The shadows spat Kurai into the world in a shiver of black mist and curling tendrils of darkness. She landed lightly on her feet in the overgrown courtyard of Radiant Garden, or what was left of it.
The cobblestone paths were cracked and veined with dark growths—tendrils of the Heartless' corruption winding through the foundation like veins through dying flesh. The once-majestic towers in the distance stood crooked, their white walls blackened with soot and magic scars. Where fountains once sang and light blood from crystal trees, only silence and rot remained.
The air slled of rusted tal and ash. In the distance, a Heartless howled—one of the winged variants, scouting above the ruins like a vulture. Kurai didn't flinch. She didn't need to hide.
The keyblade in her hand shimred faintly with malevolent energy. She could feel them watching—the lesser Heartless scuttling and writhing in the alleys—but none dared approach her. Even here, in a place claid by Maleficent, they recognized what she was.
She moved quickly through the abandoned streets, each step echoing with soft finality. Her goal was simple—rlin's cottage. If any trace of the old alliances remained, that's where she would find it.
But when she arrived, the door was closed and the lights were off.
Inside, the hearth was cold. Books lay scattered
Empty. No sign of Skuld or Aqua. The letter Helios had written and left here however was gone aning they had been here before.
She stood in silence for a mont, then closed the door behind her. She needed them and those insects were nowhere to be found.
It was ti to do sothing she had hoped she would never need to do.
Her fingers tightened around the keyblade. She hated what ca next.
Kurai stepped into the center of the room and knelt slowly, placing her weapon across her lap. The cottage was still—only the distant cries of Heartless outside reached her ears. She closed her eyes.
She had seen this once before—from inside Helios himself.
Back when she had been formless darkness, a shadow without form, she had existed as one of the Thirteen Darkness who took refuge within Helios. She had seen what he showed Skuld: the concept that hearts connect.
Not just taphorically. Literally. Like threads drawn through fate.
When Skuld needed to find Aqua, she'd reached through her connection to Ventus, and through him, to Aqua. Helios had guided her gently, like a teacher guiding a trembling child.
Kurai was no child.
But she had a heart now.
One she had not asked for but Helios gave it regardless. This was most likely a asure he planned to keep her in control.
She opened her eyes and looked at her gloved hand, fingers curling and flexing.
This body—this shell of flesh and emotion—was constructed using Hoder's heart, stored within Helios for an unfathomable ti, and then forged into flesh with the help of Alira, the Nobody of Pocahontas. A connection that Kurai had never asked for, and never wanted. And yet...
It existed.
Her heart beat with a rhythm she didn't understand. She had long believed it to be a weakness. An anomaly.
But she couldn't deny the truth: her heart was connected to Helios, just as Skuld's was. Not by choice, but by design. He had carried her for so long she could trace him—trace anyone he was connected to.
In this case, Skuld.
And Skuld be the healer.
Kurai clenched her jaw.
She hated this.
Opening her heart—truly opening it—was foreign. Alien. She was a being of strategy, precision, and shadow. She had no place for fluttering warmth or emotional noise.
She closed her eyes again and focused.
Helios.
The na pulsed through her like an echo.
A warmth flickered in her chest, deep in her core. It started faintly, like the brush of a fla against old ice. Then stronger. Rhythmic.
Thump.
Thump.
Her breathing hitched. Her chest tightened—not with pain, but with sothing else.
Foreign. Unnatural.
The warmth spread, reaching her fingers and toes, like she was being filled with light—but it was not light. It was...
Connection.
She felt him.
Broken. Faint. But still there.
mories she didn't ask for surged—unbidden flickers from her ti within him: the battles, the anger, the laughter, the quiet monts when he looked up at the stars and said nothing. She had been a watcher then. A presence. She had thought herself above it all.
But now her body reacted.
Her heart began to race.
Ba-dum. Ba-dum. Ba-dum.
Too fast. Too hot. Her fingers dug into the floor.
Was this a mistake?
Was she dying?
She gasped and broke the connection, falling forward onto her hands as the heartbeat slowed, the warmth fading.
The cottage was still around her, but she was breathing too hard, too fast.
She looked down at her chest, hand trembling as it hovered over where her heart now rested—foreign and real.
The pain was gone. The heat, too. But the sensation lingered like an ember. Not agony—sothing worse.
Vulnerability.
She knelt there for a long ti, unmoving, her silver hair shadowing her eyes.
She hated this.
She hated him.
Not for what he did—but for what his suffering had done to her.
She had looked at Helios' ruined body in Hades' chains and felt sothing unacceptable. Sothing she couldn't quantify. She'd told herself it was strategic—he was valuable. But now she knew. There was sothing else festering beneath her control.
And it disgusted her.
Slowly, she rose. Her hand fell away from her chest.
"Useless heart," she muttered coldly.
But the warmth was still there. A tiny ember.
And she knew—if she truly reached for that thread again, followed it all the way...
She could find Skuld.
But it would cost her sothing.
Sothing she could never undo.
Outside, the Heartless stirred.
She turned toward the door, face unreadable. Her keyblade snapped back into her hand.
Ti to move.
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