The woods rushed past in dark green streaks beneath the low sweep of Eda's staff, the branches bending and snapping back in the wind left behind them. Eda stood forward with both feet planted, her cloak whipping hard behind her as Owlbert carried them between the trunks. King clung behind her with his claws dug in, his small body pressed low against the staff whenever they dipped too close to the uneven canopy.
"I know this guy. He's no wizard. He's what you'd call a puppeteer, a demon who specializes in scamming and manipulating people. He's trying to use Luz to get to me."
King's ears flattened as another branch whipped past close enough to make him duck. "Yeah, and we're flying directly into his trap. Hurray."
Eda leaned the staff around a crooked tree and rose over a cluster of sharp rocks jutting from the forest floor. "Well, if you can think of a better plan, I'd love to hear it!"
King opened his mouth, held the silence for a moment, then settled back with a sour look. "...Ok, I got nothing. But remember, Sora's with her. He can keep her safe and deal with the phony."
"He's strong, sure. But I don't think he'll be able to handle this guy on his own." Eda's grip tightened as the trees thickened ahead, the path below vanishing beneath tangled roots and shadow. She bent closer to the staff, urgency sharpening her voice. "Hey, faster, you!"
She slapped the side of the staff, and Owlbert gave off a hoot sound beneath them.
The staff surged forward, cutting faster through the woods as the wind tore around them and the forest blurred into motion.
The forest deepened around them until the ordinary sounds of the road and village no longer reached the path. Enormous tree trunks rose on every side, dark and broad, their roots sprawling across the ground in ridges thick enough to step over. Sparse pale-green foliage clung high above, leaving openings where blue and violet shadow gathered between the trunks. The air felt cooler here, damp from the still water that lay ahead, and every sound seemed to travel more slowly through the heavy growth.
Luz walked first, her bag shifting against her hip, her earlier confidence restored by the strange company moving beside her. Sora and Nevareth followed close enough to keep watch, both fully dressed again after the stop in the cat village, their clothes dry and settled back into place. Nevareth's golden shoulder guard caught what little light filtered through the canopy, while Sora kept his eyes moving through the trees with the steady alertness of someone who had learned never to trust a quiet path too much.
Beside Luz fluttered a small fairy princess, far gentler in manner than the fairy she had met the day before. She drifted along at shoulder height, her movements light and graceful, a faint shimmer following her wherever she turned. Luz smiled at her as they stepped between two thick roots and entered a clearing where a dark body of water lay still around a broad circular stone platform. At its center, far ahead, a narrow staff rose from a small base, its top crowned with a blue crystal that glowed beneath a concentrated shaft of pale light falling through the trees.
"Thank you for inviting us to your feast, Princess. All your food was so tiny and cute."
The fairy princess twirled her hands delicately, and two bracelets formed in the air with a soft sparkle before settling into her palms. She held them out toward Luz with ceremonious care. "For you, Chosen One."
Luz accepted them with wide-eyed gratitude, slipping them onto her wrists one at a time. The bracelets sat lightly against her skin, gleaming in the dim forest light as she lifted her hands to admire them. "Thank you. You have all been so kind and thoughtful."
Nevareth, who had been studying the clearing with narrowed eyes, shifted closer to Sora while Luz continued smiling at the fairy princess. His voice lowered enough that it would not carry far, though its brooding edge remained intact. "This alleged quest of hers. Explain it."
Sora glanced toward Luz before answering, keeping his tone quiet as they walked. "A wizard gave her a scroll. She found a hidden message on it, and it led us here. It's supposed to lead to some mystical staff."
Nevareth's expression tightened at once, the skepticism in his face sharpening into something more guarded. "This wizard. Did he have a name?"
Sora thought back to the library, the throne, the glitter, and the old man's careful smile. "I think it was Adegast."
Nevareth stopped for the briefest moment. His eyes hardened, the name striking him with a recognition he seemed unwilling to explain. The look was gone almost as soon as it appeared, buried beneath his usual aloof composure, but Sora had already noticed.
"What's wrong?"
Nevareth adjusted the strap across his chest and looked away toward the water. "Nothing."
The answer came too quickly to be convincing, but before Sora could press him, the light ahead drew his attention. The shaft from above fell directly across the center of the platform, catching the blue crystal at the top of the staff and scattering a faint glow over the surrounding stone. The water around it remained perfectly still, reflecting the staff like a second, dimmer version beneath the surface.
Sora lifted his hand slightly, pointing through the clearing. "Look! There it is!"
Luz perked up at once, her focus snapping away from the bracelets and toward the distant platform. The sight of the staff pulled her forward again, and she hurried down the path with renewed excitement,
Birds passed above the clearing in a loose, scattered flight, their small shadows gliding over the stone, the water, and the pale growth at the forest's edge before dissolving into the darker bands beneath the trees. Luz watched them for a moment, her face lifted toward the canopy, then lowered her gaze again as the path opened before her. She slowed where the ground dipped toward the lake, and the sight waiting ahead stopped her completely.
The Celestial Staff stood at the center of the water, planted upright on the circular platform as if it had been waiting there for longer than the forest itself. A clean shaft of blue-white light fell through the canopy and gathered around it, catching the crystal at its top until the glow seemed to hum in the air. The lake surrounding it lay smooth and dark, reflecting the staff and the trees in a stillness that made the clearing feel untouched by anything outside it.
Luz stepped closer to the water's edge. As her foot neared the shore, a glow awakened beneath the surface, spreading in thin lines below the dark water. A low rumble followed, deep enough to tremble through the soil under her shoes. Stones rose one after another from beneath the lake, water spilling from their sides as they locked into place, forming a walkway from the bank to the central platform.
Luz stared at it, her eyes brightening as the path finished assembling before her. "I knew this world wasn't all gloom and doom like Eda and King said."
She stepped onto the first stone, then the next, her caution giving way almost immediately to delight. The walkway held firm beneath her as she began to skip forward, twirling once with her arms slightly out, the bracelets at her wrists catching faint pieces of light. "There is wonder here. And I... I think I came here for a reason."
Sora started after her, but something behind him drew his attention. He stopped and turned back, finding Nevareth standing apart from the path with his back to him, his posture rigid as he held a wanted poster. The image showed an ugly grey squid-like figure, its face distorted into a grimacing scowl beneath faded lettering. Sora looked at it briefly, curiosity flickering across his expression, but Luz had already reached the platform ahead.
She paused there, the staff rising from its base before her, close enough now to touch. The light from above gathered around her shoulders and the top of her head, and the water on all sides remained unnaturally still. Her hands hovered for a moment before she drew in a breath.
"Ok, this is it. Moment of truth."
She reached out hesitantly and wrapped her fingers around the staff. Blue swirls of magic spilled from it at once, curling around her hands and rising in soft ribbons through the air. The lake answered with widening waves that spread from the platform, breaking the still surface in glowing rings. The crystal at the top flared brighter, bathing her face in blue light as she pulled.
The staff came free.
Luz lifted it above her head, standing tall on the platform as triumph surged through her voice. "Yes! I am the Chosen One! I knew it! I always suspected there was a reason nobody understood my wacky antics back at home."
She jumped once, turning in a quick circle before bringing the staff down to hold it with both hands. "Now I have concrete proof! Haha!"
From the walkway, Sora smiled and raised his voice toward her. "Alright! Congrats!"
The glow broke.
The staff crumbled in Luz's hands before she could react, its shape collapsing into loose dust that scattered immediately into the wind. What had been solid a heartbeat before slipped through her fingers and vanished in a pale stream.
"No!"
Sora's smile disappeared. "Huh?!"
[Play Villains of a Sort - Kingdom Hearts HD 2.5 Remix OST Extended]
Luz grabbed at the dust, but there was nothing left to catch. Around her, the clearing began to change. The flowers at her feet bent and shriveled, their color draining as they wilted against the stone. The water surrounding the platform pulled away with an ugly, unnatural slurp, retreating from the lakebed and crawling backward toward the riverbanks as if the whole lake had never belonged there. Leaves spun loose from branches and disappeared midair, dissolving into fragments before they reached the ground.
Luz turned in place, the empty space in her hands trembling slightly. "What?"
Sora turned sharply as the illusion continued to fade, and behind him, Nevareth had already noticed.
The clearing no longer held the quiet wonder Luz had followed into it. The lake had become a raw, exposed hollow of damp stone and retreating water, and fog crawled over the ground in thick, pale layers until the platform seemed to hang in the middle of nothing. Luz backed away from the place where the staff had crumbled, her hands tight around the sword she had drawn, the blade trembling slightly as she held it in front of her.
A small sound escaped her throat before she could stop it. She turned slowly, trying to see through the fog, but the trees had withdrawn into shadow, and the stone walkway behind her had become only a faint line through the mist.
A shape appeared ahead.
Adegast stepped out of the fog with the same old robes, the same gleaming stars, the same measured smile that had made him seem harmless in the library. His voice carried through the deadened air as though the clearing had been waiting for it. "Luz, the human."
Luz's eyes widened, relief and confusion struggling against the fear in her face. "Magical wizard?"
"Your hubris has failed you, Witch Apprentice!" His laughter bent wrong as he lifted himself apart from the image she had trusted.
The wizard shape peeled upward like a costume on strings, revealing beneath it an octopus-like demon with slick appendages and a body curled behind the false face. The ground cracked beneath the platform in branching lines, small fragments of stone shifting loose under Luz's feet.
"Huh?"
The cracks widened, and figures began to rise from the stone. The companions who had guided them through the forest, the cats from the village, and the friendly faces that had seemed to belong to the road all emerged stiffly, each one held upright by a tentacle fixed into their back. They lifted into the air one by one, dangling around Luz in a circle, their expressions empty where warmth and personality had been.
Luz turned slowly with the sword still raised, horror spreading across her face as each familiar figure appeared. "Oh no! Everyone?!"
Adegast's laughter thickened as the puppets swayed around her. "I am everybody! You fool, don't you see? I'm no wizard. And you're no Chosen One. I've tricked you. laughing"
Luz's grip loosened for half a second. "What?"
That half-second was enough. The cape around her shoulders stirred as though lifted by a breeze, then tightened with a sharp metallic rattle. The fabric twisted into chains, snapping around her body and forcing her down to her knees. The bracelets the fairy princess had given her clamped into hard cuffs, and the ring at her hand stretched into more chain, locking her wrists together in front of her before sealing shut with a padlock. Luz gasped and pulled against them, but the restraints held.
Sora saw it happen from the walkway and surged forward, the Keyblade flashing into his hand as he stepped between Luz and Adegast. "Luz! Hold on—I'll get you out of that!"
A tentacle whipped out of the fog before Sora could reach her, cutting through the air with enough force to knock him aside. Nevareth moved first. His sword came free in a bright arc, and he leapt between them, striking downward with both hands on the hilt. The blade cut clean through the lower appendage before it could connect, and the severed length dropped wetly to the stone.
Adegast shrieked in pain, the sound tearing through the fog. Luz recoiled where she knelt, and Sora planted his foot to regain his balance, his eyes snapping toward Nevareth in surprise. Even the dangling puppets jerked in place, their strings tightening from the demon's shock.
Nevareth landed in front of Luz with his sword lowered at an angle, his stance narrow and steady, the gold of his shoulder guard catching the pale light as his expression hardened into cold recognition. "Adegast, your crimes against the innocent are vast. By my honor for the Reaper's Hand mercenary guild, I will defeat you and turn you over to the law."
Adegast curled back through the fog, clutching at the place where the tentacle had been cut, his voice twisting into a curse as his puppets shuddered around him.
Sora stared at him for a moment, then his mind returned to the wanted poster near the path: the ugly grey squid face, the warning, the way Nevareth had gone rigid at the name. The pieces fit together silently, and his grip tightened on the Keyblade.
Luz turned toward Adegast, struggling against the chains as she forced herself to speak. "Why are you doing this?!"
Adegast's false wizard face bobbed above the mass of tentacles, its smile stretched too wide now that the disguise no longer needed to be convincing. "Your mentor has been stealing customers from my potions business for years! She must be destroyed!"
Luz pulled again at the handcuffs, the chain scraping against the stone. "Does everybody have a beef with Eda here?!"
The puppets around her nodded and murmured agreement in a terrible, uneven chorus.
Luz sagged slightly with a groan.
Adegast leaned closer, savoring the moment as the fog thickened behind him. "And you lured her right into my trap, all because you wanted to think you were special."
Luz lifted her head, fear still there but anger rising through it. "No. Joke's on you, 'cause Eda isn't stupid enough to fall for your trap."
A voice cut across the clearing from the far end of the walkway. "Adegast!"
Luz's face dropped. "Oh, heck!"
Eda swept down out of the fog on her staff with King clinging behind her, Owlbert banking sharply before landing at the end of the walkway. Eda stepped off immediately, her eyes moving from Luz in chains to Sora and Nevareth standing guard, then to the demon waiting beyond them.
Adegast's tentacles spread with sudden delight. "Eda, I have you now!"
The stone split open on either side of the walkway. Two cat puppets erupted from beneath it, their bodies moving with unnatural speed. One seized Eda before she could raise her staff, pinning her arms tight, while the other grabbed King and lifted him, struggling into the air.
Eda's face tightened, but her voice stayed hard. "That's right. You have me. Now release Luz!"
King kicked uselessly against the puppet holding him, his ears flattened in outrage. "I didn't have to be a part of this!"
Adegast drew himself higher, the puppets circling like trophies in the fog while Luz knelt in chains and Sora and Nevareth stood between her and the demon. His voice dropped into something almost gentle, which made it worse. "Oh, she can leave if she wants to. But I sense she wants a real fantasy."
[End Villains of a Sort - Kingdom Hearts HD 2.5 Remix OST Extended]
Adegast's false wizard face twisted into a pleased smile. One of the puppets nearest Luz bent forward with a wet, puppet-like lurch, its mouth opening too wide as purple vapor gathered in its throat. The fog pulsed once, then spilled out in a thick cloud aimed directly at Luz's face. Luz leaned back as far as the chains allowed, her eyes widening as the smoke rolled toward her.
The space behind her flashed.
Sora appeared at her back in the same breath, the Keyblade already lifted. His shoes scraped against the stone as he planted himself between Luz and the cloud, his free hand close to her shoulder as he drew the spell into the blade. "Aerora!"
Wind erupted outward in a tight spiral, catching the purple fog before it could reach Luz and forcing it back across the platform. The cloud twisted on itself, then shot toward Adegast with the force of the spell behind it. The demon recoiled too late. The vapor struck his false face and flooded over the exposed mass beneath, swallowing his sneer in his own magic.
Adegast coughed violently, his tentacles jerking as the purple haze wrapped around him. His puppets convulsed with the same disoriented motion, their limbs twitching out of rhythm, and the grip on Eda and King slackened at once. Eda dropped to one knee before catching herself with a hand against the walkway. King hit the stone with a small yelp and scrambled away from the puppet before it could recover.
Sora stepped forward, placing himself between Luz and the demon again, and leveled the Keyblade straight at Adegast. The blue-white light from above caught along its edge while the purple fog clung to the demon's body. "Eda! Nevareth! Attack!"
[Play Vim and Vigor - Kingdom Hearts HD 2.5 ReMIX Extended Soundtrack]
Eda was already moving. She grabbed her staff from where it had skidded across the stone, swung herself up with a hard twist of her shoulders, and drove a burst of magic toward the puppets nearest her. Nevareth rushed in from the other side, boots striking the platform in quick, controlled steps as his sword flashed through the mist. Adegast lashed out blindly, tentacles sweeping across the stone and striking hard enough to crack the surface, but the smoke he had meant for Luz had left him unfocused. His attacks came too wide, too late, and Eda slipped around one with a sharp turn of her staff while Nevareth ducked beneath another and carved through the lower edge of a puppet's binding.
Adegast snarled through another cough and forced two puppets forward, their arms jerking up with clawing motions. Eda blasted one aside with a snap of her staff, sending it tumbling across the dry lakebed, while Nevareth met the other with steel. He struck once to turn its arm away and a second time to sever the tentacle controlling it, stepping through the movement with grim precision. "Your tricks rot in the light, deceiver."
Sora glanced back at Luz, still chained on the stone behind him. The bindings glowed faintly now, the magic holding them together visible where the links crossed her wrists. He knelt beside her and touched the tip of the Keyblade against the blue light construct binding the lock. The metal trembled, then split into sparks that dissolved around the blade. The handcuffs loosened, the chains fell away from her cape, and the padlock dropped to the platform with a dull clink.
Luz pulled her hands free, rubbing one wrist as Sora offered his hand and helped her up. Her legs were unsteady for a moment, and she leaned against him just long enough to catch her balance. "Thanks."
Sora gave her a quick, reassuring look before turning back toward the fight. "Stay back with King."
King hurried toward Luz, still glancing over his shoulder at the puppets as he grabbed the edge of her sleeve. "Yes. Great plan. Love plans where I'm farther from the giant scam squid."
The clearing trembled under the strain of the fight, the cracked stone platform marked by scorch lines, sliced tentacles, and the scattered remains of puppets that had fallen limp once their strings were severed. Eda circled with her staff raised, her hair shifting in the damp wind that moved over the empty lakebed. Nevareth stood with his sword angled before him, breathing hard through his nose, his boots braced against the uneven stone. Sora kept close enough to cut off any lunge toward Luz and King, who had retreated toward the walkway but had not taken their eyes off the demon.
Adegast hung at the center of it all, his false wizard shape torn and sagging over the octopus-like body beneath. The last of the purple fog still clung to him in ragged wisps, thinning around his head and tentacles. For a moment, he looked weakened enough that the fight seemed close to ending. Then the air around him changed.
Sora felt it first.
It was not merely magic. Darkness leaked from Adegast in a slow, heavy pulse, spreading through the fog as if something deeper inside him had opened. It sank into the cracks of the platform and crawled along the ground in faint black tendrils, nearly invisible beneath the mist unless one knew what to look for. Sora's grip tightened on the Keyblade. The others only saw Adegast's body begin to shake.
Then Adegast laughed.
The sound broke out of him in sharp, rising bursts, swelling into a manic cackle that filled the dead lake and shivered through the puppets still dangling from his control. Eda's eyes narrowed, her staff lifted higher. Nevareth shifted his footing, jaw clenched, while Luz hugged King closer without realizing it.
"What's so funny?" Eda snapped.
Adegast raised his tentacles, the ends curling above him like hooked ropes. The darkness thickened around his body, and Sora stepped forward, recognizing too late that the demon's strength had not faded—it had changed.
Before Adegast could strike, something large flew out from the edge of the walkway.
A rock slammed into his eye with a hard, ugly crack.
Everything stopped for half a breath.
Adegast froze with one tentacle raised. Eda stared. Nevareth stared. Sora turned just enough to see Luz standing with one arm still extended from the throw, her face tight with fear and determination. King looked up at her, then at the demon, his ears slowly lifting.
Adegast's injured eye squeezed shut. His whole body quivered, first with shock, then with fury. "You insolent little pest!"
The tentacles lashed outward faster than before. Sora moved to intercept, but the darkness rippled under the stone, and the attack came from too many directions at once. One tentacle burst up behind Eda and snapped around her waist and arms, pinning her staff before she could swing it. Another coiled around Nevareth, trapping his sword arm against his side and lifting him off the ground as he snarled through his teeth. A third seized King, wrapping him tightly enough to make him yelp, while another looped around Luz and dragged her off her feet.
"Luz!" Sora lunged toward her, but Adegast pulled them all higher, suspending them in front of him like prizes.
The tentacles tightened.
Eda grunted as the pressure crushed around her ribs. Nevareth's face twisted in pain, his sword trapped uselessly against his hip. King kicked and squirmed, his small claws scraping at the slick appendage holding him, while Luz gasped as the coils squeezed around her chest and arms. The sight stopped Sora in place, his body tensed to move, but his mind was forced to count every hostage, every angle, every possible strike that might hurt them instead of saving them.
Adegast's laughter returned, louder now, ragged with anger and triumph. "Look at you, Eda's lackey. So ready to play hero. So desperate to save them." His remaining tentacles spread behind him, their points turning toward Sora one by one. "You will share everyone's fate!"
The tentacles shot forward.
Sora's eyes sharpened. He planted his foot, raised the Keyblade, and drew the spell into a single focused command.
"Stopga!"
[End Vim and Vigor - Kingdom Hearts HD 2.5 ReMIX Extended Soundtrack]
The world froze.
The charging tentacles halted inches from his body, their slick tips suspended in the air with the force of their attack still trapped inside them. Adegast's mouth remained open mid-cackle, his one good eye stretched wide in frozen malice. Eda, Nevareth, Luz, and King hung motionless in the demon's grasp, held in the same painful positions but spared the next crushing squeeze. Even the fog stopped moving. The drifting scraps of illusion, the falling dust, the ripples of darkness along the cracked stone—all of it hung in place as if the clearing had been sealed inside glass.
Sora moved.
Light gathered around his shoes as he pushed off the stone, and the still world blurred around him. His body crossed the space with a speed that turned motion into a streak, Flowmotion carrying him up the length of one frozen tentacle as though it were a rail. The Keyblade flashed once, cutting cleanly through the appendage holding Eda. Before she could fall, before time could even remember gravity, Sora caught her under one arm and shifted again, planting one foot against the airless stillness of another tentacle and springing toward the ground. He set her down carefully near the edge of the platform, her frozen body braced upright against the stone, then launched himself back into motion.
The second pass took him toward King. Sora spun around the tentacle that held him, blade slicing through the coil in a clean arc. King remained locked in place for the smallest instant before Sora caught him against his side, carrying him down and setting him beside Eda with the same care. The little demon's face stayed fixed in startled outrage, mouth open mid-yelp, arms still raised from the struggle that had stopped around him.
Sora turned again before his feet fully settled. Nevareth hung higher, bound tightly with his sword arm pinned against him, his narrow eyes frozen in fury. Sora vaulted from one severed length of tentacle to another, the Keyblade trailing light as he cut through the bindings around Nevareth's chest and arm. The moment the coils loosened, Sora caught the front of his strap and guided him down, placing him on his feet with his sword still in hand.
Only Luz remained.
Sora crossed the platform in a flash, the frozen fog parting around him without moving. The tentacle around Luz had squeezed her arms tight against her sides, her face caught in the instant between fear and breath. Sora's expression tightened as he reached her. The Keyblade turned once in his hand, and he cut through the coil with a sharp, controlled strike, catching her before the severed appendage could drop. He carried her down to the stone and set her beside the others, making sure her feet were planted and the last of the tentacle had fallen away from her.
He stood among them for a moment, checking each one in turn. Eda's staff was still trapped in her frozen hand but no longer pinned. King was free. Nevareth's sword arm was clear. Luz was safe on the ground. Adegast, still frozen at the center of the platform, remained raised in triumph he no longer possessed, all his severed tentacles suspended around him in pieces that had not yet learned they were cut.
Sora returned to his place in front of the group, his Keyblade lowered but ready. He drew in a breath and released the spell.
Time resumed.
[Play Link to All HD Disc 3 - 09 - Kingdom Hearts 3D Dream Drop Distance OST]
The severed tentacles fell all at once, slapping wetly against the stone and collapsing in twitching heaps around the platform. Eda stumbled half a step and caught herself, blinking as the shift struck her. King dropped onto his rear with a small grunt, then looked wildly around as if the world had skipped a line without warning. Nevareth's boots scraped against the stone as he steadied himself, sword suddenly free in his hand. Luz gasped, one hand flying to her chest as she realized she was no longer in the air.
"What just—?" she began, looking from Sora to the fallen tentacles.
Adegast looked just as confused. His cackle faltered into a broken sound as his body lurched forward, his remaining posture collapsing under the sudden absence of support. Then the pain reached him. His one good eye widened, and he stared down at the stumps where his tentacles had been. "What happened to me?!"
His shriek tore through the clearing, sending birds scattering from the upper branches. Darkness flickered around him, unstable now, leaking from his body in ragged bursts instead of steady pulses. The puppets that remained sagged and collapsed, their false life draining away as Adegast trembled in place.
Sora turned his head toward Nevareth, who stood nearby with his sword ready, still catching up to the impossible rescue but already focused on the enemy. "Would you care to do the honors?"
Nevareth paused, the question settling across his face. His grip tightened on the hilt, and for a moment his usual melodramatic sharpness gave way to something more solemn. Adegast had tricked Luz, trapped Eda and King, endangered Sora, and stained the forest with the same kind of predatory cruelty Nevareth had sworn himself against. He drew one slow breath and lifted his sword.
"Gladly."
He leapt forward, crossing the broken stone in a single swift charge. Adegast tried to recoil, but without his tentacles he could only jerk backward uselessly. Nevareth's blade flashed through the pale light and struck across the demon's forehead in a clean, decisive slash.
Adegast screamed again, but the sound changed as his body began to collapse inward. His false wizard form folded away, the octopus-like mass shrinking rapidly until the towering demon dwindled into a small, ugly squid shape that flopped weakly on the stone, its rage reduced to faint, furious sputtering.
Nevareth landed in front of him, cloak and strap settling as he straightened. From his side, he pulled a glass capsule, its metal ends catching the dim light of the clearing. He crouched, seized the shrunken squid with the flat of his blade and one gloved hand, and forced it into the container before it could wriggle free. The capsule sealed with a sharp click.
He rose slowly, holding the glass prison up where the others could see it. Inside, the tiny Adegast pressed against the curved wall in helpless fury.
Nevareth's expression remained grave, but satisfaction sharpened the edge of his voice. "Victory is ours."
[End Link to All HD Disc 3 - 09 - Kingdom Hearts 3D Dream Drop Distance OST]
The platform remained surrounded by fog after Adegast's defeat, though it no longer moved with the same malicious weight. The dead lakebed stretched beyond the circular stone in pale, broken layers, and the enormous trees around the clearing stood like dark columns in the blue-gray haze. At the center of the platform, the group had gathered where the last traces of the battle lay scattered—severed tentacles dissolving into dark residue, broken puppet pieces collapsing into ordinary scraps, and the sealed glass capsule in Nevareth's hand holding the furious little squid that had once filled the clearing with threats.
For several seconds, no one spoke. Eda stood with one hand planted on her hip and the other still holding her staff, her hair settling after the flight and the fight. King stayed close to Luz, clutching at her sleeve with enough determination to pretend he had decided to remain nearby. Luz rubbed at her wrists where the bracelets had become cuffs, glancing now and then toward the place where the false Celestial Staff had vanished. Sora stood a little apart from them with the Keyblade lowered, his shoulders relaxing now that the immediate danger had passed.
Then the silence broke all at once.
"YOU STOPPED TIME!? YOU CAN DO THAT!?"
Everyone but Sora had shouted it together, the sound echoing across the platform and bouncing faintly off the surrounding trunks. Luz stared at him with her mouth open, her earlier fear swallowed up by disbelief. Eda's brows had lifted so high that her expression became nearly offended by the existence of the information. King pointed at Sora with both claws, and even Nevareth, usually determined to meet every surprise with brooding composure, looked as though someone had pulled the foundation out from under reality and asked him to admire the architecture.
Sora drew his shoulders in slightly and rubbed the back of his head, offering them a sheepish smile. "Yeah." He glanced at the Keyblade, then back at them, his tone almost apologetic for how extraordinary the explanation sounded. "It's one of my spells. Stop, Stopra, and Stopga. Each increase has stronger and longer range and effect. There's also Stopza, but I haven't mastered that one yet."
Their reactions did not improve with explanation. Luz's eyes grew wider as she slowly turned the words over in her head. King's jaw dropped. Nevareth lowered his sword an inch, looking from Sora to the space where the frozen tentacles had been, as if replaying the impossible rescue and finding no suitable dramatic phrase large enough to contain it. Eda stared at Sora in open disbelief, her staff slowly lowering until its end touched the stone.
"Why didn't you use that when fighting Wrath yesterday?" she asked, incredulous.
Sora gave a small shrug, the answer simple to him even if it did nothing to satisfy her. "It wasn't necessary."
Eda looked at him for another moment, then let out a rough breath and dragged a hand down her face. "Kid, I am gonna need a list of what you can do before we deal with another threat like this again."
Luz, despite everything, managed a faint smile at that, though it faded when her gaze moved toward Nevareth and the capsule he held. The small squid inside pressed against the glass, its eye narrowed in furious defeat. Nevareth studied it with a solemn satisfaction, then slipped the capsule into a secure pouch at his side.
"The deceiver is captured," he said. "His web has collapsed, and the law may now place its cold hand upon his vile head."
Eda leaned toward Sora, one brow rising, to speak in a hushed tone. "Is he seriously that melodramatic?" Sora shrugged with a sheepish grin.
Nevareth checked the strap across his chest, adjusted the golden guard over his shoulder, and turned as though preparing to leave the platform and take the forest road back toward whatever business had brought him here. Before he could go far, Sora stepped forward.
"I saw the wanted poster," Sora said. "Of Adegast. That means you were after him, right?"
Nevareth stopped, his back to them for a moment. The fog curled around his boots, and when he turned again, his expression had returned to its usual guarded calm. "Yes. He was a puppeteer deceiver. A parasite of false hope and borrowed faces. He has lured merchants, travelers, and lonely fools into his schemes for longer than the local authorities care to admit."
Luz's shoulders sank slightly. She looked down and away, the memory of the glowing message on the map returning with a sting sharper than the chains had left on her wrists.
Nevareth watched them for another moment, then inclined his head slightly. "This coalition was unforeseen, but I appreciated your assistance."
Sora smiled at him. "Great working with you too. Maybe we'll see each other around sometime."
Nevareth's mouth tightened in what almost became a smirk. He turned his face aside with a soft, dignified "hmph," though the smile broke through anyway. "Perhaps. Should fate suffer boredom again, it may throw our roads together."
He stepped away across the platform, boots striking the stone with measured purpose, the glass capsule secured at his side. The fog swallowed the lower half of his figure first, then the rest as he crossed the walkway and moved toward the trees. For a while, the others watched him go, his silhouette narrowing between the enormous trunks until the forest took him completely.
Eda noticed before Luz said anything. She had been walking with her staff over one shoulder, her posture loose now that danger had passed, but her eyes shifted toward Luz's lowered face and stayed there. "You hurt somewhere?"
Luz shook her head, though she did not look up right away. "No. I'm just confused."
Eda slowed slightly, matching her pace. "Thinking of calling it quits, huh?"
Luz's fingers tightened around the strap. The forest floor was uneven beneath her feet, scattered with leaves that crumbled softly under her shoes, and somewhere above them something fluttered through the branches. "This place is nothing like I imagined."
Eda watched her for a moment, then looked ahead as if considering the shape of the evening itself. "Hmm. Maybe not here. But come with me. I got something to show you."
Not long after, the trees fell away beneath them. Eda's staff carried her, Luz, and King upward into the open air, the wind tugging at their clothes as they rose above the forest. Luz sat blindfolded behind Eda, holding on carefully while King crouched nearby, his small claws gripping the staff. Sora flew beside them under his own power, arms folded as he hovered close enough to keep pace, his gaze moving across the vast landscape opening below.
Eda guided Owlbert higher until the air grew cooler, then steadied the staff. "Ok, you can look."
Luz reached up and pulled the blindfold away. The fabric slipped into her lap, and for a moment she could only stare.
"Whoa!"
The Boiling Isles stretched beneath them in the fading light of sunset, wide and strange and impossibly alive. Purple-blue waters curved between reddish cliffs and scattered islands, catching the last orange and gold from the sky. Jagged stone formations rose from the land in crooked shapes, their edges softened by mist drifting through the lower valleys. Far beyond, the colossal remains of the Titan dominated the horizon, its ribs arching over the land and water like the frame of an ancient world, while its skull rested in the distance beneath a sky turning slowly from pink into deep violet. Small lights glimmered in far-off places, and a few faint stars had begun to appear overhead.
Eda let the silence hold long enough for Luz to take it in. Then she spoke, her voice softer than it had been on the ground. "The bones of the Isles. Up close, the Isles can be slimy-"
"And very stinky," King added from beside Luz.
"And gross," Eda continued. "But if you look at it from a different perspective..."
They looked out together as the staff drifted steadily in the evening air. Sora hovered close by, his shoes angled slightly downward as the wind moved around him. Luz's eyes lifted from the cliffs and waters to the sky above the Titan's skull. The first stars had grown brighter there, tiny against the deepening color, and as they watched, a shooting star crossed the open sky in a thin, bright streak before vanishing.
Luz's voice came quietly. "It's beautiful."
King leaned against her side, his earlier complaints gone for the moment. "Yeah."
Luz stayed looking outward, the blindfold still gathered in her hands. After a while, she turned her head slightly toward Eda. "Eda, how did you know that wizard was lying?"
[Play The Owl House - Witches Before Wizards - Score Excerpts (12:27)]
Eda rested one hand against the staff, her hair shifting in the wind. "Look, kid, everyone wants to believe they're 'chosen'. But if we all waited around for a prophecy to make us special, we'd die waiting. And that's why you need to choose yourself."
Luz absorbed that without answering at first. The wind moved past them, carrying the damp smell of distant water and the sharper scent of the cliffs below. Sora glanced toward her, then back to the horizon, letting the words settle where they needed to.
At last, Luz looked up again. "Does that mean you'll give me a magic staff of my own?"
Eda's mouth tugged into a small, knowing smile. "Not yet. But... someday."
Luz leaned gently against her, and Eda did not move away. King remained pressed against Luz's other side, while Sora floated beside them in the open air, the sunset fading slowly across the vast bones of the Isles. Together, they watched as the last of the daylight softened over the Titan and the first true night gathered above them.
[End The Owl House - Witches Before Wizards - Score Excerpts]