#Keyblade Wielders of Darkness

[dzthenerd490]

Kingdom Hearts: The Brightest of Hearts - Chapter 13: The Brightest of Hearts part 1

On the other side of the gateway, they found themselves in a new world though this one wasn't anything like any of the other worlds they've been. they came across, it wasn't colorful, full of life, or had magic in the air. It was a dark purple color everywhere with different shades of the dark purple being the only form of diverse color here.

"What... is this place?"

"Good question lad!" Sora quickly manifested his Keyblade, Kairi her Keyblade, Donald his staff, and Goofy his shield when they all heard that voice. It was Doxcrum as the shadows of the world started flowing like water towards each other to form a black blob right in front of the group. The blob grew bigger until it started taking shape and formed into Doxcrum.

"This world is called an Abyss World, it's a world created when several worlds o' light are destroyed. th' resultin' rubble gets pulled together and forms a brand-new world for th' heartless tae thrife! Makin' everythin' that lives and breathes in th' darkness stronger as a result! This world in particular is called, End o' th' World!" Sora, Kairi, Goofy, and Donald looked at Doxcrum in shock, realizing the horrific and disgusting origins of this world. However, their facial expressions quickly changed to that of confusion when they full processed the name of the world. Doxcrum saw their faces and as a result realized the name sounded ridiculous as well, making him scratch the back of his head in embarrassment.

"Uh, I was a glaikit bairn when I came up with that name- Awe rite swatch! th' point is that ye lot are out o' yer league here, so don't be glaikits. Join us and ye get to become gods as well. Bonnie sweet deal aye?" Sora just sighed in annoyance, aggravated that Doxcrum still thought they would actually consider joining them at this point. But before he could say no Kairi raised her Destiny's Embrace Keyblade and charged at Doxcrum in anger.

"You hurt my grandmother! you're going down you stupid old man!"

"Ha! Yer funeral, Las."

"Kairi don't!" Kairi didn't listen to Sora and continued charging at Doxcrum but instead of hitting him the Keyblade instead seemingly phased through him. In reality Doxcrum just moved so fast that no one saw him when he dodged. Before Kairi could swing around to try and slash him again Doxcrum grabbed her shoulder to stop her.

"Yer fragmented, find th' ye that isn't ye, become whole again."

"What?" Doxcrum then disappeared instantly into a void. Sora ran up to Kairi and grabbed her by the shoulders.

"Kairi! What were you thinking?!" Kairi was about to get mad at Sora, but she saw the genuine concern and fear in his eyes. Kairi was now filled with guilt as she knew what she did was rash and stupid.

"I... I'm sorry Sora. I just wanted revenge so badly." Sora then remembered something Cloud told him and smiled gently at Kairi.

"You're justified in wanting revenge Kairi, but don't let it define who you are and why you do what you do. That's when you become just as bad as the Dark Army." Kairi looked at Sora with guilt, but she managed to smile after hearing Sora's words.

"... Hehe, yeah you're right Sora. You're such a nerd though."

"Ha! says the lazy island clown." The two of them laughed a little to ease the tension then they stopped just as Donald and Goofy walked up to them.

"Heh, sorry guys, I'll keep my head on straight from here on out."

"That's all we ask for Ms. Kairi." Goofy smiled at Kairi while Donald just nodded in approval. Kairi however pretended to only focus on Goofy which ended up annoying Donald. Suddenly a large explosion of light could be seen at the distance.

"What was that?!"

"The Dark Army, it has to be."

"Come on guys, whatever they're doing we can't let them finish!" Sora ran forward and Kairi, Donald, and Goofy followed hoping they could get there fast enough. However, as they did several Neoshadow Heartless manifested in front of them.

"Pureblood Heartless! Doxcrum wasn't kidding about things being tougher here."

"I doubt it, the Darkball's were barely even a threat. I doubt these guys will be any different." Sora then charged forward and slashed at a Neoshadow Heartless, only for it to dodge and do a spin kick right at his stomach.

"Sora!" Another Neoshadow Heartless jumped in front of Goofy and started punching his shield at incredible speed and with great force. Donald tried to back Goofy up with a lighting spell only for a Neoshadow Heartless to jump in front of him as well and punch his face a few times before kicking him making him fall hard on his back. Kairi tried helping but the Neoshadow Heartless were too fast and kept dodging her attacks. Eventually one jumped behind her and punched her back several times with incredible speed.

After Kairi was down, Sora was left alone while surrounded by Neoshadow Heartless. Out of desperation Sora manifested his Oathkeeper Keyblade and slashed at another Neoshadow Heartless. However, he missed, and it punched him, but once the hit landed Sora felt nothing. Sora was confused and so was the Neoshadow Heartless in front of him, another behind him tried to punch and kick him several times in the head but again nothing happened. Now Sora knew what this Keyblade does, it makes him completely immune to physical attacks.

Sora smiled in excitement and started slashing at the Neoshadow Heartless to the best of his abilities. He was missing at first but every time a Neoshadow Heartless tried to attack him they managed to stay still long enough for him to slash them with his keyblade. It was because of this that the battle ended up lasting quite a while, but he still got the occasional attacks on the Neoshadow Heartless. Sora tried his hardest to get rid of the Neoshadow Heartless faster, especially since they occasionally attacked Donald, Goofy, and Kairi again to keep them injured and on the ground.

Finally, there was only one left and it tried to run away. Sora then manifested the Spellbinder Keyblade, he had a good idea what it did, so he activated a fire spell and aimed at the Neoshadow Heartless. Upon firing the spell, the fireball was not only slightly bigger but split into five fireballs of the exact same size and all flew in a spiraling pattern toward the Neoshadow Heartless and even followed it as it tried to dodge. Once the Neoshadow Heartless was finally destroyed all Sora could do was look at his Keyblade in awe. He then started jumping in the air and waving his fists around out of overwhelming joy.

"Yeah! That's what I'm talking about! That was awesome!" Sora was so overjoyed by his new powers and better, yet he still didn't know what his Ultima Weapon Keyblade was able to do but it was bound to be amazing. However, Sora then realized that his friends were still down and quickly walked over to help them. Sora tried to go to Goofy first to get some healing potions from his bag but when he opened the bag Sora saw that all of the potions had been smashed. Sora didn't know what else to do, at least until a really bad idea. popped into his head.

Sora groaned he had no better options as he walked over to Donald. Sora got Donalds head up and tried his best to help him wake up. It took quite a while, but Donald finally found the strength to get up.

"Sora?"

"Donald, I need you to teach me the healing spell."

"Ugh... forget about its Sora, Goofy was right, I stink at that spell."

"Come on Donald! You're the head wizard of Disney Castle!"

"I'm the only wizard of Disney Castle Sora. I'm not even the best at Magic, King Mickey is. The only reason he doesn't count as a wizard is because he's the king so the position just came to me by default."

"Yeah? Well, I never saw this King Mickey in action, and he sure didn't help me in my times of need. There's only one duck I know that was able to watch my back and manifest the best of magic to defeat the Heartless! And right now, I need that stubborn duck to help me help him and everyone else!"

"Heh, alright, alright. Raise your keyblade." Sora then gently placed Donald on the ground, stood up and manifested his Kingdom Keyblade.

"Now first you need the plant spell. Try to reach into your heart spiritually." Sora closed his eyes and as he focused his heart started glowing a golden light.

"Good, now imagine a flower growing. Imagine how it blooms and how its leaves sprout out. Once you have a good idea, point your Keyblade on the ground and watch it grow." Sora opened his eyes, pointed the Keyblade to the ground and suddenly a large, beautiful rose grew from the ground.

"Haha... perfect. Now you got the plant spell down you can do healing. Focus again on making a plant grow but this time once you're done don't focus on the flower anymore, instead focus on the magic you're using to make the plant grow. That is the healing spell, use that to heal everyone." Sora nodded and closed his eyes while manifesting his Spellbinder Keyblade as soon as he was done manifesting the spell five orbs of glowing green light manifested around his Keyblade. They floated into the air and crashed into each other making a large explosion of healing magic into the air. Like rain the little bits of healing magic fell on Sora, Donald, Goofy, and Kairi. Soon all their pain was gone, and their energy was back.

"Yeah! Awesome! Thank you, Donald!"

"Donald? Did you finally cast a cure spell properly?" Donald then slumped in anger and glared at Goofy leaving him confused. Sora scratched the back of his head in embarrassment feeling guilty for Donalds quickly ruined mood.

"Uh, Goofy it was actually me."

"Oh..."

"But I mean Donald taught me the spell! That's pretty good." Donald just pat Sora on the back to show his thanks. However, the moment was ruined when they saw another flash of light in the distance.

"Not a moment too soon we have to hurry!" Sora, Donald, Goofy, and Kairi ran toward the light as fast as they could. For a while they were seemingly walking around nothing, the more they ran across the seemingly endless field, the more hopeless everything seemed.

"S- So Doxcrum said this was an Abyss world?"

"Yeah, a world that exists to be the direct opposite of a normal world. Normal Worlds are filled with light, this one is nothing but darkness. So not only can Heartless live here but they can grow stronger naturally and become new forms of Heartless like the ones we saw before."

"So, in other words this isn't going to be easy at all."

"No, it's not, even with our new Keyblades it will be difficult. Trust me, with my Oathkeeper Keyblade I didn't get hurt but it still took forever to take them down."

"Wait, your Keyblade kept you from getting hurt? That's so cool! Maybe mine does the same!" Kairi then joyfully manifested her Oblivion Keyblade.

"Ok! Now hit me!" Sora looked at Kairi in shock because of her question, but rather than hitting her he just pinched her shoulder.

"Ow! Ah... oh, dang it. I guess that's not what the Keyblade does."

"Ah, don't worry Kairi, it will come to you eventually and when it does, you'll know what to do."

"I hope so, I'm not really a sword fighter like you and Riku."

"We weren't really sword fighters either, The Keyblade Wielders of Darkness are supposed to be the top sword fighters and yet I defeated a lot of them."

"Oh yeah! Gosh, didn't you defeat two of them, Kairi?"

"Wait seriously?!"

"Well, I actually just disarmed one, but I did defeat this one big guy that had two Keyblades. Though again it was through the help of your Heartless self."

"Kairi, that's still awesome! I'd say that alone qualifies you as a Guardian of Light. As Champion of Light, I hereby declare you one of us. So don't go selling yourself short, besides even if you can't do it alone you don't really need to. Me, Donald, and Goofy got your back." Kairi then looked at Donald and Goofy to which Goofy smiled proudly while Donald just shrugged at her. Kairi giggled but she understood that he did have her back he just didn't want to admit it.

"Yeah, you're right Sora, together we're unbeatable." Don't give yourself too much credit. When a Bishop and a Rook work together they can dominate the chess board, but even they tremble at the sight of the Queen! Suddenly a massive pool of pure darkness manifested in front of them and from it came out the Behemoth Heartless.

Then again you know the thing about Pawns once one reaches the other side of the chess board it becomes another Queen! Once the Behemoth Heartless was done getting out of the portal on the floor it stepped aside. Out came the Arch Behemoth Heartless. Both Emblem Heartless stood beside one another and roared at the group to show their intent. HAHAHAHAHA! Good luck, brats!

"Ugh, I hate that stupid voice shadow guy!"

"Sora?! That was the voice?!" Sora turned to Donald, Goofy, and Kairi all of them looking at him in concern.

"Wait, you guys heard him too that time?"

"It must be because we're in an Abyss World, A-hyuk! Though right now I think we have bigger things to worry about!" Again, Both Behemoth and Arch Behemoth Heartless roared only this time orbs of darkness formed around them. Sora knew what this meant and manifested his Spellbinder Keyblade, casted an ice spell and stabbed his Keyblade into the ground. In doing so, a large wall of ice formed and blocked out all of the dark orbs, though only barely as once the last one impacted it shattered the ice wall entirely.

"Wah! Quick thinking Sora!"

"Thanks Donald but I don't think it will be enough for fighting Heartless like these guys!" The Behemoth Heartless raised its right foot ready to stomp on Sora to which he manifested his Olympia Keyblade. Sora quickly slashed the Behemoth Heartless's leg but despite it being pushed back it used its other front leg to kick him. Sora's whole body was flung back, he felt like it was no different to being hit by a truck.

"Sora!" Kairi was enraged at the Behemoth Heartless but before she could even do anything the Arch Behemoth manifested more dark orbs. Goofy and Donald quickly got in front of her to defend her but even with Goofy's Shield and Donald enhancing it with magic the Arch Behemoth's magic was too strong. As such they were pushed away, worst off the Behemoth Heartless was charging its own attack and already fired at Kairi. All she could do was raise her Oblivion Keyblade and hope that she could shield at least one of them.

Sora managed to get back up only to see Kairi get consumed by the explosions of the impact of the dark orbs. Sora couldn't even scream or cry, he was so shocked at the sight of Kairi being destroyed that he was just frozen. However, as the smoke quickly cleared, he saw that she was actually fine, not even hurt at all. Even the Behemoth and Arch Behemoth Heartless looked at Kairi in shock, however they quickly became angry and blew shadow fire at her. The amount of fire they blew at her would have been enough to melt even the strongest of steel, but again once it was over she was fine.

"Ha? HA? HAHAHA! Sora did you see that! I'm not immune to physical attacks! I'm immune to magic!" However just as quickly the Behemoth kicked Kairi in the back making her go flying in the air. Thankfully, Sora manifested his Fairy Harp Keyblade and managed to catch her while mid air.

"Oh! Ah... haha, I mean yeah, not immune to physical attacks."

"Yeah, leave that to me, ok?" Still flying and still holding Kairi, Sora looked at the Behemoth and Arch Behemoth Heartless. They were big and strong but also slow which they made up for with magic. They were essentially living tanks with no visible weakness, so what was needed was firepower and lots of it. That's when Sora got an idea that probably wouldn't work but would definitely give them an edge if it did.

"Hey Kairi? Wanna Learn magic?" Kairi looked at Sora confused but once she fully processed what he said, her eyes sparkled in excitement.

"YES!"

"Alright then! First then Lighting magic! First picture lighting in your mind!" The Behemoth Heartless was getting impatient and started shooting more dark orbs at Sora. Thankfully he was able to fly perfectly around the projectiles and keep Kairi from getting hit.

"Next focus on something that really gets you determined! Focus with all your heart what is worth fighting for! Once you feel it filling up in your heart, let it out through your Keyblade!" While Sora was flying around, he could see the electricity build up in Kairi's Keyblade, so he started casting the Lighting spell in his own Keyblade. Sora manifested his Spellbinder Keyblade and placed it right beside Kairi's, she got what he was trying to do and aimed her Keyblade at the Behemoth Heartless.

"Ready? Release!" On cue, both of them fired their lighting spells, with the combo of both the Spellbinder Keyblade and them combining their magic together resulting in an extremely powerful spell. Several extremely powerful bolts of lightning shot right toward the Behemoth Heartless, the resulting impact of the bolts made the Behemoth Heartless roar in pain. The Arch Behemoth Heartless tried to retaliate by manifesting more dark orbs. But they missed as Sora and Kairi slowly fell to the ground due to him not having his Fairy Harp Keyblade anymore.

"Okay now Fire! Focus on something that makes you happy and passionate! And just like before, let it build up in your heart!" Kairi still had her Oblivion Keyblade so she was able to stand still and take all the dark orb blasts without worry. Sora manifested his Three Wishes Keyblade and slashed every approaching dark orb back at the Arch Behemoth Heartless while casting his own fire spell.

"Ready?" Kairi looked at Sora and nodded with determination, just in time too, for the Arch Behemoth finally stopped firing. Sora quickly ran over to her, manifested Spellbinder Keyblade, and pointed his Keyblade right at the Arch Behemoth with Kairi aligning her Keyblade alongside his.

"Fire!" The same resulting magical combo as before caused the manifestation of several large and extremely powerful fireballs being shot right toward the Arch Behemoth. The resulting impact scorched the Arch Behemoth badly and left it groaning in pain. Now both the Behemoth and the Arch Behemoth were badly damaged and lying weakened on the ground, Sora knew that one more massive combo was needed.

"Last spell you ready?"

"Yes!"

"Ok, now let's focus on Ice, like last time, think about being calm and collective and build it up in your heart." Unlike the other two times Kairi was actually seemingly having a difficult time remembering a memory that made her calm. It did take some time but once she did Sora could see the cold aura build up in her Keyblade. She did smile once she got the spell working but only after shedding a tear out of sadness.

"Kairi?"

"I'm fine, you ready Sora?" Sora nodded and activated a cold spell with his Spellbinder Keyblade and both of them shot the ice spell in an ultimate combo. The resulting magic from the combo shot out a seemingly endless barrage of ice that was so cold it was freezing everything around it. However, the Behemoth and Arch Behemoth Heartless retaliated by breathing shadow fire that was able to counter the cold. Sora and Kairi tried to keep up their magic to have the ice barrage keep up. However, the Behemoth and Arch Behemoth Heartless were continuing to combine their shadow fire breath making it strong enough to not only counter the ice but slowly overcome it.

"Way too sloppy!" Donald jumped in behind Sora and Kairi, he then placed his staff alongside their Keyblades while casting an ice spell. Once he cast it the result made the barrage of ice became even stronger allowing it to overcome the shadow fire. The Behemoth and Arch Behemoth Heartless were no longer able to keep up and tried to back away to not get caught in the blast. However, they weren't fast enough and as soon as their shadow fire breath was fully countered, they were covered entirely in ice.

"Now Goofy!" Goofy jumped in the air, charged up his shield with magic, and threw it at the frozen Heartless like a Frisbee. Finally, the Behemoth and Arch Behemoth Heartless were defeated as the ice shattered into millions of pieces. Afterwards several hearts flew out of the darkness and into the air as they were liberated.

"Woah! So Beautiful."

"Those are the Hearts cursed by the Darkness but thanks to us they are free. Thanks Kairi." Kairi smiled at Sora in delight, she always wanted to go on amazing adventures and do wonderful things with Sora. Her only regret was that Riku wasn't there with them but hopefully after they defeat Ansem that would change. Suddenly another explosion of light flashed in the distance but this time it seemed a lot closer.

"No time to celebrate! Let's get going!"

***

They continued to run and thankfully managed to finally make it to Ansem who in his hands had the seven Fragments of Light. However, he was having them spin around a small ball of darkness. Sora then looked around to see large amounts of dark energy flowing around from the Abyss World and into the small ball of darkness. Above the dark orb was a dark crystal that looked like it was made of pure darkness like how the Fragments of Light were made of pure light. Ansem was so focused on the ritual he was doing that he didn't notice Sora, Kairi, Donald, and Goofy until they got close enough.

"Hm... Of course, the Light always finds a way I suppose. You traveled all this way to stop me, but I say now, you will fail. However, I must ask, why? Why stop me? Join me and you will get everything you ever wanted and more. Join me and become the gods and goddesses of your own universes! Join me and together we will rewrite everything, and perfection will not only be ours, it will be us!"

".... You. Are. Insane! I don't know a lot or heck maybe I don't know anything about the Multiverse, but I do know that Kingdom Hearts doesn't have a will of its own for a reason! It's because no one should have the power or will over someone else's life. No one should be in control of how others work, how they live, or how they are! People are who they are meant to be and if they ever want or need to change, then it's their choice and theirs alone to enact that change! How dare you act like you can just be a god and decide what's right and wrong!"

"Sora's right, even if you didn't destroy my kingdom and take away my family! You still destroyed countless worlds and ruined even more lives and for what? Power? Look around you! This Abyss World is devoid of life! It's disgusting, it's horrible, it's evil! And worst of all, there's no beauty or creativity in any of it. How is any of this worth it?" Ansem was now visibly getting annoyed by both Sora and Kairi but before he could speak the dark ball finally transformed into another Fragment of Darkness. It then floated into the air to float alongside the other Fragment of Darkness showing that there were now two.

"So long as a great mind is the one holding the brush, even a blank canvas is destined to become a work of art and I intend to use my great mind to revolutionize the blank canvas of the multiverse, with Kingdom Hearts as my brush." Just then another flash of light manifested in Ansem's hands, forcing Sora, Kairi, Donald, and Goofy to look away. After the light faded away more of the darkness of the Abyss World started flowing toward Ansem's hands and into a very tiny ball of darkness.

"Alas I need more time. Warriors of Darkness! Come and defend your treasure!" Suddenly several voids opened around Ansem and out came at least 12 Keyblade Wielders of Darkness. They weren't filled with fear like before, how could they? Sora could see that being on the Abyss World was making them stronger. Sora quickly manifested his Ultima Weapon Keyblade, he still didn't know what this Keyblade did but something in his heart told him he needed it right now.

At once, the Keyblade Wielders of Darkness charged toward the four of them, Goofy quickly blocked an attack with his shield and Donald retaliated with his magic. Sora was about to fight back but he saw that one managed to rush right toward Kairi at high speed and was only seconds from slashing her. Sora ran toward her and tried to use his Keyblade to shield her; However, the Ultima Weapon Keyblade shined in shimmering light and instantly transformed into a shield. Sora shield bashed the Keyblade Wielder of Darkness away and stood up only to look at his hew shield in awe.

"Wow, that was cool."

"I guess, I mean thank you. But turning into a shield isn't really that impressive." Sora held up his shield and it turned back into the Ultima Weapon Keyblade. Then the Keyblade transformed into a long sword, then an axe, then a spear, then a mace.

"Ah... Ok, I take it back, that's pretty awesome." Sora smirked at the now afraid Keyblade Wielders of Darkness. He charged toward them as they tried to retaliate by shooting fireballs at him. Sora turned his Keyblade into a shield again to defend from the fireballs until he got close enough and manifested into a hammer. Sora swung the hammer at them all, both hurting them badly and pushing them back. However, Sora was not used to hammers and ended up getting pulled by the force of the hammer, making him stagger. Another Keyblade Wielder of Darkness tried to take advantage of this, but they were quickly shot with Kairi's lightning spell.

"Get the princess!" Two Keyblade Wielders of Darkness used Voids to ambush her from behind Kairi could only watch in terror as they raised their Keyblades to slash her down. Or at least that would have happened if Goofy didn't take one of them out with a shield bash and leave his manifested energy clone to shield bash the other.

"Don't think you can win!" A Keyblade Wielder of Darkness made a double core spell of fire and earth to create a lava ball. He shot it at Kairi, but she stood there and smiled with her Oblivion Keyblade. Once the lava ball impacted Kairi was unhurt and simply wiped the bits of lava off of her shoulder, she then smirked at the dumbfounded Keyblade Wielder of Darkness. Kairi decided to cast a triple core spell of fire, lighting, and ice. Kairi felt like a sudden heavy weight on her shoulders, it was as if three large boulders fell on her back. She did her best to bite back the pain and perfect the spell and once she did, she shot it right at the Keyblade Wielder of Darkness. With the combination of elements, he wasn't destroyed but he was left on the ground powerless.

"Ha... ha... Haha! I love magic! Hahaha! ... ugh..." Kairi unfortunately pushed herself too far and fell to the ground unconscious.

"Now's our chance! Get the Princess!" Four Keyblade Wielders of Darkness tried to surround her, but Sora charged at them and his Keyblade Transformed into a spear allowing him to swing it around and slash all of them at a distance. Once they were forced a good distance back, he manifested Spellbinder Keyblade and cast a lighting spell to shock all of them. Three of the Keyblade Wielders of Darkness stayed down due to the heavy damage but the fourth still had enough strength to get up. Though Sora quickly manifested his Spider Web Keyblade and shot spider webbings at his arms and legs to keep him down.

"Is that all of them?" Sora suddenly felt a tingle in the back of his neck, and he manifested his Three Wishes Keyblade. He quickly turned around and slashed at a fireball and a lightning bolt heading towards him. Upon being hit by his Keyblade both end up redirecting toward two Keyblade Wielders of Darkness. Both Keyblade Wielders of Darkness fell to their knees in pain but weren't badly hurt to the point they couldn't get back up. As such Goofy shield bashed one in the face and Donald shot the other with several bots of lighting.

"Now they're all done." Goofy then went over to Kairi and gave her a healing potion and helped her back up.

"Hmph, such weakness, no matter, we're not done yet." Underneath all the Keyblade Wielders of Darkness opened dark portals which sucked them in and instantly disappeared. Suddenly another flash of blinding light came from Ansem as he had just finished creating the third Fragment of Darkness. Ansem then raised his hands and the seven Fragments of Light as well as the three of Darkness were covered in a dark indestructible bubble and floated in the air out of reach.

"Fine then, I have shown you the mercy of Darkness and you slap it away. Like children you defy all reason and instead follow naive dreams blindly. How pathetic, now you will learn your mistakes and be destroyed with the regret of knowing you will never gaze upon into Kingdom Hearts as I soon will." Sora raised his keyblade at Ansem, Goofy his shield, and Donald his staff. However, Kairi didn't raise his Keyblade.

"What did you do to my grandfather?!" Sora, Goofy, and Ansem all looked at Kairi in shock as she glared at him in anger. Donald however was annoyed that she was wasting time on this so he tried to tell her off but Goofy quickly smacked him on the back of the head to shut him up.

"Your grandfather?"

"Yes! Ansem! The retired King of Radiant Garden! What did you do to him? Where is he?"

"... Hahaha, HAHAHAHAHA! I am Ansem! The New Ansem! Ansem, Seeker of Darkness, ruler of Hollow Bastion, Master of the New Dark Army and soon to be Supreme Master of Kingdom Hearts. Where Xaler our founder failed I will succeed and obtain the ultimate power of infinity! As for your grandfather? Nothing but the Fallen King, A blind King of lost Knowledge, A Coward! ... Who dared favor the light over the darkness! May he be forgotten!"

"I knew it! I knew you were just an imposter who stole his name! I knew my grandfather wasn't evil!"

"I wouldn't be too sure about that little girl. But that's enough chatter, time for you to be forgotten as well!" Soon Guardian Shadow manifested behind Ansem as he started floating in the air as Dual Soul Eater blades manifested in his hands.

"This is the end, know despair!" Guardian Shadow manifested orbs of powerful darkness and shot them right at Sora. Sora only barely managed to manifest his Three Wishes Keyblade and slash at the orbs to deflect them. However, this was different, despite the orbs still being deflected back toward Ansem Sora still felt hurt by the impact as if he was shocked by electricity. Ansem simply slashed the dark orbs as they flew toward him away with his Soul Eaters and flew towards Sora and Kairi.

Sora had no time to dodge so instead Oathkeeper Keyblade and raised his keyblade to block as additional defense. Ansem struck Sora with both Soul Eaters, at first the worst seemed to push Sora back; however, Sora not only fell to the ground but also had dark slash marking on his chest resembling a large X.

"Sora!" Guardian Shadow focused its attention on Kairi, she quickly manifested her Oblivion Keyblade to defend. Guardian Shadow raised its hands and shot shadow lighting at her. the Oblivion Keyblade managed to nullify most of the shadow lighting, but small bits still hit her. Once Guardian Shadow was finally done Kairi fell to her knees on the ground, she looked at her arms and saw small burn marks on her arms. However once Kairi looked up she saw Ansem only seconds from stabbing her with one of his Soul Eaters.

Donald quickly shot Ansem in the back with the triple core spell of fire, ice, and lighting. Ansem's back was badly burnt but he didn't show any sign of pain, only annoyance. Ansem stopped seconds before stabbing Kairi; he then faced Donald and had Guardian Shadow fire his own triple core spell of shadow fire, shadow ice, shadow lighting. Goofy quickly stepped in front of Donald and boosted his shield with his magic to further defend against Ansem's spell. However, like all the other times it only barely blocked out his attacks as Goofy was only able to defend against the shadow fire and shadow lighting. Finally, the shadow ice ended up getting past Goofy's shield and froze him in a shadow ice block. Donald was shocked and tried to avenge Goofy, but Ansem teleported behind him and dual slashed him in the back leaving a dark X slashing mark on his back.

Now Sora and Kairi were alone and badly hurt by Ansem's previous attacks. Sora quickly cast a healing spell for both him and Kairi which did give them the energy to get back up but the dark scars on Kairi's arms and Sora's chest were still there. Ansem didn't notice them and was about to use his Soul Eaters to slice both Donald and Goofy's heads off. Out of desperation, Sora manifested his Spellbinder Keyblade, and started casting the triple core spell. Kairi noticed this and cast the triple core spell as well and quickly aligned it with Sora's keyblade. This resulted in several orbs made of light magic containing the elements of the triple core spell. They all flew towards Ansem like missiles and barraged him with the combo of the elements.

Sora and Kairi watched in awe as Ansem was being barraged by the awesome combo of magic. However, Sora quickly noticed that the reason the spell became so powerful wasn't just his Spellbinder Keyblade but also Kairi casting the triple core spell as well. Sora's jaw then dropped as he looked at Kairi in shock, Kairi looked back at Sora with a proud smile but was still confused by Sora's shock.

"Kairi? You can cast the triple core spell?!"

"Hm? Yeah, I mean it really takes a lot of energy from the heart and it feels like boulders are crushing you when you cast it but once you get used to it it's not that hard."

"Kairi... you're amazing!" Sora was a little jealous that Kairi proved to be better at him in magic but his jealousy was overshadowed by his amazement of her magical talent. However, the moment of joy was ruined when Ansem used the darkness to blow away all the light and elemental combo magic slowly destroying him. Ansem was clearly badly burnt as shadow smoke was emitting from his damaged body. Ansem glared at them in anger and seemingly yelled in anger as several dark portals opened around him. Soon six Invisible Heartless and 20 Neoshadow Heartless formed around him.

"All Light fades eventually, but darkness... darkness is ETERNAL!" The Neoshadow Heartless charged forward and used their quick reflexes and acrobatics to attack Sora and Kairi from all corners. Sora and Kairi raised their Keyblade's to block and attack the Neoshadow Heartless but like before they were barely making any decent progress against them. Sora manifested his Oathkeeper Keyblade to nullify their attacks, but Kairi couldn't do anything as she was getting punched and kicked from time to time. Kairi was getting frustrated with all the punching and cast a dual core spell of fire and lighting, charged it up as much as she could, and stabbed her keyblade into the ground. This resulted in pushing all the Neoshadow Heartless away from her and Sora, afterwards the lighting struck them midair, badly injuring the Neoshadow Heartless.

The Invisible Heartless tried to blast the two of them with shadow lasers but Kairi manifested her Oblivion Keyblade and Sora his Three Wishes Keyblade. Naturally Kairi smirked at them mockingly as their shadow lasers did nothing to her and Sora slashed at the lasers with his keyblade causing them to blast back at the Invisible Heartless. Sora and Kairi both looked at each other proudly as they were able to handle that surprisingly well. However, Kairi stopped smiling when a Neoshadow Heartless smacked her in the back of the head. It was more annoying than painful, so Kairi grunted in anger as she glared back at the Neoshadow Heartless.

Kairi was going to keep attacking them, but she instead stood there in confusion as she saw the Neoshadow Heartless weakened and moving around limply. Kairi looked at them almost in pity, especially the Neoshadow Heartless in front of her as she only had to back away to dodge its slow and sloppy attacks. Again, the Invisible Heartless blasted their lasers at her and again thanks to her Oblivion Keyblade it did nothing.

"Well, we should get the injured Heartless first, so they don't box us in later."

"Nah Sora, leave them to me, you take on those Heartless with the swords. I'll finish these guys and follow you later." Sora was confused on why Kairi wanted to do this but figured it was better to divide and conquer than waste time on anything else. Kairi then faced the Neoshadow Heartless with a grin on her face.

"You guys really enjoyed hitting me huh?" The Neoshadow Heartless seemed visibly scared of Kairi now that they were no longer fast enough to dodge or outrun her. Sora looked back only for a second, he actually kinda felt bad for the Heartless, but his guilt faded quickly because one, they were heartless and two, they did attack Kairi, Donald, and Goofy without mercy so he felt they deserved it. Sora instead focused on the Ansem and the Invisible Heartless as he slowly walked toward them. The Invisible Heartless tried to fire again at him but again Sora used his Three Wishes Keyblade to slash at the lasers to have them redirect back at the Invisible Heartless. The Invisible Heartless were clearly hurt by their own laser but also greatly aggravated as well. The Invisible Heartless flew toward Sora with their swords raised to strike him down.

Sora smirked and manifested his Olympia Keyblade, the first Invisible Heartless raised its sword and swung down only for his strike to be countered by Sora. Sora let their blades slide off each other as he slowly got past The Invisible Heartless and quickly slashed its back making it fly away in pain. Another Invisible Heartless tried to do a thrust stab at Sora but with a simple spin Sora was able to dodge and slash the Invisible Heartless and slashed it making it go fly due to the force as well. Then two Invisible Heartless tried to slash Sora at the same time. Sora just smirked as he manifested his Oathkeeper Keyblade and took their attacks while not feeling anything. Sora then quickly slash one then the other then the first one again and finally the second. Both Heartless fell to the ground being severely weakened.

Sora then faced Ansem again and smirked while he glared at Sora with silent anger. The last two Invisible Heartless flew towards him in anger while blasting lasers at him. This time Sora manifested Ultima Weapon Keyblade and his keyblade turned into dual swords that he used to block both their attacks and slash them afterwards. Once all the Invisible Heartless were injured and on the ground, Sora manifested his Spellbinder Keyblade. Sora cast a lighting spell and quickly slashed his keyblade at the direction of the Invisible Heartless. This resulted in the lighting shooting out like missiles toward the Invisible Heartless and shocked them to the point that they were all destroyed. Since they were pureblood Heartless, they didn't release any liberated hearts but simply faded into darkness.

The same could be said for the Neoshadow Heartless after Kairi finished them all off. She walked forward with a smirk on her face and once she caught up with Sora the fist bumped each other. The both of them faced Ansem who was still just floating there with Guardian Shadow while staring at them with anger.

"It's over Ansem! Just give up!"

"... I have spent decades trying to perfect a thousand years of work. Xaler, the founder of the Dark Army, was the only one who ever got close enough to Kingdom Hearts. I am the one who will bring his work to fruition, I am the one who has become the closest to the door! I am the one who has created the seven Fragments of Light within a short span of time! You think that after so long and so much work I will be defeated here and now?" Sora and Kairi then looked at each other in confusion.

"Well, I mean..."

"It is kinda a sucky plan..."

"Also, all your minions are gone."

"And you're kinda the only one left."

"Also, I think the voice told me you need Seven Fragments of Darkness, and you only have three."

"And there's no way we're going to let you create the last four."

"Hmph, you children have no patience. but you are not wrong, you are the last roadblock, that must be destroyed!" Ansem charged at Sora and Kairi, both of which quickly raised their keyblades in defense. Ansem's dual Soul Eaters ended up colliding with their Keyblades; however, Ansem wasn't done and used Guardian Shadow to shock both of them.

"Not this time!" Sora and Kairi quickly made their Keyblade touch one another while Sora was casting a lighting spell and Kairi a fire spell. The result was an explosion of fire and lighting that pushed Ansem back but also did the same for Sora and Kairi. Ansem used his flying power to stay up and fly at Sora to get him while he was down. He would have succeeded had Goofy not shown up and defended Sora with his Shield. Before Ansem could attack him, Donald helped Kairi up and both of them cast an ice spell resulting in a powerful ice spell that was able to trap Ansem in a block of ice.

"Hahaha! Payback!"

"Nice one Duck!" Kairi then joyfully walked toward Sora leaving Donald standing there in anger.

"Sora are you ok?"

"I'm fine, by the way thanks Donald! Thanks, Goofy..." Sora's smile quickly faded when he saw dark scars that looked like small ice cracks on his left arm. Goofy covered the scars with his arm and smiled at Sora to reassure him, though Sora could still see the sadness in his expression. Sora then looked back at Donald and sure enough there was still a dark scar in the form of an X on his back.

"Ah... you guys... are you-" Donald quickly stepped forward and glared at the ice block that Ansem was trapped in.

"It's not over yet! Everyone gets ready!" Soon Ansem broke out of the Ice block seeming injured but angrier than hurt.

"Ugh... ha... ha... Grrr! If this continues, we could be fighting for eternity! No... I must end this now. I've made them wait long enough. The doors to Kingdom Hearts will open today!" Ansem then did the unthinkable and made the three Fragments of Darkness come back to him and he absorbed them into his being.

"What?! No ye glaikit divit! ye dont know what will happen if ye absorb that much darkness!" Sora, Donald, Goofy, and Kairi turned around to see Doxcrum standing there and looking to be in distress due to Ansems actions. However, they all were too late, and Ansem had fully absorbed the three Fragments of Darkness. Soon the environment of the Abyss World started breaking around them. Sora, Donald, Goofy, and Kairi started panicking due to them not understanding what was happening. Doxcrum on the other hand sighed in disappointment.

"Ugh! What an eejit... Well, if th' cursed heart can't be relied on then th' heartless body will have better results." Doxcrum then opened a void behind him and walked into it leaving Sora, Donald, Goofy, and Kairi to fall into the destruction of the Abyss World. One by one they all fell deeper into the Abyss world and were practically swallowed entirely by the Darkness.

***

Sora couldn't see anything for a while but soon he saw a dim light below him and as he got closer to it, he realized he was floating. As he got even closer to the light it looked like a weird red platform but what really caught his attention was how Kairi, Donald, and Goofy were floating alongside him toward the platform. Once they landed suddenly the wind started blowing around them. The platform was flying like a plain and somehow despite being out in the open, none of them were blown off by the intense wind. Soon the red platform started moving, groaning, and changing. Eventually it was done changing it and transformed into World of Chaos and on the very top Sora, Kairi, Donald, and Goofy could see Ansem connected to it with an enlarged Guardian Shadow.

"Behold! The infinite power of darkness manifested!"

"Ew! It looks like a giant slab of rotten meat!"

"Kairi's right! You really think this makes you powerful, Ansem?! It just makes you a freak of nature!"

"Hahaha! Like a bullied victim, the darkness is so misunderstood by the light. But I will be its savior and in return it will reward me with Kingdom Hearts! Right after I have devoured your hearts!" Several spiky tentacles of physical darkness manifested off of World of Chaos and shot their blade ends right towards Sora and Kairi. Sora manifested his Three Wishes Keyblade and Kairi her Oblivion Keyblade, both of them thinking this would be easy to defend against. However once Sora's keyblade hit the tentacles they didn't reflect but instead slapped him away while also scratching him with the spikes. Kairi was shocked by this and quickly raised her Keyblade in defense. Just in time she blocked a stabbing thrust of the tentacle, however it backed up its own attack with enough force to push Kairi back. Kairi ended up flying and fell hard on the surface of the World of Chaos, dangerously close to the edge but right next to Sora.

"No! Sora! Kairi!"

"Come on Goofy we got to cover them!" Donald tried casting another triple core spell but upon firing it a large hand made of physical darkness blocked the spell. It then formed a fist and crushed Donald in an instant. Or at least that would have happened if Goofy didn't defend him with his shield, boosted with magic. Donald and Goofy couldn't advance their attack anymore and so relied on defense. Donald used his lighting and Goofy boosted his shield with magic as they repelled the constant attacks of the spiky tentacles of physical darkness.

Sora and Kairi were still on the ground and in pain, but Sora raised his head and saw Goofy and Donald fighting against the World of Chaos. Sora weakly turned his head to Kairi who wasn't moving, he used his strength to force himself up and walked over to her. However, a spiky tentacle manifested behind him and whipped him on the back before he could get close. To add insult to injury it was directly on the dark scar shaped like an X on his back which made the attack even more painful. Sora was now on the ground, but he kept crawling toward Kairi and once he was close enough, he reached out and grabbed her hand.

"Kairi... I'm sorry... I didn't want you... to get hurt... but... I... I didn't protect you... I'm sorry..."

"... you dummy..."

"What?" Kairi forced herself up so she could look at Sora properly.

"Ugh... I signed up for all this... because I didn't want you... to be alone anymore... so don't feel bad, you dummy... I would go anywhere... so long as I'm with you..." Sora looked at Kairi surprised, he then smiled and blushed as he was falling in love with Kairi again. Kairi smiled and blushed at Sora back as her heart was filling up with her love for Sora as well. However, that wasn't the end of it as both Sora and Kairi's heart's started glowing with golden light. Soon Kairi and Sora started getting a boost in energy and finally the dark scars on Sora's chest and Kairi's arms faded away. Sora and Kairi got up while still holding hands and faced the World of Chaos with smiles on their faces.

Guardian Shadow sees them recover and growls in anger, several spiky tentacles of physical darkness manifested along the sides of the World of Chaos. They all shot at Kairi and Sora to stab them with their blade ends; Sora and Kairi were still smiling with determination as they let go of one another and raised their Keyblades. Sora simply had his Kingdom Keyblade and Kairi had her Destiny's Embrace. When a tentacle tried to stab Sora, he simply jumped up at the last second making World of Chaos stab itself. Sora then ran alongside the tentacle as if it was a balance beam, several other tentacles tried to stab and whip him. But as they got closer, despite their incredible speed Sora always managed to dodge them.

Sora managed to jump over another tentacle as he was running, then as one tried to whip him, he slid under and sliced it with his keyblade. One almost managed to stab his face but he raised his Keyblade high and sliced it in down the middle allowing him space to keep running. Another tentacle tried to whip him, this time aiming for his legs, but he not only did a forward flip jump but managed to slash at it. Finally, Sora decided to put World of Chaos in more pain by stabbing his keyblade on the tentacle he was running along and dragging it while he was running. Essentially leaving an extremely long and clearly painful cut on the tentacle.

Kairi watched Sora in amazement, but she wasn't going to let him one up her, so she faced the tentacles that were focused on her with a smile of determination. A single tentacle tried to stab her, but she simply swirled around and away from it making it stab itself again. She then activated a fire spell and shot it, blasting the tip of the tentacle off and leaving an injured stub at the end of the tentacle. Another tentacle tried to whip her, and she gracefully did a front flip and shot the tentacle with an ice spell while jumping over it.

"Hahaha! Cool! I always wanted to do that!" However, as Kairi was distracted a tentacle tried to crush her, but thankfully she noticed it at the last second and used her keyblade to block it. As the tentacle tried to crush her with its full weight, she was expecting it to feel like boulders landing on her. Instead, it actually just felt like a big box filled with books, still heavy but nothing she couldn't handle. Kairi huffed at the tentacle in anger and activated an ice spell, however before she could even do anything the part of the tentacle touching her keyblade was frozen instantly. The rest of the tentacle tried to pull back despite still being frozen. Kairi was confused but quickly smirked again as she activated a fire spell and shot several fireballs at the tentacle breaking the ice and destroying the tentacle.

Kairi thought about how the tentacle was frozen despite her not finishing the spell and got a great idea. She then activated a fire spell but rather than casting fireballs she let the spell linger in her keyblade. As another tentacle tried to stab her, she again simply dodged it by gracefully jumping away only to twirl back around and slash the tentacle before it could slither away. This resulted in not only cutting the tentacle but burning the rest of it as well. Another tentacle tried to whip her in the stomach, but she gracefully raised her keyblade, waited for the tentacle to come close enough, and slashed it at the last second. This resulted in not only allowing her to avoid getting hit but also cutting the tentacle in two and leaving both parts burning.

World of Chaos started groaning in pain as the tentacles already damaged by Sora and Kairi were getting worse with damage. The cuts left scars of light that burned into the tentacles and were slowly reaching the rest of the World of Chaos like an infection. Guardian Shadow roared in anger and used its now enlarged arms to slice off all the tentacles at high speed. Sora and Kairi quickly ran up to Donald and Goofy, as Guardian Shadow glared at them. Guardian Shadow then raised its arms as its intention of slashing them into pieces was clear. The four of them knew that they couldn't dodge something that fast or powerful, so they all huddled together. Goofy raised his shield, Kairi and Sora their Keyblades, and Donald his staff. None of them expected this defense to be good at all but they had to try something as Guardian Shadow started its attack.

They all closed their eyes out of instinct; however, nothing happened, or it's better to say they felt no pain or impact from the attack at all. They all opened their eyes again to see Guardian Shadow slashing at them with his massive claws, but it was doing nothing. They all then looked to Goofy's shield as it was manifesting a force field of golden light, protecting them from Guardian Shadow. Goofy then looked at his arm and the dark scar was gone, Sora then checked Donalds back and sure enough that one was gone too.

"Wow! Did we heal you guys?!"

"You didn't just heal us; I feel so much stronger now!"

"Sora! You really are the Champion of Light!"

"Impossible!" The four of them then turned to Guardian Shadow who was now acting as a speaker for Ansem.

"How can this be?! I destroyed so many worlds! I raised the Dark Army back from the ashes! I spent years studying the darkness! I even betrayed the man I called my brother to achieve this! How is it that you, a dim light in the vast multiverse, is able to shine so bright no matter how much darkness I try to cover you with! Why won't you stop?! Why won't you fall?! Why won't you just yield to the darkness?! Why do you keep fighting?!" Kairi just scoffed at Ansem, Donald huffed, and Goofy just glared in determination. Sora however stepped forward with his Keyblade lowered and started at Guardian Shadow with pity.

"Yeah, but that's the thing isn't it. Destruction, betrayal, and you did it all alone. You forced everyone who tried to stand with you as either an enemy or as a minion. I read in a book back in Deep Jungle that the best way to defeat your enemy is to simply make them your friend. The best way to make a friend is through trust, everything you said and did contradicts that entirely. That's why your plan will never work, Ansem. It's because you're alone and you never let anyone in, thus you have no one to fall back to, no one to help you, and no one to raise you up as things start falling apart." Sora didn't notice but Kairi, Donald, and Goofy could see Sora's heart glowing even brighter with light. Soon a silhouette of Alice from wonderland made of golden light, formed next to Sora.

"I made new experiences and friends in every new world I went to, sure doing so drove Donald crazy and maybe it made me lose track of the mission from time to time, but it was all worth it in the end!" Then four more silhouettes of golden light formed, this time of Cloud, Yuffie, Aerith, and Leon.

"Helping someone in need is always the right thing to do! Sharing and caring for others will always be worth it because you're opening your heart to someone else and that person will do the same to you, this will make you both stronger and nothing will convince me otherwise!" Then a golden silhouette of Tarzan formed and two more afterwards, one of Genie and the other of Aladdin.

"Sure, sometimes you'll stumble across jerks who would rather take than give. But just because those guys want to make the world worse doesn't mean the rest of us should give up! If anything, it's proof that if we try harder to unite and make things better for everyone!" Golden silhouettes of Sally, Jack Skellington, Ariel, Peter pan, and Spiderman formed.

"So, you see Ansem! That's why you'll never win, because you think the best way to make things better is to destroy it all and start anew. But you know what, I see the flaws all around us, and I think it's better to fix them rather than starting over. I'm not scared to face all those problems head on, sure it will be hard, but I know I can do it because I'm not alone! I'll never fight alone, because when all you do is fight for yourself, then you aren't worth fighting for!" Sora then stepped back and reached out to Kairi and Goofy. They both took Sora's hand and Donald took Goofy's other hand.

"My friends are my power, and I owe them all everything for getting me this far and making me this strong! So don't you dare think for a second, I'm giving up just yet! For all their sakes I'm fighting to the very end! And I'm gonna kick your sorry butt!" Suddenly all the silhouettes of Sora's friends grow brighter for a split second before they transformed into balls of light, quickly flowing into Sora's heart. Sora was now surrounded by an aura of golden light, but the energy proved to be too powerful for him and he was in great pain because of it. However, as he was holding onto Kairi and Goofy's hands the energy transferred to them and by extension Donald as well. They were all in pain at first but as the energy passed onto each and every one of them it started to pass. Now all four of them had golden auras of light and were given massive boosts in magical and physical power. Sora was visibly exhausted but still looked up at Ansem with a smile of determination.

"Ha... Ha... Yeah, this is my power, the power of friendship and light. And it will always be stronger than being alone in the Darkness, Ansem."

"RAAAH! I HAVEN'T LOST YET!" Guardian Shadow then raised his claws in an attempt to go berserk again. However, Donald stopped the right arm by blasting it with a casting a triple core spell. The spell ended up being 10 times stronger and mixed with light magic the result was Guardian Shadow's right arm being heavily electrocuted, then extremely scorched and finally completely frozen. Guardian Shadow roared loudly in anger and pain but Goofy didn't give him any time to recover. Goofy charged up his magic to manifest his light construct clone to shoot it right at the left arm. What instead happened about seven light construct clones of golden light manifested, and all jumped up and shield bashed Guardian Shadow's left arm. Guardian Shadow roared again in pain, there was no way it couldn't since its right arm was both badly charred because of the lightning and fire and now encased in ice. Then there was the left arm that's now broken beyond repair. Sora, Kairi, Donald, and Goofy couldn't help but laugh at both Guardian Shadow's pitiful state and in excitement due to how amazing their new powers are.

"This is so awesome!"

"I know right! I knew this power was great, but I never knew it could be this great!"

"Foolish Children!" Sora, Kairi, Donald, and Goofy looked back at Guardian Shadow as it continued to roar in anger. Suddenly several dark spikes grew on its chest and seemingly formed another layer of rib cage."Like light itself your power is finite! While my power is eternal! As such I have that much time to accomplish my goals! The only way to stop me is to find the power core and by the time you do your power will already run out." Sora simply glared at Ansem in anger, though he was probably right, even if they were hurting World of Chaos and Guardian Shadow, they still weren't making progress with Ansem directly. They needed to find a way to get Ansem out of there and attack him directly. However just as Sora was thinking that he saw an orb of dark purple light. Sora just glared at it in annoyance as he knew exactly what it was, he then glared at Ansem in disappointment.

"Isn't that it, right there?" Kairi, Donald, and Goofy looked at the dark purple light where Sora was pointing, they all made looks of disappointment as well. They all couldn't help but be disappointed at Ansem due to how he didn't even try to hide it properly and how they only knew to attack it now that Ansem brought it up. Guardian Shadow looked at Sora in confusion but then once it realized where he was pointing it had visible fear on its face.

"Uh... DIE!" Hundreds of dark tentacles formed around World of Chaos and aimed their blade tips right at the four of them. Furthermore, about four Darkside Heartless manifested, surrounding Sora, Kairi, Donald, and Goofy. Sora and Kairi were especially shocked at the sight of the Darkside Heartless.

"Sora... those..."

"Yeah... they're the Heartless that destroyed Destiny Island." Sora gripped his keyblade in anger, he still remembered how he tried to defeat the Darkside Heartless but failed and he had to watch everything that made up Destiny Island get torn apart. Sora couldn't help but be filled with seething rage but then, Kairi placed her hand on his. Sora looked at Kairi as she was smiling gently at him.

"Come on you dummy. You're not alone this time, remember? We're here to help you beat these monsters." Sora then looked at Donand then Goofy. Both nodded and smiled with determination at him. Sora couldn't help but smile and chuckle at his own blind anger.

"Hahaha, yeah. Let's beat these guys once and for all!" The four of them cheered in excitement as each of them charged toward a single Darkside. Donald first cast a lighting spell at his Darkside causing it damage but not enough to destroy it. The Darkside growled in anger and slammed its fist into the ground sending a shockwave at Donald. Donald knew this was going to hurt but still jumped out of instinct despite knowing it was futile. However, he was wrong for when he jumped, he ended up jumping higher than expected and was practically soaring in the air. Donald couldn't help but laugh proudly at this as he cast a powerful fireball of light at the Darkside burning the fist that caused the shockwave.

In retaliation the Darkside raised its other arm and shot three dark homing missiles at Donald. Donald quickly cast an ice spell that surrounded him in an ice dome, coated in golden light. Thankfully the ice dome surrounding him was strong enough to keep Donald safe from the dark explosions until it broke. Donald was especially glad that his golden light aura was able to make him float so falling wasn't an issue. Instead, Donald focused on casting a double core spell of fire and ice, completely burning, electrocuting, and incinerating the Darkside.

Goofy ran at his Darkside and threw his shield like a Frisbee expecting nothing more than for it to hit the Darkside and then come back to him. However, Goofy's shield ended up charging up and spinning faster and faster, this allowed the shield to cut off the Darkside's leg. Just like a boomerang the shield still came back to Goofy though he stopped once he caught it and looked at it in amazement.

"Gosh! I must not know my own strength!" The Darkside roared in anger trying to crush Goofy with its fist, Goofy quickly raised his shield expecting the impact to still hurt like a truck. However Goofy opened his eyes as nothing happened at all. Instead, Goofy looked up to see the shockwave of the punch redirecting up the Darkside's arm breaking it entirely. Goofy actually kinda felt bad for the Darkside despite it being a world destroying pureblood Heartless. However, Goofy's guilt faded when the Darkside manifested several dark spheres and let them fall all around. Thankfully the dark spheres were slow and Goofy was fast, so he dodged them all with ease. Goofy then threw his shield again and this time aimed for the Darkside's head slicing it off and destroying the Darkside entirely.

Kairi was almost instantly attacked with dark homing missiles but thanks to her Oblivion Keyblade she was naturally immune. Kairi smirked at the Darkside, but it remained emotionless as it stared at her. Instead, the Darkside raised its fist and slammed it in the ground. Kairi was actually hurt by the shockwave, but it didn't push her away thanks to her golden light aura. However, the pain/damage wasn't enough to make her fall to the ground or lose her strength in any way.

"Hmph! you're a smart one huh? Too bad because I'm smarter!" Kairi then cast a fire spell that resulted in a large fireball coated in golden light. The fireball ended up hitting the Darkside directly in the face making it roar in anger. The Darkside then glared at Kairi as she ended up manifesting her Destiny's Embrace instead of Oblivion. The Darkside actually looked visibly confused by this, but it took the advantage without hesitation and manifested more dark homing missiles.

"I'm also faster!" Kairi then ran to the right of the Darkside while the dark homing missiles chased after her. Kairi ran around the Darkside and once she got behind the Darkside she shot him again with another fireball. The Darkside growled in anger and manifested three more dark homing missiles to catch her. However just like before Kairi was able to outrun them. It continued like this for a while with Kairi shooting the Darkside with fireballs, it tried to retaliate by manifesting more dark homing missiles. However, the Darkside's dark homing missiles couldn't catch Kairi and instead they were continuously chasing her. The Darkside manifested so many of them that it was like she was running from a swarm of dark wasps. However, with so many dark homing missiles Kairi was finding it harder to outrun them all.

"Well, better do it now!" Kairi then ran in-between the legs of the Darkside, the Darkside was confused at first but once it realized what she was doing it was already too late. The dark homing missiles impacted the Darkside's back and damaged it badly making it roar in pain. The Darkside then looked down at Kairi in anger, but its expression quickly turned into shock when it saw her casting a fire spell.

"Told you I was smarter!" Kairi then shot the fireball right at the Darkside's face, finally destroying it.

Sora charged at his Darkside as it raised its first to crush him with its first, however Sora proved to be faster and slashed its arm. Sora's attack was not only powerful but left a scar of golden light across the arm of the Darkside. It roared in pain and anger as it raised its other fist to retaliate, however the same thing happened leaving both its arms scared. Sora then ran under the Darkside while slashing both its legs forcing it to fall to its knees on the ground.

"That was for my parents!" The Darkside growled in annoyance as it manifested three dark homing missiles to shoot Sora. However, as they did Sora manifested his Three Wishes Keyblade and slashed them not only reflecting them back at the Darkside but boosting their magical bower by five times as much, causing further damage to the Darkside.

"That was for Riku!" The Darkside swung its first trying to hit Sora like a wrecking ball, but Sora did a front flip to dodge. As he spun, he had his keyblade out, allowing him to cut the Darkside's arm off while dodging its attack.

"That's for Kairi!" The Darkside roared in fear as it tried to get away from Sora who was marching toward it. The Darkside manifested dark spheres in the air, and they rained down around Sora in hopes of getting him away. However, this ended up having the opposite effect as Sora just slashed the dark spheres that got too close to him toward the Darkside further harming it.

"That's for my Home!" The Darkside had no more magic or strength to fight back so Sora was able to catch up with it quickly. Sora manifested his Olympia Keyblade and slashed the Darkside, the force from Sora's attack made it go fly up in the air.

"This is for every world you've destroyed!" Sora then manifested his Pumpkinhead Keyblade and shot several jack-o-lantern missiles at the Darkside, destroying it while midair. Guardian Shadow roared in frustration as it tried to use the tentacles of physical darkness to kill Sora once and for all. However, Kairi, Donald, and Goofy were not only fast but strong enough to attack them all head on and keep them off of Sora. Sora then smirked as he pointed his Pumpkinhead Keyblade at the core of the World of Chaos.

"And this is for all the other horrible things you've done." Sora manifests only one more jack-o-lantern missile to fire at the power core. Thankfully this was enough to weaken the World of Chaos as its remaining dark tentacles were practically falling apart. Guardian Shadow itself started falling apart and soon Ansem was exposed underneath.

"No! This can't be!" Ansem was connected to several dark tendrils on his back connecting him to both Guardian Shadow and World of Chaos. However what Sora was more focused on was how he had three dark crystals on his chest. There was no doubt in Sora's mind that these were the Fragments of Darkness, meaning Sora just had to rip them out of Ansem in order to stop him for good. Ansem then noticed Sora's glare and quickly realized what he was thinking.

"No, you don't!" Suddenly several Neoshadow Heartless formed around Sora trying to ambush him. However, Donald and Kairi both shot lighting magic at them destroying them all instantly. Sora thanked them before jumping up to face Ansem directly, meanwhile Kairi, Donald, and Goofy held back the Neoshadow Heartless trying to stop Sora. Sora made it to the same level as Ansem and raised his Keyblade as he was getting closer to him. Ansem manifested his dual Soul Eaters only to combine them together into a single double ended spear.

Ansem spun his spear around as if to show off his mastery of the weapon and used it to block Sora's strike. Sora tried again to strike from a different angle but again and again Ansem managed to defend from the attack. Sora and Ansem then locked their blades and glared at one another for they were currently in a stalemate.

"You have so much power, yet you don't even know how to use it properly!"

"I could say the same for you! You keep talking like you know everything, like I'm just a stupid kid! Well guess what, this stupid kid and his amazing friends are going to put an end to you and the Dark Army!"

"Foolish Child! Your friends are occupied by the Heartless of this Abyss world and here the Heartless are infinite!" Ansem then pushed Sora back and quickly sliced him in the chest. Sora only felt the pain for a moment, thankfully his golden light aura protected him but after he was healed, he realized the aura was fading.

"Your power is running out! You're all alone! You don't even know the true nature of Darkness and light." Sora yelled in frustration as he continuously struck at Ansem forcing him back ever so slightly into Guardian Shadow. Then finally after one more strike Ansem lost his grip on his Soul Eater double ended spear; However, Sora ended up losing his grip on his keyblade as well. Instead of resummoning it back in his hand he instead aimed his fist at Ansem's face and punched him. Sora's punch ended up being much stronger than either of them predicted leaving Ansem dazed and unbalanced. Sora saw this as an opportunity and didn't let it pass so he kept punching Ansem and wouldn't stop.

Sora managed to punch Ansem five times in the face, but Sora couldn't tell if this was actually weakening Ansem or just making him angry. Worst off, Ansem grabbed Sora's wrist before he could throw a sixth punch. Ansem then started smirking at Sora as he was slowly crushing Sora's wrist, making him grunt in pain.

"You're all alone now... This is your end!" Before Sora could use his other hand to summon his Keyblade, Ansem grabbed his neck. Ansem started choking Sora to the point that his aura of golden light was fading faster than before. Sora was losing the power needed to stop Ansem and he was losing air too, yet there was nothing he could do to stop it.

"Who said he was alone?!" Sora was sure that the only way he heard that voice was because of his loss of air. There's no way he could actually be hearing Riku's voice, but then again maybe he was. Ansem let go of Sora as cracks on his face started appearing, the cracks soon spread throughout his body as if he was made of glass. Then he was practically fragmented and as he fell apart Riku punched his way out, finally being free of Ansem's control.

"WHAT! IMPOSSIBLE!" The fragments making up Ansem tried to reassemble using the darkness, but Riku quickly grabbed his Soul Eater double ended spear.

"Looks like you're the one who's alone, Ansem!" Riku then slashed Ansem with the spear, making him fall apart all over again. Riku thought that was the end however soon the spear started acting strange while in his hand. Suddenly the Soul Eater spear broke into fragments of darkness until it reforged itself into Way to the Dawn Keyblade. Riku was shocked by this but he had no time to focus on it as Sora ran up to him and wrapped his arms around him while crying heavily.

"Riku! Riku your safe! You're finally free! I'm so glad you're safe... I'm so glad you're here..." Sora couldn't stop crying as he now, finally, after all this time, managed to get Riku back. Riku smiled and gently hugged Sora back, he wanted to joke around with him but instead he just comforted him as Sora cried it out. Riku then looked down and saw Kairi, Donald, and Goofy all standing there confused as the Neoshadow Heartless surrounding them were fading into nothing. Kairi then looked up and tears fell from her eyes as she saw Riku.

Riku smiled at Kairi and waved at her, she smiled while still crying and waved back with a smile of joy. However, Riku then noticed that Sora was starting to calm down a little but was still clinging tightly to Riku. Riku then noticed that Kairi could see him and Sora hugging, Riku then gave a smug smirk at Kairi to which her expression turned to shock. She then gritted her teeth in anger at him while he continued to smirk as if to say "I win" to her. Sora then finally let go of Riku but was still crying a little.

"Come on Sora, you're never going to get anything done if you keep crying like that."

"I'm sorry, I just missed you so much, I never stopped thinking about saving you." Riku blushed when he heard Sora say that however his secret joy was quickly changed into guilt.

"Shouldn't I be saying sorry? I'm the reason this whole mess started." Sora looked at Riku shocked though it didn't take him long to understand what Riku meant. Sora then sighed as he patted Riku on the shoulder with one hand and wiped his own tears away with the other.

"You have plenty of time to apologize but for now, let's just get everyone and go home." Riku was confused by how Sora could forgive him so easily, but he did agree that they needed to get out of here. Sora manifested his Fairy Harp Keyblade, grabbed onto Riku's arm, and had both of them float to the ground safely. Sora was happy to see Donald and Goofy but before they could talk, he noticed Kairi glaring at Riku.

"You cheated!"

"You cheated first."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Don't lie, you probably asked him behind my back" Kairi stopped being angry but then smirked, leaned closer to Riku's ear, and whispered something Sora couldn't hear. Riku was shocked and then glared at Kairi in anger while she continued to smirk at him.

"You little-!"

"Uh guys? What are you talking about?" Both Kairi and Riku blushed in embarrassment, they looked at Sora, then each other, then away from Sora out of embarrassment.

"Nothing!" They both shouted at the same time, which only confused Sora more. Sora then looked at Donald and Goofy, the both of them looked at each other, but only shrugged in confusion. Riku could feel the awkward atmosphere and tried to change the subject quickly.

"Ahem! so anyways I think we need to get out of here but first, I just want to say, I'm sor-"

"Wait!" Kairi then placed her hand in front of Riku to stop him.

"Wha- Kairi I'm trying to-"

"Stop! Listen! ... nothing's happening."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean you guys defeated Ansem, right? So why are we still here? Why is this thing we're on still exists and why hasn't anything else happened?"

"I mean all the Heartless are gone."

"Well yeah but shouldn't something else be happening? Shouldn't the Abyss world be gone or something like that?" While Kairi, Riku, and Sora started debating on whether the fight really was over Donald was starting to get skeptical himself. Kairi wasn't wrong, Ansem linked himself to this Abyss world so by defeating him the fragments that made this world should be restored back into the worlds they once were. Donald looked around while trying to think of an explanation, but he eventually found himself staring at a strange blob of darkness slithering toward the other end of the World of Chaos.

"Wha?! What the heck is that?!" Sora, Kairi, Riku and Goofy looked at where Donald was pointing and saw that the blob of darkness was slowly forming into Ansem. It reached in the air and into its hand floated the seven Fragments of Light and three Fragments of Darkness.

"I have waited decades... centuries... to complete... a thousand years of work... I will take what is due!"

"Quick stop him!" The five of them tried to run toward Ansem but it was already too late; he was using the Fragments of Light and Darkness to create a doorway to Kingdom Hearts itself. Ansem was still missing four Fragments of Darkness, but he hoped that by using the energy of the Abyss World he could complete it regardless. Soon the doorway was completed and so was Ansem's body; he weakly walked over to the door while Sora and friends were still too far away to reach him.

"Finally! With the power of Infinity... all the wrongs of the past... will be rewritten!" However just as Ansem got close enough the door opened and suddenly a burst of light flowed out and blasted him.

"ARGH! NO! WHAT'S HAPPENING!" a void opened besides the door and a disappointed Doxcrum walked out and leaned on the door. He was at an angle allowing him to be safe from the blast of light and Sora and friends were just far enough to be safe too.

"It didn't work ye naff eejit! I told ye seven o' light and seven o' darkness, no more and no less! but no, don't listen to th' bloke who knows what he's talkin' about. Sure, that's braw! Just do yer ain hin' an' win' it frae thaur! I'm sure it will all work itself braw! Ugh, I'm too old for this guff." Doxcrum then held out his hand and the Fragments flew out of Ansem's hands and into Doxcrum's.

"I'll be holding onto these, Lad."

"No please! Save me! I promise! I'll work harder and get it right the next time!"

"Aw rite, I believe ye!"

"Really?"

"... No." Doxcrum then kicked Ansem and he shattered into dark glass as the light incinerated all the fragments that made up his being, ensuring there was nothing left.

"Heh... Cheil, I hated that glaikit puppet." Finally, the doors closed allowing Sora, Riku, Kairi, Donald, and Goofy to see that it was Doxcrum that defeated Ansem.

"Doxcrum!" Riku was especially shocked to see Doxcrum stealing from Ansem.

"What are you doing?! I thought Ansem was your master?!"

"... Hehehe. Sorry to break it to ye lads. but Ansem wasn't th' real master, never was. Just a puppet for th' real deal. Ye all thought ye were fighting th' entire Dark Army when in reality ye were just picking apart a wee squad. We're a lot bigger than ye think lads."

"What? But then who is the real mas-" Before Sora could finish the doorway opened again but this time it was showing images of other worlds. Soon around the doorway cracks of reality started forming and as the cracks got bigger more images of other worlds could be seen flashing within the cracks. Doxcrum was quick to get away from the cracks but while the others were terrified, he just sighed in disappointment.

"Ugh that damn eejit."

"I don't understand! What's going on?!"

"He didn't get Kingdom Hearts but what he got wasn't better! This is th' infinite corridor, it's what surrounds Kingdom Hearts an' allows it to create new worlds and fill them with life! Its th' same reason it's impossible to access Kingdom Hearts directly. Coz if ye try, you'll get this." The cracks grew larger and soon started showing even more flashes of different worlds throughout reality.

"Don't fash yerse, th' doors will close eventually... But uh, I don't think those troaps will be willin' to bide." Doxcrum then pointed to the distance, Sora and friends turned around to see several Darkside, hundreds of Neoshadow Heartless, and Thousands of Shadow Heartless flying right toward them.

"If what Doxcrum is saying is true, then with the doorway open, the Heartless will have access to unlimited worlds! We have to close it!"

"I would hurry, Lads! Even without th' Dark Army th' heartless are like flies! It just takes a body to start a swarm." Doxcrum then opened another void and walked right into it.

"Wait Doxcrum! Please help!" While Sora, Kairi, Donald and Goofy were running to close the doorway, Riku tried to plead with Doxcrum. Doxcrum did stop himself before entering and looked back at Riku one last time and scoffed.

"Ye don't need me anymore Bairn. Ye got this... oh, and don't forget, th' darkness is only th' other side o' th' coin." Doxcrum then entered the Void, Riku sighed but followed the others to close the doorway. However, it was easier said than done; the doors were large and extremely heavy. As they were pushing the doors were slowly moving but the cracks around the doorway were only getting bigger. Sora could see that the Heartless were spreading out and aiming for the cracks instead of the doorway.

"We just have to close the doorway! If we can do that then the Heartless can't destroy any more worlds!"

"I know Sora... but I don't think we're going to make it."

"Don't talk like that Riku! As long as we're together! We'll be ok!" Riku looked at Sora then to Kairi, the Donald, then Goofy. Riku couldn't help but feel envious of Sora getting some good friends who were willing to help him to the end. But then again that was Sora's specialty so Riku really shouldn't be surprised. The real surprise to Riku was how Sora was still willing to be friends with a jerk like him.

"Heh, you say that, but I think you were doing just fine without me."

"Huh?" Riku then entered the Doorway and started pulling the doors in, this allowed them the right door to close faster but it also meant Riku would be trapped.

"Wha-?! Riku!"

"It's ok Sora, consider this my apology for ruining our home."

"Riku! Please don't!"

"Hey, come on Sora, don't start crying on me now. I'll be back, I'm just going to be gone for a while."

"But Riku! You'll be alone! How will you even find your way back?!"

"He won't be alone fellas!" Sora didn't recognize that voice however as he looked behind he saw several lasers of blinding golden light blast from the sky and onto the advancing Heartless. They were all vaporized in an instant and in front of the doorway dropped Mickey Mouse.

"Is that-?"

"King Mickey!"

"Your Majesty!"

"... is that a mouse?" Donald then hit Kairi on the head with his staff to which she looked at him, both mad and hurt.

"Sorry I'm late fellas, and sorry I never told you where I was! I just couldn't let anyone know I was looking for this!" Micky then held out his hand and manifested the Kingdom Key D.

"With this I can close the door, but I have to do it from the other side! So sorry to say this right after the reunion but this is where we say goodbye." Sora looked at Donald and then Goofy he could see the sadness in their eyes but they both simply nodded.

"We understand your majesty."

"You and your family have protected our world for generations, the least we can do is step aside and let you work."

"Thank you fellas, I promise this won't take long. As for you Sora, on behalf of the multiverse and Disney Kingdom I thank you for protecting the light and all the creatures that live in it. I promise once I return, I will reward you!"

"Thank you uh, your Majesty. But all I really want is for my home back and the Multiverse restored."

"Haha! We then let me help you close this doorway, and we can do just that!" King Mickey then entered the doorway and was about to use his keyblade to close the door but saw Riku in the doorway with him.

"You don't have to stay; you can be with your friends."

"... will the spell work faster with two Keyblades?"

"Huh? Well, yes... but we would need two keyblade on the other side." Riku then looked at Sora and Kairi the both of them knew what this meant and quickly manifested their Keyblades to show King Mickey.

"Then this could definingly work! But be warned children! Once we do this the infinite corridor will shoot us all into different worlds! Are you prepared for this?" Riku, Sora, Kairi, Donald, and Goofy looked at each other unsure of this. They were all stronger together so the idea of being separated again was quite terrifying. However, the idea of allowing the Heartless to get access to just one world to feed on was more terrifying. So one by one Riku, Sora, Kairi, Donald, and Goofy nodded at each other and all of them faced the king.

"We're ready for anything, your majesty!"

"Then may our hearts be the guiding key on our new journey!" King Mickey aimed his keyblade at the doorway and so did Riku. Sora and Kairi stepped away from the door and did the same. Soon, from each of their keyblades, beams of light blasted from them to the middle of the doorway. Now the doors were closing much faster. Just in time too as another wave of seemingly endless Heartless was flying towards them.

"Wait! Sora! Kairi!" Sora and Kairi then looked inside the doorway as Riku was slowly leaving their view.

"Sora... just be happy that's all I ask and watch over the goofball. Make sure she doesn't do anything stupid." Sora and Kairi knew this was probably the last time they were going to see Riku in a who knows how long, so they immediately started crying. However, Kairi started crying, she also started laughing as well.

"Hey! Everyone knows I'm the brains between the three of us!"

"Hahaha Sure!" Riku was laughing but he was also shedding tears as he knew it could be years before he would ever get to see them again.

"But seriously, watch over Sora, ok? But don't forget to watch over yourself. You drive me crazy but you're still my friend, you matter to me too."

"I know... sorry for cheating by the way."

"It's ok, he was probably going to pick you anyways."

"Huh? What are you guys talking about?"

"Haha! I'll tell you when I get back Sora! It's a promise!" Sora still had tears falling from his eyes, but he still managed to smile gently at Riku as the door was almost closed.

"I'll hold you to that... see you later Riku." Finally, the door was closed and Riku along with King Micky were gone. Soon the cracks on the doorway went berserk and started growing and expanding even faster. Sora thought this was bad, but they were also growing brighter and even burning the Heartless as they got closer. Soon the cracks spread across the Abyss world until it was destroyed. Soon the remaining fragments were coated in light and started shooting off into space to transform into what looked like stars. Sora, Kairi, Donald, and Goofy were left there floating in space as they watched the space around them being lit up with stars. It wouldn't be clear to a layman, but they knew what this meant the Multiverse was slowly being restored and it was honestly beautiful.

Sora couldn't look away at all the pretty stars being restored knowing that for every star there were several planets being restored. And if the Abyss World was destroyed that meant all the Emblem Heartless on it were as well, leaving all the cursed hearts liberated and free to return to their owners. Sora smiled knowing that one of them was Destiny Island. Granted he didn't know how they were going to get back since the Gummi ship was back at Hollow Bastion but right now, he wasn't worried. Instead, he just reached out for Kairi's hand to enjoy the beautiful sight of the Multiverse being restored right beside her. However, upon reaching for her hand he couldn't actually touch her, instead he was blocked off by a seemingly invisible force.

"Wha- What?!"

"Sora! What is this?!" Soon behind Kairi Sora could see the setting of a world that he was afraid he was never going to see again. It was their home, Destiny Islands, Kairi was being sent home but not Sora he was being sent somewhere else.

"Kairi! You're going home!"

"What? No! Not without you!" Kairi started banging on the invisible barrier as the viewing of Destiny Islands was becoming clearer.

"Kairi, it's ok."

"No, it's not! It's not fair! It's not fair!" Kairi then started slashing at the barrier with her keyblade but again nothing worked. Instead, she just fell to her knees and started crying again.

"Why... Why do we have to be separated again... why does this keep happening to us... we just got Riku back... I don't want to go home or go to new worlds... not without you... " Sora placed his hand on the barrier and faced Kairi with a gentle smile while she looked at him still filled with sadness.

"It's ok, you know what to do now, while you're looking for me, I'll look for you. We won't be separated for long this time. I know in my heart we'll find each other again. because my heart is the guiding key!" Kairi looked surprised at Sora but then she giggled and managed to smile again. She then faced Sora with determination.

"It's a promise, this time I'll look for you." Now the barrier was expanding pushing Kairi to Destiny Island and Sora farther away from her.

"Ah! Sora! I will find you! No matter what I will never stop looking! I will never forget you or Riku! I promise!" Kairi then faded from view; Sora was still smiling as a single tear left his eye.

***

Kairi was now on the beach of Destiny Island, she was home, but she didn't feel at home. Sora and Riku were somewhere out there, and she didn't even know how to get off the world to start looking for them. But for now, she at least had her Keyblade and hopefully that would be enough to get her off the world eventually. Kairi raised her hand to manifest her Keyblade but as she did, nothing happened she then tried again but still nothing happened. Kairi didn't understand then suddenly she felt a pain in her heart, it was as if her heart was broken and missing some pieces.

"Hey Kairi!" Kairi then turned around to see Selphie and Tidus running right toward her.

"There you are! Your parents were looking everywhere for you!"

"Riku's and Sora's parents too! They're going crazy and... hey you, ok?" Kairi didn't know what to do, she had no Keyblade and no Gummi ship, she was probably never going to get off this world. But by remembering Sora she was quickly reminded by how determined he was and how he never gave up on his friends. Kairi then laughed at herself.

"Haha, Kairi you dummy, it's too early to give up."

"What?"

"Nothing you guys, I'll go see my parents to tell them I'm ok."

"Oh, ok them but uh, do you know where Riku and Sora are?" Kairi then smiled as she looked to the sky.

"No... but one day, I will find my way back to them, I can feel it in my heart."

***

Donald and Goofy were watching Sora as he was still on his knees, looking at where Kairi once was as if she was still there. However, this time it didn't take long for him to get up and look at the two of them with a gentle smile.

"You ok Sora?"

"... I'm not sure, but I'll definingly feel better once we find out where we are and how to get back to the others." Donald and Goofy looked at each other but then looked back at Sora and nodded with determination. The three of them then marched forward however they quickly noticed they seemed to be in some kind of strange dimension of darkness. The only thing there was a road leading to a strange castle, as such all they could do was walk toward it. Sora looked back at Donald and Goofy seeing they were just as confused as he was.

"Haaa... Here goes nothing." Sora then opened the doors to Castle Oblivion.

.

Part 14 Epilogue

Part 12

[nebulousbren]

Keyblade Quotes pt 3 - Wayfinder Trio + Vanitas

[blue-eli]

Ink October day 11: Firebreak

A strip of land that has been cleared, plowed, or planted with fire-resistant vegetation to prevent a fire from spreading.

[gummi-ships]

Kingdom Hearts 0.2 Birth by Sleep - A Fragmentary Passage - Depths of Darkness

[aerithkinfaker]

finally watched dark road

[artlipsis]

sarmix, my kingdom hearts oc. organisation XIII's (former) strongest soldier fr. a bit of a coward and in a near-constant state of anxiety, which is actually rather reasonable considering they've been on the run from org13 for a long time

[moltenzephyr]

Introducing the Magical Hearts Key Team* *name may change

Center: three Disney fangirls (of Ariel, Rapunzel, and Ursula) are caught up in a magical adventure when the Heartless attack their world. Now they travel from story to story, wielding Keyblades and making new friends.

Right: (purple) Isabela Madrigal, local from one of the first worlds saved, whose family is always happy to host the team when they need a break from the Heartless. (Mint & gold) the Jasmine Replica, created in an experiment to see if the powers of a Princess of Heart can be copied. She's nervous of what her original may think of her, and carries a stuffed tiger for comfort.

Left: (hot pink) Draculaura, a citizen of Halloweentown who was sick of how old-fashioned, gray, and repetitive her hometown is. Maleficent promised her a way to visit other worlds all the time, not just on Halloween! How could she resist? Originally the one to direct the Heartless attacking the fangirls' world, Draculaura now has her own Gummi ship and helps them out. (red & black) Queen Amaya is the Team Mom who taught them how to summon Keyblades along with other magical skills. Her past is a mystery; what happened to her world? How did she learn magic? Why does she seem so sad when saying, "A dream is a wish your heart makes"?

[lilmissytealbow]

CRK X KH AU- Kings and Queens Keyblade Wielders!Ancient Heroes

[keykidpilipili]

Doing some Princess of Heart worldbuilding and how it affects someone who had a regular heart before gaining the trait. The darkness exhausting the body to drive back the light who tries to burn its opposite into oblivion.

Woe Light-aspected fever be upon ye

[dzthenerd490]

Kingdom Hearts: The Brightest of Hearts - Chapter 11: The Darkest of Hearts part 1

Back in Traverse Town, after the Gummi ship landed Sora, Donald, and Goofy quickly got off. They were expecting everyone to be in the town square, but there was only Cloud.

"Cloud? Where's Yuffie and Leon?"

"They all went to help the people of Traverse Town, a lot more people have been showing up due to you liberating their hearts from the darkness. Though we did notice one thing, after your mission at Deep Jungle, Sid asked Chip and Dale to make him a device that shows the location of the Gummi ship, so we'll know you guys are on mission and alright. However, I noticed that right after liberating Neverland and London you immediately went to a place called New York City. Why did you do that?"

"We uh... Well..."

"It was me." Sora stepped forward from Donald and Goofy toward Cloud.

"I was excited to know there was only one world left so I rushed into it and liberated as much as I could but... Things didn't go exactly as planned."

"You didn't liberate the world?"

"I did... but I... saw someone else die, and in my frustration and rage the darkness nearly got me."

"... Yeah, that will do it."

"I... I wanted to kill him, I wanted to go down to his level and make him suffer." Sora started crying again, Donald and Goofy were about to comfort him but Cloud reached out first. Cloud got on one knee and extended his hand gently onto Sora's shoulder.

"Sephiroth destroyed my world and killed almost everyone I loved. He destroyed my hometown and killed Tifa's father. There was also Shinra, they killed Zack who was Aerith's old boyfriend. They basically helped Sephiroth destroy our world and drain it of its resources, killing hundreds, enslaving thousands, and ruining millions of lives. Then there was Maleficent who resurrected Sephiroth after we tried so hard to stop him and RIGHT after we saved the world from the DoomsDay Black Materia, she just opened the skies to the Darkness in-between Worlds. Shinra is gone but Sephiroth and Maleficent are still out there. I can't tell you how much I want them to be right in front of me right this moment so I can slice them to pieces." Sora looked at Cloud as his expression darkened, Sora even noticed Cloud's fists were clenching as if to contain his overwhelming rage.

"But you can't, because it's not, right?"

"... I wouldn't say that Sora."

"What? But my mom and dad always said that violence and revenge never solve anything."

"Well, doing things for revenge can be pretty stupid, yeah. I mean if you just focus on the revenge aspect then it will practically consume your life and leave no room for friendship and love. Me and the rest of the group can attest to that, one way or another we let our fears, our sadness, or our anger control us and make us do some pretty stupid things. But these emotions we feel aren't unjustified, they're just a part of who we are. They're only a weakness if you make them a weakness. And you only make them a weakness by letting them dictate everything you do and ignore everything and everyone that tells you to stop."

"... But if our emotions can control us like that then wouldn't it be better to suppress them?"

"Ah! No Sora, don't do that. Trust me, I tried that once and it never ends well. In fact, suppressing your emotions will actually just lead to a brand new emotion that's even easier to get consumed by and leads to even worse results."

"What emotion is that?"

"... Depression. I'm still dealing with that one and it really got worse when I was separated from the group but I'm slowly recovering and doing better."

"How?"

"The same way you deal with any emotion that's taking over your life. You open your heart to those you care about, and the best source is from your friends." Sora then turned back to look at Donald and Goofy, both of which started smiling at him to show how they agreed with Cloud.

"Our emotions are a part of who we are, both the good ones and bad ones. The only time we really lose to the darkness is when we let them control who we are. Don't ever forget it Sora, you're justified in hating the monster who filled your life with misery. But the moment you focus on nothing but them and how you want them to suffer... that's when you become a monster." Sora felt like he mostly understood, emotions are both a gift and a curse but whether they become one or the other is based on how Sora used them. Sora then wiped his tears away and smiled with determination at Cloud.

"Yeah, I think I got it. I won't ever forgive the Dark Army but I'm not going to let my anger for them change who I am."

"Well, said Sora. really glad you figured that out at a younger age than I did."

"Hey, it would have taken me longer if I didn't learn it from you!"

"... ha, you really are a bright and hopeful kid. Alright, I'll stop holding you back. Merlin's back in his old shack, he probably has something else to tell you so you should go ahead and see him."

"Got it. Thanks, Cloud!" Sora then joyfully ran for Merlin's place with Donald and Goofy following him.

"Yeah... don't end up like me. Okay, Sora?"

***

Sora, Donald, and Goofy made it to Merlin's place and entered to find him sipping some tea while looking through another Ansem report. Upon looking at the report Sora realized he didn't get any from either Neverland, London, or New York City. Sora groaned as he facepalmed in defeat.

"Oh? What's wrong my boy? From what I've heard you got back from liberating the last world and are on your way to face off against Maleficent herself!"

"It's not that, Merlin. I didn't get any Ansem Reports. Dang it."

"Oh, don't let such things worry you, my boy. We have more than enough Ansem Reports."

"But what about keeping them out of the hands of the Dark Army?"

"I uh... You don't need to worry about that anymore, my boy. Now then please come in and have some tea." Sora, Donald, and Goofy did as Merlin asked and sat in large and comfortable seats at the round table. Magic tea cups then flew in front of them, and a tea kettle flew over and poured tea for all of them.

"Now then, is there anything else that troubles you, my boy?" Sora thought about this but thankfully it didn't take long for him to remember the voice.

"Uh, Master Merlin, do you know anything about dark voices in people's heads?" Merlin was in the middle of drinking his tea; however, upon hearing this he quickly spat it all out and onto Goofy's face.

"Ugh! So sorry, Sir Goofy! Ahem! now you said... voices in your head?"

"Uh, yeah, it was just an annoying jerk at first but back when we were in the skies of London it attacked us by turning the Heartless into shadow versions of me."

"... I see, hm... When did this start, my boy?"

"When I first showed up in Traverse Town, there was a Shadow Heartless that scratched my back."

"A Heartless scratched your back... hm... "

"What do you think it is, Master Merlin?" Merlin then got up from his chair and started walking.

"That is an excellent question, Sir Donald. Unfortunately, I think I know the answer."

"Don't you mean, fortunately?"

"No Sir Goofy. You see this might be the worst-case scenario. Sora, my boy. Do you remember what I said about what happens when we die?"

"Uh you said your hearts return to Kingdom Hearts to be fragmented and turn into new hearts."

"Yes, but your memories become the inspiration for Kingdom Hearts to create new worlds and new life. This is all part of the great cycle of creation and life itself. But there are those that don't want to die at all and would instead keep their memories forever. Of course, you know that the Dark Army achieves immortality by using the darkness. However, there are those that have taken it a step further, the ancient Masters of Darkness, my old foes who found ways to keep themselves alive even after death. They even know how to resurrect their fallen comrades back from the dead."

"Resurrect the dead?"

"Yes, my boy, they had everything they needed to keep both themselves and others from ever returning to Kingdom Hearts even after death. However, this power was not full proof, some needed vessels, sacrifices, and very complex rituals that took centuries in order to get the spell to work."

"So wait, is that the voice in my head? An old Master of Darkness?!"

"I'm afraid so my boy. He has chosen you to be a piece in the puzzle that will complete his resurrection. But he has made one fatal mistake."

"What's that?" Merlin then smiled, walked up to Sora, then gently poked his nose.

"He chose a kindhearted, brave, and determined boy to be his tool of evil and destruction. Now, his plan might have worked if he chose a foolish boy who wants power and authority. Now tell me, is that what you want, my boy?"

"Ha, no."

"Oh? Then what is it you wish for, my boy?"

"I want to stop the Dark Army and save everyone with the power of light! Including my home and my friends!"

"Hahaha! Then this Dark Master truly made the wrong choice! Hahaha, I'm quite sure you have nothing to worry about my boy."

"But Master Merlin, isn't there a way to remove it?" Merlin's smile then turned into a frown as he sat back on his chair.

"Ah... unfortunately Sir Donald, I am afraid that's impossible. After poking Sir Sora's nose, I was able to find the darkness that infiltrated him, it has united with his heart. Like any magic, there is no removing the darkness from his heart without bringing harm to Sora."

"So, I can't remove it?"

"Not with surgery and not with magic my boy, if you wish for the Darkness to leave your heart you must expel it with an act of great joy, or one of true love. Either one will give your heart the magical energy it needs to expel any magical toxins within it. But again, so long as you have no desire to listen to the Dark Master then you will not have to worry about his influence."

That's what you think! Sora grunted as he heard that voice shouting in his head, but he quickly calmed down and smiled at Merlin.

"Thank you, Master Merlin."

"Merlin is fine my boy."

"I know but besides Donald and Goofy you helped me a lot, so I think it's only fair to call you Master." Merlin chuckled again and offered more tea to Sora, Donald, and Goofy.

***

After they were done with their tea, they went to a place to sleep, surprisingly a hotel owner allowed them to sleep in a luxury room and even gave it to them for free. Apparently, the owner was one of the people cursed as an Emblem Heartless and as such he gave them the room as a "thank you". Though the service still wasn't free, so they didn't order anything. Instead, the three of them just took the room and let themselves fall onto the extremely large bed.

"No offense to the other beds we slept on, but this is the best bed I have ever laid on."

"Ahhh... so tomorrow we're going out to fight Maleficent and the remainder of the Dark Army, you ready Sora?"

"Yeah, I think I... No, I AM ready to fight the Dark Army head on."

"That's the spirit Sora, though there really wasn't any doubt. Every time something pushes you down you always find a way to get back up."

"Haha, thanks Goofy, am I a lot like your son Max?"

"Oh... uh... Gosh, Max is uh... Max prefers to see life, with a little less imagination."

"Huh? What's wrong with imagination?"

"There's nothing wrong with it Sora, Max used to love using his imagination. A-hyuk! We used to have all sorts of fun together, but as he grew up, he started... wanting to take things more seriously and as such he wanted to live life on his own. Me and him still talk... he just prefers we don't talk as often as we used to." Sora could see the growing sadness in Goofy's eyes, and it made him worry about his own future.

"... Am I gonna be like that when I get older?"

"That really depends on what you want to be when you grow up, Sora."

"Oh yeah! Gosh. Don't let us boring adults take all the spotlight, tell us what you want to do after you defeat the Dark Army."

"I... I guess I want to keep being a keyblade wielder of light."

"Really? You won't get paid Sora."

"I don't really want to be paid for it, instead my payment will be the adventures I take Riku and Kairi on! We'll go to new worlds, we can take odd jobs for the cool aliens we meet, and we can find all the bad guys of the multiverse and beat them up, like we did with the Dark Army!"

"Ha! Spoken like a little kid!" Donald continued to snicker at his own joke until he noticed Goofy and Sora glaring at him with disappointment.

"Ahem! I meant that in a good way..."

"Okay, so what do you want to do after we defeat the Dark Army, Donald?"

"hm... I guess I'll take Daisy on a date and maybe finally ask her to marry me."

"Oh?! You're finally committing to her?"

"I've always been committed to her Goofy! I just... haven't been the best at showing it. I was comfortable where we were in our relationship, and I didn't think it was affecting her badly in any way. But after we get home, I'll have a proper talk with her and see what she wants."

"Wow, that's actually really cool of you Donald, hope it all works out for you!"

"Thanks Sora, now what about you Goofy?"

"Yeah Goofy, what are you going to do? Are you perhaps going to go on a relaxing vacation with your wife?" Donald lost all his colors in shock while Goofy just looked at Sora, surprised, leaving Sora confused. Goofy then showed a gentle smile though Sora could see hurt in his eyes.

"My wife died a long time ago."

"Oh... Goofy, I'm sorry."

"Don't be Sora, I don't cry about it anymore. Besides the last thing she ever did was give me Max. It's probably why I love him so much. But I haven't always been the best dad, I guess I smother him too much and don't give him enough space. I was even against his decision to join the Royal Guard. I guess when I get back, I'll give him my blessing to join as both his father and his future captain! A-hyuk!"

"Haha! Well said Goofy!" Sora then yawned and so did Donald and Goofy.

"Alright, then it's a deal. Let's sleep for now but tomorrow we're going to stop Maleficent, save the Multiverse, and spend our lives with our friends and family back home!" Sora raised his fist to show his determination, Donald and Goofy did the same while giving a cheer of triumph.

"But hey, even after we defeat the Dark Army... Let's still be friends, ok? Even if we end up on different worlds, even if we do different things, even if we see different people and make new friends. Let's never forget one another, ok?"

"... Sure Sora."

"We'll always be your friend Sora." Sora then smiled, rested his head on the pillow and slept on the middle of the bed, then Donald scooted to the right to sleep there while Goofy went to the left side of the bed.

***

The next morning the three of them felt well rested but also extremely hungry so they went down to the lunch hall for breakfast. However, after chowing down on a lot of food, they realized they still had to pay for it and didn't have a lot of money. Then ended up having to call Sid for help who was furious despite it not actually costing a lot of money. After eating, they went back to the town square where Aerith, Yuffie, Cloud, Leon, Sid, Merlin, Fairy Godmother, Chip, and Dale were already there.

"You guys ready for your final mission?"

"We'll be cheering you on the entire time!"

"You knuckleheads got this! Give that Maleficent Witch what's coming!" Donald stood proudly at all the praise, Goofy scratched the back of his head while chuckling in embarrassment, and Sora smiled because of all the excitement.

"Thanks, you guys. Today the Dark Army will learn to never mess with ANYONE in the Multiverse!"

"Hahaha! You, my boy, are truly the Champion of Light! The light of Kingdom Hearts shines with hope and victory on you all."

"Thank you, Master Merlin." Sora then looked at everyone with joy but as he did an idea popped into his head.

"Uh hey, this might be too much to ask but, can you guys come with us?" Everyone was then silent as they looked at Sora with surprised expressions. Chip and Dale then went forward to answer.

"Sorry Sora the Gummi Ship can only transport so many people, if too many people ride the Gummi ship and in too little time it could cause disastrous effects to the world." Merlin then stepped forward to continue.

"Unfortunately, my boy, this is correct. unnatural disasters, disease, destruction, and other such chaos. Of course, there's also a chance that the chaos won't happen but it's better to be safe and respect the rules of the multiverse."

"Well, that sucks but no use in complaining! I understand that you all can't come, so just know that I'll be fighting in your guy's honor!" Once again everyone cheered on Sora, Donald, and Goofy. After saying their goodbyes and promises Sora, Donald, and Goofy went off to the Gummi ship.

***

After Chip and Dale started up the Gummi ship and launched them into the light tunnel through the darkness in-between worlds; Sora, Donald, and Goofy were expecting it to be a quick and painless travel from A to B. However, it ended up being anything but, Large Heartless ships were shooting down the Gummi ship. Sora tried using a combo of the laser guns and the Gummi ship missiles but no matter how many Heartless ships he took down, more kept coming. It was getting to the point that Sora didn't take his hand off the fire button for the laser cannons. He couldn't since the entire time the front of the Gummi ship was surrounded by Large Heartless Ships.

Then just like a bad nightmare it was finally over when they reached the end of the light tunnel. As the Gummi ship entered the new world it was practically blackened with all the blast marks and smoking because of all the damage. It landed at the very beginning of the stone steps leading to the entrance of Hollow Bastion. Once it landed the Gummi ship almost fell apart and so did Sora, Donald, Goofy, Chip, and Dale. They all fell to the ground and didn't even move because of how mentally exhausted they all were.

"Ugh... that sucked..."

"Oooh... If it makes you fellas feel better... the chances of us doing that again... are zero..."

"Yeah... sorry by the way... I don't think the ship has ever been this wrecked before..." Chip and Dale then got up and groaned as they walked over to the control pad. Dale pulled out a button connected to the hardware of the ship and Chip pressed it. Suddenly the Gummi ship unleashed a wave of magic outward and back into itself. The magic surrounding the Gummi ship started repairing every large and small bit of damage on the ship. As the magic was done fixing the Gummi ship it then flowed onto Sora, Donald, Goofy, Chip, and Dale; giving them all the energy they needed to physically and mentally recover.

"Ah! That's better!"

"You alright fellas? If that spell worked, it should have fixed you all up too."

"Uh, yeah! That was great! What was that?"

"Just a little pet project we and Sid have been working on!"

"We knew the Dark Army was going to keep hitting harder so rather than increasing our firepower we decided to prepare for what to do when the worst ended up happening."

"And just like you saw, even if they wreck us to the point of near destruction, just like you Sora, we will always get back up!" Chip and Dale jumped and danced around to show their excitement over their achievement. Sora smiled and raised his fist up to them. At first Chip and Dale were confused but once they figured it out, they fist bumped Sora with enthusiasm.

"You guys really are the best Gummi ship engineers in the Multiverse!"

"Aw shucks, thanks Sorry."

"Now don't let us hold you back! Go on and defeat that rotten witch!"

"Yeah, let's go! Wish us luck Chip and Dale!" Sora, Donald, and Goofy then ran out of the Gummi ship. Chip was about to get to operating on the Gummi ship just in case something in the magic spell didn't work but then he noticed Dale looking at the shop console while deep in thought.

"Dale?"

"Hey, Chip. I think I got an idea."

***

Sora, Donald, and Goofy walked up the steps towards the entrance to Hollow Bastion. However, as they finally reached the same floor level hundreds of Shadow Heartless surrounded them. Sora, Donald, and Goofy manifested their weapons ready to fight but ended up standing there confused as the Heartless refused to advance.

"What are they all waiting for?"

"Me." Sora's heart sank when he heard that voice. He felt so conflicted, he couldn't fully feel happy or sad to hear Riku's voice. Yet there he was, slowly advancing while the Shadow Heartless were backing away to clear a path for him. Sora didn't smile when he saw Riku and Riku didn't smile back, how could either of them smile? They both knew how this was going down. Riku stopped when he and Sora were face to face, Sora had Donald and Goofy behind him while Riku had an army of Shadow Heartless behind him. Riku then manifested his Keyblade of Darkness and raised it up toward his head like a knight holding a sword in prayer.

"Sora, I'm gonna ask you one more time, give up your keyblade of Light and join me. Join the Dark Army. Help me take Kingdom Heart's right from under Maleficent's nose and we'll use the power of infinity to fix everything! We'll get our home back! We'll fix Kairi's heart! We'll get our families back! We'll even become Gods! We'll get to go wherever we want, do whatever we want, and never have to worry about anything ever again! We just have to bear with Maleficent for now but when the time is right you and I will take her down! We were a team once Sora, we can do it again. Just drop the Keyblade and take my hand." Riku then extended his hand while giving Sora a gentle smile. A single tear fell out of Sora's eye, he desperately wanted to take Riku's hand, though not for the reason Riku wanted. Sora wanted to take Riku's hand and pull him forward and hug him while he used his own Keyblade to destroy Riku's. But Riku was too fast and too smart for something like that. So instead, Sora just raised his Keyblade and got into a fighting stance.

"You're right about one thing, Riku. I will take Maleficent down! You can either get rid of your Keyblade and join me, step out of the way and don't stop me, or watch me as I kick your butt again. But either way I'm not giving up the Keyblade!" Riku closed his eyes and grunted in frustration, he then glared at Sora full of determination and silent rage.

"Yeah, I was afraid you were going to say that." Suddenly about five Shadow Heartless latched onto Goofy and wrapped around him like restraints, three other Heartless did the same for Donald. Before Sora could react the large group of remaining Heartless were all absorbed into Riku. After Riku absorbed them all, his body was covered in a large dark aura making him stronger than he had ever been before. Sora raised his keyblade to defend but in an instant Riku slashed Sora's Keyblade, breaking it instantly. The fragments fell to the ground, turned to light and disappeared instantly. Sora couldn't believe what just happened, his keyblade was gone and with it, any chance he had of freeing Riku and Kairi from the Dark Army. Sora just fell to his knees, he didn't cry, he didn't scream, he didn't do anything else. He just sat there with the shock still on his face.

Riku saw his friend in despair and tried to reach out to help but suddenly it felt like every atom in his body was being crushed by the weight of the earth. Soon all the Shadow Heartless Riku absorbed were destroyed in an instant and thus Riku could finally breathe again. Doxcrum then showed up and slapped Riku on the back of the head.

"Ye wee eejit, I tell ye that ye weren't duin to handle a spell that powerful. Noo c'moan, we're done here." Doxcrum then picked up Riku and turned back to the castle, but not before giving one final glance to Sora.

"Don't ya be to stonner on yourself, lad. Ye were never aff to beat us in the foremaist steid." Doxcrum then entered the castle of Hollow Bastion while snapping his fingers making the Heartless binding Donald and Goofy disappear. Goofy and Donald quickly went to Sora to check on him and only then did they realize what happened.

"... Sora, the keyblade..."

"It's gone..."

"... guys, what do we do?" Sora looked at them both with hopelessness in his eyes, Goofy and Donald looked at one another not sure what to do. However, Donald stood up while looking at castle of Hollow Bastion with determination.

"Donald?"

"We have to keep going."

"But Sora doesn't have the Keyblade anymore."

"Then we'll go without him."

"A-hyuk! Wha- wha?! But Donald, we need him!"

"No Goofy we needed his Keyblade and now he doesn't have it and without it he's..." Donald then looked at Sora and how hurt he looked while looking back at Donald. Donald then grunted and looked back at Hollow Bastion.

"... We have a mission, assigned to us by the king, protect the Champion of Light and defeat the Dark Army. We already failed one part; I don't intend to fail the other. Now are you coming or not?!" Sora looked at Goofy as tears fell out form his eyes, Goofy then looked back at Donald.

"No, sorry Donald, I can't. Not until I know Sora is safe." Goofy then looked back to Sora, patting his back to try and comfort him. Donald didn't want to leave Sora either, but he felt that the mission was more important. Thus, he simply grunted as he turned back to the castle to walk inside.

"Don't take too long then." Goofy sighed as he tried to continue to comfort Sora but really, he didn't even know what to do. With the keyblade gone there was no way Sora could fight off the Dark Army anymore.

"You should go with him."

"I'm not going to leave you, Sora."

"But I don't have the Keyblade anymore! I'm not the Champion of light anymore I'm just..." Sora then hugged Goofy tightly as he started crying harder, Goofy then hugged Sora back as gently as he could.

"I can't save them anymore; I can't save anyone! I'm just a dumb kid now... Riku was right, I can never beat them." Goofy then sighed, let go of Sora, and got up; leaving Sora still sitting down but now looking up to Goofy with confusion and tears still in his eyes.

"Sora, your so much more than that! Do you have any idea how much you achieved despite where you started! A-hyuk! You were a kid on an island wanting adventure, but you ended up beating the Champion of Light! But even when that isn't what you wanted you still went with it and defeated the Dark Army every chance you got!"

"But I don't have the Keyblade anymore, I can't change that Goofy!"

"No, you can't, but you can keep trying. What about your magic?"

"I..." Sora was about to say he didn't have magic anymore but after thinking about it he wasn't so sure. Sora raised his hand and tried to manifest some fire and sure enough he was able to create a fireball. It was nowhere large as the fireballs he could make with his Keyblade but still it was magic. Sora was still crying but now he stood up while maintaining the fireball in his hand.

"This... this is great! But, it's not enough... without the Keyblade I won't be able to defeat Maleficent and the rest of the Dark Army." Goofy then placed his hand on Sora's shoulder and smiled at him with determination.

"That's why you're not doing it alone."

"Your dang right you're not!" Sora and Goofy were confused when they heard that voice, the two of them then turned to the stone steps in front of Hollow Bastion to see an unbelievable surprise. Sid, Cloud, Yuffie, Leon, Aerith, Merlin, and Fairy Godmother were all there.

"You- You guys? Why are you here?" Chip and Dale then ran forward to talk to Sora and Goofy directly.

"We brought them all Sora; we figured you needed all the help you could get!"

"And for the record we didn't stop at Traverse Town!" Then a web was shot out and Spiderman swung in and stood alongside everyone else. Then Tarzan entered the group as well, and so did Aladdin while holding a sword, Jack Skellington jumped into the crowd, and finally Ariel showed up being carried by Peter Pan who gently flew down. Almost everyone Sora has ever met in all the worlds he has visited was now here. Sora should have felt happy at the sight of all his friends from other worlds but instead he was confused as he turned to Merlin for answers.

"But I thought you said that you guys couldn't come, that if too many people arrive on a world in too little time, it could cause disastrous effects to the world."

"Haha yes I do recall saying that. However, I also recall saying, not all rules are meant to be followed. Rather than following a rule that does not benefit you, try bending it until it does. Is that cheating? Perhaps, but cheating is only bad once you get caught, though you didn't hear that from me." Merlin then winked playfully at Sora, causing Sora to chuckle despite the tears still being in his eyes.

"That's when Dale had the brilliant idea of reengineering the spell, which we made with Sid to give the Gummi ship more magical power."

"Chip then helped me do just that, and with the modifications the Gummi ship is now able to keep the world stable regardless of how many off worlders there are." Sora was still crying but he was now smiling out of genuine joy, he even started laughing because of it. Sora then got up and wiped away his tears, now he was smiling out of determination while facing everyone.

"Thank you everyone for coming. Now this was supposed to be my mission and mine alone. Those are the rules at least, but I'm tired of following them. Still thought I'm not going to force this on anyone, so I'll ask instead. Will you guys help me save my friends, my home, and the multiverse from Maleficent and the Dark Army? There's no shame if you want to say no, but I will be honored to fight beside you if you say yes." No one was hesitant at all, but Peter ended up being the first to step forward.

"You helped save my home, might as well return the favor."

"Ape family safe because of you. Can count on me, always."

"I was a jerk to you in our world so consider this my overdue apology."

"The Pumpkin King will always have your back, Sora!"

"I know we promised to meet again under different circumstances, but you helped me, so let me help you!"

"Come on Sora, I barely got to know you and I could already tell being around you is a ton of fun. What kinda guy would I be to not help a pal like you out?"

"And you helped me find my friends again even after we fought. I think I owe you more than this but for now let's just stick with this for now, ok?" Sora smiled at Cloud then everyone else, now that his friends were here to help, he couldn't help but feel stronger than ever. Sora didn't even notice that his heart was starting to give off a golden glow, but it was so faint that no one else saw it.

"Alright you knuckle heads by the rat's calculations, we have only 5 hours before our presence here starts messing things up so let's move it and show the Dark Army bastards what we're made of!" Everyone raised their fists, weapons, and voices to show that they were ready to fight alongside Sora. Sora then faced the castle gates as the magical platform manifested for them to enter safely.

"Let's go!"

***

In the magical hall of Hollow Bastion, there were several Keyblade Wielders of Darkness operating on magical and evil looking machines. They were all extremely busy, however, they all stopped as soon as Maleficent entered the room. Maleficent was walking casually to the staircase as all the Keyblade Wielders of Darkness bowed to her while she walked past them. She didn't really focus on them, instead she was smiling at all six Princesses of Heart, who were trapped in large crystals of darkness keeping them all in an eternal slumber. Once she reached the staircase there on the top floor stood Riku and Doxcrum. They both bowed to her the moment she reached their level though not once did Riku take his eyes off of Maleficent.

"My loyal servants! The time to obtain Kingdom Hearts is upon us! Bring forth the final Princess!" One of the Keyblade Wielders of Darkness nodded, got up, and walked over to a magical control panel where he pressed a few buttons and like that a seventh dark crystal rose up from a hidden door from the ground. Within the crystal was Kairi.

"Is the draining truly finished?"

"Yes Master Maleficent!"

"Then begin! Reveal to us the Fragments of Light!" The Keyblade Wielder of Darkness pressed some more buttons in the correct order and instantly the process started. Suddenly the hearts of all seven princesses started glowing a pure white and blinding light. After a moment of shining small but powerful white diamonds formed and floated out of the Princesses hearts and toward Maleficent. She smiled and held out her hands as the seven Fragments of Light floated toward her, allowing her to hold them all.

"Good Work Maleficent." Maleficent shuttered for the first time in her life and so did Doxcrum which made Riku confused. Riku didn't recognize that voice, when he looked up out of curiosity, he didn't recognize that man, but he didn't need to feel the same fear as Maleficent and Doxcrum as well as everyone else in the room. That was the true Master of the Dark Army, that was Master Ansem, Seeker of Darkness. Riku didn't even need to use his enhanced magical vision to see that Ansem had an overwhelming amount of energy and was more than powerful enough to crush even Maleficent.

Maleficent knew this as well, hence why she bowed the moment she heard his voice; pride, status, power none of it mattered to her anymore. When in the presence of Master Ansem Maleficent knew she was just another pawn, her hour of glory was over and she was back to being a slave. The other Keyblade Wielders of Darkness knew this as well since they were already pawns from the start. They fixed themselves to bow toward him instead, only now their heads were lower than before. Some of them even smashed their heads onto the ground, not caring how much it hurt so long as Master Ansem knew they were loyal. Ansem then teleported in front of Maleficent, but he was so fast that not even she could see him move. Ansem then held out his hands and the seven Fragments of Light floating over Maleficent, flew into his palms.

"Hundreds of years of planning and hiding are finally over. Kingdom Hearts is finally within our grasp. Doxcrum, you know the ritual, begin now." Doxcrum stood up and held out his hands, Ansem then seemingly tossed the Fragments of Light without actually touching them. The Fragments of Light slowly floated over into Doxcrum's hands and he lowered his head one last time before turning to the gateway. 

However, before Doxcrum could even take a step, the intruder alarms started going off. They Keyblade Wielders of Darkness stopped bowing and went to their respective stations. One of the system managers used his magic to make several holo-screens appear around the room so that everyone could see. It showed Sora leading a group of off worlder's against the Hundreds of Heartless surrounding them. However, no matter how many Heartless kept coming, the group always managed to take them all out. Everyone in the room was speechless because of what they were seeing, Riku was especially shocked.

"Sora?"

"The Champion of Light? He truly lives up to his title. Everyone! This is our only chance to obtain the power of Kingdom Hearts, are you willing to die for the power of infinity? Are you willing to lay your lives for the chance at Godhood? Then prove it! Show these unworthy vermin of Light why the darkness will always be superior!" Half of the Keyblade Wielders of Darkness then ran out of the room to join in on the battle as Ansem ordered. Ansem then turned to Maleficent.

"This area must be guarded."

"Understood, I will get that coward Hades and we will protect this room with our lives." a Void opened behind Maleficent, she then turned to walk inside it. After the Void disappeared Ansem walked up to Riku and Doxcrum.

"Finish it as fast as you can." Doxcrum nodded and quickly ran upstairs to the gateway with the Fragments of Light, Ansem then turned to Riku.

"Finish what you started. Even without a Keyblade the battle is not over until there is a victor." Riku couldn't protest, not like he did with Maleficent, instead Riku just bowed while shaking in fear. Riku then opened a Void behind him and walked in to face Sora.

***

As everyone ran down the hall, Sora cast another ice spell at a Shadow Heartless, freezing it in a ball of ice. Tarzan then ran past Sora, toward the ice ball, quickly grabbed it and threw it at a large group of Soldier Heartless, knocking them down like bowling pins. A Darkball Heartless charged forward but Spiderman shot its mouth with webs and used other webs to catch it like a cowboy catching a horse. Spiderman then spun around while holding onto the Darkball and only letting go once he got enough momentum to throw it at another Darkball Heartless destroying them both. Sora fired another fireball at a Soldier Heartless, when suddenly a Large Body Heartless came in from the ceiling and landed right in front of him. Sora could only use his arms to defend as the Large Body Heartless raised its large fists. But nothing happened instead Sora opened his eyes to see Cloud in front of him having destroyed the Heartless with a single slash of his large sword. However now Cloud was surrounded by a group of Soldier Heartless or at least he would have been if Yuffie hadn't thrown her large Shuriken, slicing and destroying them all.

Sora saw several Soldier Heartless charging toward them, so he quickly cast a fire and ice spell then mixed them together to create a large water bubble. Sora then threw the bubble at Ariel confusing her at first, but she suddenly turned into a mermaid again. Now not only did she have a sword but with the water bubble she could swim in the air easily and quickly as well. It didn't take long for her to swim toward the Soldier Heartless and take most of them out. However, several Shadow Heartless surrounded Sora but thankfully Aladdin slipped by Sora and used his sword to help Sora defeat them all. Ariel was about to get caught by another Large Body Heartless, but Peter Pan flew in to help her slash the Heartless until it was destroyed.

Just as they were about to reach the end of the hall, another Large Body Heartless jumped forward, trying to crush them all, but Sid with his spear and Aerith with her staff quickly swung their weapons toward the Large Body Heartless. Like a baseball the Large Body Heartless flew back towards the direction it was thrown, destroying the Large Body Heartless on impact and every Heartless it landed on. Sora and some of the others laughed at the sight, he was about to keep going afterwards but was zapped by a lighting spell. It was the Wizard Heartless, three to be exact, and they were all charging up fire spells. Thankfully this time Goofy got in front of Sora, using his shield to block the attack. Goofy then overcharged his shield with magic and threw it at the Wizard Heartless in the middle, destroying it instantly. The last two Wizard Heartless tried to retaliate with ice spells but they were suddenly destroyed by Leon whose slash was too strong and too fast for them to survive or even dodge. More Soldier and Shadow Heartless started flooding the Hall, but Jack Skellington jumped forward, unleashed an aura of fire, and roared as he marched forward burning all the Heartless down and forcing the remaining ones out of the Hallway finally clearing the path.

Sora and friends finally made it out however, as they entered the Entrance Hall there were hundreds of Air Soldier Heartless, Large Body Heartless, Darkball Heartless, and even a Crimson Jazz Heartless. There was no way they were going to be able to win this fight without suffering some major damage. However, before Sora could even think of a plan Fairy Godmother and Merlin stepped forward, in front of Sora with their wands out.

"Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo!"

"Higitus Figitus Zumbabazing!" From both their wands orbs of light manifested and quickly expanded until everything in the room was covered by their light. All the Heartless roared in anger as their bodies were slowly being destroyed by the light. Once all the Heartless were gone the light faded too, then everyone just looked in awe as the liberated hearts flew into the ceiling so that they could return to their rightful places in the Multiverse. They were all silent for a short while but then Sid started cheering first and soon the rest started joining in.

"That was awesome!"

"We are unstoppable!"

"I'm gonna be honest, this whole thing is the weirdest thing to happen to me. But I would gladly fight alongside you guys any day!"

"Never thought I would go to an alien world to beat up shadow monsters, but I don't regret a bit of it!"

"Haha! The Dark Army's probably shaking in their boots right about now!" Sora was just as pumped and excited as everyone else; how could he not be? Sure, he lost the Keyblade but with everyone here they might actually be able to defeat the Dark Army. However, the cheering stopped when an explosion was heard at the top of the staircase. Donald was then thrown down and landed right in front of the group.

"Wah- Donald! Are you ok?" Sora and Goofy ran to Goofy, trying to help him back up.

"Ugh... Sora? Why are you still here?"

"Because he still has to fight me." Everyone then turned to Riku who was walking down the staircase while keeping his focus entirely on Sora. He was staring at Sora with a mixture of anger and disappointment, Sora looked back with a similar expression.

"You're not the Champion of Light anymore Sora. give it up."

"No way! I'm not leaving without you or Kairi and even then, I still won't leave till I've defeated Maleficent!"

"You really think your friends can help you? Even if you had an army, it still wouldn't be enough. Face its Sora, without your Keyblade you don't stand a chance." Sora looked down in fear, but Goofy placed his hand on Sora's shoulder. Sora looked at Goofy as he looked back with a smile of determination, Sora then looked back at everyone else who were all smiling and cheering Sora on. Sora then faced Riku again this time with confidence.

"I don't need a Keyblade! My friends are my real power! It's just like Merlin said, when the going gets tough then don't forget who you're fighting for, and everyone in this room is worth fighting for! Whether they are trying to find their place in the world, wanting to unite with friends and family, trying out new things and experiences in life, or just searching for love! They all had unique lives and I got to be there with them to experience it with them all. And every experience only made me stronger! Every friend I gained only made me stronger! Sure, sometimes I wanted to give up and just run away but no matter how hard every battle got, it always ended up being worth it! These guys are worth it, their worlds are worth it, Kairi and the other princesses are worth it, even you are worth it Riku! That's why I'm going to defeat you, because you're my friend and if defeating you is what it takes to get you back then so be it! Because just like with these guys, I'm not giving up on you!" That honestly stabbed daggers into Riku's heart, Riku wanted nothing more than to hug Sora and Kairi right now. But after coming face to face with Ansem he knew that death only awaited them if he failed here and now. As such, Riku cried a single tear from his right eye as he raised his keyblade at Sora.

"You've always been so naive Sora, thankfully I'll always be there to show you just how wrong you are." Sora grunted in frustration but in a way, he knew he couldn't reach Riku's heart with words alone. So, he faced Riku with determination, he wasn't going to hesitate anymore, Riku needed to be defeated right here and now. Sora smiled at first, as he felt energized, but Sora quickly stopped smiling when he was getting too much. Sora then looked down and saw that his heart was glowing with golden light. Suddenly everyone else's hearts started glowing with golden light as well as of them except Riku. The light in their hearts then floated out and toward the light in Sora's heart. Once all the lights were absorbed it flew in front Sora, he was confused but grabbed the light out of a strange necessity too. Once he grabbed it, it slowly transformed back into the Kingdom Keyblade. Sora looked at the Keyblade in awe, besides the golden glow, it looked exactly the same, but Sora felt like he was stronger with it now than he was when he had it before. Goofy, Donald, Fairy Godmother, Merlin, and Riku were particularly shocked at the sight.

"What?"

"A-hyuk! Whaaaa?!"

"He created a brand new Keyblade!"

"But how? The art has been lost."

"WHAT?! HOW?! HOW DID YOU DO THAT?!" Sora wasn't really sure how he did it either, however he was filled with so much positive and magical energy that he couldn't do anything but smile as he raised his keyblade with great pride.

"I guess this goes to show Riku, the power of friendship through light will always be stronger than the power of destruction through darkness." Riku growled in anger as he raised his keyblade toward Sora.

"This ends now! I'm going to prove to you Sora that I'm the ONLY one that can save everyone! Maybe when I take Kingdom Hearts, you'll finally listen to me!"

"Riku, you always thought it was your way or the highway, not this time though. I'll show you the right path. After I kick your butt!" Sora charged at Riku, who managed to block the strike but still felt its full force. Meanwhile everyone was still near the hall watching the fight.

"Uh shouldn't we help him?"

"No, Sir Spiderman. This is a battle between the Champions of Light and Darkness. Only they can decide the fate of the Multiverse therefore it is their battle alone." Riku then manifested large bat wings of darkness from his back as he forced Sora back from him. Riku then flew into the air as his clothes transformed into his Heartless suit. However, as he flew up higher, a beam of light blasted him with the shoulder forcing him back down. Everyone then turned to Merlin with his wand still smoking from the blast.

"But then again what good does it do you youngsters to listen to this old man? Now come on! Let us fight this confused child till he sees the Light!" Everyone cheered in enthusiasm as they all ran forward to stand beside Sora readying their weapons and/or magical powers. Riku then got up, looked at everyone, and growled with growing rage.

"Grrr, annoying old man! Fine then, I'll take you all on!" Sora backed up and shot a lightning bolt at Riku but even on impact Riku, just bit down the pain and charged at Sora. Cloud jumped in front of Sora and slashed down on Riku, but Riku's dark wings covered him like a shield canceling the attack. Riku then threw Cloud out of the way and continued running forward. Goofy charged his shield and Yuffie her shuriken with magic and threw them at Riku. This time Riku was unable to dodge or block and ended up getting pushed back by the combined force. Before Riku went flying back Spiderman caught him with a web and pulled him back but at the same time Spiderman was swinging toward him. Once close enough Spiderman punched him in the chest, making Riku fall hard onto the ground.

Riku coughed in pain but quickly got up only to see Tarzan run up to him. Tarzan punched Riku several times, the first seven punches ended up landing on Riku's face, but Riku caught the eight one and punched Tarzan back. As Tarzan flew back Peter Pan caught him and after gently letting him land on the ground, he flew toward Riku with his sword and alongside him was Ariel who was still in her water bubble and still had her sword. However, Riku shot an ice spell at Ariel, so Peter Pan flew in front of her taking the hit, thus both freezing him and making Ariel crash into his frozen body. Thankfully Donald cast a fire spell to free Peter Pan and managed to quickly cast a lighting spell, aiming at Riku. However, Riku managed to throw his Keyblade at Donald, knocking the staff out of Donald's hand. Like a boomerang the Keyblade came back to Riku and right in time for Aladdin and Sora tried to slash him at the same time. With great speed Riku deflected both their attacks and even knocked Aladdin back.

Once again Sora and Riku were at each other's neck, with their Keyblade's clashing after every slash towards one another. Sid and Leon tried to help by ambushing Riku but once again he used his dark wings as shields to completely block out their attacks. All he had to do was extend his wings to push them both away. He then slashed at Sora's keyblade with all his might, finally pushing Sora away. Jack Skellington roared as he charged at Riku with an aura of fire, Riku slashed Jack Skellington making him fly away while injured. However, Riku was still caught by the flames, they did burn but after unleashing his dark aura they were quickly extinguished.

Finally, Merlin stepped forward and cast a beam of pure light, blasting it right at Riku who only barely managed to block it with his keyblade. Riku then stomped on the ground and a barrage of pillars started going towards Merlin. Thankfully Fairy Godmother got in front of Merlin and blasted a barrage of pure light, vaporizing the earth pillars and burning off Riku's wings of darkness. Riku tried to recover but before he could Donald got his staff back and started shooting fireballs, then Sora got back up and started doing the same. Riku was getting tired and slow, thus he couldn't block all the fireballs. Now Riku was burnt, injured, and exhausted; so too were most of Sora's friends but thankfully Aerith cast a spell allowing her to heal them all thus leaving Riku the only one injured. Riku tried getting back up, but Sora stopped him by pointing his Keyblade right at Riku's face.

"It's over Riku! You lost, please just give up. You can't beat us, but together we can beat the Dark Army!" Riku just glared at Sora while he stared back in disappointment. Sora then sighed as to everyone's shock, he threw his keyblade away and just held out his hand.

"Please Riku, I know you think the Dark Army is unstoppable. Yes, they are powerful. Yes, they have hundreds of members. Yes, they have millions of Heartless. But look at what we have! Everyone in this room was originally a stranger to one another but now they are all here willing to fight the Darkness! And we're winning! If we can beat you we can definitely beat Maleficent. But! We'll have an even better chance if you fight with us, so please Riku. Let's stop fighting, help me save Kairi and our home. I don't want to do this without you." Riku thought that maybe it was true, maybe Sora COULD beat the Dark Army. Maybe now Riku could finally be with Sora and Kairi again, and he wouldn't have to wait to get Kingdom Hearts to fix anything. Riku then took Sora's hand but as he did everything suddenly went cold as he heard a voice behind his head.

You cannot escape your destiny; the Multiverse will never be at peace until one Champion has defeated the other. If you can't do that then the Dark Army will never stop, and your friends will never be safe. We will always find you. We. Are. EVERYWHERE!

Riku then got away from Sora with terror on his face, leaving Sora confused.

"Riku? What's wrong?"

"We... We can't escape! We have to keep fighting! No! I don't want to keep fighting!" Riku then quickly jumped up toward the second floor and ran out of the room.

"Riku! Come back! No!" Sora then slammed his fists on the ground with frustration, causing the floor to crack. Goofy and Merlin then walked up to Sora, and each placed a hand on one of his shoulders.

"Sora?"

"Are you alright my boy?" Sora wanted to cry but he managed to fight back the tears. Instead, Sora just got up, looked at everyone and smiled with determination.

"I will be once we stop Maleficent, if Riku won't help us now, then maybe he will once we stop her and the rest of the Dark Army! What do you say guys? One final push?!" Everyone cheered with excitement and determination, all except Donald who walked up to Sora with guilt on his face.

"Sora... I'm sorry."

"hm... Hey Donald, what's that?" Sora pointed at something behind Donald making him turn around, however Donald saw nothing. Instead, his butt started getting warmer and he looked back to see Sora using a fire spell to heat his keyblade as he was pressing it onto Donald's butt making his tail set on fire. Donald then started quacking around while his tail was on fire leaving most concerned at the sight but others like Sora laughing at the sight. Once Donald finally put the fire out, he fell to the ground and looked up at Sora with a hurt expression.

"I told you if you left me behind again, I would set your butt on fire." Donald then looked at Goofy, annoyed to which Goofy just smirked and shrugged.

"Ugh... Alright! Alright! I was being a jerk and really shouldn't have abandoned you guys. I'm sorry." Goofy then gave Donald a healing potion to help him back up.

"Apology accepted Donald, now come on! Let's go!"

***

Riku ran down the halls and didn't stop until he was sure that he was alone. Riku then finally caught his breath, or at least he would have if he didn't feel a presence around him. It was like something made of shadows was quickly shifting between the walls and corners. Riku tried looking around but could never see it clearly, but then, despite having his wall to the back, he felt a presence behind him. Riku then turned around to see a shadow with four goat horns on its head with evil looking crimson red eyes.

"Who are you? I've never seen you before!"

Oh, my adorable little Knight, as much as I'd love to answer your questions, I'm afraid your main issue is with the King.

"What?" Riku then turned around to see Ansem standing there looking at him with disappointment.

"You failed your task."

"Wait please, just give me another chance! I can do better!"

"I know you can, but not without my help. So as your Master, it seems only fitting that I give you my power!"

***

Sora and friends made it to the Castle Chapel where Maleficent, Hades and several Keyblade Wielders of Darkness were. Everyone on both sides quickly got ready to fight, Cloud and Sora were especially fixated on Hades.

"Oh, great you two again. All we need is the Wonder Boy and we'll have the whole parade of pathetic."

"You won't even need to worry about him if you ever bothered to handle things yourself."

"Ugh, there it is the annoying tough guy persona you got going Storm boy. You know you're not so much of a good guy yourself you-"

"Enough of the useless dialogue you fools! Besides, in a few moments it won't matter anyways. Soon we will have Kingdom Hearts and you all will be nothing but horrible memories as we conquer your worlds as well as the infinite other worlds of the multiverse."

"Yeah, so you see kids, even without baby boy Riku we can still crush you like the... uh... I'm trying to think of a word that's not offensive... Bugs, you are. literal vermin. tiny pathetic worms that squirm under our feet as we crush you slowly! Yeah, I'd say that was pretty child friendly." Just then the room shook as a magical pulse of energy flew through the room making both Maleficent and Hades smile.

"Doxcrum is almost finished with the spell! The time is now! Destroy the fools who dare stand against the Dark Army!" The Keyblade Wielders of Darkness yelled in unison as they charged towards Sora and his friends. Sora then raised his keyblade and charged first while everyone followed, eventually causing a clash between the two forces. None of the Keyblade Wielders of Darkness ended up clashing with Sora, Donald, or Goofy, which was perfect, now Sora could focus only on Maleficent and Hades.

Sora jumped at Maleficent with his Keyblade ready to strike her, but she used her staff to not only block his attack but to also push him back. Hades then unleashed a barrage of fire, to burn the three of them. Donald quickly cast an ice spell on Goofy's shield, then Goofy enhanced his shield with magic making it larger. Goofy's large shield, combined with the ice, was able to nullify the Hades attack. Hades growled in anger, unleashed his dark aura, and manifested six large arms of darkness. The dark arms stretched towards Donald and Goofy, but Sora jumped in front of them, manifested his Three Wishes Keyblade, and slashed at the arms, making Hades get punched in the face six times.

As Hades flew away from the force of his own punches, leaving Maleficent alone and grunting at Sora with anger. However, rather than attacking head on Maleficent made Sora's shadow into a large circle surrounding him. Out of the shadow manifested several chains of pure darkness, they latched onto Sora binding him while slowly crushing him. Thankfully Donald expected a heavy attack, so he powered up a triple core spell of ice, fire, and lightning. While Maleficent was distracted with her assumed victory Donald shot Maleficent with the spell. It did hit, however Maleficent simply looked annoyed as flames, ice, and electricity covered her. Instead, Maleficent simply shook the elements off of her and proceeded to cast dark lighting on all three of them, making them all yell in pain.

"Sora! Hang on!" Spiderman managed to shake off the Keyblade Wielder of Darkness he was fighting, swung by Maleficent, and punched her in the face as he passed her by. Tarzan saw what Spiderman did, he ended up grabbing his web and using it to wing like a vine toward Maleficent. Once he swung by her, he kicked her in the stomach making her grunt in anger and annoyance. Now the dark lighting stopped, and Sora was free. Donald then walked up to Sora and charged up an ice spell; Sora smiled since he understood, he then started casting an ice spell as well. They combined their spells to create an even stronger ice spell and shot it right at Maleficent. Maleficent was now covered in ice now, but she could still move only very slowly as the ice was both hindering and slowly damaging her.

"Come on! Now is our chance!" Sora charged at Maleficent and slashed her with his Olympia Keyblade. Goofy then charged his magical aura and it shot out as a light construct clone of him and ran toward Maleficent bashing her with the light construct shield. Donald then put more magic in his staff than normal to cast a lightning spell stronger than before, unleashing it on Maleficent.

"Hey! Let us help!" Cloud and Leon jumped up toward Maleficent and slashed her as they slowly fell to the ground. Maleficent screamed in anger as she broke all the ice off her body, falling to the ground due to the overwhelming pain and damage she received. However, she wasn't done, instead her eyes ignited in green flames as black smoke started spreading everywhere around her. Soon growling could be heard from within the smoke and not long after, Maleficent rose from it as a large dragon. Hades was only seconds from rejoining the battle but once he saw Maleficent he made a disappointed expression, opened a void behind him, and simply walked in to be transported back to his own world while holding two peace signs in the air.

"Lady Maleficent has lost her mind!"

"Everybody run!" The Keyblade Wielders of Darkness all quickly ran from the room leaving Sora and the others to deal with Maleficent. Maleficent herself rose up tall and roared at everyone, fully displaying just how powerful she was.

"Uh, ok this is going to be hard." Maleficent lowered her head toward Sora so that she could blast him with fire, but thankfully Donald countered with an extremely powerful and long-lasting ice blast. Donald ended up yelling with all his might while casting the ice spell as Maleficent was blasting him back with her fire breath. It was an amazing sight at first but after a while Sora, Goofy, and the others started looking at Donald in confusion, they all wondered how he was still able to yell for so long.

"Uh, Goofy? Is Donald going to be, ok?"

"Well, he's not called the Head Wizard of Disney Castle for nothing." Eventually Donald became the one victorious when Maleficent couldn't breathe fire anymore. Donald, however, could keep going and his ice blast ended up going all the way toward Maleficent, filling her dragon mouth with ice.

"Now!" Cloud, Leon, Ariel, Aladdin, and Peter Pan charged toward Maleficent's front legs causing her to rise up and stand on her hind legs.

"Sora!" Sora saw Spiderman swinging across the ceiling while holding out his left hand for him. Sora smiled, manifested his Fairy Harp Keyblade, and flew up to Spiderman to take his hand. Once Sora grabbed his hands, Spiderman let go of the web he was swinging with, used Sora's weight to spin around and once they were going fast enough, he let go of Sora. Sora was now flying toward Maleficent and once he was close enough, he slashed her with the Olympia Keyblade. With the combination of force and damage, Maleficent was pushed to the ground and landed hard on her back. This did stun her for a while, but it also broke all the ice in her mouth, though thankfully even that did some extra damage.

Once Sora landed on the ground, he tried to charge at Maleficent again in hopes of slashing her until she was defeated. However, Maleficent proved to be faster and used her wings to blow Sora and everyone else away. Maleficent used the chance to get back up and destroy them, but thankfully Merlin and Fairy Godmother stepped forward to stop her.

"Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo!"

"Higitus Figitus Zumbabazing!" from both their wands concentrated beams of pure light shot right towards Maleficent. The dragon tried to use her wings to defend herself, but the blasts of pure light were two strong and Maleficent's wings ended up getting blasted clean off. Maleficent roars with a mixture of pain and anger. However, Maleficent unleashed her Dark Aura and used it to manifest dark tentacles from her back with sharp blade ends. Sora just smirked at the sight of them all aiming for him as he manifested his Three Wishes Keyblade to deflect the attack. However, to Sora's shock Maleficent anticipated this and redirected the tentacles toward everyone else.

Yuffie, Sid, Aerith, managed to use their weapons to block the attack but Peter Pan had to get Tarzan out of the way and Spiderman did the same for Ariel. However, despite dodging the tentacles, they kept chasing everyone to slice them into pieces. Sora kept trying to slice off the tentacles, but they were moving too fast for him to slice them properly. However, suddenly his keyblade started glowing and transformed into a red and blue keyblade with silver spider web details around it. The ring guard was silver and shaped like the outline of a spiderweb and the bit of the key was a silver spider. Sora had no time to figure out what this keyblade did, so he just pointed it at the tentacles and hoped for the best. Thankfully, on command, it tied them all together with spiderwebs keeping them all still and together. However, before Sora could cut them all, Maleficent wrapped all her tentacles together and used them all to crush him into the ground.

Despite being a dragon Maleficent started laughing thinking that she was victorious, all while everyone was silent at the sight of Sora being crushed. However, Sora suddenly started growing while holding his Lady Luck Keyblade. He then used his Keyblade to slice the tentacles off and with his big size he punched Maleficent in the back with all his might, crushing her to the ground.

"Ha... I really gotta stop forgetting I have this Keyblade." Sora then manifested his Crabclaw Keyblade and shot Maleficent with gallons of water while he fell to the ground. Once Sora was getting dangerously close to the ground, he manifested his Fairy Harp Keyblade to slow down and charged up a lighting spell. With Maleficent covered in water and after being hit by the lighting spell, she was instantly electrocuted with five times as many volts due to the water. Sora wasn't done and manifested his Pumpkinhead Keyblade and shot as many Jack-o-lantern missiles at Maleficent as he could before running out of magical energy. Sora then fell to his knees out of exhaustion while the jack-o-lantern missiles blew up Maleficent. Forcing her back into her normal form. Maleficent slowly got up and weakly tried to leave but before she could Aladdin ran up to her and pointed his sword right at her neck.

"Where is Jasmin? What did you do to her?!" When Sora heard Aladdin's question he got up and walked over to him with confusion.

"Wait, Jasmin? But I thought she was safe." Maleficent started laughing at the two of them despite having no energy to defend herself.

"You fool, no number of worlds we destroyed would have gotten us the power needed to obtain Kingdom Hearts. That's why we were really after the Princesses of Heart. Just like your useless friend Kairi, we have imprisoned them and drained their hearts of its disgusting light! With the Fragments of Light, we created as a result, Kingdom Hearts will be within our grasp! And you're already too late! Soon the gate will be opened, and your Princesses will be lost forever!" Aladdin yelled in anger and slashed Maleficent's head off, as Maleficent just smiled sinisterly and continued laughing as her head and body slowly faded into darkness.

"Aladdin! Calm down!"

"I'm sorry it's just... I thought we were safe, and those monsters just took her, they probably took others too."

"We'll get them back, all of them! No matter what!" Aladdin looked back at Sora and smiled but then his body started glitching out and a small earthquake went off. Sora then looked back and saw everyone else in pain as they're bodies started glitching out as well. Chip and Dale quickly ran toward Sora with distress on their faces.

"Sora! We have to hurry!"

"The magic of the Gummi ship is going to wear off and when it does the results are more unstable than we thought! If we don't get these guys home within an hour then not only will this world start suffering unnatural disasters, but these guys will get weaker and weaker until... they won't be strong enough to take a single breath." Sora was afraid to hear the stakes were now even higher, but he shook his head and looked to the staircase with determination.

"Then we better get moving! Come on everyone! This is the final push!"

***

Following Sora, everyone charged into the main ritual room where all seven princesses were being held.

"What the heck?"

"Oh wow, this is messed up."

"Who are all these girls?"

"Hey! There's Jasmin!" Aladdin then ran over to the dark crystal where Jasmin was being held, Sora watched him only to see that Alice was being held in one as well.

"Alice!" Sora ran to her but as soon as he touched the crystal it felt like touching hot coal, so he backed away.

"Augh! I don't understand, we saved Wonderland."

"Actually lad, ye saved ONLY Wonderland." Sora looked around in confusion to see where that voice was coming from. He ended up finding the room right next to the chamber where there was a wide space with a small staircase leading up to the floor where the gateway was. And right in front of the gateway Doxcrum was using the seven Fragments of Light to create the portal to Kingdom Hearts.

"Alice, however, belongs to a different world so getting her was easy. Meanwhile sure ye did snib up Agrabah bit that only keeps th' heartless 'n' wee rank Keyblade Wielders o' Darkness out. Someone lik' me, however, getting in is as easy as crushing a caber."

"... Don't you mean as easy as crushing a grape?"

"I ken what I said, lad." Doxcrum then split in two with one of his copy continuing the spell while the other walked down the staircase and towards Sora.

"Now then, I ken how come you're 'ere 'n' let me tell ye, yer ain't getting it. So, give up, right 'ere 'n' now. Do that 'n' I'll ensure that ye git a piece o' th' infinity bridie that is Kingdom Hearts." Sora looked at Doxcrum with disappointment, he refused the offer of joining the Dark Army so many times, why would he want to accept now. Instead, Sora just shook his head as he manifested his Keyblade to fight. Doxcrum ended up laughing at the sight.

"Hahaha. Yer funeral, lad." Doxcrum kicked Sora in the stomach, making him fly back, forcing Jack Skellington to catch him to break the impact. Jack Skellington then glared at Doxcrum and yelled like a war cry. This time Goofy led the charge and everyone followed him toward Doxcrum.

"Well, isn't this dowie, I bet I could beat ye all wi' one hand." Doxcrum then raised his left arm while holding his right behind his back. Cloud ended up being the fastest and jumped up toward Doxcrum as he descended, he swung his sword downwards at Doxcrum. Doxcrum ended up holding the sword with just his bare hand, but Cloud wasn't done, he held out his hand at Doxcrum's face and used his magic to unleash a lethal amount of electricity. However, Doxcrum was unphased and even managed to flick Cloud's sword away and punch him in the face with both ease and incredible speed.

Leon tried to ambush him with a stabbing strike but not only did Doxcrum use his speed to catch it he also forced the sword back, making the handle of the sword hit Leon in the stomach with incredible force and speed. Yuffie threw her Shuriken at Doxcrum only for him to slap it away, Yuffie grunted in anger as she kept running toward Doxcrum. She started punching him at high speed, or at least that was the plan, but Doxcrum proved to be faster and dodged every single punch with ease. Once Yuffie was done Doxcrum turned around and did a back kick at her stomach making her fly away like the others.

Aerith ran toward Doxcrum and hit him hard with her staff, she managed to hit him several times and it was clear from the impact it was heavy damage. However, Doxcrum didn't move an inch from any of the hits, instead he took them all and once she was done, he flicked her forehead making her fly away as well. Sid tried to back her up with his spear but once again Doxcrum caught the spear, lifted it up and used it to hit Sid in the face three times with the butt end. Doxcrum then forcefully took the spear and used it to hit Sid like a baseball making him fly toward the wall of the room. Doxcrum then threw the spear at Sid just barely missing his head, scaring Sid but also making him grow with anger.

"Is that all ye got, bairns?" Sora was shocked at the sight, he thought that after Maleficent there shouldn't be anyone stronger other than the mysterious Master of the Dark Army. But here they are with someone entirely different who was so strong and fast he literally beat everyone from Traverse Town with one hand. However, Sora still had his other friends, and they weren't out of the battle yet.

"Not even close!" Sora manifested a fire spell but didn't fire, instead he also manifested a lighting spell and just barely did an ice spell. The triple core spell didn't do anything to Maleficent, but he had to try. He shot the spell at Doxcrum who just stood there as it flew toward him. But once the spell was close enough, he raised his left hand but strangely it morphed into three arms with each hand blocking off each of the cores of the spell.

"What?!"

"Haha! all right, looks lik' I was wrong lad!" Doxcrum then opened his arms wide and from his back several other arms started sprouting out.

"I do need more than one hand to beat ye!" More hands sprouted out until Doxcrum he had thousands of arms grown out of his back, each one of different sizes and lengths. Spiderman then swung forward and tried to web up as many of the arms as he could, but Doxcrum combined several arms into a single large one allowing him to grab Spiderman. The large hand then crushed Spiderman and flicked him toward a wall leaving him incapacitated. Jack Skellington unleashed his fire aura and charged at Doxcrum only to be crushed by another large arm. The arms then started stretching and swarming around, Aladdin, Ariel, Tarzan, and Peter Pan tried to fight off the arms or at least get away from them, but the arms were everywhere and grabbed them quickly. Doxcrum then retracted all of his arms except for the ones holding those four, instead he raised them all in the air and slammed them all into the ground. Both Merlin and Fairy Godmother tried to cast more spells to stop him, but his arm split in two and both copies stretched out to punch both their stomachs, leaving them both stunned on the ground.

Suddenly, just in time Donald and Goofy got in front of Sora to help him out, Donald made sure to drink lots of mana potions filling him with lots and lots of magical energy. Donald then started firing consecutive and powerful fireballs at Doxcrum. However, Doxcrum ended up slapping away, each and every fireball away from him with ease. Donald kept firing but Doxcrum wasn't stopping and still getting closer. Donald was no longer yelling but instead getting increasingly scared as Doxcrum just kept getting closer while slapping away all the fireballs with incredible speed. Eventually Doxcrum reached Donald, grabbed him by the face and slammed him hard on the ground. Goofy tried to shield bash Doxcrum but within a second, Doxcrum punched the shield with such incredible force. The recoil forced Goofy to go flying and hit the wall of the room hard, knocking him out.

Now Sora was alone but not out of the fight, Sora charged at Doxcrum while yelling in anger. At first, he tried slashing at Doxcrum, aiming for the waist, head, and legs but once again Doxcrum dodged with great speed. Eventually Sora was getting frustrated and started swinging mindlessly. Doxcrum then slipped past Sora and hit him in the back of the neck making him fall to the ground in pain.

Sora grunted in frustration, got up, and manifested his Spider Web Keyblade to shoot webs at Doxcrum's legs, keeping him still. However, after Sora tried to charge at him Doxcrum kicked Sora in the face after freeing himself with his strength alone. Fairy Harp Keyblade bit down on the pain and used his Fairy Harp Keyblade to fly away from Doxcrum aiming for his copy that was finishing the spell. But the real Doxcrum grabbed Sora by the leg with one of his stretching arms and used it to pull Sora back and slam him hard onto the ground. Sora, still on the ground, manifested his Crabclaw Keyblade and aimed at Doxcrum while charging up both an ice and lighting spell. The combo as well as the Keyblade's power to make water both froze and heavily electrocuted Doxcrum. Or at least it should have, but Doxcrum seemingly took no damage and kicked Sora away from him.

Sora was getting in more and more pain, but he refused to give up, he manifested his Pumpkinhead Keyblade and shot six jack-o-lantern missiles at Doxcrum. Doxcrum took all the missiles head on and just waved away the smoke as if it was more of an annoyance than actual damage. Before Doxcrum could do anything else, Sora manifested his Jungle King Keyblade and shot out a vine at Doxcrum quickly commanding the jungle vine to crush Doxcrum. Instead Doxcrum simply grabbed the vine and ripped it off of him. Sora grunted in frustration, manifested his Olympia Keyblade, and charged at Doxcrum. Again, Doxcrum did nothing to dodge the attack but once he was hit, the intense force didn't seem to damage him at all. Doxcrum then punched Sora in the stomach, knocking the wind out of him.

Sora couldn't help but whimper in pain but rather than start crying he just looked up at Doxcrum with anger. Sora then manifested his Lady Luck Keyblade, grew very large and stomped on Doxcrum. Sora didn't stop at just one stomp; he kept stomping and didn't stop until he was sure that Doxcrum was down. When Sora finally stopped, he lifted his leg to see a small puddle of darkness left there. Sora felt guilt consuming his heart as he thought about the horrific crime he just committed. However, the battle wasn't over, Doxcrum's arm stretched out of the puddle, grew larger, and grabbed Sora by the neck. Soon Doxcrum's whole body grew out of the puddle and when he was done regenerating, he ended up being larger than Sora, to the point he could barely fit in the room. Sora couldn't help but look in defeat, he tried everything and so did his friends and it still wasn't enough. Doxcrum was unbeatable.

"Had enough Lad?" Sora dropped his keyblade making him shrink to normal size, Doxcrum made sure to shrink himself as well so he could keep his grip on Sora. Once they were back to normal size, Sora started crying.

"Och don't cha start greetin' lad. Soon it will all be over, now that yer done fightin' ye can instead help us get Kingdom Hearts." Sora was still crying but then wiped his tears and looked at Sora with a smirk. Doxcrum was genuinely shocked and confused by this, even more so when Sora's heart started glowing.

"Sorry old man, but I'm too stubborn to give up." Sora then punched Doxcrum and for once not only did it land but it actually made Doxcrum grunt in pain. Sora wanted to cheer knowing he finally found something that hurt Doxcrum but right now he needed to run. Sora ran over to the other room where the other princesses were being kept.

"Augh! Ye wee besom! I'll rip ye to pieces!" Doxcrum stretched his arm out to grab Sora but suddenly stopped and started acting like something was talking to him.

"What? I'm kinda in th' middle o' something! Hauld yer horses- what?! ye serious? but we... Ugh! braw! hope ye ken what yer doing." Doxcrum then widened his arms and several keyblades manifested around him. Doxcrum then held out his hand and Wayward Wind Keyblade came forward and placed itself in his hand. Once Docrum had it all the other Keyblade disappeared, he then raised the keyblade like it was a throwing spear and aimed it right at Sora who was so close to Kairi's dark Crystal.

Thankfully, Sora managed to reach Kairi's dark crystal but now that he was here, he wasn't even sure of what he should do. He just knew that without her the Dark Army's plans wouldn't work and he would get her back after freeing her, so it was a win-win. Sora had this in mind because he forgot about Maleficent telling him that they already harvested the Fragments of Light. Regardless, that didn't deny the fact that Sora still didn't know how to get her out. Though, Sora's heart was still glowing with the golden aura so he thought he could somehow use the power to wake Kairi and the other princesses up so he could get all his friends and get out of here. However, before Sora could do anything suddenly the Wayward Wind keyblade stabbed Sora in the chest. The force from the Keyblade ended up pushing Sora closer to Kairi and unfortunately made her stabbed by the keyblade as well.

"Whoops! that wasn't supposed to happen. This is definitely comin' back to bite us." Sora grunted in pain as his body started to glitch out of existence and so did Kairi's. Though the good news was that her dark crystal started breaking because of it. Once her crystal shattered Sora caught her and held her in his arms as he collapsed to the ground with his body and Kairi's both glitching.

"Ugh! Kairi get up! Augh! Please we have to get out of here!" Kairi remained unresponsive while she continued to glitch out of existence. Sora was barely holding on, but then he noticed his body was starting to stabilize as the light in his heart glowed brighter.

That annoying power does have its perks.

"Wha- what do you mean?"

That power of heart those old geezers gave you. It works especially well since you're such an annoyingly sweet brat.

"Is that supposed to be a compliment?"

Shut up and listen, the power is protecting your heart and body, but your friend will continue to fade until she becomes an extremely dangerous Heartless.

"... How do I save her?"

Use your power on her instead, it will drain your chances of recovering but it will save her.

"What about the others?"

Forget about them, nothing can save them all now. Sora looked at the other Princesses of Heart, he only knew Jasmin and Alice; he had no idea about the others. But just because they were strangers didn't mean he was just going to keep them here to rot. And the same went for everyone else who came here with him, they all risked their lives to save him. He didn't know how or if he even could, but Sora did know that he wanted to save everyone here with all his heart. Suddenly his Heart started glowing brighter than ever before and from it several tendrils of light sprouted out. One touched Kairi and her body started stabilizing and six others touched the hearts of the other princess, slowly destroying the dark crystals they were trapped in. Then even more tendrils of pure golden light manifested and reached out to all of Sora's friends. Donald, Goofy, Merlin, Fairy Godmother, Sid, Yuffie, Aerith, Cloud, Leon, Tarzan, Aladdin, Jack Skellington, Ariel, Peter Pan, and Spiderman soon started recovering from their injuries and were getting massive boosts in power.

... Well, I'll be damned, you're so full of surprises little rook, but remember what I said. Everything has a price. Sora could feel himself weakening and everything around him fading from vision. Sora then looked at his hands and saw them turning into light particles that slowly faded away as his body slowly disappeared. Sora should have been scared at the idea of him dying but instead he smiled that he got to use his power to save everyone just like he wanted to. To make it all even better, Kairi started waking up and so did the other princesses as they were breaking out of their dark crystal prisons.

"Welp, jobby juist skelp th' fan!" However, the gateway was finally finished and transformed into a portal of magical light. Doxcrum's copy then quickly returned to him and so did the Seven Fragments of Light.

"Well, I got what I wanted so I'm out. See ye losers!" Doxcrum then opened a void as everyone around him slowly got up thanks to Sora's magic. Kairi was now fully awake and saw Sora holding her in his arms. She wasn't aware he was slowly disappearing, so she just smiled warmly at him.

"My knight in shining armor, you did it. You saved us all."

"Yeah, I'm sorry I made you wait so long."

"Don't be, I knew you'd show up eventually. That's what I love about you Sora, no matter how long it takes you always keep running toward your goal." As the other princesses started waking up Merlin, Fairy Godmother, Donald, and Goofy quickly started helping them. Soon everyone else started trying to help. Aladdin ran up to Jasmin, hugging and kissing her out of joy now knowing she was safe. The other princesses were confused but not Cinderella once she saw Fairy Godmother. Fairy Godmother then told the other princesses that they were here to get them all home, allowing the confused princesses to calm down from all the confusion. With their time running out and the princesses finally free everyone was slowly getting ready to leave Hollow Bastion. Kairi noticed this and got up with a smile on her face knowing not only was she and everyone else free, but she was with Sora again. Kairi then grabbed Sora's hand to help him up.

"Come on Sora, thanks to you we can get out of here!" However, Sora's hand fell out of Kairi's grip making her look back at him in confusion. Kairi then covered her mouth in shock as she saw bits of Sora turning into sparks of light and flying away until they faded into nothing. Slowly but surely Sora was falling apart but despite that he kept smiling at Kairi.

"Sorry Kairi, I think you'll need to go back on your own, I... I won't be able to go with you." Once all the other princesses were free, everyone gathered around Sora as they all started to see the bad news.

"What's happening to him?"

"Is he dying?"

"No! Not Sora, no!"

"Someone help him! Master Merlin, can't you do something?"

"I cannot Lady Yuffie, he used the light directly from his heart to save us all, I'm afraid there's nothing that can be done to reverse the effects." Kairi, like many others, started crying as Sora continued to fade away. She then hugged him tightly and Sora weakly hugged her back with all the remaining strength he could muster.

"Sora! Please don't leave me!"

"I'm sorry Kairi... I guess you'll have to go on adventures without me."

"Sora you don't deserve this!"

"Neither did you, I'm glad I had a hand in helping you all. I don't regret a bit of it."

"Sora... I'll find a way to bring you back! I promise! Just like how you brought me back! I don't care how long it takes! I will bring you back!" Sora then smiled as a single tear left his right eye.

"I'll be waiting." Kairi then started crying harder as she hugged Sora even tighter than before, not wanting to let him go. Sora and Kairi continued hugging until Sora was completely gone, all that was left was his heart which slowly floated into the air and faded away as well.

"Well, isn't that unfortunate, but I suppose a win is a win." Everyone then turned to see Riku in his dark suit walking toward them with an entourage of at least twenty Keyblade Wielders of Darkness.

"Riku?"

"Not quite my dear, but I guess you could say he's in safe hands. So frankly I would be more worried about yourself. I find it quite interesting that you're awake despite the fact that we drained your hearts to get the Fragments of Light. But it seems a new form of light has made you all whole again, interesting. Perhaps there's some value in keeping you here." Riku then snapped his fingers and all the Keyblade Wielders of Darkness started running forward. Cloud, Peter Pan, Tarzan, Spiderman, Leon, and Sid all ran to the front of the group to fight them off. The plan was to keep them back while the others got the princesses out but soon their bodies started glitching as a result of the Gummi Ship's magic dwindling.

"Ugh! We can't fight! We have to retreat!"

"Come on everyone! Follow us to the Gummi ship!" Merlin, Fairy Godmother and the Traverse Town group were escorting the Princesses out of the room and everyone else followed. Donald and Goofy were about to follow but they stopped when they saw Kairi. She was still sitting there looking at where Sora once was, wishing he would come back. Then Donald and Goofy helped her up and tried leading her out.

"Please... I want to be with him a little longer."

"I'm sorry Kairi, but he did it so that you could wake up again."

"It's not fair, we just got back together. Why does he have to lose everything just so I could come back?"

"Sora would do it again if he could, he never stopped talking about you and Riku. You were both worth it to him."

"I never got to even share the paopu fruit with him, like I always wanted too." Kairi then stood up and looked back at Riku who was smirking at her as his Keyblade Wielders of Darkness were getting closer.

"... I'll come back and save you." Kairi then looked back to where Sora was before he disappeared. Her eyes shed one more tear before she wiped it away and deeply breathed in and out with determination.

"Both of you. I promise." Kairi then nodded to show she was ready to go. Goofy and Donald then escorted Kairi as they followed everyone else out of Hollow Bastion. All the While the Keyblade Wielders of Darkness followed them, slowly getting closer.

***

Once everyone was out of the room a dark tendril shot out from the ground and into the ceiling. Soon it started pulling down Sora's heart. Once Sora's heart was low enough a shadow with four goat horns and crimson red glowing eyes manifested on the ground. It looked at Sora's heart and started laughing with sinister joy.

Everything has a price, my adorable Rook. Everything. Soon Sora's heart was slowly being consumed by the most powerful and concentrated form of the darkness. 

.

Part 12

Part 10

[blitz-heart]

verses tag dump; will be updated and added to as time goes on!

[kurre-kurre]

Quick doodle of Charles as a keyblade master I saw something from an old hyperfixation and it hit hard :::)

Edited to add in Edwin! He’d be more specialized in Spellcasting than close combat.

kinda thinking of them as being keyblade wielders who died(?) in The keybladewar and now they solve cases caused by darkness all around the universe or something idk :’D

[z3rinn]

# #. KINGDOM CALLING !!

Being a Keyblade Wielder you thought you'd have seen everything by now. But you never expected to end up in a world where the villains you defeated were worshipped.

more twst x kh content because i’ve been hyper fixated on it for the past few months T_T speaking of, the reason I've been gone for so long is because I’ve now got a fic in the makings- using this exact concept! it’s posted on my wattpad and quotev, but I’m also debating if I should put it on this site… it’s quite long though! lmk if you guys think I should :]

Twisted Wonderland was weird.

You thought you’d have seen everything by now. Being a Keyblade Wielder, your job was to travel across worlds, defeating the darkness and hate spread by those willing to conquer.

You’d experienced stories and magic you could barely comprehend, standing on the sidelines as you watched fairytales play right before your eyes.

Creatures and supernaturals were considered friends, being far different from the monsters you imagined them to be. Even talking animals were a common thing now, having traveled with Donald Duck and Goofy for a better part of three years now.

You never thought you'd miss them.

Your life back on Destiny Islands was simple. Back there, you had a home; with small rowing boats and hammocks on the tiny island a quick swim away. You had proper food, with star shaped fruits said to bind your soul with your loved ones. Most importantly- you had your best friends; Sora, Riku, and Kairi— all eccentric yet lovable characters that held your heart. You would do anything for them.

The island was a sanctuary, a place for comfort and familiarity. If you had known what you did now, you would've trapped yourself there, basking in the warm sand and cool water brushing across your body. But then, being young and immature, you just wanted to leave.

Three years have passed since then. Years full of mystery and surprise.

You had undergone many things on your journey; battling against Heartless and monsters. Falling down rabbit holes and encountering princesses every which way you turned. Meeting leaders of all kinds of worlds, binding your hearts to create everlasting friendships. You had even sided with villians, willing to set aside your differences to accomplish your goals.

It was odd… working with Maleficent.

At one point you even had your heart stolen. Ripped away from you to create a husk. And that was just the surface.

You thought you had seen everything by now....

But Twisted Wonderland was weird.

Everything happened so suddenly; kicking open an overly fancy coffin ( far different from the ones Jack Skellington used ) only to be met by a creature that looked oddly like Stitch. But before you could ask anything, he gave chase, demanding you give him your robes— how did you even get these on?

Panic stricken, you ran. Running across classrooms, hallways, and courtyards- all while trying to get away from the cat.

Questions and concerns began to gush through your mind. How could you have gotten here? Where was everyone?

And where were you?

The next thing you knew, you were in a regal library, cornered by the monster. Floating books and dancing lanterns surrounded you, all approaching with intrigue. They all seemed to be observing you, like they were anticiping something.

Blue fire brushed across your skin, the flames flickering against your robes. You realized they were waiting for a spell, like they knew you would cast it before the thought could even pop into your mind.

Just as you raised your hand, getting ready to summon your Keyblade, a whip wrapped around the cat.

Both of you jumped, eyes darting to the double doors, finding a crow-looking man standing there. He looked oddly disappointed. Your eyes immediately narrowed, hands tensing.

Just looking at him made you feel on edge.

He was radiating darkness.

His golden eyes seemed to be staring right into your soul, gazing deep and pulling you apart from the seams. They pierced through your own. Entrancing. Like they were studying and discerning your moves. You didn't like them.

They looked like a villians.

You were wary of the man, raising a brow when he introduced himself. Crowley was his name; Descendant of a Hero. An odd name for someone whose heart seemed so full of darkness. He led you to a chamber room, surrounded by floating coffins and magic. Dark energy overfilled the room, whispers and cackles echoing from robed figures as they eyed your form.

You thought back to Organization XIII.

You didn't like robes all that much anymore.

They were traumatizing.

Crowley huffed, pushing you in front of— the magic mirror? Was that the one The Evil Queen used?

The mask in the mirror spoke, blank eyes narrowing at you as if you'd attack it at any second. Of course, it had every right to be afraid. Your friend literally threw a giant key at it once. Hopefully it could get passed that though, and you could ask it how you got here?

It bullshitted something about you not having a soul, ( you had a strange inkling it was being petty but whatever ) but before it could finish, the cat broke free.

He yelled, claiming he was strong enough to be at this school, and that he deserved your spot. You tilted your head at his outburst. Was that all he wanted? You gladly would've given your spot to him. You weren’t meant to be in this world in the first place. Hopefully you’d be out of here soon.

You had Heartless to go fight.

You had to go find Sora.

A quick mishap occurred, with Grim ( you remembered his name ) setting the room on fire. Apparently he was trying to show off his magic; an odd way to do so but you digress. A red haired boy chased after him, along with a boy with glasses.

Their magic was strange, coming out of a jeweled pen of all things.

Wind magic was casted, similar to your own Aero spells. Water attacks were aimed at it, easily dousing the blue flames. It was honestly amazing, watching so much magic come out of a tiny pen.

The redhead stopped in front of the cat, pointing his pen at him with narrowed eyes. Your own widened as he shouted a curse.

Off with your head.

That sounded awfully familiar.

…

Crowley was going to kick you out.

The magic mirror- or rather the dark mirror- explained that you didn't have a home to go to. You guessed it was because Destiny Islands was a whole other world, and simple mirror travel wouldn't be able to reach that far.

No matter, you could simply contact Donald or Riku on your Gummi phone and go home.

But of course, the first time a phone specifically made to communicate between worlds doesn't work is when you need it most.

So you did the only thing you could.

And showed him your Keyblade.

He muttered something to himself, widened eyes never leaving the blade in your hand. His feathers ruffled in surprise and intrigue, the slight curl of them being… strange. 

It was as if they were smiling.

Your eyes flickered to his own- noticing his scary… intense gaze.

You didn’t dare break contact, being far too focused on those piercings eyes. 

Those haunting, golden eyes. 

Eyes that looked just like Xehanorts.

The Headmage led you to a rundown cabin, home to a variety of ghosts and cobwebs. The building reminded you of the ones in Halloween Town; rundown with mischievous creatures inhabiting the spaces. These ghosts just looked like marshmallows.

You let out a low sigh, allowing yourself to fall on the dusted couch in the lounge. Debris flew up under your weight, flying into the air before dissapting. Your gaze was focused on the ceiling above, dazed as rain droplets fell to your cheeks and the wooden floors below.

The building was silent, aside from the rain. Wind blew against cobwebs, flying past your face and sticking to the rotting wood. Splinters and jagged pieces spiked up, parts of the walls ripped apart from age and student endeavors.

It was lonely here.

You didn't have anyone in this world.

Not even Jiminy fucking Cricket.

You hadn’t been alone in a long time.

The door creaked open, "Myah- it's really pouring out there!"

...

Twisted Wonderland.

That's what this place was called.

A world very befitting for its name.

Everything about this world was off— or at least— Night Raven College was.

Students seemed to love and adore the beings you had tried so desperately to keep away. They had dorms dedicated to them, embracing their darkness and allowing themselves to fall under its curse. Darkness that you had to get rid of.

Of course, they didn't actually know about the dangers you faced, finding these villians to be great and kind. They didn't know of the death and tragedy caused- the mistakes you had to fix.

It was strange though. Worlds weren't supposed to know of one another, otherwise chaos could ensue.

So why was Twisted Wonderland a combination of them all?

You suppose that's how this place got its name.

Everything in this world was twisted. Villians were considered heroic; great and all mighty beings that you and Sora definitely didn't beat.

While in the botanical gardens you sometimes laugh, imagining Leona's face if you told him you helped kill Scar. He gives you weird looks, telling you to shut up and go back to sleep. You try. It doesn’t work.

It wasn't until the Riddle incident did you realize why you were sent to this world. Darkness and hatred had been accumulating in the corners of this realm, seeping into the depths of people's hearts.

It was at times like this that made you miss Sora.

You turned over on your bed, eyes focused on the ceiling above. Moonlight seeped in through the wooden cracks, bits of the glowing celestial body peeking in. It was almost speaking to you, luring you towards it with the promise of comfort.

Kingdom Hearts.

Your eyes shut, turning away from the beckoning moon.

Well whatever. You had another long day ahead of you.

…

Thoughts? This was just a quick wip that I made in like an hour lolll. I’m thinking of doing another part tho, where we dive into character interactions and such. Rlly wanna write for Silver and a KH! MC!

[lightandfellowship]

Was Odin testing Xehanort here?

I’m starting to wonder if the Child of Destiny is supposed to have the ability to banish darkness/dark entities from people’s hearts.

I say this due to Odin’s wording in the scene where Xehanort strikes Baldr down:

Odin: This is our only chance.

Odin: Xehanort, rid him of the darkness!

I used to misremember this scene as Odin encouraging Xehanort to deal the finishing blow on Baldr, but no, judging by Odin’s phrasing here, he was actually asking Xehanort to save Baldr from the darkness.

But isn’t that a strange thing for Odin to ask of Xehanort? Odin is no doubt a much stronger Keyblade wielder than Xehanort due to his experience and age, so if banishing the darkness from Baldr’s heart via a Keyblade was ever a viable option, wouldn’t Odin have done that himself? Either here and now or before everything went wrong? Why is he entrusting that to an underclassmen who’s still in training? Especially when the spirit of Hoder, an upperclassmen on the cusp of graduating into a Keyblade Master, is standing right there? (I have to imagine he can see her there the same way Xehanort and Baldr can, especially when you consider similar scenes from KH1 and KH3.) Like, it makes sense for Eraqus to ask Xehanort to banish Baldr’s darkness, because Eraqus is desperate and doesn’t know any better, but Odin?

Instead, it almost seems like Odin was hoping for a miracle, hoping that Xehanort would, somehow, have the ability to banish Baldr’s darkness. If Odin secretly knows who Xehanort is, knows that he’s the chosen child who was sent away to Destiny Islands, then maybe the prophecy states somewhere that the Child of Destiny is supposed to be able to save people from the darkness, and Odin was hoping that Xehanort would demonstrate that ability here and now. Both as a means of saving Baldr and as a means of proving that Xehanort is, in fact, the chosen one as they suspected. Keep in mind this detail from the finale Q&A where Nomura says that Odin was entrusted with a task that aligns with the Blue Robed Figure, implying that Odin is somehow involved in all of this Child of Destiny stuff (excerpt taken from KHInsider, translated by Goldpanner):

Q9: What did Master Odin mean at the end when he spoke of a "teacher" and a "cruel fate"?  A9: Master Odin himself once had a master who taught him, naturally. His master entrusted him with a certain duty - parts of this align with that of the blue robed figure. This will be revealed in detail in Missing-Link, which depicts a later period. 

(Odin mentioning his teacher during this scene is exclusive to the Japanese dialog, as far as I know.)

But of course, Xehanort is not the chosen one, didn’t have the ability to banish Baldr’s darkness, and thus couldn’t save Baldr in the end despite his best efforts to do so, instead choosing to just kill Baldr when he ran out of options. So when Odin responds to Xehanort killing Baldr with “Destiny can be so cruel.” maybe he was referring to how unfortunate it is that Xehanort wasn’t the Child of Destiny after all like they were hoping. Because if he WAS, then maybe all of this could have been prevented.

Of course, this then begs the question: "Why didn’t Odin try to get Xehanort’s help earlier in the story?", but maybe it’s like the Power of Waking where you have to learn it through your experiences and it’s not something you just inherently have access to. Maybe a high-stress, high-stakes situation like this is the only way to manifest the ability. I don't know.

I think this might also give more context to Xehanort removing Vanitas from Ven in BBS. If Xehanort thinks he’s the Child of Destiny, and discovered that the chosen one should have the ability to remove the darkness from people’s hearts, that might have motivated him to try and demonstrate that ability to prove himself. But since he probably doesn’t actually have that ability, the separation process was flawed and resulted in two imperfect halves of a whole, with Ven falling into a coma and his heart becoming fractured.

[fatestayyuri]

[trashytoastboi]

🎩Sabo Masterlist🎩

🎩 Fluff Alphabet: X-Drake, Sabo – L, M, F

🎩 SFW & NSFW Headcanons: Sabo x S/O

🎩 Headcanons: Usopp, Sanji, Sabo, Zoro x S/O who has a hypersensitive sense of smell

🎩 Headcanons: Sabo, Kid, Luffy x F! Keyblade Wielder

🎩 NSFW Headcanons: Zoro, Sanji, Sabo x F! Dom! S/O

🎩 Headcanons: Bodyguard AU! Ace, Sabo, Law

🎩 Headcanons – Ace, Sabo, Luffy, Sanji – Reacting to their accident prone S/O

🎩 NSFW Headcanons: Sabo seducing his S/O

🎩 Headcanons: Sanji, Zoro, Law, Sabo – Meeting F! Nobody (Kingdom Hearts)

🎩 NSFW Scenario: Ace, Sabo, Luffy x F! Reader - #28 Threesome + #38 Bartender AU

🎩 Headcanons: Modern AU! Sabo, X-Drake, Law as celebrities

🎩 Headcanons: #8. Jealousy – Sabo, Franky, Marco

🎩 NSFW Headcanons: Ace, Zoro, Mihawk, Sabo, Law – Reacting to S/O being brought to tears of pleasure

🎩 NSFW Headcanons - Ace, Sabo, Zoro, Law with S/O who uses their safeword

🎩 Headcanons: Sabo, Law, X-Drake with S/O who is afraid of the dark

🎩 Headcanons: Sabo, Law, Katakuri x S/O who can manipulate memories

🎩 Headcanons: Kid, Zoro, Law, Sabo x F! S/O who has a cursed flower in her right eye

🎩 Headcanons: Zoro, Ace, Law, Sabo x S/O who is unusual and mysterious

🎩 Headcanons: Kanjuro, Sabo, Lucci with S/O who has vaginismus, how they accommodate and reassure them

🎩 Headcanons: Sabo, X-Drake, Law x S/O who used to be a Cipher-Pol Agent

🎩 Headcanons: Law, Kid, Sabo, X-Drake x Friend! Reader who has the Friend’s Power ability.

🎩 Headcanons: Sabo, Hawkins, Doflamingo, Law x S/O that likes Junji Ito Manga

🎩 Headcannons: Sabo, Law, Luffy x S/O - Reaction to their S/O picking up a magical lamp

🎩 NSFW Headcanons: Law, Sabo, Ace x Shy! F! S/O who has a size difference kink

🎩 Headcanons: Sanji, Sabo, Shanks reacting to Crush! Reader who is super wary about sleeping around other people, but is fine around them.

🎩 Headcanons: Ace, Sabo, Luffy, Usopp, Law, Kid x Male! S/O is usually bright and loud but he had a bad day and needs some comfort

🎩 NSFW Scenarios: Ace, Sabo, Sanji getting a blowjob from their S/O who is hiding under the desk during a meeting (Or something to that effect)

🎩 Headcanons: Ace, Sabo x S/O Who is afraid of physical intimacy due to a past trauma