diatu | The icing on the cake

Xion had spent much of the last month trying to avoid people - and failing miserably - and trying to find a perfect sunset watching spot. Until she could figure out the spell to take away everyone's memories so that she could end herself, as she knew she had to, she had to stay away from people.

But she was still Xion. And still drawn to the same things she always had been. A good ledge from which to watch the sunset, ice cream, and seashells.

Finally, at the start of the month she had found the perfect place. She didn't know how she had missed it, given it was a giant clock tower. But she found it, and for once luck was with her. No one else had been there.

Every day since she'd been buying three ice creams and heading to the top of the tower to watch the sunset. Every day.

Which was where she would be, just before sunset, a small touch of black, a familiar black coat, sitting on the ledge of a clocktower, watching the sky.....

Maybe not something most people would notice. But then most people weren't used to thinking of clock towers that way. Also, Lea really is freakishly tall....

Her hood is still up, so even he couldn't tell who it was, but really...who could he remember that sat with him, eating ice cream at the end of the day?

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Okay, now she had questions.

"Keyblade... masters?" she asked. Clearly she knew what Keyblades where. But since when did they ever need tests for them? You could summon your Keyblade or you couldn't, right?

Sleeping worlds and dreameaters and nightmares made no sense, but it wasn't as important as the rest.

"How... would Sora be a version of him? Them...?" Was it because there was something wrong with how she was made that when she went into him, she made him vulnerable? And... Roxas with him? She looked down at her gloves.

Lea nodded. "Yeah," he said. "See, Keyblade wielding didn't used to be a thing that people learned on their own, like you, Roxas, and orginally Sora and Riku had to do. There used to be specific teachers for it and everything was a lot more formalized. Kinda like how it is with magic at this school. And those who showed a really high level of skill and passed certain specific tests were eventually named as Keyblade Masters."

"Mater Yen Sid was one of these, even if he wasn't actively wielding a Keyblade any more," he said. "In fact he might be the only old Master left. But he recognized that as good as Sora and Riku were already from being self-taught, it wasn't going to cut it for the kind of challenges that would be coming up. So he put them to the test- basically gave them special missions- in hopes that it would help them reach that same level of power and skill as those who'd been formally taught before."

And for once Xion probably understood something just as well as Lea, as the whole business with the Sleeping Worlds was about as clear as mud to him too. But it was relevant information, so it needed to be passed along.

"And Sora could be a version of him the same way anyone else who wasn't already a part of him naturally could," he said. "Because Xehanort was going to shove a piece of his heart- or a copy of it, or something; I'm honestly not clear on that bit- into Sora's body. That's what the point of the Organization was all along, that's why he wanted a false Kingdom Hearts to start with; to provide thirteen vessels for Xehanort's heart."

"Fortunately though, yours truly was able to swoop in in the nick of time and save Sora from becoming Xehanort's thirteenth vessel," he said. "And I mean just in the nick of time. It was kind of awesome really."

"But I'm getting a little ahead of myself there," he said. "Since I kinda left off on my side of things with me still out of the picture."

She looked down at her gloves considering all of that. Axel swooping in at the last minute to save the day she totally believed. It was very him. But needing to pass tests... this whole Master thing.... She looked up at him again. "If somehow... Roxas and I do come back... back home. Will Roxas have to take that test as well if he wants to keep using his Keyblade?" she asked softly. She had already made up her mind she wasn't ever summoning hers again if there was even the slightest chance that using it could hurt Roxas. So she didn't care if someone told her she couldn't use it anymore. But she knew Roxas would be upset, wouldn't he?

She was also a little unclear how adding heartless hearts to a fake Kingdom Hearts would put pieces of one specific heart into each of them. She frowned a bit, again, looking down once more. Then up at a sky so unlike the ones she was used to. A sunset., but a different one. "Did all the heartless already have a peace of his heart?"

"I don't think so," Lea said. "Not unless you wanted to. Riku and Sora needed to do it because they needed to get stronger in a hurry, and because if we're going to fight Master Xehanort, we'd need some new Masters. But becoming a Master one day isn't a requirement for using a Kayblade. So assuming we manage to take down Master Xehanort, there won't me any need to be in such a rush to get stronger, so you and Roxas would be able to decide for yourselves whether you wanted to or not."

Lea shook his head. "Uh-uh," he said. "I think that the false Kingdom Hearts was more of a giant power source that would have let him do it a lot more easily. He'd have been able to do it, because he already had a copy or a fragment of Xehanort's heart on hand; in Xigbar. Xigbar was in on Xehanort and Xemnas' plan from the beginning and had had a piece of Xehanort in him for a long time. Maybe from the beginning. I dunno what Xehanort promised him, but he was gonna sell us all out too" And Lea was very clearly Not Happy. about that.

"So... we didn't really do much to stop him by vanishing, did we?" she asked softly. Of course, by that same token she wasn't doing as much to help him as she'd feared. Not that she'd ever see it that way.

"You allowed Sora to wake up," Lea said. "And you bought us time. And if there's anything we need, it's time. Master Xehanort seemingly had backup plans on top of backup plans so we've been playing catch-up from the start, whether we realized it or not. Anything that gives us more time to work with helps."

"Anyway, back to things that happened on my end," he said. "It took a little time, but eventually, I was recompleted, and woke up as Lea again in the same place I'd originally lost my heart; the basement of the castle in Radiant Garden. And I wasn't alone either. Dilan, Even, Aeleus, and Ienzo- the Sombodies of Xaldin, Vexen, Lexaeus, and Zexion respectively- were all there too. Braig and Isa- Xigbar and Siax's Sombodies- should have been there too, since they lost their hearts in the same place, but they weren't, and at the time, we couldn't figure out why."

"Dilan and Even were still pretty out of it, since being recompleted is rough," he continued, "so that left Aeleus, Ienzo, and I to try and figure out what was going on. It became clear pretty quickly though that they weren't anywhere in the castle. Which meant that someone was gonna have to go looking. And since Ienzo worked better on the technical end of things and Aeleus was better on guard duty, that left me. Which was fine by me, since I had other things I wanted to do out in the worlds anyway."

"it was hard? Getting your heart back?" she asked softly. She reached a hand towards him, grabbing the edge of his sleeve. "Did it hurt?"

"Not that I remember," Lea said. "I mean, I was unconscious when it actually happened, so who knows? But it's more that just trying to reintegrate a heart and body isn't always a smooth process, and it takes longer for some people to stabilize than others."

She gave a small nod, thinking about that. Going back to Sora.... Maybe it was best for Axel that he didn't remember that sort of thing.

The icing on the cake - Locked to Lea

Whoops. LOL. Good... um... catch. :D

No problem. XD

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