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mimiplaysgames · 5 years

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A Powerful Enough Dream (Ch. 1)

Pairing: Terra/Aqua Rating: T Word Count: 10,597

Summary: Terra braves the Realm of Darkness to find her. And he does.

Read on AO3.

A/N: If you are returning reader, welcome back!! If you are new, then welcome!! This is a sequel, but I will write it so that you do not have to read the first story to enjoy it. But there are a two (2) things you will have to know going in: 1) This is very much an AU. Here, Terra and Master Xehanort still share a body, and 2) I used the rules of how the Realm of Darkness functions before KH3 retconned it.... again. Joy! And being such an AU, there are certain unorthodox choices I have made. Why? Because I. Will. Not. Stand. For. Aqua. Being. Treated. This. Way. How she never interacts with Xehanort at all in BBS? How villains treat her like she’s unimportant and doesn’t exist? No thank you. She is a brilliant character and should be explored deeply as well (and she should, with all that trauma). That being said, YES I will address Anti-Aqua and the Guardian - but in my own time and way. Think of it as an AU where Terra is the one she meets instead of Ansem SOD xDD. If you have read “Sonne,” then you’ll have an idea of what I’m trying to go for. Either way, I hope you enjoy this!!!! It’s been a long time coming!

Light

The Realm of Darkness likes to choose her adventures for her. She’ll try to keep track of where she’s wandering, and take back what little agency she has. But it still gradually changes environment without her knowing it, even when she pays attention. It’s as if the Realm nicks away at her memory.

There isn’t any record, then, of how she finds herself wandering down a dark, endless hallway from a world she’s never visited. Led by a red rug that stretches and disappears into a void, Aqua continues to walk, only able to see directly in front of her. The carpet leads to more carpet, though there is a peculiar amount of furniture in odd places: a couch in the middle of her way, a chair facing the wall, and three tables stacked on top of each other.

Every once in a while, she’ll pass by a unit that has been ripped apart, cotton pouring out of the cushions like it’s been ravaged by a beast in a fit of rage.

It’s characteristic, but that’s exactly what the Realm likes to be.

What she chooses to ignore this time is the suspicion that she’s being watched - she passes by displays of full sets of armor, and the metal creaks and snaps behind her like they are turning their heads to peer at her footsteps.

The walls are adorned with sculptures of weeping gargoyles, who brandish weapons anyway as if they exist purely to be on the defense. There’s a scent in the air, an aura – something angry exists, or used to exist, in this world. And that pain lies within these statues. She swears that sometimes she’ll hear them gasp. The sound of a throat swallowing to her left. A sigh to her right. Scratching, like a chalk writing on a board, surrounding her.

It’s why she doesn’t touch them – she knows better by now than to play these games. Though the stalking doesn’t stop. It’s like there is a something staying close by her.

The carpet finally stops at the foot of two doors, and it’s a blessing. Doors in a place like this always take her to somewhere else.

A loud thud from behind her, like a metal object has been dropped.

She whips around to see a (new) table in the middle of hallway, a lit golden candelabra placed atop it. She is right – the armored statues have all turned their heads, staring her down with their spears in their hands like they’ll surely ready for a war.

There is a moan and a grumble, like the something believes she is trespassing, and she outstretches her fingers to prepare for the split-second she will need to summon her Keyblade.

The hallway she has already traversed comes from nothingness, but if she takes the candelabra, she can see what is waiting for her to discover it.

This is the Realm’s doing, always trying to initiate the one moment where she will finally stumble.

But failure isn’t an option. Not here. Not this minute or the next second. Not ever.

The hairs on the back of her neck stand up. Call it instinct. Whatever is there is outlasting its patience, but it still waits for her to make the first move.

The Realm has played many games on her, and this one is weak.

She has survived this long (however long that is) because she chose her battles. Keeping her head high, she throws the doors open, not caring how disappointed the Realm or this monster might be.

A library awaits her on the other side, and it’s massive. Fit for a princess, this would put the library back home to shame. Three stories tall with several extravagant spiral staircases, it must have been a beautiful sight in its prime. Gold embellishments line the walls, and emerald-colored draperies hang over the windows. But it’s all dull, now. The curtains are ripped at the ends, and the gold is faded.

It’s much quieter here. Through the window panes, she sees a dense forest that reach beyond the horizon. This castle, in its original world, used to be very isolated.

And it’s snowing. Aqua flattens her palms against the glass.

She just wants to feel the cold, but the Realm won’t let her. Like everything else, physical or emotional, it’s numbed out. What she has left is a memory, a faint coolness that is mostly a figment of her imagination made real.

The snow is gray, like falling ash. It lands on the gargoyles that sit on the balconies outside the window, all contemplating their regrets. The clouds overhead (more like smoke) are dark and stormy. This world has only recently just fallen.

And she’s stuck here, powerless to do anything about it.

Books here vary by color, all leather-bound with filigree engravings on their spines. None of them have titles. Maybe the Realm will give her a break and let her read something to pass the time.

Which is a silly idea, but a desperate Aqua at least needs something to do.

She thumbs through the pages of the first book she takes. All blank.

The second book she takes is blank, too.

Aqua doesn’t know why she keeps trying. There must be at least something here – the other fallen worlds she’s been through gave the Realm the means to tease her, after all.

The third book has one line in one page. You want to read me.

Is that the best the Realm can come up with?

The fourth book: Ven will continue to sleep forever.

It’s like hearing fears from a different person: this invisible writer’s validation of her biggest fear makes it more real that it will come true.

But she won’t let Ventus sleep forever because she will not allow herself to fail.

Another one reads: Have you ever considered yourself beautiful?

She goes through book after book, each one carrying just one line.

The stars won’t shine tonight.

I’m the same as them.

Are you sure the Master was proud of you?

You weren’t the favorite student, you know.

I just haven’t noticed it before.

They flicker and they won’t stop.

What if I made you ugly?

You’ll never hear music, again.

She doesn’t bother to put them back into their shelf, and lets them fall open. She grabs one more, though she doesn’t know why she’s doing this to herself. Maybe it’s because she needs to snap herself out of the hope she’s delusional enough to keep.

Or good things will surely come if she holds on. Either way, there is a book with a message she hasn’t read. So she opens it.

Terra has better things to do with his time than to come find you.

The first thing that always comes to mind when she thinks of him are his eyes. Deep, like he has been swept away by the ocean and is still out there on a journey to find something profound. There isn’t a time in her life she can think of when she has been alone and he hasn’t found her.

When her parents died, a man with a nine-year-old boy with bushy, thick brown hair arrive to give her a new purpose.

When she failed an exam for the very first time – something she never considered was even possible – she ran off into the woods to be alone, only for that thirteen-year-old boy to follow.

When missions went awry and she’s trapped somewhere with an injured leg, a nineteen-year-old man cracked jokes about her indomitable strength as he carried her home.

Terra was always the first to find her.

But now, he’s not here. Where is he?

At first, there is a sickening churn in her stomach, like she’s only realizing that the worst news is true. He’s not here because he doesn’t want to be. Or he never escaped from his fate, and she wasted her life over a sacrifice that did nothing.

Then it fades away, and it’s relieving if she is to be honest, to have the Realm sometimes take her despair and make it disappear. Like a faithful friend, it spares her from many hours of crying.

And like a pest that clings too much, it makes sure to remind her that it will be there, wherever she goes.

She casts the book aside, throwing it as it falls on top of another, landing with blank pages facing upward. She fares better believing that Terra would spare the energy in finding her – after all, that’s what she would do if he was left here. She silently wishes this world blessings as she walks away. Hopefully it will have better luck with going finding its way back to the light than she’s had.

Whatever road she is on now goes on forever. The ground floats amidst empty space, the edges of the road teetering off into literal nothingness. She has experimented before and explored the road backwards, only to find that wherever she came from has gone missing. And many times, she cannot see where she’s headed until she’s already there.

Aqua stops in her tracks to take a break for a moment and stretch out her arms, listening to the quiet. There is really nothing for her to feel – no wind, no presence of another being here. She can take a look around, seeing if tonight will be one where she will be hunted relentlessly, but she knows they aren’t coming. The Heartless only come when she’s hopeful or looking for a way out.

Soon enough, she’ll get back into that mood.

For now, she hums – she doesn’t remember where the song comes from, but it’s become the only one that will stay in her head. She’s certain she’s completely out of tune and gets some of the notes wrong. At least humming makes her seem less crazy than talking to herself.

The one thing she benefits from singing is coaxing herself to dance. To bend the spine forward and let her head hang until she comes back around to swipe her fingers in the air around her. To practice her pirouettes. Her sky kicks. Her leaps and backflips, and her deep lunges.

When she’s had enough, she will brandish the Master’s Defender and strike, keeping her form and technique in check. She slices it into the open air as she sings the melody at a faster tempo, throwing a spell here and there to measure how much of a sting she can deliver.

After this, she’ll have to continue walking and repeat the process.

“Might I share this time with you, my friend?” says a deep voice, rumbling through her mind.

“Xemnas!” she nearly cries, her ease breathing out from deep within her chest. She relishes the feeling, before the Realm sips it dry. “Thank goodness, it’s been so long.”

“Indeed, it has.”

A voice in her head for a friend. He has a special room to himself, one he discovered has a connection to her. She doesn’t understand how it works, or where he truly is, but it doesn’t matter. Time with him makes the Realm seem distant.

He likes to speak slowly, almost as if he tests whether the listener is attentive. Not the best company she can hope for, but it’s endearing when he comes to check on her. His tenor is smooth and lulling - not that she can ever fall asleep since the Realm doesn’t allow her to. It’s just really a voice, but in a world of silence, this psychic link is the best gift she can have.

“Would that I be with you more often, and stay for longer,” he says, and she can hear him sigh like he’s settling himself down.

“Are you in trouble?” His latest visits have been sporadic, and he often has to cut them short.

He scoffs, and she realizes that she’s never heard him laugh. “My affairs are dangerous.”

… And then there is that roundabout way he speaks. He’s forward with his work for as far as she can tell – a man burdened with the responsibility of chasing monsters who have corrupted people’s hearts. From the sound of it, the worlds outside are in a terrible situation.

Especially for his sake, as a man without a heart. Off to find a solution to his unique problem, one that she doesn’t know how to help him solve.

He is always very confident about his work, but… there is that nagging sensation he chooses his words far too carefully.

“I’ve kept myself safe here, so far,” she says. “You have to promise me you’ll do the same.”

“A promise fit for someone uncertain of their fate.”

“Your hubris will be the death of you, one day,” she says, like a mother giving her child a reminder.

“And what of you? Is the night pleasant?”

“Well…” Her surroundings are bare, but what she’s really surveying is the sky. It shifts for every area she trudges through, constantly warping the fabric of space and light with it. Every world that falls leaves behind stars, and the Realm will either swallow them, cut them up and piece them together incorrectly, or murk them.

This time, she sees just one spot where remnants of stars shine alongside huge swirls of debris in an otherwise black and purple sky. They are dim, but if she squints, she can see the sparkle.

“I see a couple of stars,” she says, finding a boulder where she can sit comfortably. “They look so far away. I think they’ll disappear soon, but they’re beautiful in their own way.”

It’s her favorite part of his visits, being able to replicate star-gazing with a friend. And this the Realm can never take away from her.

“Would you be interested in a world where the night never retires?” he asks.

“It’s always dark here. Why would I visit a place like that?”

“You’ll have all the hours to gaze at the stars, so long as the storms rest.” He pauses, his timing anticipating her reaction. “I will finally be able to join you.”

“I have friends to find first, but if your world is on my way, I’ll stop,” she teases. She’s glad that he gives her moments to daydream about life beyond darkness. “Maybe I can help you get your heart back.”

“Can I offer nothing to convince you further?”

“You’ll need to have vanilla cake ready for me, with chocolate chips.”

“I expected a more complex taste palette.”

Aqua nearly laughs, but the feeling is gone as soon as it comes. “Well, how do you expect me not to indulge if I get out of this hellhole?”

She takes a moment to think. Something she truly wants…

“Xemnas, there is something that would mean the world to me if-”

“Ask, and I will grant it.”

“The next time you’re here to visit, can you please bring a radio with you?” she asks, unsure why she’s so apprehensive about it. Perhaps because asking for joy is risky. With the wrong mindset, it’s a trap set to remind her of her devastating reality. “Maybe if you listen to it, I’ll hear it too. I want to dance to music again.”

“I shall. You have my word.”

This is enough to get her by. The promise of music, like a light leading her through a murky lagoon, gives her a pep in her step as she continues to wander through the Realm. She dares not lose to the swarm of monsters stalking her, because she needs to hear that music. Just one song, is all she asks. And she’ll hum it to herself for the rest of time until she is freed.

But he never comes. It’s a slow realization, as she tells herself he must be busy, or maybe his next mission is a ferocious one. But for each reason she gives herself, her heart sinks.

It hits her when she’s lying on a patch of grass. There aren’t any stars in the sky here for her to watch. She nearly starts to hum to herself, when she suddenly realizes that it isn’t fair to do this by herself.

Maybe he also doesn’t want to find her.

Maybe his dangerous job has finally caught up with him, and she’ll never hear from him again…

She would cry, but there is only a faint trace of disappointment.

“None of it was real,” she says to the environment around her. “You made him up, haven’t you? It’s not enough to kick me when I’m down, why do you have to give me false promises-”

A sob nearly escapes her throat, but like a sneeze that won’t escape, it stays trapped until she has no choice but to swallow it.

The Realm won’t allow her to grieve the loss, and she starts begging it to make him up again, just so she has someone to talk to. She promises she won’t care if he isn’t real.

In a time beyond Mickey’s promise to come back to her, after she finds a beach where the moon shines upon black waters and she meets an older man named Ansem, Aqua fiddles with sand. She builds a cone with it, only to strike the top of it with a flick of her fingers. She watches the grains burst out and fall back onto the beach.

The soreness in her body is faint, but it’s there.

With a deep breath, she stands up, reaching her arms to the sky before swiping down to brush her fingers against the ground as she encourages movement in her spine.

“Restless again?” Ansem asks, who is more than happy to sit idly.

She kicks back her shin, grabbing it with both hands as she slowly lifts her ankle above her head, feeling that stretch start on her abdomen and go through to her thigh.

“Waiting is a tough job,” she says. Letting go of her leg, she swings her arms back and forth, barely humming some broken melody to herself as she starts to pivot on her feet.

She isn’t particularly inspired to dance right now. Mickey isn’t going to come find her.

Aqua pushes these thoughts out of her mind, and figures that it’s better to stay busy.

“Will you take one of your walks?” He sounds amused at least, and she promises to herself she will not turn into an old lady who sits in a rocking chair for the end of her life.

They have promised each other that they’ll stay for someone to come find them, in a space between light and dark. Though how Ansem doesn’t go mad with boredom, she doesn’t know. He is also a companion she would never have chosen in any normal circumstances. He carries a heavy weight of remorse in his heart, and conversations with him are usually depressing.

Aqua already has too many regrets, and she’s too young for that. Not the least of which is losing the chance at telling Terra everything she thinks of him: that he’s generous and kind. Trustworthy and safe. Beautiful.

Mickey has said to her that it’s been a decade. And her feelings have stayed as frozen as the time that refuses to age her. Though if it’s been that long, whatever her heart wants doesn’t really matter anymore. He may be grown up, finding himself a different family.

“It’s much healthier for you if you move,” she says, coming closer to the old man with an arm stretched out. Eraqus has managed to live as long being so active, after all.

“And what if someone comes?”

She sighs, wishing he would take better care of himself. “Then you’ll wait for me.”

“It’s much safer if you stay here. What of the Heartless waiting for you beyond these shores?”

“I am a force to be reckoned with,” she says, giving him a smile that feels like nothing.

He huffs with disapproval. “Be safe.”

She would prefer to have someone to talk to, but protecting a man who is completely defenseless is probably a worse idea anyway.

The beach makes way into rocky terrain, leading uphill until she shuffles through wheat stalk that are almost as tall as her. On a pathway that juts through the slough, she finds herself a dirt road, where she can see the beach from far away downhill, and enormous towers with no power lines abandoned in the fields beyond. Just like she is.

The wind blows the wheat here, but it offers no cooling relief nor does it tickle her skin. It just is.

It’s true there are Heartless here, who will watch her from underneath the ground until they feel compelled enough to show themselves. They’re mostly unremarkable compared to the horrors she’s already been through.

But tonight is different.

Heavy stomps head for her direction, repeating quickly and with a vibration like a clank of metal. It’s sprinting towards her.

Her heart jumps at the sound, and she steps backward as she summons her Keyblade, holding it out in front of her as she plays through various tactics in her mind. With the speed it’s going, she will not be the first to attack.

A man in a full suit of armor comes running straight at her, and in his abrupt stop he skids and flails his arms around. They stare, and her chest could burst with how shocking it is to see.

This armor.

“Aqua…” a voice underneath the armor says. His voice. She’s heard it before, when he was a figment of her imagination and he acted delirious. She watched him disappear into chains, just like everything else in this accursed place.

It can’t be real. She lowers her Keyblade by merely an inch, refusing to let her guard be down for an attack. “Terra?”

“Aqua, it’s really me.” His armor erupts in orbs of light, and underneath is him.

The thing about false hope is that the fool can only be tricked so many times. When it’s finally time to face the truth, how else will the fool react except to protect what little dignity it has left?

If this isn’t real, she will scream. She marches up to him and snatches his hand in both of hers –

To feel the flesh under her fingers. It is warm and clammy.

His expression, almost exactly what he looked like when they met in the Keyblade Graveyard all those years ago. Tired. And the saddest she has ever seen him.

His eyes are weary, but they are that same shade of blue, like the bottom of a wave. His hair is damp and stuck to his forehead and his strong jawline drips of sweat, the muscles on his neck tight with anxiety like he’s unsure what she’s going to do.

He hasn’t aged at all. “It’s really you…” she croaks.

Throwing herself onto him, she finds the space in between his shoulder and his neck, letting her face nestle into the folds of his shirt, dampening her face in his sweat. This is the first scent she is experiencing in more than ten years. He’s warm, and she’s surrounded in it like he’s a blanket that protects her from the numbness. He runs his hands along her back, brings his fingers through her hair, and she can feel every inch of it enough to make her want to wish this can be the last feeling she will ever experience – just so she won’t have to exist again without it.

It takes her back to a day when a blizzard drowned the Land of Departure in bright snow. Despite that the sun was shining, she couldn’t keep herself comfortable. Except when he wrapped his arms around her, and she wished she could find excuses to be this close to him again. Like being home.

Since home is unattainable, Terra offers something more: a refuge.

“You found me,” she weeps, and her eyes burn. Burn. Like they haven’t in a decade, and she lets the tears fall as they rub off on his shirt. The relief burns her chest. It burns through her stomach, years of all the pain that couldn’t leave her body, and in this safe haven within his arms, away from the Realm’s grip, she can finally cry.

“I’m-” he chokes. She feels his tears fall onto her forehead, and they’re cool. “I’m sorry it took so long to come see you,” he says, like a child ashamed of never visiting an older relative. The truth must be too hard for him to bear as well.

“I don’t have an excuse,” he continues in between sobs. “I should’ve done something sooner. I should’ve-” He stops again, and she can feel how frightened he is through the way his chest expands, like he’s about to leap off a cliff. “Please don’t hate me.”

She smiles, and raises her head to feel his neck on her cheek. Sweet Terra.

Caressing the back of his head to comfort him, she says, “I’m so glad you’re here.” It’s surprising how much calmer she is, but it isn’t numbness. “It’s been so hard. I’ve missed you so much, Terra.”

He shakes in her arms, like he’s been needing to hear that for years. “I’ve missed you, too, you have no idea how badly.”

She squeezes him tighter, and nearly asks him to say it again. “I thought no one wanted to come find me.”

Terra stirs. He gently pulls away from her embrace. Thankfully, he stays close. If she lets go, she’s certain – certain – he will disappear. She keeps a tight grip on one forearm, and the other on his chest.

“You don’t sound like yourself,” he says, studying her eyes like he’s making sure she isn’t sick.

“I’m sorry… It’s this place-”

He wipes tears off her face, and she nuzzles into his palm, needing to hug him again. She doesn’t want to forget what it feels like.

“It gets to you.” Like he understands what kinds of adventures lie in a place like this. And now he’s trapped here to suffer along with her. A part of her aches at this, she’d never wish this punishment on him. And at the same time, she’s not alone now.

Is she a horrible person for thinking this way?

“I’m sorry you’re now stuck with me in the darkness,” she says, wishing she is smart enough to have left this place on her own so he wouldn’t have to come here.

“As if being stuck with you is such a bad thing,” he scoffs. That humor. She has forgotten what it’s like to laugh, and to smile at this, in his arms where the Realm cannot touch her, is a moment worth having. Maybe they can keep each other protected for the rest of time.

He smirks at her, like he has a special secret. “Either way, I opened a Door to Light. I’m getting you out.”

A what?

Terra chuckles, his toothy grin widening more and more as she tries to understand. “It’s true,” he says, eagerly waiting for her to smile back. “You’re leaving this place.”

“Now?”

“Yes.” Confidently. With a nod to seal the deal.

“And we’ll find Ven?”

He grabs her arms, like he’s trying to get her to realize that she’s walking free. With him. Finally. And they’ll be a family again.

“Definitely. But first we have to get you out of here. We can talk about everything later.”

There is a fluttering in her chest, her heart pounding like it’s egging her to take leaps. Excitement, and she nearly doesn’t recognize it. “Lead the way.”

They won’t be able to embrace while they’re traveling, but clasping her hand around his is good enough. They’ll stay connected in a world that will work to split them up.

“Do you know how we’ll get out?” she asks.

He turns to face her, like none of the rocks they’re treading over can trip him. “I have friends waiting for us. We’ll be okay. I’m thinking I’ll just conjure a door from within, out of the darkness around us. It’s how I got in, anyway.”

None of that makes sense, but it’s fine. As long as she’s free. “I have a friend waiting for me at the beach. I told him I wouldn’t take long.”

“We’ll bring him with us.”

The wheat stalks shrink in size as they jog downhill together, the size of the moon growing larger the closer they arrive.

And the happy feeling shuts down. Not a gradual fade like it usually does, but it pauses abruptly, and she feels thousands of eyes on her.

If she listens quietly, she’ll hear the Realm whisper that it won’t let her go.

The warmth he left on her is the first to go numb, until her heart shivers on the inside. She knows what’s coming before it even arrives. She stops, pulling him back into a halt. “Terra, wait.”

“What is it?”

There it is, a deep rumble that shakes the small rocks at first until the entire ground quivers hard enough to make them unstable. And like a tidal wave coming to engulf them, the Heartless swarm bursts out of the ground, shaped like a slithering tower of pests. But it’s the most familiar force here, following her around like it needs her to stay.

Of course the Realm is going to try to take him away from her.

Terra has never seen this before, throwing his arms around her while his mouth hangs agape. “Aqua,” he warns, and she feels him pulling her back like he wants to run.

“We have to.”

Pushing through his embrace, she summons her Keyblade and starts throwing magical shots of ice toward the swarm. This fight is dangerous, and if they lose all their advantages, pain will be the least of their problems.

So she evades, like she does each and every single time she has run into this thing. Casting highways of ice to slide across to get herself up into the air, she throws herself to land quick, simple strikes, slicing away like it’s meat. It’s not the most straightforward method, but it keeps her safe. When she conserves the energy to do so, she will spin, using her Keyblade to swallow the air around her and crystalize it so it creates a more hostile environment for the Heartless.

Terra has a much harder time, learning how to fight this for the first time and being grounded as he is.

What she doesn’t expect is that he has learned some spectacular new methods.

Like a combustible bomb system, he conjures it with a gripped fist in the air as it builds and builds in size until the swarm runs itself through the giant fireball. And with a flick, he gets it to continually explode.

She’s never seen magic like this.

And it’s too distracting. The swarm circles around to ambush her in retaliation. Several claws from the Heartless that make up the storm rip at her all at once, pushing her downward until she hits the ground and rolls over, the Master’s Defender falling off her hand and bouncing away.

It comes for her again.

She has half a mind to crawl to her Keyblade as fast as possible and conjure a Reflect shield around her, when Terra slides over in front of her and waves his hands in a swoop from the ground to the sky.

From that gesture, a straight energy shield grows – the strangest barrier she’s ever seen.

Weirder still is that he is able to keep it erect, and the Heartless tide runs into and gets electrocuted from the impact. He struggles to keep it up as it continues to crash into it, and he nearly stumbles on himself. She hugs him from behind to keep him standing.

The Heartless tide, free from the electric barrier, circles back around when he’s too tired of holding it up anymore. Now it goes for a direct attack on them.

Terra waves a hand at her to stay in place and he summons his Keyblade. Earthshaker – now so much larger in mass, or is she remembering it wrong? – expands and breaks into parts, realigning itself to create an entirely different shape. A huge canon now sits on his shoulder. Kneeling, Terra silently commands it to create a globe of light, building energy much like the way her pirouettes can do, until it bursts into a searing bolt of wrath – right into the swarm.

The swarm finally leaves them alone.

It would be a peaceful victory, but Terra collapses into his hands, whimpering as he grips his forehead and runs his fingers through his hair like he’s about to rip it off.

“What’s wrong?” She kneels by him, one hand caressing his shoulder while she inspects for any injuries he might have sustained.

He slowly whispers pep talks to himself, like he needs to give himself the will to go on. Once his breathing slows enough, he mumbles “just a headache.” Which is a complete and total understatement. He continues, “I’ve been dealing with them for quite a while now. They get really bad here.”

“We need to get you out of here,” she says, realizing again that he is actually here. He is here, his pain is real, and she is feeling an instinct to protect. It’s been so long since she felt this way.

“I’m okay, I just need to rest for a little,” he grunts.

It doesn’t look like rest will do him any good, but voicing her concerns won’t do much except provoke him to insist he’s fine. She reaches a hand to cup his face, and he nearly leans into it to kiss it. Stopping himself short, he takes her hand in his, and gazes into her eyes. There is something he wants to say, and in that moment, she knows what it will be about, but cannot feel it coming.

At least let her have one more hug so she can actually experience this in full, with the fluttering of the stomach and a heart that beats senseless that young lovers are supposed to have, according to the books she has read in her childhood. Or better yet, set her free so they can both share this together.

“There’s so much I want to tell you,” he says, licking his lips. It’s almost funny: he’s usually so brave in facing whatever scares him. “We have to talk. About what happened. About us…” His voice hitches with that one, which makes it nearly true. Maybe time hasn’t moved for him either, and his feelings are just as frozen as hers. “About the Master.”

The Master. They have never really spoken about his death and Terra’s part in it. Just that he took the blame. Which is a hard one to have – there’s so much she would have changed if she had the power to do so.

“I know,” she says, calming herself. This is the worst place to do any of this. “But… I want to talk with a clean mind. Away from the darkness, you know? I don’t want to spend another minute here. Please…”

He jumps a little. How quaint that he has forgotten where he is. “Of course, your freedom comes first.”

Hearing him reassure her is almost like hearing it again for the first time. She may always be skeptical she will leave, until she sees the proof right in front of her.

She helps him up, getting his arm to drape around her shoulders while she acts as support.

“You’re going to love Traverse Town,” he says, resting his head on hers. Here she can see how blue his eyes really are. She allows herself to daydream of making a dress that color once she gets her hands on a sewing machine again.

She nudges him back. “Where?”

“I came from there.” He smiles. Who knows if it’s intuition when she imagines herself in his arms once they are free. “It’s a beautiful city. The cuisine is delicious, and they have these colored lights that shine every night.”

Yes, it sounds like the sort of place to have a romantic night. And she knows she’s being very childish in letting herself get excited over the idea, but screw it. If it isn’t the case, there’s worse things.

Terra’s steps sink in the sand when they reach the beach, so she lets him sit on the nearest boulder. It’s hard to let go of him.

Like he’s reading her mind, he squeezes her. “I’ll be here. Don’t worry.”

Moving away from him, she tries her hardest to let her fingers linger for as long as possible on his, until they have no choice but to split. She hurries over the where Ansem is waiting for her, and the sight of him is like an alarm that is blaring in her mind – they are leaving. They are free.

She keeps looking back to Terra, sitting alone on that boulder as he catches his breath. Just to be sure.

Ansem, too, notices they have a visitor. “What’s the special occasion?” he asks when he sees her grin.

“We’re leaving,” she whispers, as though she would yell it if she allowed her voice to make a sound. She checks to make sure Terra is still there. Good. “That’s my friend. He’ll get us out of here.”

“You have some rather powerful friends.”

She checks on Terra again. Still there.

“They’re amazing friends, yes.” And the statement nearly makes her choke. “Come on, I’ll help you get up.”

Is Terra still there? Yes.

Ansem grunts as starts to move. “Can you spare me the time to stand?” He chuckles. “My back isn’t at its prime.”

She allows him to lean on her, stealing glances toward Terra. When Ansem gains his footing, he takes slow steps like he has no time to lose. How the darkness doesn’t drive him crazy, she’s completely blown away by it.

But he stops, holding her back from getting closer to Terra.

“That man,” his voice deepens, and he speaks it loud enough for all to hear. “We mustn’t go with him.”

“What, why?” The grip Ansem has on her is surprising, like he’s trying to protect her. “Terra is my best friend. I grew up with him. If he says-”

“A clever trick to play on a vulnerable girl, Xehanort,” Ansem says to Terra, his words rolling like he’s suddenly gained the nerve to stand up for himself.

Terra shakes his head furiously, his eyes building tears at the statement. But he’s disoriented when she straightens himself.

“I’m not Xehanort,” he barks, but it sounds muffled, as though his tongue is incredibly swollen. Then he moans in pain and grabs his head again.

She rips herself from Ansem’s hold and jolts over to her dear friend, holding his forearms as she watches for signs of harm. “Terra, tell me how I can help you.”

He grabs her arms – so desperately that it accidentally hurts her. “I’ve left the door open for you,” he says, his words so thick that they are barely understandable. “Don’t give up. Keep going. We’ll be together-”

He yells louder, one hand holding his forehead and the other gripped around his neck. Her cure spells cannot help such pain like this.

The worst comes. He digs his fingers into the roots of his hair, and they turn into a brilliant white.

He breathes loudly, gagging like he’s trying to grasp for air. No, not air. He cannot speak anymore. He looks up to her, his eyes now a piercing gold.

But it’s still him, his eyes soft and pleading. He’s terrified of what is happening to him.

And she is, too. So much that she’s speechless. She can’t lose him again. Not here. Not like this.

Terra digs into the pocket of his pants and pulls something out which he then shoves into her palm. A star-shaped object. She hesitantly grabs hold of it when she realizes that he wants her to take it.

She nearly says something. But he interlaces his fingers with hers in her free hand, and brings it to his chest. It brings her in closer, and when she gazes into those gold eyes, she doesn’t know if she wants to stab him through the gut outright.

Aqua has been staring down yellow eyes for ten years, and it is a lie to say that she hasn’t prayed to never see this pair again.

He cups her cheek and kisses her on the forehead, and she lets him linger there. Xehanort would never do this.

“Terra?”

He doesn’t answer. He relaxes as he presses his lips onto roots of her hair, like he’s trying to breathe her in.

Until he finally lets her go, looking at his surroundings in a daze.

“Terra, is that still you?” she asks.

He stares at her lips, like he’s trying to read them. The scowl on his face tells her that he cannot hear what she is saying, and defeated, he gives up.

Something catches his attention, and he fixates on something past her. Out onto the water, where the rocks stop the waves from crashing. But that is all that is there. What is he staring at?

“Terra,” she calls again, out of instinct really. He continues to stare at whatever it is, until he finally notices that she’s talking to him.

His gaze is slow moving, like he’s unsure who he is looking at. It’s intense, looking right into her and understanding the very nature of her darkest fears. And it condescends.

She pulls back.

But he grips her tightly and twists her arm.

And a fist throws itself right into her temple, propelling her into the sand below as her head pounds.

“To breathe is to know freedom,” a rich, deep voice says. “What a glorious conundrum to find you here, Master Ansem.”

She shakes the blurriness away. Terra’s orange Wayfinder shines brightly in the saturated sand that surrounds it.

Ansem replies, his voice contracted and laced with disgust. “I’ve blamed myself of all the atrocities that have been committed under my watch. But this – there are certain things with you I cannot take responsibility for. You are truly mad.”

“I shall take that in stride,” Xehanort says, amused more than anything. “Far more important, however, is that I’ve actually found you.”

“And what do you plan to do with me?”

“Plans,” he corrected.

Aqua grabs the Wayfinder and ties it around her waist. She throws herself as a barrier between the two men, summoning the Master’s Defender.

“The young Master finds herself trite with power,” Xehanort says.

“I’ve beaten you before,” she says, her voice low. Why this, and why now? Don’t they have a door to go through? “It was easy.”

Xehanort opens his arms to showcase the grandeur of the beach. “And you were rewarded handsomely, I should say.”

Her eyes boil. Her teeth clench enough that she can actually feel them crush a little. And this power of rage, she will not let the Realm take from her.

“You were actually so scared of losing to me, you resorted to stabbing yourself with your Keyblade,” she says. This shuts him up. “Now let him go.”

He smiles like he’s amused by a pet. “I have no interests in doing so.”

“Then I’ll make you,” she growls.

She lunges forward, the first to strike against the heavy weight of the silver Keyblade he conjures.

Light here has a disadvantage, surely. But the creatures she has fought have been far worse than this excuse of a man, so she pays these warnings no heed. Even if the brutal swings of his weapon are doubled in power in the Realm of Darkness. Even if he combines the power of his manipulative magic with Terra’s sheer strength.

In the end, large enemies are all the same. They overestimate themselves, coming in close in a blind stupor when they convince themselves they have the upper hand. And that’s where she dodges and strikes in the small areas they leave exposed.

Xehanort laughs a hearty hurrah at her attempts to hit him. It sounds foreign coming from Terra’s mouth, who prefers to keep his chuckles soft and to himself.

However… he’s still Terra. He was just here, speaking words to her mere minutes ago. She was hugging him, she felt his touch. Maybe he wasn’t real and she’ll need to hear his voice again, just to be sure. They have a door to find. They may even have a future together, so why, when they are just about to see it through, did he have to leave her in a place like this?

Their Keyblades grind together, spewing sparks that burn brighter than the moonlight. The darkness from his weapon laps at her skin, and it’s unnerving just how far it emanates. A cold force grips on her wrists, and it’s too late when she realizes that he’s taking control of her movement with his mind, before he throws her off of him.

And he cheats. Cheats.

Using a speed that is completely unnatural for a human, Xehanort closes in on her to deliver a pounding blow.

The pain on her side is immense, and she whispers a Curaga to get most of it to melt away so she can at least stand up.

“Let the girl be, I beg you,” Ansem says, standing close to her as he’s just about to contemplate getting in between them.

“It’s remarkable,” Xehanort says, towering over as she clutches herself. He studies her face, his gold eyes icy like he’s observing an experiment. “It’s been twelve years,” he continues, his face lighting up like he wants her to know exactly what she’s been sacrificing. “Yet you continue to exist.”

“You underestimated the strength of my heart,” she spat, wanting to see the look on his face when she shows him just what she is capable of doing.

But he rolls his eyes.

“When darkness plagues the being of every man, you’d think that as a Keyblade Master, you’d understand what it should mean when it grows on you.” He smirks. “And you wear it more than I think you realize.”

“Let’s hear you say that when I get out of here,” she says through her teeth.

“Keep in mind that I am darkness in a dark world,” he says, his voice getting more potent as he lavishes in his power. “The only one gasping for air is you.”

He loves hearing himself talk, and Aqua takes the chatty opportunity to rest, keeping her mind on her Keyblade so she can rely on it as quickly as she needs it to be. The fact that she’s still hurting too much to stand properly isn’t important. It will fade, eventually.

As though he expects her to do just that, he aims his Keyblade toward her, keeping the end of it close to her neck. “A shame I’ll have to spend effort to enlighten you.”

It’s like a gravitational pull, a stretch deep within her chest like there’s two different forces trying to pull her heart apart. His silver Keyblade has the instinct to call something deep within her despite that he hasn’t commanded it to do anything yet, and the longer it hovers near her, the faster it drains the life out of her limbs.

But she doesn’t allow herself to be intimated by the tip of the blade. Her fingers outstretch to call upon her own – and maybe he’ll strike her before she can even get to it. Maybe this is a losing battle after all until she can get herself to a new advantage.

Either way, neither of those questions will be answered.

A young man takes the scene instead, raising his own Keyblade up high. He leaps from behind her as he throws himself onto Xehanort, yelling all of his girth into the strike and forcing the both of them to stagger backwards.

“Aqua!” a squeaky voice chirps. A rather large mouse, with ears the size of his face, jogs over to her side and starts to heal her with his magic.

“Mickey?” Her voice shakes, half-surprised, and half-exhausted just from having that Keyblade near her.

“Funny to see you here,” Mickey says to Ansem, like greeting an old friend. “Do you think you’ll be able to carry her out of here?”

“No,” she interrupts. The magic has at least restored the feeling in her legs, and she drags herself to her feet.

Running to the young wielder’s side, she throws shards of ice, tracing the circumference of the air around before twirling to send orbs of light upward to strike. And it’s powerful when it hits. Light has some nerve to it, even in the darkness. So the old man is wrong, yet again.

Pinned in between two wielders now, Xehanort scoffs. “So be it.”

He ignores the other wielder to come after her at once, parrying her direct strike before disarming her, and raising his Keyblade to jab directly at her chest.

But he stops with a yelp before his blade can pierce her skin, his torso drawing inwards as he clutches his face. Another yell, and a bright light shines from the ground below him. The earth rumbles and she and the other wielder fall onto the sand. Golden chains, tremendous in size, shoot upward, wrapping themselves around his body until he’s too constricted to move, and he drops his Keyblade while he attempts to wiggle himself free.

“Wha-” The young man twitches as he watches in horror while failing to get himself up. “What are those?”

She doesn’t have a good answer. She’s only seen these chains once, when Terra tried to gain control back. “They’re Terra.”

Her voice suddenly reminds the young man that she’s still there. He scurries to her, and holds her by the arms.

“I remember you,” he says. His hair a darker shade of silver, his turquoise eyes soften when she thinks hard about where she’s seen this face before. “Do you remember Sora?”

“Riku!” Mickey calls.

Riku… no, he was a small child the last time she saw him. Twelve years.

He pays no mind to the mouse, and shakes her out of her stupor. “You need to get out of here. Sora is waiting for you. Think of him.”

Xehanort pulls at one of the chains to try and break his twisted arm free, prompting another to wrap around his neck in retaliation.

And leave Terra behind? “Out of the question,” she says.

“He left the door open for you.”

“I’m not leaving him.”

With a yell, Xehanort unties the one around his head and now has an advantage in pulling the ones around his hip off.

Riku shakes her firmly. “Listen to me, this is the worst place to do anything for Terra. You should go back to the Realm of Light, where you’ll be stronger.”

Mickey, with his Keyblade now in his hand, nods in agreement. “Don’t let it be in vain.”

It’s peculiar, the word he purposely skips in that sentence. Don’t let his sacrifice be in vain. Do what Terra wants you to do.

“Aqua,” Ansem calls. “To unbind a mistake is costly and unbearable. You’ll need a proper will and mind.”

Summoning his Keyblade, Xehanort finally has the movement to strike against the chains, breaking them into tiny pieces until he’s free.

Riku shakes her again so she’ll look at him straight in the eye. “We can figure something out, together. But we can’t do that here.”

She takes one more glance at Xehanort, stumbling on himself from his re-gained freedom, watching her with those cold eyes. They are angry and hungry, like he is about to lose a lifeline. A thought passes through – did he once look at Terra with eyes like that, like his life depended on it?

“I’ll make sure he won’t get to you,” Mickey says - mostly to Riku, who seems to be the one everyone agrees to have the most sense here.

If the Realm doesn’t take her, Xehanort will.

She throws herself off the ground and wraps one of Ansem’s arms around her shoulders. He’ll need the support at the speed she’s about to run. Leaving Riku and Mickey behind to fend Xehanort off, she sprints forward, not knowing where to go, where this door is or how to see it.

All she knows it that it is open. And Terra relied only on faith. So maybe she just has to believe that it’s there.

Do you remember Sora?

The two of them climb over the rocky shores of the beach as they follow the coastline. The water stays still, like it has the patience for them to fall.

A shockwave reverberates from behind her, though she tries not to look back. Keep forward. But it’s so forceful that it shakes the entirety of the beach, and she hears a horrendous crack as though something is breaking.

They fall forward onto their stomachs. She finally looks back. Riku is on his back, clutching his side. His Keyblade is in several large pieces. Mickey is chanting some protective magic. Xehanort encircles them like a predator.

“Are you alright?” Ansem asks he picks himself up.

But she can’t join him. Her foot is wedged deep into the crevice in between the rocks underneath her. It twists enough that she can’t pull it straight out.

“Let me go,” she says to the Realm. She commands it to. No more begging.

In response, the rocks shift apart, further and further until she falls through them. She grabs hold of Ansem’s hands, but the water is starving. When she hits it, she immediately sinks. Her fingers slip, and into the dark depths she floats downward, the light of the moon barely visible from down here.

Just so that the Realm can finally say it wins.

It calms her to sink, like she is safe enough to finally let go. Then it will get easier, and she can finally feel the freedom without needing anything else.

It’s cruel, to let her touch her best friend and then take him away. How much is she expected to pick herself up after this? Who would put such presumptions on her? Is there anyone out there who cares enough to give her a break?

Something bright floats ever upward, attracting her attention to snap her out of staring at the surface of the water.

His orange Wayfinder, making its way back to where the moonlight hits the water.

“Terra,” she says out loud, waving her arms as she starts swimming, “don’t leave me here all alone.”

It dances, spinning in place like something is playfully pulling it up.

“Wait.” She swims harder against the weight of her body, which is dragging her down.

The Wayfinder stops, like it’s hoping she will catch up, before floating back up again.

She reaches for it, and just as her fingertips brush the surface of the orange glass, the moonlight shines brighter.

Bright enough to illuminate the shallow water around her. Enough to really make his Wayfinder look like it’s alive.

A shadow walks on the surface of the water, nearly passing over her.

“Aqua?”

The voice sends a jolt through her spine, despite that the water tries to muffle it quiet.

“Ven?” She grabs Terra’s Wayfinder and swims furiously, aiming for the surface. He just needs to see her hand. She yells at the tops of her lungs, “I’m here, Ven! Look down!”

And the higher she swims, the heavier she is, and she doesn’t know if she can ever get her fingers to pierce the surface.

A hand cuts through the water, grabbing hers. Light surrounds his round face – it does not belong to Ventus, but to a boy with unruly brown hair and bright blue, large eyes that speak of the wisdom of youthful optimism. His smile is that of a dog welcoming its owner.

Sora.

“You’re coming with me,” he says, and pulls her in to his embrace.

The light sears, and she clenches her eyes shut because it hurts to see. She is being pulled into two different directions – one, wherever Sora is taking her. The other is a burden, dragging her back like she needs to stay and make a home there.

That weight slowly loosens but it never really disappears, until the momentum propels her forward at a tremendous speed, but she keeps her arms around this boy’s waist – if she lets go, she’ll sink.

The light retracts its overbearing presence, eventually calming to a dim room, and the two of them crash into very shallow water. Very shallow, very cold water.

Voices surround her, but she cannot pick out any words. If anything, she hears anxious emotions. She opens her eyes, but her vision is so blurred that she cannot notice shapes or movement.

Sora loosens his grip on her as he gently leaves her on the ground. “I have to get Riku, now,” she can clearly hear him say.

“Wait,” she mutters. Her voice is completely dry and can barely produce a sound.

The person who comes for her picks up her head and rests it on a lap.

“You must be Aqua.” It’s a woman’s voice. The accent is posh and stilted, almost like the embodiment of someone high-class.

“Where am I?” She forces herself to make a sound, but it comes out as a wheeze. She can’t make out a face, but the long hair that falls is black.

“You’re in Traverse Town, dear.” The woman gently places a hand on the back of her head, a bright light emitting from it.

Immediately, Aqua hisses from it. It’s too bright. The woman firmly holds a gloved hand over her eyes, as if to shush her to sleep. This light is healing magic. A warmth spreads down her spine, massaging out the tension in her muscles.

Someone else takes Aqua by the shoulders and moves her to sit up against a slimy wall of brick. She’s sitting on water still, and it soaks her shorts.

The voices further away clear up.

“This thing is getting bigger,” a tired and rusty voice says, like he hates to spend the energy speaking. And very nervous at whatever he is looking at.

“Has your father never bothered to teach you the value of patience, Noctis?” This is the woman who just healed Aqua.

A grumble is the only answer Noctis gives her.

“Hmph,” a different, gruff voice chimes in. It is corrupted by too many cigarettes. “If you want my opinion, we shouldn’t have left the city in the care of a duck and a dog-thing.”

Aqua opens her eyes to make sure she is hearing the right words. Her vision clears up a bit, but that light – torch light, from a flame one of the men is carrying. It’s dim and soft, and should only be able to illuminate the people surrounding it.

So then why does it hurt so much to look at?

“Rise and shine,” someone says to her. He leans down in front of her, and she can only really make out red hair. Very, very big red hair. “Name’s Lea, uhhhhh…”

“Mmm?” Her skin only gets colder, and eventually she starts to shiver.

“Looks like you’re not going to be able to memorize anything tonight,” Lea says, and she feels solid hands on her shoulders, trying to keep her sitting upright.

His eyes come through the blur, a bright green that are inquisitive yet distant. Like he can only spend so much of his personal effort to get involved before he becomes disinterested.

“What?” is all she can say. Pressure rises in between her eyes, and her stomach churns.

Hunger. She is actually hungry.

Then it shifts suddenly and she’s in terrible pain. Twelve years of hunger catching up with her?

“Relax,” he says, “you’re completely safe.”

“I need food,” she says, but the thought of eating makes her want to throw up.

“Well, why didn’t you mumble that before?”

He leaves her behind while the other men share observations. The man holding the torch, with blond spiky hair, talks about how there aren’t any Heartless roaming the passageways anymore. The gruffly voiced man holds a large toothpick in between his teeth, and the third, Noctis, crosses his arms as he listens intently to the others, eyes darting all around.

They all seem to be underground, and they stand ankle-deep in a large puddle that spreads through the entire floor. The walls are made of stone, slimy and slick with moss growing on them. Traverse Town, the beautiful city Terra promised her.

The woman is on the other side of the room, bent over Ansem as her hands trace the outlines of his body, healing him with that bright light.

To her right is a large, black mass that covers nearly the entire wall. It moves, much like the slither of the Heartless tide, wisps of purple smoke spitting out every so often. A golden doorway encloses it together and stops it from spreading it further. A Door of Light made out of darkness, just like Terra said.

But why is there a portal to the Realm of Darkness in a sewer?

It is then her heart stirs. Sora and Riku spit out of the portal, thrown into a heap together in a frenzy like they’ve just been running for their lives.

“Sora, you need to seal it,” Riku says immediately.

This warning freaks the others, Noctis coming in close to get involved.

“I’m not going to do that!” Sora swipes at the air, like he’s made his decision final.

“What does that mean?” Noctis juts in, putting his hand specifically on Sora’s shoulder. “You can’t leave this thing open.”

“But the King-”

“Has already sealed his side of it,” Riku says. “He can’t come through anyway. You have to trust him.” His voice betrays his confidence. He’s a wreck, but he’s good at hiding it.

“We can’t just leave them,” Sora says.

… Terra isn’t with them.

“This is what Mickey wants,” Riku says, the inflections of his words wishing it is the opposite.

“Sora,” Noctis says, his tone dark and serious, “you can’t leave us out to hang like this. You have to seal it.”

The others watch him intensely, like their heartbeats are jammed in their throats and they may be sentenced at any moment.

“No,” Aqua says, but she isn’t loud enough to be heard. “We can’t leave Terra.”

Sora, surrounded by people who expect him to be the prime example of a Keyblade wielder, reluctantly summons his calling, and points it at the wall of dark mass.

“No!” Aqua squeals, fumbling over to her knees. Her limbs shake with movement, and she can’t imagine if there is a warmth that exists out there to keep her from turning into ice.

Lea notices her squirming, running over to her to pick her up in his arms. Sora already starts the process of sealing this entryway into the most famished realm that can ever exist. As simple as that, she’s cut off from Terra again.

Laying down on her back like this, she’s too weak to keep the heaviness in her eyes open. Twelve years’ worth of lack of sleep forces its way on her. Letting herself sink is easy.

#terraqua #aqua #terra #kingdom hearts fanfiction #kh fanfic #terranort #xemnas #riku #sora #OMG #i can't believe i'm finally starting this series #it's so damn surreal #i can't explain it #anyway #i'm nervous as all hell #this is a very risky choice for me to make #yikes #my fic

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