Aqua watched the two from her peripherals. Riku nudged Sora with his elbow. Sora chuckled, shoving his arm away. Her imagination supplied Terra in Riku's place, and Ven in Sora's. A fragment of her heart reached out for the two missing from her side. Is it possible for things to go back to the way they were before? Those carefree, playful times...

Surely Ven would remain unchanged. But Terra?

And what of herself? Lea can understand who she is for lack of knowing who she was.

However, the dynamic between her and them... is that something she can recover? Will it remain unchanged, or have they drifted too far apart? A decade later, who knows...

"Dunno what's going on in your mind." Lea poked her forehead. "But your face has a storm written all over it."

Aqua swatted his hand.

Sora jogged up to her side. "If something's troubling you, you can tell us."

The sweet innocence of Ven shadowed Sora's features and she had to blink. "Well-"

Something collided with Sora faster than the eye could see, and he flew back several feet.

"Sora!" Riku called, rushing back to him.

Sora sat up and wiped the back of his hand against his chin. "What just happened?"

Aqua trailed her eyes opposite to the direction he flew and spotted several blue blobs slinking away, letting off unnatural chirps as they did.

Her heart stuttered. Unversed!? She summoned her keyblade and ran after them into the next room.

Clad in his all black and red veined attire, Vanitas sat at the top of a staircase. He leaned forward, his arms lain over his knees as his helmet melted away.

Aqua did a double take on Sora entering the room and him. Despite a few color alterations, they looked identical. Like twins.

"Nice to see you again, Aqua," Vanitas taunted. "Except-" he pointed at Sora. "-what is that?"

Sora, much like a deer in the headlights, regained his composure enough to shout, "I should be asking that! What- who are you!?"

Aqua hadn't quite gotten a grip on their faces, and split her focus between them. "He's the darkness in Ven's heart," although her explanation bordered a question. "I thought we got rid of him."

"This is annoying." Vanitas scowled.

"His voice even sounds like Sora," Riku pointed out.

"I came first!" Vanitas yelled.

"Riku-" Sora turned to his friend, looking faint. "-they cloned me too."

Vanitas clicked his tongue. "I'm getting sick of this." Kneeling down momentarily, Vanitas sprang at the group, kicking down Sora. Sora toppled onto his back, and Vanitas pressed his boot into Sora's chest. "You..." he sneered. Given a minute of Sora struggling, Vanitas smirked, and his yellow eyes gleamed with mirth. "Ah," he breathed, understanding in his tone. "So, this is where you've been hiding." He leaned closer, and Sora arched his neck as far back as it would go. "Ventus."

Three keyblades came down on Vanitas. He backflipped out of the way, causing the keyblades to clash above Sora instead. Riku, Aqua, and Lea glared at his retreat.

"Yeesh," Sora groaned. "I feel like a piñata." He moved a hand over his chest. "Quit knocking me around! There's nothing in here, I swear."

Riku watched Sora's hand with a carefully blank face. "I'm not so sure about that..."

Sora pointed at Riku. "Don't."

"All those years ago," Vanitas spoke more to himself. "The one who connected with our heart." Then he raised his volume slightly to question, "your name is Sora?"

Sora jumped to his feet, summoning his keyblade. "What about it!?"

"Interesting," his following grin cut a sharp edge of dread into Sora. "Aqua," he called. "What took you so long to come back?"

Aqua refused to answer.

Vanitas shrugged. "I was almost lonely." Then he backed into a dark corridor, as it faded, he said, "I hope you don't mind, I made a few friends while you were away."

Dusks swam zig-zag through the air for their group. Samurai manifested, sitting in seiza with their swords resting in their lap. Meanwhile from the shadows cast by the stairs, claws rose up and took solid form, piercing the floor to pull the rest of a Neoshadows body into the room.

Soon they were surrounded by a multitude of enemies.

"Guess that guy doesn't like you much," Lea noted sarcastically.

Aqua cast a blizzaga forward, following her own attack closely, she skated upon the icy trail it left behind straight into a pile of frozen enemies. Slashing into a spinning circle, she charged her blade with magic, extending the radius it would strike.

"She doesn't do anything halfway." Riku gaped, astonished.

"And we shouldn't either!" Sora eagerly jumped into the fray. He swung his keyblade upward, casting a zero graviga spell. "Drift!"

Lea went airborne.

Sora tossed his hands frantically in the air. "I'M SO SORRY! I- I targeted darkness and-!"

"It's fine," Lea cut him off. "They can't get me anyway." Caught in a gravity defying field, Lea along with the surrounding nobodies and heartless, spun slowly in place a few metres off the ground. A nearby Neoshadow swiped at him in fruitless attempts.

Stance firmly planted, Riku slid his eyes up to Lea's questioning stare, and explained, "I've learned to counter it."

"Whoa," echoed from up ahead.

Lea had been facing the wrong way in his languid forward spin, but he heard Sora's voice kick up a few notches of hysteria as he cried out, "OHMYGOD AQUA!"

The last Shadow faded into nothing at the strike of a keyblade, it's heart released in a rapid upward ascent to return to the one who lost their heart.

Aqua collapsed the moment they were safe.

"Hey!" Riku caught her by hand, then lowered her into an upright sitting position. "You okay?"

Aqua blearily focused on the path ahead. "Guess this wouldn't be the best place to nap."

"No," Riku remarked. Then sat down beside her with one leg extended out, and the other bent with his arm resting over the knee. "I don't think anyone would object to a break right about now though."

"Yeah." Sora sat crisscross before them. "Although, I'd like a nap myself."

"You?" Lea accused, sitting similar to Riku beside Sora with an arm propping him up behind his back. "Man, do I feel sorry for Donald and Goofy. Sora, you are the king of friendly fire."

"That was one zero graviga!"

"That lasted ten minutes!"

Aqua spoke through a laugh, "Ventus once did the same thing. Except it was a slow spell on Terra." She tried to contain her laughter to talk, "Terra was so mad, but everything he said caamme ooouuut liiike thiiis."

They laughed, holding their stomachs, at her rendition of Terra.

"Roxas was sort of a klutz too," Lea informed as he curbed his laugh. "He came into the organization without any memory of who he was in his previous life. Although he had regular combat down to a second nature, you-know-who here had to teach him magic."

Aqua's happiness ebbed when Lea mentioned amnesia. Her own thoughts went back to Ventus, and how he was when they first met.

"Why I imagined fire would be great to begin with is beyond me," Lea went on as he closed his eyes and shook his head.

"Let me guess," Riku tilted his head with a smirk. "He singed you?"

"Worse. I thought the woods in Twilight Town would be good cover..." Lea pursed his lips, then waved the words off. "Ah, long story short, he set a tree on fire. Birds, deer, and all kinds of nature panicked." He flipped his hand out. "I thought, great, now we gotta skip town as I summoned a dark corridor out. Then Roxas yanked me back." Lea stared unfocused into the distance. "And he pled for me to put it out. I couldn't do ice magic at the time, so I told him how to cast blizzard, and it only took him one try." Lea's tone dropped. "His relief was..." He sighed. "That's when I knew for sure Roxas was different. How can anyone show emotions without a heart, and no memory of how to display them?"

"Ventus was similar in a way," Aqua put in. "When he first came into our care, he couldn't remember anything of his past." Her eyes clouded. "His head would hurt so bad, sometimes all he would do was sleep..."

Lea gave a few strong nods. "That was the same for Roxas. He told me a few times that he couldn't even remember his first days in the Organization."

Encouraged by Lea's empathy, Aqua added, "and, you know... I always worried that when he did remember his past, he wouldn't be the same Ventus we'd grown to love."

Lea hunched back. "Yeah..."

Sora looked between them, shared a look with Riku, then chipped in, "sounds like Roxas and Ventus have a lot in common."

A/N

I sooooo wanted to hit all the pressure points in my story to see how similar my ideas would be to canon. I will continue to write this after I play the long awaited game, but for now I'm gonna put a bookmark in it. Two things that will not change, as they are two of three reasons I wrote this in the first place, are how they save Roxas and Xion. Those were my lightbulb moments that I liked even if canon doesn't do it. OR IF CANON DOES DO IT, I WILL BE MILdly upset... I mean... I thought I was clever...

Ryudai, thank you very much!

Happy almost KH3 release to you too YumeTakato! xD