Dark Seeker Saga
The Xehanort Saga is the phase of the Kingdom Hearts series that details the numerous battles between Sora and Xehanort, although the conflict has escalated to the point that several other characters have been dragged into the middle.
Series' director Tetsuya Nomura has said that the Xehanort Saga is merely the first phase of the series, which will continue afterwards.
Overview
Xehanort, a young man from Destiny Islands, yearns for a way to leave his home for a more adventurous life. Eventually, he manages to do so (by means unknown) and comes to live in the Land of Departure, where he becomes a Keyblade wielder under a Keyblade Master and befriends a fellow apprentice, Eraqus. Xehanort and Eraqus eventually come to see each other as brothers, but their friendship is shattered by their conflicting beliefs in the balance of Light and Darkness. While Eraqus believes Darkness must be destroyed, Xehanort believes Darkness can be controlled with enough training. Xehanort and Eraqus eventually pass the Mark of Mastery exam and are deemed Keyblade Masters, but Xehanort, now having learned a lot about Keyblade lore, particularly the events surrounding the famed X-Blade and Kingdom Hearts itself, Xehanort sets out on a mission to merge with Kingdom Hearts and remake the universe in his own image, despite the lives it will cost. His first step is to find a vessel to transfer his heart into from his now-aged body, but his apprentice, Ventus, proves to be too frail for this, so he instead decides to use Ventus for the χ-blade by extracting the Darkness from his heart into a separate being, Vanitas. Though Ventus survives the ordeal, Xehanort takes him to Eraqus to be trained in Light. In the process, Xehanort meets Eraqus's two students, Terra and Aqua, and sets his eyes on Terra as his new vessel.
Four years later, Xehanort begins to manipulate Terra into turning against his friends and loved ones and luring him toward the Darkness. First, he sabotages Terra's Mark of Mastery exam and then stages his own disappearance. Along the way, Xehanort comes into contact with an evil fairy, Maleficent, and tricks her into beginning a quest to gather the Seven Princesses of Heart, maidens with no darkness in their hearts; they needed to be taken out to leave the worlds vulnerable for when he used darkness to reorganize them. Once "found" by Terra, Xehanort "guides" Terra in the ways of the darkness, and stages his own kidnapping at the hands of a lackey, Braig, in order to provoke Terra's anger and vulnerability to darkness. Along his way, Terra comes across Destiny Islands, where he meets a young boy, Riku, and chooses him as his successor to wield the Keyblade one day. Meanwhile, on Xehanort's orders, Vanitas goads Ventus into chasing after Terra, who Ventus has come to love like a brother, in order to make him stronger for the χ-blade. Through Xehanort's machinations, Eraqus almost ends Ventus but is stopped by Terra, who battles him and injures him, while Xehanort delivers the final blow. With his plans revealed, Xehanort goads Terra to meet him at the site of the Keyblade War, the Keyblade Graveyard, while Ventus and Aqua are instructed to do the same.
At the Keyblade Graveyard, after an epic battle, Xehanort finally puts his plans into action. He transfers his heart into Terra's body and becomes Terra-Xehanort, but Terra's Keyblade Armor comes to life as the Lingering Will and defeats Xehanort. Vanitas succeeds in possessing Ventus and creating the X-Blade, but Aqua, aided by fellow Keyblade apprentice, Mickey Mouse, manages to defeat Vanitas and shatter the χ-blade, creating a corridor which scatters everyone present to different locations. Xehanort ends up in the Radiant Garden, but with his memories slowly leaving due to Terra's heart resisting him. Aqua finds him and manages to defeat Xehanort after an intense battle, allowing Terra to gain the upper hand, but Xehanort retaliates by stabbing himself with his own Keyblade and falling into the Realm of Darkness. Aqua sacrifices herself to save Terra-Xehanort, ending up trapped in the Darkness. Xehanort, now with apparent amnesia, is found by Ansem the Wise and taken in as one of his apprentices.
A year later, however, Xehanort slowly begins to regain his memories as Master Xehanort. He and Braig successfully manipulate Ansem into experimenting with the heart in order to produce Heartless, and when Ansem refuses, they and the other apprentices, Dilan, Even, Aeleus and Ienzo banish him to the Realm of Nothingness and Xehanort steals Ansem's name. Eventually, Xehanort regains his memories completely and apparently turns himself and the other apprentices into Nobodies, becoming the founders of Organization XIII, a group of thirteen Nobodies with the intention of harboring a piece of Master Xehanort's heart as an alternate way of creating the χ-blade. But knowing full well that over time, the Nobodies will begin to develop hearts and personalities of their own, Xehanort's Heartless, Ansem travels back in time and contacts Xehanort as a young man, granting him the ability to travel through time and begin gathering various incarnations of himself together as a backup plan.
Now split into a Heartless and a Nobody, Xehanort continues his plans in two different directions. As Ansem, he leads an army of Heartless across several worlds in order to swallow as many as possible, while as the Nobody Xemnas, he begins searching for more Nobodies to join Organization XIII.
Nine years later, however, Xehanort's plans begin to fall apart due to the intervention of another Keyblade wielder, Sora, who defeated Maleficent and her council of villains. At this time, Ansem tricked Riku and stole his body from him to become one of the vessels needed in Xehanort's plan. He then tried to eleminate the Princesses of Heart, who'd been gathered by Maleficent, once the Keyhole was opened. However, he was prevented from doing so thanks to intervention by Riku. Seemingly ignoring the princesses then, Ansem went to End of the World to open the Door to Darkness. Unfortunately for him, Sora followed and weakened him after a long, grueling battle. Ansem called out for Kingdom Hearts to enpower him with darkness, but much to his horror, light powered out of the doors and destroyed him. However, enough of Ansem managed to linger on in Riku's heart, hoping to possess him once more and become one of the vessels Xehanort needed for his plans. Unfortunately for the Heartless, Riku managed to destroy him and any remaining traces of him were wiped from existence thanks to the explosion of Ansem's machine.
Mean
while, Xemnas completes his Organization, the thirteenth member being Sora's Nobody, Roxas, who can also wield the Keyblade and use it to gather hearts for an artificial Kingdom Hearts. As a backup to ensure a Keyblade wielder loyal to their cause, Xemnas creates a Replica of Sora, Xion, for the purpose of absorbing Roxas and becoming an obedient clone of Sora, but this plan falls apart when Xion develops her own personality and is defeated in battle by Roxas. However, Xemans's plans fall apart thanks to continued interference with them; members of the Organization are slain one-by-one either by Sora or others, preventing him from creating more than one addintional clone, and his Kingdom Hearts is damaged thanks to an explosion from a machine used by Ansem the Wise. Because he knew the Keyblade weilders would not cooperate and collect new hearts to replace the ones that had been lost, Xemans merged with his Kingdom Hearts to gain the power he believed was necassary to get rid of Sora and the others. However, he was slain by Sora and Riku after a long battle.
With the destruction of both Ansem and Xemnas, it would appear that the madness of Xehanort has been put to a rest forever, but it is soon revealed that this is merely the beginning, as this will inevitably lead to the revival of Master Xehanort himself; since both his Nobody and Heartless have been destroyed, they will eventualy merge back together. To counter him, retired Keyblade Master Yen Sid puts Sora and Riku through the Mark of Mastery exam in order to make them strong enough to defeat Xehanort and his new Organization, the exist of the latter he kept to himself. But Xehanort's time-travelling counterpart, Young Xehanort, intercepts them during the exam, and succeeds in damaging Sora's heart in order for him to be used as the last of the vessels. Having learned of an alternate way to forge the χ-blade, Xehanort plans to pit thirteen darknesses, composed of himself and twelve other incarnations or clones of him (including the revived Ansem and Xemnas) against the princesses of heart. But as Xehanort prepares to place a fragment of his heart inside Sora, his plans are foiled by reinforcements and he is forced to retreat with his incomplete Organization. To protect the Princesses of Heart, Yen Sid plans to counter with seven Keyblade weilders, to this end, the revived Lea becomes one and Kairi is brought to him to be trained to use hers. Master Xehanort, in the meantime, manages to find another worthy vessel and completes his Organization.
Games featured
- Kingdom Hearts II Logo.png
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Main characters
Protagonists
- King Mickey KHREC.png
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