Dream Drop Distance

Got It Memorized

In the Hollow Bastion computer room, Braig found Even and Ienzo unconscious on the floor, darkness leaking out of them in fine specks. Only one other person was there.

He asked Terra what had happened. "I am."

Terra's Keyblade answered instead, run through Braig's own chest before he understood he was in danger. As he lost hold of himself, the voice that had answered for Terra gave itself a new name.

"That's not my name. I'm not 'Xehanort.' My name. Is Ansem."

More than ten years later, Lea woke with his own memories whole, Axel's among them.

"Where. What happened to me? Roxas?"

He found himself back in Ansem's own study, and was not alone there. "That's me. Dilan, Aeleus, Even, Ienzo."

All four of them had been recompleted together. Two were still unconscious. Braig and Isa were nowhere in sight.

"We're people again. But only the ones who joined the Organization here. I guess Xehanort doesn't count, but where are Braig and Isa?"

Aeleus and Ienzo argued that the two of them should already be here too, recompleted or not, the same as everyone else.

"No, look, okay, the fact is, we're here. We've been recompleted, right? So they should be here too, plain and simple."

Lea would not hear it. He remembered, correctly, that Braig and Isa had been in Radiant Garden with the rest of them when they became Xigbar and Saïx, and that argued for looking closer, not further off.

"Ah. Forget it. You know what? I'll bring 'em back myself."

He left through a corridor of darkness rather than keep arguing about it.

"Why do I always get stuck with the icky jobs?"

At the Mysterious Tower, while Yen Sid oversaw the exam, a raven dropped a note and a crown at Mickey's own feet.

"Why, that's Minnie's."

"It's from Maleficent. She's kidnapped Minnie."

Mickey, Donald, and Goofy returned to Disney Castle at once and found Maleficent and Pete in the library, Minnie held between them.

"Perhaps you should take a few moments to reconsider. Or does the Queen's life mean nothing to you at all?"

Mickey asked what she wanted, plainly, and Maleficent answered him by naming a name she had no business knowing.

"All right, Maleficent. Tell us what you want."

"Very perceptive. I presume you are familiar with Xehanort, the man who led me to discover worlds outside of my own?"

She told them what he had shown her, unasked.

"As do you, I see. Yes, he shared everything with me, how to go about winning a heart over to the darkness, and, most gloriously, about the seven hearts of pure light, the ones that would grant me the power I need to conquer all worlds."

She wanted something simpler now, she said, than a war she could no longer manage alone.

"However, the worlds were too complex, too much for even me to contain. It seemed I had miscalculated. Then it came to me, of course. I could go about conquering other worlds in my own manner. You do have the 'data' for all the worlds, do you not? And now you will hand it over to me."

Mickey pressed her on why, and got nothing for it. "Why do you want the data?"

"I'm afraid that is no concern of yours."

Pete, standing over Minnie, made the same demand his own way.

"Don't you bozos pretend you don't remember. Me and Maleficent was trapped inside it. Now cough it up!"

"Ah. Ah. Ah. Wouldn't want her Royal Minnie Mousiness to get a boo-boo, now would we?"

Refused a second time, Maleficent gave up asking. "I see you have failed to recognize the futility of your situation. Very well. Face your doom!"

She attacked. A corridor of darkness split open, and out of it came two chakrams, one turning her own strike aside, the other keeping Pete busy long enough for Minnie to break free. Their leverage gone, Maleficent and Pete withdrew. Out of the same corridor stepped the one who had thrown them.

"You used the darkness to get here? That was reckless. But gosh, I didn't expect you to save us. Axel."

"Axel didn't. My name is Lea. Got it memorized?"

"I now know that what I seek lies within these walls. Trust that I will eliminate you in good time."

Seven Lights, Thirteen Darknesses

Back at the tower, Yen Sid brought Lea up to date on the exam already underway, and on Xehanort's own coming return.

Lea said he had come to learn how to wield a Keyblade himself, and it was not what anyone in the room had expected him to say.

"I must warn you again, the road will not be easy."

"Fine. Let's jump right in."

Given how little time was left to spare, Yen Sid agreed, and sent him to the Secret Forest, where Merlin and the three good fairies had bent time itself around him.

"It's clear you cannot teach a cat to bark. But Merlin and the three good fairies are aiding him in a place that's more temporally flexible. My hope is that he can at least learn to wield it. He certainly has fire, so I suppose it depends now on how strongly it burns."

To Sora and Riku, still waiting, Yen Sid turned next, and told them plainly that Xehanort was coming back. Sora did not see why that needed a test at all.

"But that's a formality, right? I already proved myself. Me and the King, and Riku, we can take on anything. Right, Riku?"

Riku answered him, not with a boast, but with what he still owed himself, ever since watching Xehanort lose his own Keyblade for good to the very darkness Riku had once carried too.

He agreed to the exam.

"Riku. Then count me in. Put me through the test! Just watch, me and Riku will pass with flying colors!"

"As a Keyblade Master, Xehanort had a gift like few others. But such great minds are often plagued by a single great question. What is the essence of the human heart that weakens us, or empowers us? The answer, he believed, would be found in the 'Keyblade War.' What if the challenges of our past were, in fact, a map to the light and darkness that battles within us all? Xehanort had to know, so he renounced his duties as master and chose the seeker's life. Since then, in many a guise, he has clashed with protectors of the light, Keyblade wielders like yourselves. And mark my words, he will trouble us yet again."

"We must be ready. Which is why you, Sora and Riku, are to be tested for the mark of a true Keyblade Master. No doubt you fancy yourselves masters already, but it takes years of training. Only a true master can teach you the proper way. Both of you are self-taught Keyblade wielders, an impressive feat. However, the time has come for you to let go of preconceived notions, forget what you know about the Keyblade, and begin your training again with a clean slate."

Then he told them the whole of it.

"Long ago, in the age of fairy tales, the World was filled with light, a gift, many believed, from an unseen power known as 'Kingdom Hearts.' You see, Kingdom Hearts was protected by its counterpart, the 'χ-blade,' so that none could ever lay hands on its mysteries. But in time, the World was overrun by legions who wanted the light all for themselves, and the first shadows were cast upon the land. These warriors crafted 'Keyblades' in the image of the original χ-blade, and waged a great war over Kingdom Hearts. We call this the 'Keyblade War.' But though the war extinguished all light from the World, the darkness could not reach the brightness inside every child's heart. With that light, the World was remade as we know it today, with countless smaller worlds shining like stars in the sky. As for the real χ-blade, it did not survive the battle. The two elements that created it, one of darkness and one of light, shattered into twenty pieces, seven of light, thirteen of darkness. And as for the source of all light, the one true Kingdom Hearts, it was swallowed by the darkness, never to be seen again. As long as it remains there, even the brightest world will have its dark corners. After all, light begets darkness, and darkness is drawn to light. For this reason, some decided to use the Keyblade, a weapon designed to conquer the light, to defend the light instead. These were the first heroes of the Keyblade."

Only the task itself remained to be laid out.

"One dream is connected to another, which means we must choose in which 'Sleeping World' you will begin. I will return you to the Destiny Islands just before they were swallowed by the darkness and plunged into sleep. Once dreams take you, you must let them guide you to the Sleeping Worlds. As there are seven pure lights, there are seven 'Sleeping Keyholes.' Unlocking these will both grant you new powers, and free the worlds from their wakelessness. Complete this task, and return here safely, and I will name you both true masters."

"Very well, then. Sora and Riku, let your examination begin."

Both of them woke on the same shore, young again, on an island that no longer existed anywhere but here.

Not So Very Different

The exam put them back on Destiny Islands the night it fell, younger than either of them had been in years. They kept clear of who they used to be and took the raft out ahead of the Heartless.

A storm broke the sail. Out of the water, grown giant, rose Ursula.

"Oh, he was right. Those wretched guppies are here. Well, it's about time we settled the score!"

"Sorry, dearies, but I won't fall for that trick!"

They beat her. Her own wake pulled them under, and in the dark below the surf a Keyhole opened onto Traverse Town. Someone in a robe stood watching from above the water, and neither of them knew who.

In Traverse Town, without either of them choosing it, they were apart.

Onward, in a world gone strange with a wooden boy's own borrowed heart, Sora found someone he had thought long finished with. "Xemnas? This is impossible!"

"My my, a hollow puppet that's managed to grow a heart. Just imagine that."

Sora asked why a Nobody could not have one too. "Maybe so. However, do not forget that you, yourself, are not so very different from us."

"The memory and heart are tightly linked. Rub a few memories together, and you get a spark of emotion, a feeling. But in a digital world, memory does not work like that. Nothing is ever felt. You can hold a thousand, a million times the information, but there is still no heart with which to parse it."

He found Xemnas again further on, inside a machine world running on somebody else's stolen work. "Once, my master, Ansem, found an old system and made a copy of its Master Control Program, and used it to serve his own ends. This is the original data of that system. Here, data can be copied. Memory can be changed and easily manipulated. Tron is a digital entity, so why would he be any different? He obeys the rules of this world."

"Sora, what about you? Your heart, memories, your data, and your dreams. The bits and bytes that have made up your life so far, can you say for sure they are not just copies of someone else's?"

Sora did not answer him. Xemnas did not seem to need one.

"Indeed. A heart is never lost for good. There may have been variances in our dispositions, but a number of us unquestionably showed signs of a burgeoning replacement. Once born, the heart can also be nurtured. Our experiments creating Heartless were attempts to control the mind, and convince it to renounce its sense of self. But understand, one can banish the heart from the body, but the body will try to replace it the first chance it gets, for as many times as it takes. And so I knew, even after we were divided into Heartless and Nobodies, it was just a temporary separation."

"However, through weakness of body, weakness of will, or weakness of trust, most of the original members we had chosen for the Organization were inadequate. Thus, naturally, they never had a chance to attain their goal. Yet, even this was to be expected."

"We have learned of the heart's folly, and we have achieved our other goals. This last excursion has proven to be a worthy closing assignment for the Organization."

Further on still, in a place built out of somebody's own idea of music and light, the young man in the coat stood waiting rather than watching from a distance for once. He told Sora plainly that none of this was his own dream to wake from, and that they would meet again.

My Friends Are My Power

Every Keyhole sealed, Sora expected the Realm of Light. He got The World That Never Was instead. "Aw, what's the matter, sleepyhead?"

"We jumped through a lot of hoops to get you here. But it looks as if it's gonna pay off."

Xigbar told him the whole shape of it, unasked. "Hey. Let's hit these plot points in order, Sora. Roxas. First, you must be wondering about your revised itinerary. 'Why am I here, not back home?' The answer's simple. We brought you to this place! Hijacked your little slumber party before it started. And ever since, we've been both your companions and your constant guides."

"Bingo. You were able to go back in time to just before your home became a Sleeping World, only because a past version of you already existed there. And I can see, in the past, you already met Mr. Robe Guy. Yup, he was there then to make sure you ended up here now."

None of it had ever been a test, not the way Sora had believed. "It sure is. It's too perfect. Who'd ever believe it? Which is why you idiots never saw it coming. You thought you were off doing some kind of test, right? Well, test this, how come you're wearing the same clothes if you're already back home? You are not gonna wake up, okay? Look, there's no real versus dreams anymore. There's just you, us, and this."

Faces came next, one at a time: Naminé, Xion, Roxas, Riku, Kairi, Terra, Aqua, Ventus, each of them there and then gone, carried without Sora ever having chosen to carry them. To Naminé he tried to say something he had never managed to say to her in person.

"Wait! Naminé! I've got a message for you. I meant to tell you once this was all over."

Roxas did not vanish the way the others had. "Roxas. How can you be here? Am I dreaming? C'mon, say something."

"Roxas, you're you. We're not the same. I wanted to tell you that. That you deserve as much as I do to be your own person."

Through him, for just as long as the illusion lasted, Sora felt what Roxas himself had once felt, all of it at once.

"Axel and Roxas and Naminé, and that other girl. I felt what Roxas felt and, they laughed together, got mad, and they grieved. You have to have a heart to cry."

He found Xigbar again, and this time asked him outright what the Organization had actually been for. "Xemnas and Xehanort formed the Organization for a specific reason, round up a bunch of empty husks, hook them up to Kingdom Hearts, then fill them all with the exact same heart and mind. Translation, they were gonna turn all the members into Xehanort."

"Me? I'm already half Xehanort."

Sora would not let the answer stand unchallenged. "Just stop it! You treat people's hearts like bottles on a shelf, but they're not! Hearts are made of the people we meet and how we feel about them. They're what ties us together even when we're apart. They're what, make me strong!"

"I know the Keyblade didn't choose me, and I don't care. I'm proud to be a small part of something bigger. The people it did choose. My friends, they are my power!"

Xigbar had heard enough. "Those are just words. You've lost. Fine. See where your power gets you here. Xemnas! He's all yours."

Sora fought Xemnas and won. The win cost him what the fight itself had not: his own heart's hold on waking gave out, and he dropped into a sleep no dream of his own would release him from. As he fell, Ventus's own heart, resting inside him since before he ever knew it was there, rose to meet him, and closed Ventus's own Keyblade Armor around him on the way down. The young man in the coat carried what was left of him to the Castle That Never Was.

The Road to Dawn

Somewhere in his own onward journey, in a city of bells and stone, Riku found someone he knew by sight alone. "You're Ansem! Why are you here?"

"So sad. The cost of yielding to the darkness."

Ansem left him with a warning rather than a fight. "But I embraced the darkness, and unless you hurry up and learn to do the same, your story will end just like his."

Riku answered him after he was already gone, to no one in particular, and then to Jiminy.

"I walk the road to dawn!"

"I know the road my heart walks."

"That was my, my dark side. I gave in to the darkness once. And ever since, it's chased me around in one form or another. The Seeker of Darkness who stole my body. A puppet replica of the shadows in my heart. And now, I'm facing me."

Further on, inside a world built on somebody else's stolen work, Riku found the comparison too close to leave alone. "His single-minded thirst for answers created Ansem. We all have a little of that curiosity within us. So if we're not careful, any one of us could create an Ansem."

Because of Him

Something was wrong with Sora, and Riku felt it before he understood it. He found him trapped and fought to reach him.

"Is that. Sora? Sora! Don't! You've gotta wake up! Sora!"

Whatever held him under had a shape of its own, and Riku met it head on. "Are you what's trapping him in that nightmare? 'Cause if you are. I'm what nightmares fear!"

Beating it back only led him to Ansem again, waiting. "That is right. Sora can no longer wake up. No matter how many nightmares you consume, you cannot wake someone who has fallen into the chasm of dreams."

"Dreams hold our memories. Sleep holds our dreams. And darkness, it holds our sleep. Sora's heart belongs to the darkness now."

Riku would not accept that as final. "But you feel it, don't you? This world, the nightmare, the abyss. Why haven't you returned to the reality whence you came?"

"Dream of a dream. A twofold nightmare. This whole journey, you have been inside Sora's dreams. And now darkness within darkness awaits you."

Then Ansem told him what he actually was. "At the start of your test, when you struck out from that tiny island, you saw me there dressed in a robe. Immediately you knew something was wrong, so without even knowing it, you dove into Sora's dream. And you became exactly what that sigil on your back represents, a Dream Eater to protect Sora from nightmares."

"Me? I'm a Dream Eater?"

Ansem did not let him sit with the shock of it for long. "Correct. But you failed to protect him. After all your efforts to command the darkness and protect those you cherish, it is a shame you locked that power away in the end."

"So you understand what to do. Set the darkness in you free, and you can rescue your friend."

Riku answered him with the truth instead of the offer. "Ansem. Or. Xehanort. You used to be a Keyblade wielder. But darkness stole your heart, and the Keyblade with it. Don't you see? That's half the reason I'm even on this journey. After allowing darkness into my heart, am I still fit to wield the Keyblade?"

Then he told him the other half. "You know. When I look at you. There's this memory that flashes back. A secret I said I'd keep when I was little. The main reason I kept dreaming about the outside world was 'cause of him."

He meant Terra. Nothing more was said about it, and nothing needed to be.

Riku refused what Ansem offered him and reached for something of his own instead.

"I know the way. Consume the darkness, return it to light."

"You can try."

They fought a second time.

"Ansem! You're part of my heart now. Part of the light!"

"Ever the fool, boy. And forever a pawn of the darkness!"

Riku won. "Strength, to protect what matters."

He came back to himself in the real World That Never Was, in front of Memory's own skyscraper.

"This place. Did I finally make out of the dream?"

He understood the whole of it now.

"Sora and I have been split up since the start of our journey, because Ansem, no, because Xehanort planned it. And that means we're a long way off course from the Mark of Mastery exam Yen Sid gave us."

He went looking for Sora, and did not stop until he reached Where Nothing Gathers. "All right, Sora has gotta be here, somewhere."

Sora was there, on an Organization throne. Between Riku and him stood the young man he had crossed paths with the whole way here.

The Gathering Is Nigh

Mickey reached Where Nothing Gathers before Xehanort's own revival could complete, and stopped the whole standoff cold where it stood.

"Stopza!"

It bought him a moment, and he meant to spend all of it getting Riku moving. "I'm glad I'm not too late."

"Just grab Sora so we can go! I can't stop them for long."

Xehanort broke the spell himself, working through his own younger body before his own revival was complete, and gave Young Xehanort back the power to move. "I said, hands off!"

He turned on Riku and opened the fight himself. "Begone."

Riku won the duel, but Mickey's spell had already worn off by the time it ended. Xehanort completed his own revival there, whole again in his own old body, and took the highest of the thrones around them. Young Xehanort returned to a lower one among the rest of the gathered Organization.

"Oh no. Are you."

"Are you okay, Riku?"

"Master Xehanort! We were right about you!"

He answered as if the outcome had never been in doubt.

"All of this was decided. My twelve selves would welcome me here on this day, when I would return a complete person. It is the future which lies beyond my sight."

He told them the same history of the Keyblade War that Yen Sid had already given them, the x-blade's shattering into seven lights and thirteen darknesses, save that now he was the one telling it, and the two of them were meant to hear it as prophecy rather than as the past.

Then he admitted where his own first attempt at it had gone wrong.

"I once tried to create my own pure light and darkness to forge the x-blade, but the attempt ended in failure. In my eagerness, I had lost sight of the correct way to achieve my goal. I acted rashly. I can admit that now."

Mickey would not let it pass without naming what it had cost. "Why are you doing this?"

"What you did back then, your mistakes, changed the destinies of three of my friends!"

Xehanort answered with the thesis he had always carried, that destiny was never left to chance, and named the three of them only by what they had become rather than by name.

"Ah, but destiny is never left to chance. I merely guided them to their proper places. The broken boy who failed to be the blade, the misguided master who sacrificed herself for a friend, and the feckless youth who became my new vessel."

Only then did Mickey see how far back it went. "I couldn't find a way to save 'em. But I wanted to believe that their sacrifice stopped you for good. Why? How was I so blind? I should've seen it, as soon as Maleficent started gathering the seven princesses of heart."

Xehanort confirmed it without hesitation. "Yes. They were all my doing. I used the evil fairy to find seven pure lights for me, just as I prepared thirteen vessels to fill with pure darkness."

Riku spoke for the first time since the duel had ended. "But you failed. Sora stopped you in your tracks on both counts."

Xehanort granted the point without giving up anything larger. "Yes, he did. That dull, ordinary boy, a Keyblade wielder so unlike any I have ever seen. However, I have not abandoned my ambitions, the seven guardians of light and the thirteen seekers of darkness."

Mickey started counting the guardians of light out loud, and came up short. "Seven guardians of light? Well, for Keyblade wielders, there's me and Riku and Sora. And my three missing friends, that's six. Then the seventh would be. That means, the thirteen seekers of darkness."

Xehanort confirmed the shortfall and named what all of it was for. "Yes, little king. Perceptive. But Sora and another on your list belong to me now. And that puts you three guardians short. But worry not. All of the pieces are destined to appear. Your seven lights just like my thirteen darknesses, whose final clash will beget the prize I seek. The x-blade!"

"The x-blade!"

Xehanort turned back to Sora to finish what he had promised.

"But first, the thirteen darknesses shall be united. All the seats have been filled. And now the last vessel shall bear my heart like the rest!"

He never got the chance. Lea had tracked the danger from the Secret Forest, and reached them in time to put himself between Xehanort and Sora.

"You!"

Lea answered with the same taunt he had used introducing himself the first time. "Axel? Please. The name's Lea. Got it memorized?"

"Promises to keep. I'll always be there to get my friends back. What, bad timing? You had your perfect little script, but you kinda forgot to write the sequel. Now, let's find out what happens!"

Riku, seeing him there, still called him by the name he had always known him by. "Why are you here, Axel?"

Xehanort answered by setting one of the hooded gathering against him, and the hood came back to show Saïx. "Isa!"

Even fighting him, Lea would not let Riku's own mistake stand uncorrected. "No, I told you my name's. Agh, whatever, Axel, fine. Now let's get outta here!"

Ansem's own Dark Figure seized Riku and Mickey both before either of them could break free.

"No!"

"He made it!"

Mickey agreed there was nothing left to do but go. "Right!"

Then Donald and Goofy broke through and cut the Dark Figure down, freeing them both.

"Goofy, Donald! You saved us!"

With neither side of the plan complete, the new Organization began to disappear, each of them back to their own point in time. Xehanort left them with a promise rather than a defeat.

"We are out of time. Neither the union of light nor darkness has been achieved, and we must all return whence we came. But, the gathering of the seven and thirteen is nigh. Let us finish this at the fated place, once your lights and my darknesses have joined together!"

He Needs Me

Mickey and the others carried Sora's own body back to the Mysterious Tower, and Yen Sid knew what had happened to him before Mickey finished saying it.

"Aw, Sora. Don't tell me your heart's sleeping, too."

Yen Sid answered him plainly. "Seven lights, thirteen darknesses. Master Xehanort has been busy."

"No, Mickey. This affliction is not the same."

He explained what the difference actually was.

"In your Mark of Mastery exam, you were to unlock seven Sleeping Keyholes. By doing so, you would awaken those worlds from their prison of slumber, and also acquire the power to free a heart from its sleep. Riku, you unlocked those Keyholes within Sora's dreams. Therefore, it stands to reason that you now have the power to awaken Sora's heart."

Mickey offered to go instead, worried about how deep the darkness ran. "You want him to dive back into Sora's sleep? But Master, Sora's heart is down in the darkest abyss. If Riku's not careful, he might just get trapped down there with him. No. I'll go instead."

Yen Sid did not refuse him outright, but he told him plainly which of the two stood the better chance. "And perhaps you may even succeed, Mickey. But there is no denying Riku stands the better chance, having dived into Sora's heart as long as he has."

Riku answered, not with a boast, but with the plain truth of why it had to be him. "Mickey. I really appreciate it. But, I'll go wake Sora up. Look at his face. Sleeping like nothing's wrong, like there's nothing to even worry about. He's always been like that. The three of us would agree to work on the raft, and then this guy would go take a nap on the beach. You see, it's my job to keep him on his toes. Besides, what kind of Keyblade Master sleeps through his test? I'm doing it for me, too. Sora saved me once. And. I heard him call my name. He needs me."

Mickey told him he already knew the way. "There's something real strong that binds us to each other. Even in the darkness, you can reach him. All you gotta do is follow that connection!"

Riku dove into Sora's own Dive to the Heart and found Sora already waiting for him there, though not as himself. He wore Ventus's own Keyblade Armor, moved from inside it by the Armored Ventus Nightmare. Riku fought him and won, freeing Sora from what had been wearing him.

What came after was quieter. Riku found himself standing inside a memory of Destiny Islands, buried deep in Sora's own heart. Roxas came to him there and asked him something, then was gone. Ventus came next, then Xion, each with a question of their own, each gone the same way.

Further along the shore, Riku found a bottle in the surf, and with it came a data projection of Ansem the Wise, who had not expected to see him.

"DiZ! I mean. Ansem the Wise. What are you doing here?"

"You were not the visitor I expected."

He explained why he was there at all.

"Perhaps I wanted to atone for events of the past, even if no apology can undo the harm I have wrought. I felt, that I ought to leave at least something behind. So I digitized myself and my research, and hid them within Sora."

Then he spoke at length about the heart he had chosen to hide inside.

"Yes. A clue, I hope, to finding yourselves or your lost friends in your hour of need. The heart has always been quick to grow. Each exposure to light, to the natural world, to other people, shapes this most malleable part inside of us. Nobodies are not different from us in that manner. Sora was the only one able to return to his human form without destroying his Nobody. That is a statement to the love in his heart for other people, and the bonds that tie them together."

From what Sora's own heart had already proven, he turned to what it might still do. "Perhaps, he has the power to bring back the hearts and existences of those connected to him, to recreate people we thought were lost to us forever. Our most precious treasures, even an empty puppet, the trees of the forest, and the petals on the wind, there are hearts around us everywhere we look. And it does not take superhuman powers to see them."

He closed by naming the part of Sora that made all of it possible.

"Surely we remember as children the way our hearts made everything seem so shiny, and perfect. Sora has a heart like that, uncorrupted, willing to see the good before the bad. When he sees the heart in something, it then becomes real. When a connection seems broken, he may have the power to mend it. He has touched countless hearts, he has accepted them, and he has saved them. And some of those hearts have never left him, whether they fell into darkness or were trapped there, whether they sleep in the darkness of Sora's heart, or were welcomed into its warmth, they can be saved. All Sora needs to do is be himself and follow wherever it is that his heart takes him. It is the best and the only way."

Then he turned from his own history to Riku's, and asked why he had come. "The rest is in there."

"Of course. Now why is it that you are here?"

Riku admitted the truth of it. "Uh. I kinda need to wake Sora up."

Ansem the Wise pressed him further, and Riku made sure he understood exactly what he meant.

"Don't tell me he's gone to sleep again?"

"You mean, the Sora wrapped in that black phantom?"

Ansem the Wise set his mind at ease.

"What, indeed? Never fear. Sora is safe."

"He's not here. You see, by defeating the Nightmare imprisoning Sora, you freed him."

He told Riku the rest of it plainly. "Then, you came here, and you were questioned by three young people. That was the final key to awaken him. Sora is awake. You can go home now."

Then he asked for the one thing he had not yet learned. "Young man! I do not believe you ever told me your name."

Riku told him his name. He returned to the real world and opened his eyes to find Mickey already there.

"Riku!"

Sora was awake beside him.

A New Kind of Power

With the exam concluded, Yen Sid spoke first to what the ordeal had revealed rather than to who had passed it. "You performed truly admirably, both of you."

Then he held himself responsible for what had happened, plainly and without qualification.

"More than anything, I am grateful to have you both back from Xehanort's deception unharmed. And I am grateful to Lea, whose spontaneous actions turned the tides. I am also deeply sorry, for failing to perceive the danger and throwing you headlong into a perilous test. This experience has revealed many hidden truths, and we must gird ourselves for the great clash with darkness that lies before us. I believe we need a new Keyblade Master, one with a new kind of power."

He named only one of them a Master, and gave his own reason for it. "Sora and Riku, you both deserve the honor. However, one of you braved the realm of sleep again to unlock the final Keyhole and save a friend. Riku, I name you our new true Keyblade Master."

Riku could hardly believe it. "Really? I'm a Keyblade Master?"

"Congratulations, Riku!"

Sora, though the honor had passed him by, congratulated him all the same.

Lea reminded them why he had come to Yen Sid in the first place.

"Yeah. I mean, I came here to learn how to wield one."

He admitted he had not yet managed to summon one of his own, and demonstrated by trying again in front of them.

"Hey, thanks for the vote of confidence. You know, I was gonna come swooping in, Keyblade in hand! But I just couldn't get mine to materialize. Must be in the snap of the wrist or something."

This time it worked, and Lea credited it to luck rather than skill.

Sora, though not named Master, set out on a journey of his own to train further. Mickey saw him off.

"Be careful."

Sora returned to the sleeping Traverse Town in the Realm of Sleep, looking for his own Spirit Dream Eaters. "Good. I was hoping this world was still here. But where are they?"

He found them again all at once.

"Thanks! You're the best!"

Away from all of it, inside the Chamber of Waking in Castle Oblivion, where Ventus's own body had rested since it was carried there, Ventus stirred in his sleep and smiled, the only sign given that anything inside him had changed.

The credits that followed showed the cast in turn, and spelled out, letter by letter, that this led to Kingdom Hearts III. Sora and Riku walked into the light together.