A/N: So with all the E3 2018 excitement, here is my contribution to the Aquanort frenzy.

The thunderstorm raged outside. Rain furiously hammered the tall windows of the academy, but every time lightning flashed, it illuminated the silhouettes of the mountains. It was a beautiful yet ferocious sight, seeing the summits covered by blackened clouds.

Aqua walked through the halls in her pajamas, wrapping herself in a blanket as she headed towards the lounge. It was one of the best places in the castle to relax and catch sight of the storm. Never mind that it was close to midnight.

Terra was already there, with a small, dim lamp by his side and a large book open on his lap.

"And here I thought I was going to get some alone time," she said, knowing full well that he understood it wasn't what she meant.

"Then go back to your room," he said without looking up from his book.

"So in a huge storm like this, you're going to sit down and read?" Aqua walked up to the loveseat he was sitting on, and he instinctively moved over so she can have some space.

"Didn't you know that a huge storm like this is the best time to read a great book and let go of the imagination? No studying, no training, just fun nonsense."

"What's it this time?" There was always nonsense. Sometimes dragons. Sometimes wenches. Once there was a devil.

He turned to her with childish excitement, yet he kept his expression timid and small as usual. "Ghosts."

Aqua rolled her eyes. "They exist?"

"In some worlds, they believe so." He lifted a finger to emphasize his point.

She scooted to get closer to him and gazed into the page he was currently reading. It seemed that he was nearly done with a specific section of the book discussing the nature of ghosts, how they became violent, and what it took to quell them. The next section was about spells that can summon the dead, and if he wasn't stopped, he was going to continue reading through the night. This meant that her sparring partner would be sluggish the next day, and would probably be grumpy since he hated not being in his prime during fights.

She pointed and tapped to the end of the section before it started discussing the seances. "You'll stop there."

Terra grinned from ear to ear and her heart jumped a little. "Are you starved for attention or something?"

From him, yes. But she would never say that. "It's more responsible if you sleep."

He sighed and shook his head. "Okay mom. I swear, without you, I would forget to eat or brush my teeth. What would I ever do if I get lost?"

She hit him on the shoulder as he laughed.

Keeping her eyes closed gave her no solace. It was darkness all the same. The moonlight would have been pretty, and the sound of the ocean waves would have been relaxing, were it not for the endless numbness. It didn't help that this was all she experienced anymore, and the hardest part was forcing herself to stay.

Aqua sat on the beach, the faint moonlight in the distance a constant reminder that she was still where she had been for what seemed like forever.

Forever. Surely there would be no end to it.

Tucking her knees up to her chest, Aqua gazed up to the moonlight, since there was nothing else to do. She decided to recount the reasons why she should keep going.

To find Terra. To save Ven. To find Terra. To save Ven.

But counting always came with a wave of memories.

The three of them together in the academy. Aqua practicing fire magic into a bucket, only to set the entire thing ablaze, a terrible pillar of flames rising up.

Ventus freaking out and casting air magic toward it, which made it bigger.

Terra, who seemed unfazed, dropping a bucket of water onto it. Telling Aqua that he didn't look forward to when she was going to throw that at him during training, with that calm, slack smile that he always carried. That she missed.

These were just remnants now. And they left a dull, hard pain that numbness cannot ease.

The silence was also unbearable. It never stopped. Usually the voices she would hear were the ones that she remembered. Always in her mind. And most of the time, her mind wasn't kind. How she pushed Terra away, how she didn't understand him. How she bossed Ventus around instead of listening to him. All the times she could have done something differently to change what had happened.

"I've ruined us," she said out loud, to break the quiet.

Aqua pulled out her Wayfinder, a trinket of a gorgeous blue hue that she had carefully made. A promise of a never-ending connection, with unique copies given to her best friends. No, she needed to go on.

Looking at the same moonlight and listening to the sound of the ocean never changed. She stood up and ventured back inland, knowing that at some point Heartless were going to attack her. But this was better than sitting for a never-ending time, though. It was otherwise the same routine.

Something had to change. Maybe soon Mickey will come back. It only had to be a matter of time. He wouldn't just leave her here. She just had to be patient. But... can she wait for as long as she did? He said ten years had passed when he was last here. I don't know how I can handle waiting another decade...

She stopped amidst tall grass. "Please come back," she said aloud, hoping her words would travel far away from the Realm of Darkness and reach his ears. The tone of her voice was sad, but being here shredded any earnest expression of despair. She would even pray for despair, since it was something to feel other than a deadening semblance of tired hopelessness.

"Is there anyone else?" she asked out loud. Silence.

Aqua cast her gaze downward, feeling the need to cry but she was too numb to do so. She held her Wayfinder in both her hands. "I wonder if I'll be okay in the end."

"A remarkable question to ask to nothingness," a voice said. The voice was incredibly deep, like it came from an older man. He spoke slowly, as if to express a sense of melancholy that he was also too desensitized to fully show it.

Aqua looked around her only to see an endless field of tall grass. "Who... W-where are you? Are you lost in the darkness, too?"

"I would say the end is merely a belief in which we convince ourselves into thinking that possibilities for us will surely cease."

"I- I don't see you at all. Who are you?" Someone that might change things for her? Someone that needed help?

"I am nothing, yet I am a friend."

"Nothing?" She shook her head, despite realizing he might not be bale to see her either. "Should I call you a ghost then?"

"As you are for me."

Aqua felt that the periods of time in between her friend's visits were too long. But whenever he came, he was all the more welcomed.

"And here I venture again, unable to quell the need to come," he said.

"Hi, friend," she said, with a small smile to her lips, and it was the only kind of smile she was able to show in a place like this. "I don't understand. Why wouldn't you want to visit me?"

She walked among the field, away from the beach. She took a habit of finding a place to lie down so that she can look at whatever stars were left behind from a world ravished by darkness. They sparkled less here, but she didn't mind. It was better to have her friend with her than any other moment spent in this forsaken terrain alone.

"As I knew what would happen, as I have tried to prevent - the absence of my heart is being replaced. You are a threat," he said.

Aqua at first didn't know what to say. "I think that's the strangest tease anyone has ever tried giving me. You're not very good at this." She took a moment to pause. "What do you mean that your heart is absent?"

"I am no one. I have no heart."

"Then how do you exist?"

"In nothingness."

Aqua sighed. "Of course."

Circular words. Endless rambling that always led to the same point. She perceived her friend confused and lost. He never spoke of his past because he could not remember it. He was coy about where he was and where he came from, though he spoke about wanting to be whole again. He usually came to ask her about her own memories - what it was like to live and to feel. What her favorite foods were and whether she had an attachment to them.

Mostly random questions like they came from a curious child who didn't know how the world worked. It helped her remember her happiest memories, however, such as when the Master took them to a an amusement park when she was young. She had forgotten about it before. The voice liked to listen to himself talk, although he was also very introspective, and this reminded her of Terra.

"I think you are very mistaken," she finally said. "Even ghosts have hearts."

"A wretched heart, so despaired by death that it attaches itself to its most beloved in life in order to stalk what it considers its possession. A haunting, driven by the desire to stay connected to its past until it rots."

Aqua wasn't surprised that he knew so much about ghosts. The voice was usually well-versed in the knowledge of hearts and how they functioned in all walks of life.

"It's strange. I know I have never met you before," she said, "but here you are haunting me."

"I am not a ghost." For someone who was apparently alive, he acted as though he had never lived before.

"Right. You are a nobody. Because that makes sense," she said quietly, not really wanting him to hear the disbelief in her voice. "Why do you think you and I are connected then? I have tried thinking about it, but I'm certain that I have never known you."

"Because you are a remnant of my past."

She sighed loudly. "I wish you were more direct with me." Aqua knew that the Realm of Darkness did not operate at a normal pace of time. She wondered if somehow, in the future, she would finally leave, and meet him.

"A storm rages outside as we speak," he said.

Something about the statement made Aqua's stomach flip, although it was uncomfortable. It was nauseating, as though she was on the brink of learning something terrible.

"I do not remember my past, but speaking with you reminds me of emotions that I cannot define, like a cloudy storm," he continued. "Alone with my work, I am as I should be. Yet here, in this room that you haunt, I am faced with certain trepidations. It is unstable. What would I ever do if I were to become lost?"

Her stomach sank. Her thoughts traveled back to when she met with Terra in the darkness. Is this what he meant when he implied that I won't be able to recognize him? That his heart has ties to darkness? Does this mean that he's dead? She was so shaken that she could barely speak without her voice quivering. "Terra?"

The voice took a long time to reply, and when he did, he spoke slower than normal. "I do not recognize that name, friend."

She gasped out loud. She couldn't comprehend his emotions, not that it mattered. If he was Terra, then she was worried for him. If he wasn't, then she was disappointed that he still didn't come back to help her. Either way, it was agonizing, so much so that her emotions were rising up and she could actually feel them in full. Tears fell down her face. I don't know what's going on, but I need to find Terra.

"Help me," she said, wiping tears from her face. "I need to get out of here. I'm so worried about my friend."

"Your friend's name is Xemnas, and I have it in my power to find you."

She stopped crying, so shocked by the statement that initially she didn't believe him. But it stirred hope for the first time in such a long while that she had forgotten what it felt like. "Please."

"I vow I will one day," he said calmly.

Aqua was eager for Xemnas to come back after their last conversation. Feelings came easier for her, and she admitted to herself that she was experiencing excitement. She thought about all of the things she would be able to do again. To taste food again. To sleep. To find Ven and wake up him. To tease him. To look into Terra's eyes. To confess to him how she had felt about him for years, the one thing she had never done and regretted the most. She needed the chance to do it.

She needed it so badly and she was certain Xemnas would grant it to her. She told herself that he treasured talking with her as much as she treasured his visits, since they had helped her survive. It was nice to think that she made a new friend that she could finally meet face to face. She promised herself to bake him something special as thanks for saving her.

But he never came. The more time continued passing, the more she realized that she was in denial as she sat on the beach looking at the moon. Something horrible happened to him. He's gone.

The excitement that she kept nurturing all this time swelled, but it was painful. She tucked her knees close to her chest and sobbed it all out until her throat hurt and her eyes swelled.

She came across a man on the beach. He was dressed in a long black robe, his hood covering his face. This man called himself Ansem, although his memories were clouded as well. A new companion, although the endless numbing of the Real of Darkness proved too much for him. He would sometimes disappear without her knowing where he went. She worried that he was going to snap at any moment. Conversations with him became more erratic as time went on, and eventually he made her feel alone even when was around.

At some point, it seemed as though he finally did. He was slumped on the beach, responseless to her inquiries. She had promised herself to help and to take care of him, but in this way, it was like interacting with a statue. She wondered if she failed him, and asked him for forgiveness.

Defeated, she left the beach to walk across the field, if only to break the monotony of staring into the moonlight. Although the trek was tedious as well.

Today, however, something changed. Another man, one who was incredibly tall and barrel-chested, stood in the distance in a short wheat field in the night. He wore a similar robe and hood so that she couldn't see his face.

"Hi there," she said. "Are you lost, too?" She hoped that he wasn't terribly affected by the darkness like the last one.

"What would you do if I were, friend?"

Aqua was surprised to hear this voice and it overwhelmed her with relief, that desperate need of feeling hope coming back.

"Xemnas," she said with a breath as she approached him. "I'm so relieved. I was so sad that something might have happened to you."

"It seems that the darkness hasn't overtaken you just yet," he said in a tone that depicted a scientist observing data.

Aqua shifted nervously at his expression. He seemed a bit colder than usual.

"I have come to fulfill my vow," he said as he turned to walk away.

"Are you feeling alright?" she asked, traversing behind him, unsure if she even wanted an answer. Something didn't seem right. He was clearly right in front of her, but something about him didn't give her the sense that he even existed. Has the darkness harmed him?

"I do not feel anything," he said as he continued walking. "It has taken far too long to find you, and we need to hurry." His tone was deadpan, and it almost seemed as though he had forgotten who she was.

"I'm sorry, I don't understand," she said as she stopped. He stopped as well, turning to face her. "I had waited so long for you to come-" she began to say, until she noticed his face.

"Xemnas, can I see you?" She held her hands to her chest, nervous.

He removed his hood to show a dark face with orange eyes and long white hair that graced his shoulders. A man she confirmed to herself she had never met before, and yet it was a familiar beautiful face. "Terra?"

Xemnas gazed upon her coldly, his hands behind his back. It was uncanny, the resemblance.

"Why do you-" She took a sharp breath in and walked towards him, reaching for him. "You have to be him. Terra?"

Xemnas solemnly shook his head, and asked, "why do you think Terra has never come to rescue you?"

Because he didn't want to. But it couldn't be. She wanted to believe that Terra would never leave her behind, that he really was in the trouble she had seen him in. She knew that if he had the chance, he would have come. She had to tell herself that. But if that was true, then what happened?

She retracted her hand, tears forming in her eyes. "Because you have him."

Xemnas raised his hands as he looked down on them. "How precious it is, our past. The one thing that makes us for who we are, and the one thing that we can keep to ourselves, so long as we are able to still grasp it."

She choked back her tears as she realized how foolish she had been. What comfort was there to someone who so desperately needed a friend? Nothingness. Her bond with Xemnas was nothing. Her throat clenched as she thought about the hours she had waited for him to come back. She thought about the comfort he had given her, when it never was supposed to exist. Only because he needed her for something. And now, Terra needed her.

She summoned her Keyblade. "Where is he?"

Xemnas, ignoring that she was threatening him, reached out to her with one hand. "He is here. Would you like to see him?"

Xemnas had pulled his hood back up as he led the way through the wheat field. Aqua followed behind him, her Keyblade still drawn. He had made no move to threaten her, nor did he attempt to attack her. The wheat they were walking through seemed to get taller, and it was disorienting.

They reached a clearing. On a boulder sat a tall man, hooded and robed. He seemed unresponsive to their entrance.

Xemnas stood his ground, as though he had reached his destination. Aqua tried to get an expression out of him, but was unable to read him. She looked upon the man sitting on the boulder. It had been so long now. The possibility that she was finally this close to Terra was unbearable.

"Terra?!" she called out as she ran towards him, but she was attacked by a powerful magnetic force from behind as she was thrown against the ground and her Keyblade flew out of her reach.

A different voice replied, "he will not respond."

A different man entered the clearing, his face also hooded. His voice sounded much younger than Xemnas'.

"What does that mean?" She struggled to get up, her back sore from the blast.

The younger man waved his arms to play with the wheat. "We had to prepare him." He summoned a Keyblade of his own, one that Aqua did not recognize. "We are here to discuss a deal with you. He has proven to be a most rambunctious, unreliable member of our Organization." His voice was almost sweet, but there was an aspect to the sweetness that seemed warped, as if he was insincere in his politeness.

"I will not deal with you."

"A shame, since we need to dispose of him."

"You will not!" She summoned her Keyblade and attempted to get up and attack, but fighting both the man and Xemnas, who wielded dual swords of his own, proved to be fruitless. Her injuries piled on. Darkness here had always been stronger, and these men did not compare to the feral, unintelligent Heartless she'd been wasting away. She was slashed from behind, and stumbled onto the ground.

"It is just a deal of equal opportunity. His life for yours," the young man said. "Surely, Terra's life is worth some consideration from your part? Or has your heart blackened that much?"

Aqua, staring at her Keyblade, shook her head. "My heart isn't-"

"Is it not a fair trade?"

Aqua breathed slowly. Terra. There were so many things left unsaid. There was so much confusion left unresolved. If she could have one more chance to find him in the lounge, sleeping with a book laid out on his chest, she would never scold him for it again. She would do anything it took to make him happy, since deep down she admitted that she knew he felt the same way for her.

But if she gave herself up for Terra, then Ventus wouldn't have anyone there to wake him up.

Ventus. How she left him sleeping in that lonely room. He used to be vibrant. Always running around the castle. Always willing to spar. Always looking for a reason or a way to annoy her, with that silly toothy smile on his face. If she could, she'd give him a chance to be annoying again, since she knew it was his favorite thing to do. She would let him talk his ear out, and instead of silencing him, she would laugh. He needed her the most.

It was her punishment to choose.

I've ruined us because I pushed the both of you away. I'm so sorry.

She squeezed her Keyblade and considered to fight again, but she was too weak to get up.

"Just think of what the both of you will gain," the young man continued. "Freedom. You would both be free of the cages that keep you locked."

Freedom. A chance to actually get back to life. But it wasn't worth the price without the both of them back in her life. They were her family. I can't do anything for them here, anyway. I need to get out of here to help them.

I wonder... if I could use this to my advantage. If I can sabotage our enemies instead.

Throughout this time, she felt numb. But now, she had direction.

Aqua refused to choose. She kept her facial expression neutral, careful to make sure that the two men did not notice any inkling that she was scheming.

She gripped her Keyblade and brought it closer. I break the bond between us, she said to it in her mind. She couldn't have it where she was going, and to fall into the wrong hands would ruin everything. It disappeared.

Her voice was shaky. "You said you would release him? Prove it."

Xemnas approached Terra, who was still sitting unresponsively on the boulder, and summoned what seemed like a portal.

Aqua swallowed a lump in her throat, an incredibly difficult feat for her. "I agree to the trade," she said quietly.

The young man looked over to Xemnas, as though he was a bit surprised to hear that. "And I had expected that this was going to be much more difficult. They said you were strong and stubborn."

"I am strong." She whispered as quietly as she could to herself so that neither of them would hear. A promise to only herself. "You will not have me."

The young man raised his Keyblade to Terra's chest, and a light shone and expanded before he lowered it. Aqua scuffled towards Terra, resting her hands on his lap.

"Terra," she pleaded, looking up to the face shadowed within the hood. She paid no mind to the other men around her. All she looked at was his face. A pair of yellow eyes. But it was still his beautiful face. Please smile at me. Please be okay. Please be free.

"Terra, look at me. Please." She sounded desperate, needing to see some reaction. Anything to let her know he was back before it was too late for her.

She felt a forceful heat come over body, like it was seeping into her skin, and she felt her limbs go numb first. He looked down at her, the first sign of movement that he'd ever shown. The last thing she saw was his yellow blending into green.