Chapter Text
It had been nearly a year since that fateful battle, and there was still no sign of Sora.
This wasn't for lack of trying to find him. Everyone was looking everywhere they could think of, from Mickey, Donald, and Goofy traveling to every world Sora had ever visited, to Naminé working with Roxas and Xion to trace their connections, to Kairi looking through her own memories for clues (and apparently, with Radiant Garden's scientists' help, everyone else's too). No one had found anything, though.
Terra, Aqua, and Ven had volunteered to explore the Realm of Darkness. ...Well, 'volunteered' in as much as it was as likely a place as any to find clues, and given the danger of the place, there was no one else with the experience to be safe there. Besides, no one knew the lay of the land better than Aqua, and though none of them were particularly eager to go (much less to send Aqua back), she was certain that all three of them would be okay as long as they had each other.
How Aqua had survived being stuck there for so long, especially without her armor, Terra did not know. All three of them had their armor on constantly for protection, but on the few occasions where they got into particularly bad fights and Terra's armor got damaged, the ambient darkness surrounding them would give him that same feeling that he could easily just melt away and disappear if he wasn't careful. Usually it was mostly ignorable, but the one time his helmet had been pulled off by one of those winged Heartless that had snuck up on him - Flutterings, Aqua had called them - it had given him the worst vertigo until he could get it back. He didn't want to even think about enduring it without his armor at all, especially not for over a decade.
(Not that the other two seemed to have the same issue when their own armor got damaged, but with Aqua being used to being there and Ven being so bright, maybe it was just him.)
And that was another thing. The Heartless. Terra had read about them during his years of training, sure, but he'd never seen one for himself before coming to the Realm of Darkness, much less fought one. They were similar to the Unversed in some ways, but stronger, and while the Unversed were made of raw emotion, the Heartless were devoid of it, acting only on instinct. Fighting them took a little getting used to.
(And the less he thought about how the way some of them moved felt familiar, or how much their skin reminded him of the dark claws and chains that he did remember, the better.)
But the armor did make being there bearable, as did Aqua and Ven. They had agreed from the start not to split up no matter what - yes, they might cover more ground faster if they did, but the Realm itself would be quick to target anyone who was alone, as Aqua was quick to point out. Ultimately, sticking together served to make the fights they got into easier, too, since they were able to watch each other's backs and support one another.
The other thing that made it bearable was the schedule - they only stayed in the Realm of Darkness a few weeks at a time, then spent a week recovering before diving in again. Thank the stars for gummiphones - Riku's was set up to automatically send them a message when it was time to go back according to the Realm of Light, no matter how much time felt like it had passed in the Realm of Darkness. And as Aqua had described, time truly meant little there. Sometimes it felt like only a few days had passed before the message would arrive, but others felt like it had been months. (One particularly egregious trip had felt like little more than an hour before their phones had gone off. Ven had refused to believed that one until they got back and had the timeline confirmed.)
Not that there was ever much to report when they got back to rest. When they weren't fighting Heartless, most of what they found was a barren landscape. Lots of rock formations that took on almost thorny, branch-like appearances from a distance, but not much else. The only real landmark they ever came across was the beach at the Dark Margin, and Sora wasn't waiting there.
("It knows we’re looking for him,” Aqua had said one day when morale was particularly low. “If he is here, it’s hiding him from us. It wouldn’t want to give him up that easily.”)
***
RADIANT GARDEN
Terra and Aqua's first destination, at the start of this particular break, was Radiant Garden. Aqua always started by giving Riku and the scientists a report of what little they'd found, and getting a rundown of any progress the other groups had made (which was admittedly never much). Ven would usually along, but this time stayed behind in the Land of Departure, wanting to hang out with Chirithy for a while.
("It's okay, Ven. I'm used to being alone for way longer than this," Chirithy weakly protested.
"That just means you need the company even more!" was Ven's response to that.)
Terra, on the other hand, made his way to Merlin's house. He had meant it, when he had volunteered his services to the Restoration Committee, so while Aqua was giving her report, Terra would go help out with whatever Leon and friends needed that day.
And Leon hadn't been joking when he'd said that they could use all the help they could get. There was always something that needed doing, whether it was hammering some nails into place, holding up wood while someone else did the hammering, bringing heavy materials to another part of town... Occasionally, he'd be asked to go find some children who had gone outside the city limits on a dare and bring them back before the Heartless got to them, or to help deal with a more clever Heartless that had somehow managed to sneak past the security system.
(On one particularly memorable occasion, Aerith had asked him to run her flower shop for a couple hours while she ran some important errands of her own. For whatever reason, there were a lot more customers than Terra was expecting that day, and a few of them seemed very interested in talking about things that had little to do with plants or gardening supplies, but as long as it meant he was helping out...)
Today, Merlin was unsurprisingly out when Terra got to his house, but Cid was at his computer, seemingly annoyed at whatever code he was working on today as per usual. Yuffie was casually standing at his side and watching over his shoulder, but turned around when she heard the door. "Hey, Terra!" she greeted with a cheerful wave. "How've you been?"
"Hi Yuffie, Cid," Terra greeted in turn, receiving a grunt of acknowledgement from Cid in response. "I'm all right. Looking to see if there's anything I can help out with today."
Yuffie made a minor show of thinking for a moment. "Let's see. We've already established that coding is out, or I'd suggest you help Cid out with what he's working on."
"I'll get this thing compiling eventually," Cid said, irritated. "Dang code was written by a Beffudler, I swear..."
"Good luck," Terra said, deciding not to wonder aloud if this was the same code Cid had been struggling with the last two times he'd come by. Something about a datascape, or digital records, or something.
"I know!" Yuffie said suddenly. "There's this old warehouse on the west side of town, the part that's still under reconstruction. It's kinda run down, but Leon wants to empty it out, fix it up, and turn it into an armory, or maybe somewhere to train some more guards. He went down there this morning to work on the place, so I bet he could use an extra pair of arms."
"Sounds like something I can help with," Terra said. "Which warehouse was that?"
Yuffie grabbed a piece of scrap paper from the desk. "Let me draw you a map."
***
Yuffie's map was a little crude, but it was functional enough, and with its help Terra easily found his way to the warehouse in question. To call it 'kinda run down' was, honestly, kind to the building, which had definitely seen better days just from a single glance, what with the number of holes in the roof and the boards hastily nailed over the windows.
The door swung forward a little too loosely for comfort as Terra pushed it open, but he walked in nonetheless. "Hey Leon," he called out as he looked over the situation in front of him. Most of the walls looked sturdy enough, despite the damage to the roof and windows, but something had definitely come through and done a number on whatever had been stored in here. Broken shards of crates were scattered everywhere, and their former contents made no less of a mess themselves.
"Terra!" Leon called back as he emerged from behind one of the larger piles of general shrapnel. "Good to see you. Everything go okay?"
"Pretty much the same as always," Terra said, already going to grab one of the few crates that was still holding itself at least somewhat together. "Still no news, but we survived to tell the tale at least. Where should I bring these?"
"I'm mostly looking to get stuff out of here, first," Leon said. "I've been stacking whatever crates can be salvaged on the side there, but otherwise, there's a wheelbarrow for whatever can be composted, and I've just been piling whatever can't for now."
"Got it," Terra said with a nod, and he got to work. It wasn't the most exciting job in the world, but it had to be done, and it was something that didn't take much thinking. It let him get into a rhythm and turn his brain off for a bit as he moved things from one place to another.
It was relaxing, not having to think too hard about anything. A welcome breath of fresh air after spending time in the Realm of Darkness, where a new threat that could hurt Aqua or Ven lurked around every corner.
His rhythm got interrupted eventually, however, when something that had been balanced precariously atop a stack of crates eventually fell off as he passed. The clatter it made as it fell to the floor caught his attention, and so once he had found a place for the crate he had been carrying, he came back around to clean up whatever had fallen.
The source of the noise appeared to be an old plank of scrap wood, about the size of the bottom of a small drawer. It had dragged down with it an old towel, ordinary except that it was covered in small, blue hairs, almost like fur. When Terra picked it up, a small piece of paper fell out from underneath it, and when he reached down to catch it, his eyebrow raised in surprise. The paper was a bit beaten up, but held a child's drawing of one short girl, one taller girl, a skinny person outlined in green, a much larger person outlined in purple and pink, and a blue dog. Below them, in crude handwriting, were the words Lilo, Nani, Pleakley, Jumba, and Stitch, respectively.
The drawings of the larger person and the blue dog looked familiar. And matching the name Jumba, as well as the blue fur on the towel... Terra had met those two before. In Deep Space, when he'd been imprisoned on that giant spaceship and had met Experiment 626, the little blue creature who had asked what friendship was, despite being told he was meant only to destroy.
"Did he leave this here?" Terra wondered aloud quietly as he looked further at the drawing. Part of him had always hoped that the little experiment had found his answer eventually, but he'd never been able to follow up...
"Huh," Leon said as he came over to see what Terra had found and noticed the blanket. "I'd wondered where that little guy holed up to sleep. Guess here was as good a place as any.'
"You know him?" Terra asked.
Leon shrugged a little. "I've seen him around, anyway. Guess I shouldn't be surprised that you've met him too."
"I didn't realize he'd ended up here."
"He wasn't from here originally." Leon leaned back on the wall as he explained, folding his arms over his chest. "Radiant Garden wasn't the only world that Maleficent destroyed, back then. His must have been, too, and he was lucky enough to end up in Traverse Town along with the rest of the survivors. Or at least, I'm guessing he did. The first I ever saw of him was when he'd stowed away in the cargo hold of Cid's ship when we finally made it back here."
A pang of guilt ran through Terra's stomach, another reminder of his mistakes and their consequences. But he pushed that thought down to deal with later. "Is he still here, then?" he asked instead.
Leon shook his head. "We'd see him around doing his own thing for a while. He was a lot of help dealing with the Heartless that got into town, especially before Sora and Tron got the security system working right. But the last time I saw him, he'd brought a bunch of gummi blocks he'd collected to Cid's place and gotten him to help him build a ship of his own. I guess he either figured out where his home is, or decided he wanted to go look for it himself."
"Guess so," Terra said. That experiment had seemed like a smart one, so it seemed reasonable he'd be able to do something like that. "He must've left this behind in the excitement, I guess."
"Must have," Leon agreed. "Hopefully, if the people in that drawing are important to him, he found his way back to them."
Terra nodded. He knew Jumba, at least, probably counted, considering he'd made him and all. Even considering his insistence that 626 was only meant for destruction... maybe they both had realized otherwise, after all this time.
His thumb brushed the name that matched with the drawing of the blue dog. Stitch, huh.
"Mind if I hold onto this?" Terra asked, holding up the drawing. "I think I'd like to return it to him, if I can."
"I've got no problem with that," Leon said. "I'd ask if you had any idea how to find him, but then, if Sora's taught me anything, it's that you keyblade wielders are something else."
"We do our best," Terra said with a smile, not denying it. After all, it was weak, after so long, and perhaps it had never been that strong since they'd only ever met once, but they had formed a bond that day.
He just had to believe in it.
***
LAND OF DEPARTURE
“You’re saying he ended up in Radiant Garden?!” Ven asked when Terra brought out the drawing that evening after dinner to show the others. “I could have gone back there and found him?”
“It’s not that he ended up there right away, Ven,” Terra clarified. It was news to him that the others had followed him to Deep Space and also met 626, but considering that they’d ended up following him pretty much everywhere else he went back then, it wasn’t exactly surprising. “Leon said he stowed away with them when they were leaving Traverse Town, so he probably only ended up there after… everything else happened.”
He hadn’t meant to put that much of a pause there, but thankfully, either the others didn’t notice, or it wasn’t enough for them to say anything, as Aqua replied, “I’m glad the world he decided to call home is safe now, if he’s gone off to find it.”
“Me too,” Terra said. “I want to go visit him. Not just to return this, but to see how he’s doing, out there. I hope he found friends.”
“Why don’t we all go?” Aqua suggested. “We have plenty of time until our break is over. We can take a day to see him, and to make sure his world is safe.”
“Sounds good to me!” Ven said. “Maybe we’ll get super lucky and Sora will be there too!”
“It’s not impossible,” Terra said, not wanting to give voice to the thought they all had, that if Sora was in the Realm of Light, he probably would have been found by now. Mickey, Donald, and Goofy were nothing if not thorough in their search, and from Terra’s understanding, the latter two’s bond with Sora was incredibly strong.
Then again, maybe Sora had never been there, so the three of them hadn't visited yet.
“Let’s plan to go in the morning, then,” Aqua said. “But for tonight, anyone want to help me bake some cookies?”
“Ooh, I’ll help!” Ven said excitedly. “Can we put in some chocolate chips?”
“I was thinking chocolate chips in about half of them,” Aqua said, already reaching to pull out the ingredients, “and almonds in the other half. How does that sound?”
“Sounds good to me,” Terra said, grateful that Aqua so often considered his tastes alongside everyone else’s.
***
The next morning, everyone gathered in front of Master Eraqus' memorial. Since they were going to be following their bonds with the experiment, the suggestion had come up that maybe the magic of their D-Links, held within their wayfinders, might help. They were meant to be a beacon, so that they would always be together and know how to return home, but maybe they could work in the other direction too.
"Be careful out there," Chirithy said as the cat-thing saw them off. "You don't know what you'll find there, or even where you're going, after all."
"We'll be okay," Ven reassured. "We've got each other, after all."
"Are we ready?" Aqua asked, Stormfall already in hand.
Terra nodded as he summoned Earthshaker, Wayward Wind appearing in Ven's hand shortly after. The three of them pointed their keyblades forward and concentrated.
Terra closed his eyes and thought about his meeting with Experiment 626. He focused on how the creature, who had been created to only destroy, had wondered what a friend was, and had spared his wayfinder because of that question.
"I can't explain friendship. When you feel it, you'll know it."
He focused on that hope, that the little alien had found a friend during all those years, and that he would, in fact, know when he felt it. Maybe it was one of the girls from the drawing, even. A strong breeze picked up around the three of them, and even through his closed eyes, he could tell that there was a glow surrounding them as the magic did its thing.
(Elsewhere, two fluffy blue ears perked up, as though the creature they belonged to sensed something, though he wasn't sure what.)
And then suddenly, he could feel the energy of the portal that had opened. A new path had opened in the Lanes Between, one that would lead to exactly the world they wanted to visit. As Terra opened his eyes, the wayfinders glimmered in the sunlight on the other side.
The three of them nodded to each other, and Ven called to Chirithy, "We'll be back tonight!" before they activated their armor and summoned their gliders. Aqua flew through the portal first, then Ven, and finally Terra took the back of the line.
And off they went, to an unknown world.