Aqua pushed open the door to her room, her body aching with exhaustion but her mind refusing to settle. Sleep had evaded her all night, her thoughts a storm of worry — about Skuld, about Ventus, about Terra most of all. She wanted nothing more than to sink into silence and solitude.
But she froze in the doorway.
Helios sat on her bed.
He wasn't lying down. He wasn't even pretending to rest, though the bandages wrapping his torso were still stained faintly through with blood. His posture was almost casual — legs stretched out, arms crossed loosely. He looked like a man who had been waiting for her.
Her breath caught, and her immediate instinct was irritation. "You should be resting. You're barely even recovered."
Helios turned his head toward her. His face was pale, his eyes shadowed by fatigue, but his faint smile carried the same sharpness as ever. "Rest can wait. I'm sure you've been carrying questions since the moment you walked back into this mansion. Questions you'd rather demand answers to than let fester. I thought I'd save us both time by coming to you."
Aqua stepped fully inside, closing the door behind her. Her hands tightened at her sides. She didn't like how calm he sounded — too calm for someone who wanted to explain things. He would most likely pretend to answer and avoid answering what she wanted to know.
"And what makes you so sure I want to hear anything from you?" she asked, her voice low.
Helios tilted his head slightly. "Because you saved my life. That earns you something from me. I'm a fair person after all. So here's my offer: I'll answer one question. Fully. No half-truths. No riddles. No games. Whatever it is — I'll tell you."
The words hung in the air.
Aqua's chest tightened. She had thought of dozens of questions since returning — why Skuld clung to him so fiercely, who and what was Kurai, what darkness had Helios gotten himself tangled with this time. But all of those paled next to the one name that burned in her heart every day.
She stepped closer, blue eyes narrowing. "Then answer me this. What happened to Terra? Where is he?"
For the first time, Helios didn't respond immediately. His gaze flickered downward, and the half-smile faded. He exhaled slowly, like the weight of the question pressed heavily even on him.
"I told you before," he said at last, his tone softer, "no matter what you do, Aqua… you cannot simply save him now."
Her nails bit into her palms. "You just said there would be no lies or half-truths, so answer. Tell me what happened."
Helios looked up at her again, and there was no mocking in his face, no amusement. Just quiet, tired honesty.
"Terra lost himself the moment Master Xehanort placed his heart inside him. The one you fought, before you fell into the Realm of Darkness — that wasn't your Terra anymore. That was Terra-Xehanort, as I like to call him. Just think of it as a Xehanort who just looks like Terra."
Aqua's stomach turned, but she forced herself to listen.
"After that, he lost his memory," Helios continued. "He wandered into Radiant Garden — the same world where I first met Skuld. With no memory of who he was, he went by a new name. Xehanort. He became an apprentice to a man named Ansem the Wise."
Aqua stiffened. She had heard of Ansem the Wise only in fragments during her journey, but never like this.
"Ansem was studying the nature of hearts," Helios went on, "but he saw how dangerous it was. He tried to put a stop to it. Terra… no, Xehanort… betrayed him. He went behind Ansem's back and continued the research in secret."
Aqua's heart pounded. Her voice shook as she interrupted. "Research? What kind of research?"
Helios' eyes darkened. "He extracted hearts from people. The experiments weren't theoretical. They were put into practice. He used people as subjects. That's what created so much of the tragedy in Radiant Garden." He paused, his gaze sharpening. "Skuld was one of them."
The breath left Aqua's lungs. "Skuld…" She remembered the girl healing Helios tirelessly, remembered her determination. She could hardly reconcile it with the image of her trapped in experiments. "You're telling me… Terra did this?"
"No." Helios shook his head firmly. "Terra was gone. What you would call Terra was already buried beneath Xehanort's will and darkness. But the hands that carried it out, the knowledge that drove it — they were still his. And that's the truth you have to face."
Silence pressed in on the room. Aqua felt her throat tighten, her body trembling. She wanted to deny it, to reject the image Helios painted, but the conviction in his tone left little room for doubt.
Finally, in a whisper, she asked, "So there's no way to bring him back?"
Helios looked at her for a long moment. His answer came measured, heavy. "Not the way you remember him."
The words hit harder than any blade. Aqua's knees felt weak, and she had to steady herself against the edge of the desk beside the bed. For years she had clung to the hope that Terra could be reached, that his light still lingered somewhere within the darkness. To hear otherwise was like watching that hope shatter in her hands.
She looked at Helios again, her eyes glistening but sharp. "Then what am I supposed to do?"
Helios didn't answer yet. His expression was unreadable, but the heaviness in his gaze told her he wasn't finished.
The silence stretched, heavy with everything left unsaid, until Aqua's whisper cut through again:
"If there's even a chance… tell me."