Helios spent the day immersed in the depths of dark magider Malefit’s relentless guidance, followed by hours of p over Merlin’s tomes tthen his grasp on traditional magic. His body ached, and his mind was heavy with exhaustion. It was well past midnight, and although his two houseguests had retreated to their andeered rooms, Helios knew he couldn’t rest yet.

  He had something more pressing to attend to.

  Summoning a dark corridor, Helios stepped through and found himself withierile fines of Ansem’s b. The room was dimly lit, the soft hum of maery a stant presence as he moved toward the tral puter. His gaze flicked briefly to the Heartless in their tai fields, dark creatures lurking withiransparent barriers, their yellow eyes trag him with a predatleam. But he ighem, his focus on the puter. This night, he wasn’t here for them.

  Logging into Xehanort’s at, Helios navigated the system, scrolling through tless files oless and the budding “Nobody” project. Though it was beled as a “heart study,” he knew better. Xehanort and his apprentices were crafting more than simple research—they were pi a twisted sanipute the very essence of hearts. Although Xehanort’s true goal in the end is to bee a heart and a nobody. But among these uling files, he finally found the one he had been seeking.

  Subject X.

  It had taken him multiple visits to track down this elusive file, hidden within the byrinthine system of the b’s database. Helios ope, his eyes narrowing as he sed the details. Ahe Wise’s notes were careful, even humane, detailing basic observations and simple tests. The girl had been studied, not tortured; Ansem had treated her with a measure of dignity. But then Xehanort’s notes appeared, and Helios felt a chill as he read the pnned experiments.

  Xehanort’s proposed methods were invasive, b on sadistic, with nard for the girl or the sequences such acts might cause. If she were lucky, the worst oute would be the loss of her heart. Helios’s stomach twisted as he found a note instrug researchers to correte data from her experiments with data from the “Helios’ experiment.”

  The realization hit him with a cold, hard crity—these bastards had pns to experiment on him too.

  Helios ched his fists, a surge of anger rising within him. These people saw him as nothing more than a tool, a subject to be studied and dissected. For a moment, he felt the overwhelming urge to destroy the entire b, to raze it to the ground. But he forced himself to stay calm. He couldn’t let emotions cloud his judgment, not when he was so close to his first goal.

  Setting aside his anger, Helios tinued sing the file until he fouly what he needed: video footage and yout data of the girl’s holding cell in the underground dungeon. He didn’t o use Lea and Isa’s method of sneaking in through access tunnels; instead, he required a visual of the room itself. The dark corridor required a destination that was known and visualized, and now, he had all the details necessary to pinpoint her location.

  Before he left, Helios took a few final precautions. He cleared the puter logs, ensuring that no trace of his presence remaihen, he installed a virus—a simple program he had desighat would loop the b’s surveilnce footage from midnight to six in the m every day. Satisfied that his tracks were covered, he powered down the puter, opened a dark corridor, and focused on the image of the cell he had just seen.

  In a swirl of darkness, Helios stepped into the sterile white room. The space arse, ical, with a single bed against the wall and a small table beside it. A faint, almost oppressive silence hung in the air. His gaze quickly found the room’s only oct—a girl with long bck hair, wearing a pin white shirt and shorts, her eyes closed iless sleep. A pair of pink star earrings caught the dim light, a tiny touch of color iherwise colorless room.

  The girl stirred as the shadows from Helios’s entrance shifted across the room. Her eyes snapped open, and upon seeing him, she let out a startled shriek, scrambling to the far side of the bed in fright. Helios immediately raised his hands, trying to appear as non-threatening as possible.

  “Shh! Please,” he whispered urgently. “I’m not here to harm you. I’m a friend… a friend of Isa and Lea.”

  The mention of her friends seemed to calm her somewhat, though she still watched him warily, clutg the sheets close as if they could protect her. Helios let out a sigh of relief, gng back at the door to listen for any sounds of approag guards. The silence held, aurned his attention back to the girl, speaking in a softer tone.

  “My name is Helios,” he said, giving her a reassuring smile. “What’s your name?”

  She hesitated, her expression troubled. “I… I don’t know,” she admitted quietly, her voice ced with fusion. “They just call me ‘Subject X’ here. I don’t remember much else.”

  Helios nodded, uanding fshing in his eyes. He knew her real name, but he couldn’t reveal too much too quickly. Instead, he offered a gentle smile. “Your name… is Skuld,” he said softly.

  The girl’s eyes widened in surprise, her voice a hushed whisper. “You… you know me?”

  “Shh,” he cautioned, gng at the dain, ensuring no one had heard. “Yes, I know a little about you, but I ’t expihing right now. I don’t have much time.”

  Skuld looked at him with a mixture of awe and desperation, her eyes pleading for answers. Helios felt a pang of guilt, knowing he would have to leave her with more questions than answers. “Listen, Skuld, I promise I’ll e baorrow. Just stay quiet about my visit—don’t tell anyone, not even Isa and Lea. I’ll expihing soon. Also, don’t let them know your name.”

  She nodded, still bewildered but clearly eager for more, her hands clutg the bed sheets. “You’ll really e back?”

  “I will,” he assured her, his voice steady. “Be patient. I’ll answer some of your questions tomorrow.”

  With a final reassuring smile, Helios turned and opened a dark corridor, vanishing into the shadows before anyone could detect his presence.

  Ba the quiet fines of Merlin’s cottage, Helios reappeared, exhaling a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. His mind was rag, repying the brief enter with Skuld, he seriously thought he would be caught once she screamed.

  Exhausted, Helios leaned against the wall, letting his head rest against the cool wood. Sleep pulled at him, but his mind was too restless, too full of pns and fears. Skuld was the first piece of the age of fairytales that he had mao ect with, a link to a world he barely knew of.

  Yet, an unfortable feeling g him. Skuld disappeared ioryline and he po take her before the world fell to darkness making it look as if she disappeared. Cloud and Sephiroth were separate by the time they met Sora but he had been the oo separate them. He was the one who gave Malefit the pn to take over Radiant Garden. Kurai had summoned Shadows that the apprentices captured and used to start making emblems heartless. One was a ce but four times attern things were moving along the storyline perfectly as if his as were necessary.

  There were only two possibilities ohat the storyline of this world could not be ged and every step would lead to the ending he knew ardless. The other was that the storyline he knew included his as although hidden in the background and the games he had pyed while focused on Sora’s POV pyed out in a world where he had already enacted most of his pn. The first possibility wasn’t worth sidering since he couldn’t influehat ooo much but if the sed were true that meant he wouldn’t be able to access Kingdom Hearts before Master Xehanort. So that meant he had ara 2 years and might o rethink his pn.