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This is what it comes to, Aqua supposes: ten years steeped in the darkness has had doubts widening the cracks in her heart enough to leave her vulnerable. The flash of light when she was yanked from the dark realm was welcome at first. She wasn’t sure who had grabbed her hand and yanked her from the endless suffering, but she had a long list of possibilities, beginning with Mickey, Sora somewhere in the middle, and ending with Terra. Nowhere on that list did she think she’d be facing the piss yellow eyes of Xehanort himself after all this time.
Part of her wishes that she had saw it coming, but even genius levels of deductive reasoning and hypothesis testing would have led her to believe that Aqua was Xehanort’s new target. After how much grief she gave Terra and how much resentment she had for the darkness, it still managed to take her too. How depressing. The dark realm wasn’t exciting, sure, but it was at least slightly livelier than the abyss her heart relocates to within Xehanort’s body. At least there was a path, no matter how corrupted or compromised it would become—here is just infinite falling. Aqua floats in this makeshift “body” her heart has taken shape of, wondering if this would be the rest of her existence. She fought so hard to just keep this part of herself alive, but is it even worth it?
What kept her going after so long was the sliver of hope that Terra’s heart, like hers, may have survived. From the day she disappeared from the light, she always believed that Terra had a strong enough heart to keep himself alive, at least in the same way Aqua exists in this moment. But after time had passed, though Aqua will never truly know how much time, she realized that she was still alone in this void.
The light within her soul begins to dim as her hope for Terra does as well. She is fading quickly, but she can’t bring herself to stop. Maybe it’s better if she disappears. Her time as well as her friends’ has passed—Mickey, Sora, Riku, Kairi, and all of the wonderful people bathed in the light would surely be able to finish the battle she, Terra, and Ventus were never even able to begin. One of them will surely find a way to wake Ven without her.
As she begins to fade away, she ponders upon her most cherished person. Terra, the strongest person she had met, had given way to this darkness, and while she spent the last ten years of her life trying to convince herself otherwise, the lack of his light here proves that she was lying to herself all along. That, more than any of the realizations she stumbled upon, hurt more than anything. Even disappearing would be painless in comparison to feeling like the person you loved more than anything was not the person you hoped for and believed in.
“I wish you were here, Terra,” she speaks, tears filling her eyes as her hands begin to disintegrate. “I miss you so much. I wish I could’ve said goodbye.”
A sob escapes her lips, but the sudden warmth that finds her shoulders has her reeling. Even after all this time, the touch is so familiar that she starts crying harder. “Do we really have to say goodbye?”
You imbecile, she wants to say. Idiot. Dumbass. Any word that could account for the only two braincells Terra has in his head. Yet no matter how many words Aqua comes up with, none of them pass her lips and instead finds herself choked up at the sound of Terra’s voice. She wasn’t wrong—he was always here. His light could never be extinguished. It takes until she wipes her eyes to realize that she is still tangible, not yet lost to the dark like she would have been moments ago. There are so many words, but none come out at all as she only cries harder. Terra is here after all the time she had spent searching for him.
“Aqua... I’ve been so ashamed to face you with what my mistakes have caused, but you can’t fade away.” Her back still faces him, but he’s not sure what to say. Terra has never been good with words, always better at showing his thoughts through action—even now, he finds himself bringing the smaller woman into his arms as tremors rack through her. Admittedly, there are tears in his own eyes as well, but he is quick to tuck his head into the curve of Aqua’s neck and away from her line of sight. “I’m sorry you’ve ended up here as part of Xehanort. It’s my fault.”
A sharp inhale sounds. “No!” Aqua exclaims, spinning towards the taller man and wrapping her arms around his neck. “This isn’t your fault. This is Xehanort’s doing. He manipulated you, made you believe that darkness was your only path... I’m sorry I didn’t listen. I’m sorry I pushed you a-away.” Her voice shakes as does her whole frame, but Terra remains silent, not wanting to upset Aqua any further. “I never wanted to give up on you. Thank you for staying so strong.”
“I should be saying the same thing to you,” Terra quips, his hand pressing against the curve of her nape as her sobs quiet and the shakes become less violent. “Thanks for never giving up on me.”
The two of them stay¬ in each other’s hold for a while, but even without time present, both refuse to let go in the case that one will disappear yet again. It’s sweet, really, but... “Terra, we can’t let Xehanort do this to both of us. Surely you’ve found some clue as to how we can thwart him?”
The sheepish look on his face only deepens the crease in Aqua’s brow. The loop of his arms around her waist loosen enough to meet her eyes. “Before you say anything, out of fairness, let me say: I would fuck with him a lot. Sometimes I made him hit himself in the face. Sometimes I gave him the wrong information about where Yen Sid’s castle was and made him fly in a circle for almost a full twenty-four hours.”
“Terra!”
“I’m not the smart one! We both know this! I’ve tried regaining full control too many times, but there’s nothing that I could come up with that has worked for more than temporary pranks. Even when he sleeps, he wakes before I can take over more than just his arms.” Nudging his forehead to Aqua’s, he grins softly and pushes her back a step. “But at least this time we’re together. He may be able to beat us separately, but he cannot contain us both.”
A breathy chuckle escapes her lips before they settle into a fond smile. Because what she sees is an image created by her memory, as what he sees of her is as well, this familiarity is welcomed whole-heartedly. What a relief it was to be held in Terra’s light once more, after fearing it had been extinguished.
“Yeah, I guess you’re not wrong,” she muses. Though an endless void isn’t exactly where Aqua pictured herself, especially at the hand of Xehanort, being here with Terra made this whole situation just a bit less awful. At very least, together they are sure to put up a strong fight to be reckoned with.