Ruby woke up in the middle of the night to a creaking noise. Stepping outside of Yang and her hotel room, she found a black shadow staring at her from outside the five story tall wall of windows. It turned, floating towards the ground and Ruby rushed out to find it standing, staring out over the waves. As she approached, it spoke, a voice filled with false amacability coming to her, "Ruby Rose… We so very long to meet you."
"You… Know me?" Ruby asked carefully.
"Oh, I've known you for longer than you could know. Since long before this sad, pitiful, flickering ball of Light was even a speck of thought in its creator's minds. Before the world that birthed this one was the same even. Since before so many pitiful hearts clashed in a vainglorious attempt to stop our inevitable coming, only to herald our first victory. I've known about you since our old friend, your Master, put pen to paper and we leaned over his shoulder, reading as he wrote down what an eye yet to be detached saw. Now, do you know who I am?"
"Darkness," Ruby said, hand coiling around her keyblade as it appeared in her hand in a scattering of rose petals, "What are you doing here?"
"Can't you feel it, my friend? The light sputtering and gutting as it is fed upon?" Darkness said, turning to look at Ruby and slowly morphing into a yellow eyed girl with brown hair, "'Dreams of the morrow hath the shattered soul; pride is lost; wings stripped away, the end is nigh'."
"You don't mean," Ruby's gut fell, her heart pounding in her throat.
""We are here," Darkness said, turning towards Ruby, "We are all here."
"You won't-!" Ruby lunged, smashing her Keyblade into a barrier as Darkness laughed. The resulting shockwave rippled out, shattering windows and causing a nearby church's bells to start ringing.
"And there is our refrain, as your Master foretold! 'With a single strike, toll the bells and herald the end, bring war upon us, as fate did intend'! The end has come-"
"Then let it be war," Ruby hissed, pushing harder against the barrier as her eyes narrowed, the already cratered sand exploding as the barrier was driven further down, "Until Remnant is free, until everyone is back, until you're gone, that's all there will between us."
"Oh, I believe it," Darkness laughed, before vanishing in a bloom of darkness, "but remember, seven Lights and Thirteen Darkness, since the moment the X-Blade shattered, we have outnumbered you."
And with that, small fragments of darkness blacker than even Grimm came skittering down the crater, an unending tide. And Ruby prepared.
—
"Playing that game again, huh?" Xehanort looked up at the approaching figure, Eraqus doing the same across from him. Freya grabbed a chair, the upperclassman spinning it so it was facing them back first, resting her arms on it and laying her head down on them, "I don't get how you can enjoy it."
Freya was a girl in her late teens, slightly taller than Xehanort, with spiky red-black hair falling into her left eye and wearing a long, red and black leather coat over a tight black turtleneck and pants the same color.
"What'd you rather we do, Freya?" Eraqus said, "spend all day in the library like you do? Are you even going to survive your Mark of Mastery exam like that?"
"There are some of you that could use a bit more studying," Freya nodded at Hermod, who look scandalized at the sheer prospect.
"As if!" Bragi laughed, before growing more serious, "What's up, Freya? You are normally in the library at this time of day. We don't normally see you until lunch."
"Just got a bad feeling is all," Freya said, lifting her head to look at No Name sitting over Master Odin's desk. The Gazing Eye reflected in her exposed eye before sighing, "They say the wandering soul knows no rest…"
"Thinking about home, then?" Xehanort asked.
"Never said that," Freya said, turning back to look at them, face serious, "'All that awaits you is a somber morrow'."
"Not that poem again," Eraqus groaned, "Where'd you even hear of it anyways?"
"A book way older than you, half pint," Freya reached out and tousled Eraqus' hair. Eraqus yelped, throwing her hand off as everyone laughed, though Xehanort noticed a certain forced quality to Freya's. There was always that slight hitch.
Freya was weird. Xehanort couldn't remember seeing her sad, or angry, or even just frustrated. She had the same small smile on her face no matter what happened, but she always seemed to be faking whenever she showed joy as well.
"Wind's in the east," Bragi commented, the auburn eyed teen looking out the window and Freya nodded.
"Mist's coming in," she replied.
"What?" Eraqus asked.
"Old poem on a world I traveled to before coming here."
"You're always full of old poetry," Eraqus grumbled.
"Hm…" Freya said, standing up, "You'll understand in time, Eraqus. In every poem is a bit of the future. I should get going, the exam starts soon."
"So you came here to just interrupt our game and spew mystic nonsense?" Eraqus yelled at the retreating upperclassman.
"Yep," Freya said with false cheer, high-fiving Bragi on the way out, "Take care, kids, don't burn down the town while we're gone!"
"No promises!" Bragi called back.
—
Ventus stared as a red and black Keyblade Glider in the shape of a bike landed, a figure in similar colored Keyblade armor climbing out and walking forwards as the helmet disappeared, revealing a woman around Terra and Aqua's age, "Uh."
The woman gave a tired smile that didn't quite meet her silver eyes, "Hello… Ventus, I'm guessing?"
"Uh, yeah," Ventus said, "but call me Ven… Sorry, who are you?"
"A friend of Eraqus," she said, "he's on world, I hope?"
"Does he ever leave?" Ven asked, trying to figure out how she knew Master Eraqus. She seemed too young to be his friend, student, maybe, but…
"Say, Ven?" The woman said, looking him over, "Does the phrase "May your Heart be your guiding key" sound familiar at all?"
"Huh?" Ventus said at the sudden, seemingly random, question, before blinking, "Actually, yeah it does, how'd you know…?"
"Filling my student's head with your poems, Freya?" Eraqus said, walking down the steps from the castle.
"Someone's gotta do it, since I doubt you will, Eraqus," Freya said lightly, without any of the respect that Eraqus normally commanded. Ven's mouth dropped open, as did Aqua's and Terra's behind Eraqus, "You're looking good in your old age."
"I'd say that's rather hypocritical of you to point out," Eraqus said in return, before a smile that seemed to deage him spread across his face, "You're only going on what, 120?"
"116," Freya said, causing Ven to choke on air, "and I don't count, we both know that!"
"Yes, because the rest of us weren't foolish enough to be bit by a… What do they call them… Nightless?"
"The downsides are rather small compared to the upsides, if you ask me," Freya said, her Keyblade Armor disappearing to be replaced with a red and black coat.
"Why are you here?" Eraqus asked, "not that I'm unhappy to see you, but you haven't been in contact for a very long while. I doubt Terra and Aqua even remember you!"
"I need an excuse to visit my underclassman now?" Freya asked, before sighing, "I'm carrying a message from Xehanort. He wants to apologize."
"But didn't come in person?"
"He thought it wouldn't be best to show up uninvited," Freya said with a shrug, "I don't get how you two split, you were always so close."
"He had dangerous ideas," Eraqus said, voice becoming curt suddenly, "ideas best not spoken of near wandering ears."
"Ah," was all Freya said, "tell me about it over some tea?"
"I'd rather discuss anything else, frankly," Eraqus responded.
"Even a lecture about Loveless?" Freya joked.
"Yes."
"Oh," Freya said.
—
Sora stepped out of the forest to find a member of the Organization waiting for him. It was a girl a few years older than him from the looks of her, leaning against a slab of a sword in front of the old mansion, staring at a photograph.
"'Welcome and well met, my brave little spark'," she said, standing up and drawing the sword from the ground in a reverse grip. She looked over the group, before continuing, tone hollow, "If you can't fight, get in the mansion. This is between us. I'd prefer it if it were just Sora, but I doubt that Donald and Goofy will leave."
"Not a chance!" Donald said, gripping Save the Queen.
"Yeah, sorry, Master Freya, we're staying with him!" Goofy said.
"Master Freya?" Sora asked, only for the woman to sigh.
"That name's long worn away, I'm Buryx now, and if you want to get to the World That Never Was, you're going to have to get through me, now you three," she said to Hayner, Pence and Ollete, "get inside and get away from any window, the computer is in the basement."
"We won't leave our-!" Hayner started, only to curl around a fist to the gut, Buryx casually throwing his unconscious body at Pence.
"Go," she repeated, and the remaining members of the trio rushed into the building. She turned to Sora, who rushed at her, swinging the Kingdom Key, only to smash against the sword. A shockwave blasted outwards, blowing half the gate off its hinges, shattering the windows of the mansion, and toppling trees. Buryx pushed back, throwing Sora backwards before rushing in for a blow blocked by Goofy.
The force of it threw everyone back and caused stress fractures to crawl across the ground and up the wall outside the manor. Donald jumped into the air, raising his wand, "Firaga!"
Hundreds of bolts of fire flew towards Buryx, only for her to disappear again and reappear behind Donald, swinging for him. Sora barely got Barriga up in time, and Donald was still sent flying into the sky and out of sight. Red leached into Sora's clothes as he closed his free hand around Star Seeker, rushing in as Buryx smashed Goofy aside and into the wall, sending it crumbling down around him, "Now it's just the two of us."
"I'll just have to beat you alone then!" Sora rushed forwards, throwing a frenzied series of strikes at her with both Keyblades, only for Buryx to dodge them all. Sora watched her eyes narrow suddenly… Before she took advantage of the moment he was overextended to grab him by the shirt and throw him into the air, leaping after him to slam her sword into his guard. This time, the shockwave spread so far it sent the bell of Twilight Town's clock tower ringing.
Flying so high into the air he could see the town, Sora threw Star Seeker at Buryx in a Strike Raid. Summoning the Keyblade the moment it was deflected, Sora plummeted, swinging both down at Buryx…
Only for a Dark Corridor to open in his way and send him falling into a broken world, a darkness tainted ocean to one side and a broken clock tower to the other.
—
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