Kingdom Hearts: From No One to Someone

Mourning of the Mark of Mastery

Roxas could only groan as he woke up from his dream. After a few minutes he got out of his bed and began to stretch to loosen himself up.

"I really hope these dreams are a common occurrence." He said to himself. While he would like to know more about what happened, after this last dream and his brief talk with The Master he had a lot to think about.

Now that he has meet them, he wanted to know what happened all those years ago and what happened to he Foretellers, especially Ava. Especially how the era of fairy tales ended.

Roxas felt that asking Eraqus about the past would be a bad idea. Even though the Keyblade Master had offered him a chance to become his apprentice last night, but the man still didn't fully trust him yet. Which was a smart move. Asking information like that would only bring more suspicion down on himself and it could possibly bring about not only his end, but also Ava's as well.

So for now he would just focus on the Mark of Mastery exam that was going to happen today.

'Hopefully I didn't sleep through it.' Roxas thought.

He wanted to see one of his new friends become a Master and learn more about Keyblade wielders. 

A decade from now the culture of them was all but dead, with the only people who seemed to know about it were King Mickey, Xemnas, Yen Sid, possibly Marluxia, and possibly Riku. The latter two had hinted some knowledge from when he had talked to the pink haired Nobody a few times and Riku seemed to know about how Keyblades were inherited as Sora's Kingdom Key was originally meant for him.

Still it would be embarrassing if he slept through the entire thing. Plus he didn't want to know what kind of retribution that he would get from the apprentices and Eraqus.

So about halfway through changing his clothes, the door slammed open.

"Roxas are you awake!" Ven shouted as he barged into the room. It was then he noticed that the boy in question was putting a clean shirt on.

"Sorry about that." He quickly apologized before exiting the room.

Roxas could only sigh at that. After another minute he finally got dressed

He began to head to the door, but then he felt something behind him.

In the span of a second he summoned Oathkeeper and blasted a silent Aero right behind him. All it did was travel across the room and gently open the window.

'It's just like last night. The presence is gone again.' Roxas thought. It was the exact same one he felt was watching them on the summit. Whatever was watching them was elusive as he could sense a small amount of darkness from it.

He could deal with it later. As for now he had to see if he hadn't slept through the exam.

The Nobody opened the door to find Ventus impatiently tapping his foot.

"You were so close to being late you know!" He said as he handed Roxas a plate of toast.

"Mourning Ven." He said simply as he began to eat the burnt piece of bread, causing the lookalike to only sigh.

"You missed the time to talk with Terra and Aqua before the exam Roxas while you were the only time you would be able to talk with them is during the interim between the trials. Not only that, but you also missed breakfast and Master Xehanort arriving." Ven explained to the Nobody who was happily munching on the toast.

He truly never had it before and the only time he ever had it before was fake, because it was when he was trapped in that accursed virtual prison. All the food in there was mainly bland except for the sea salt ice cream.

Ansem must have did that just to spit him.

Roxas was a little ashamed that he missed the opportunity to talk to the two eldest apprentices, but he had brought it onto himself for sleeping in.

But there was one thing that caught his attention as he regrettably finished the delicious toast.

"Master Xehanort? I take it that he is another Keyblade Master?" Roxas questioned, causing Ven to nod.

"He is the only other Keyblade Master around as far as I know. He is a few years older then Master Eraqus and they both trained under the same Master. In fact they both passed their exam and afterword Master Xehanort left to explore the worlds rarely coming back to the Land of Departure. He last visited about 2 years ago for only one night before leaving in the mourning. But he has returned today to be a judge of exam." He explained getting the other blonde to nod.

Before their conversation could continue on a ball of light passed by the window and exploded.

"What was that about?" Roxas questioned as he felt something tugging on his sleeve. He turned to see Ven trying his best to run while gripping the Nobody's arm. "Okay, what are you doing Ven?"

The boy in question stopped running and faced Roxas.

"Master said he would put that out once there was 10 minutes to the exams start! So come on or we'll miss it!" Ven said as he tried to rush off with the other blonde.

Roxas widened his eyes at that and proceeded to shake Ventus of him. Both of them began to race into the throne room before it was sealed off for the Mark of Mastery.

"He seriously has some good reflexes." A voice broke out in Roxas's now empty room.

A small Corridor of Darkness opened up from the floor and the figure from last night climbed out of it.

"If I had reacted a second slower, then he would have discovered me and probably have pushed me out of the window." The figure said shivering. He would have survived, but it would have hurt like hell. It has happened multiple times while training under that old coot.

The figure began to rummage around Roxas's room to find until he found his Organization coat. He began to channel dark energy into the cloak, but it was immediately canceled out.

"Damn it!" He hissed out. "It's exactly like the geezer's clothing, protected against the darkness!" He angrily threw the coat onto the bed before letting out a sigh.

"I suppose that the weakling's Wayfinder should do." He said before jumping into the corridor, closing it behind him.

(Chapter 15 end)