon called the Keyblade and that Riku was out there, waiting for him to track him down. But at the same time, he had learned so much and even in these only few hours he had spent with the rest of them, he felt connected to them like he hadn't been since his friendship with Riku. Other Keyblade Wielders, some Keyblade Masters. People who had been through what he had, if only a little differently, and knew the burden of holding the Keyblade, of fighting the darkness that came for the hearts. These people, who he wanted to know more, knew what he had been through, were literally seeing what he had been through. And while it wasn't the greatest, it was still better than nothing. He had heard Aqua's words. Keyblade Wielders didn't belong alone. And now he wouldn't be alone ever again.

My friends are my power, he thought. Riku is my power. Kairi and Goofy and Donald and Roxas and Ven and Xion and all the rest are my power. Always.

Goofy mentions that the voice said it was 'all hearts' while Donald deduces that the 'progeny of darkness' were the Heartless. Sora asks didn't they seal all the doors and Goofy replies that there must be one more.

One more, Sora thought. One more, that separated me and Riku for a year.

Sora says that none of this makes any sense.

It was a feeling many of them were intimately familiar with, both from their lives and the challenges that came with it, and from what they were learning as this watching went on.

Goofy sees something by the emblem and walks towards it, picking something up. When Sora asks what it is, he says it's more of Ansem's report.

Roxas didn't say anything, just pressed his face into Axel's shoulder. Before pausing and looking back up. Right, it wasn't DiZ anymore, it was… Xehanort, right?

"More of Xehanort's words?" Kairi wondered, remembering what Axel had said about the latest reports. Both Terra and Aqua flinched, but for very different reasons. Terra didn't know if he wanted to hear more of the man's words, not when he had been tormented by them before and had probably already seen them written down on the pages, despite his probable attempts at stopping him. The last few days before, what Terra now knew was a split into Heartless and Nobody, were dim and blurrily, in even in his mind.

Sora says that he thought the piece they found in Hollow Bastion was the end of it.

Story of the reports, Roxas thought with an eyeroll. When you think it's done, surprise, there's more!

Jiminy jumps out of Sora's pocket, saying that it looked a lot like Ansem's report, before beginning to read it.

Several people jumped when the cricket appeared. Many of them had forgotten that he was with Sora and the others at all.

"Existing only as a heart, I have returned to the Heartless, and yet there is no hint of a transformation."

"So, it is Xehanort," Naminé murmured, trying to keep track of it all in her head. It wasn't easy.

Terra tipped his head to the side, thinking. If Master Xehanort was already a Heartless at this time, then… what happened to him? Was he still there, still trapped within Xehanort's heart? If Master Xehanort ripped his own heart out, separating himself from his Terra's Body, had he taken Terra with him? Or not? Maybe the reason he had such spotty memories of the past ten years was because he was a heart existing on its own, without a body. He didn't know which option he preferred.

Bizarrely, Sora had the strangest thought. If he's a Heartless, how is he writing? He had a feeling that the thought wouldn't be appreciated, so he didn't share it, but the thought remained. Were their ways for Heartless to be different shapes, have different appearances other than different shadow creatures?

"The body is certainly gone. But its memories remain, and I have yet to take the form of a Heartless. Much is still unknown."

Well, that answer's that question, Sora thought as the next part of the report was read. Honestly, how am I forgetting all of this? I thought I had only forgotten that one part, before the year sleep? Along with the whole, 'thank Naminé' note.

"To reach the realm of darkness, once must go through the doors of Kingdom Hearts, the place where the worlds' hearts connect."

As the report went on, now with the knowledge that it was in fact Xehanort writing the report instead of Ansem, Aqua's breathing grew tight, and her hands curled into fists. Maybe because she hated everything to do with the man, maybe it was because the last time she had heard him talk, he had been talking through the body of her closest friend after taking his heart prisoner. Maybe because there was a part of her that wasn't soothed by Terra's words of her 'beating Xehanort into amnesia' and was worrying that she had played right into his hands, yet again. What if this had been his plan, to get into Ansem the Wise's good graces, before taking his work and separating himself, making him twice as hard to track down and stop. Because everything had been his plan before, everything down to the day he arrived at the Land of Departure. She couldn't have stopped his plan, not her. She wasn't nearly as good a Keyblade Wielder Master Wielder to do that. Not the man who had planned everything down and killed her master and had his apprentice send her little brother into a coma and had manipulated and imprisoned her closest friend.

Not her, the screw up she was. She wasn't good enough to stop him. She couldn't have stopped him then.

"There are many worlds, some of which we know nothing about. The world in which we live, the Realm of Darkness, the Realm of Light. And the world between. Whither lies the true paradise?"

Paradise? Ven wondered, blinking in confusion. Why would Xehanort be wondering about paradise? He had been seeking power and he had some version of it now. Why paradise?

Unknown to him, Vanitas's breathing was shaking and stuttering as he slammed his eyes closed, wanting to cover his ears with his hands and block out the report. How could he have been so stupid? It was obvious, painfully obvious, that the person writing the report was Master Xehanort. The way he spoke, the thoughts he lingered on. Even in the past report, he should have seen it, should have realized. He spent four years listening to the same man talk on and on between 'training' sessions with Vanitas. How could he had not seen?

"Where does the body go when it separates from the heart?"

"It goes and creates a vile Nobody named Xemnas who likes to manipulate teenagers into killing each other," Roxas snarked under his breath, something about the reading putting him back on edge like he hadn't felt since those final days in the Organization.

"I know that when the heart returns to the Heartless, the physical form disappears."

Kairi closed her eyes in remembrance before immediately snapping them open again, the vision of Sora's body dissolving into sparkles after stabbing himself to release her heart appearing behind her eyelids. She held tighter to the hand she held. She wasn't going to lose him again.

"But that is merely true in this world. In another world, might it not still exist?"

"What other world is he talking about?" Ven questioned, taken aback by the strange nature of the question.

"Does he mean the Realm of Darkness or Hollow Bastion?" Sora offered the two options, biting his lip.

"He might mean a literal different world," Roxas said, he and Naminé most… familiar with what Xehanort was probably talking about. "When I separated from you, I didn't appear in Hollow Bastion. Neither did Naminé." He gestured to her with a head nod. "Maybe he means like that."

"A being that is neither darkness nor light, belonging nowhere, abandoned by its heart, a mere shell of its former self, spurned by light and darkness alike."

Roxas got the urge to bare his teeth in a scowl on his, Axel's, and Naminé's behalf. They weren't shells of their former selves, they were themselves. New people, their own person. And he didn't feel too abandoned by the light, what with him wielding the Keyblade and all.

"However, I am certain that if one's self exists here, then by definition the other cannot truly 'exist'. Call it then a nonbeing, a 'Nobody'."

Both Roxas and Naminé flinched at the disregardment of their existence and Xion looked over at her friend in concern while Mickey's gaze fell on the girl in white. Roxas wanted to snap at the words that were on the screen, snarl back that he was him, not Sora, not an empty puppet, not a nonbeing. He was Roxas, he was a Nobody, he was best friends with Xion and Axel, he didn't have a heart of his own, and none of those statements were contradictory. None of them.

"Wait Mickey, I thought you said Ansem came up with the names for the Nobodies?" Aqua asked quietly, eyes moving between Roxas and Naminé who had both had clear reactions to the latest report.

"I thought he did," Mickey replied. "He seemed certain that he hadn't heard the word before he started saying it."

"So, they both came up with the same term?" Sora asked.

Roxas scoffed. "They're more alike than they thought. No matter no one could tell their reports apart."

Vanitas flinched at the implications of not telling them apart. He messed up, he should have known, he should have realized, he couldn't fail the test again.

Goofy says that it's more stuff that doesn't make sense and Jiminy says that there have been a lot of things that they don't understand, but that Jiminy's been able to figure out. He admits that he can't figure this out.

Because it's such a change, Ven thought. Why was Xehanort searching for paradise? Why split himself? Why do any of it?

Had he just abandoned the plan from before, that included him and Vanitas? Had he just… moved on? To a new scheme?

Sora mentions that it says Kingdom Hearts again and both Donald and Goofy are confused. Jiminy wonders what he's trying to say.

A wondering that was echoed by many of the watchers.

Donald says that it doesn't matter, and they just have to beat Ansem. Sora says he's right and summons the Keyblade, turning towards the black portal in the hallway.

Except it does matter, Sora thought. Because apparently this has been going on for much longer than we thought, with much worse consequences.

Aqua trapped in the Realm of Darkness. Terra imprisoned in his own heart, body puppeted by the man who did it to him. Ven asleep for a decade, unageing.

Sora, Donald, Goofy, and Jiminy, who hides back in Sora's pocket, leap into the dark portal, letting it swallow them.

Sora took a deep breath. It was almost over.

At least, this adventure was. But there was still so much more.