#keyblade reader

Waking up in the NRC coffin is the fourth time you've experienced the beginning of an isekai storyline. First was when you were reborn into a modern-ish world of paranormal activity. Your new family surname is Yuu and your family took the revelation of your past life surprisingly well.

Second was when you got your Keyblade (Twilight Dream) and you realised your new life is a disney crossover. This would have been a lot cooler if it didn't also come with an invasion of heartless and other Darkness-aligned monsters. Unfortunately your new disney MC powers come with a tragically orphaned backstory which… honestly you would rather be a generic background character.

But you and your siblings carry on. Your family is moved to the United Lands of Disney, the main world for Keyblade wielders and their allies. Your older sister Addie takes charge of you and your younger brother Zain. The three of you continue your lives in this new world, and you get enrolled in a special Keyblade program. Because at some point in the past people realized that letting untrained kids wander around looking for fights isn't the most efficient use of resources in the war against Darkness.

The third was the only time you had any sort of agency over the matter. In order to graduate and become a fully qualified Keyblade Hero™ wielders travel to a world with a relatively small darkness incursion. They are accompanied by two keyblade heroes who provide backup. The prospective hero is meant to develop a Keychain under the supervision of their seniors. 

Keychains are physical representations of the Wielder’s light and friendship. Keychains can manifest when a Wielder faces off against Darkness alongside non-Wielder friends. Each Keychain is unique but you can predict its powers and appearance based on the friends the Wielder is fighting alongside, and the nature of the danger they are facing. Along with granting special powers and altering the blade's appearance, the wielder gains an outfit that further represents the friendship that created the Keychain. 

So the day of your graduation quest comes and your siblings send you off with the surprise gift of a health charm made from your parents' wedding rings. It's a labour of love and you're left genuinely speechless.

You wind up being sent to a world called Wonderland (you think you can guess what it's going to be like). Your team consisted of yourself, Yuuken Enma, and Yuuya Kuroki. The three of you were introduced to each other by Oujou Yuuna, another Keyblade hero who thought it was funny that so many of the latest batch of Keyblade wielders had some variant of yuu in their name.

Team Yuu might have started as a joke, but over the years you've grown to really appreciate the support and guidance of your seniors. Your gratitude has never been greater than when you discovered that travel out of Wonderland was being sabotaged, and soon entry would also be impossible.  The rest of Team Yuu was already waiting at disney to celebrate your return, when they were informed of the situation they rushed to provide backup.

It feels like every adventure revealed some new stakes that made your journey even more stressful. Turns out Wonderland is the homeworld of Maleficent, a longtime foe of King Mickey, who disappeared a hundred years ago.

The reason she disappeared? The Thorn Fairy was setting up Wonderland to become the staging ground for her ascension as the one True Master of All Darkness. If she goes through with the ritual but it fails, then Wonderland will become overrun by Darkness. It's residents would transform into a potentially more dangerous type of heartless. The world would become the staging ground for a universe-spanning war.

In the unlikely event that she succeeds then a similar situation would play out, just with Maleficent at the head instead of Darkness. 

Thankfully the people back home came up with a solution. Maleficent needed to harness the power of heartless created from six powerful individuals, however if you can slay them in time then the ritual should be disrupted enough to destroy her wards and save Wonderland from heartless-ization.

Only Maleficent knows for certain who’s hearts she intended to use, so Team Yuu splits up to track down the prospective heartless. It shouldn't be too hard, how many powerful, strong willed, darkness imbued people can there be?

A lot. There were a lot. Maleficent must have altered the ULD’s records because this world is definitely not Low-Darkness/Low-risk.

Normally Keyblade heroes are supposed to lay low and keep their full powers hidden from the locals. There's even a whole system for sending heroes to worlds where they are or look like one of the most common sentient races. This is meant to prevent the contamination of worlds that haven't learned to reach out to worlds.

Team Yuu does not have time for that. There are way too many fires that need to be put out for you guys to even think about subtlety. Armies that can be summoned from an indestructible cauldron. A global child trafficking ring that disguises its victims as donkeys. Undead pirates rampaging across the seas. Literally every country has at least one ongoing coup attempt.

(This is not the wonderland Lewis Carroll promised you!)

Even after throwing stealth out the window Team Yuu struggles to catch up with the Thorn Fairy’s machinations.  

Good news: you manage to stop Maleficent from becoming an unstoppable god of darkness. (mostly).

Bad news: the ritual seems to have taken on a mind of its own and it intends to see things through. Maleficent lost control and has been transformed into a heartless and now you have no idea what could happen. 

Team Yuu is ordered to evacuate. Your support back home took advantage of a disruption you caused to create a one-time path for you back home. Plan B is to seal off the now twisted Wonderland and try to quarantine the world.

It's unfortunate, but the only way the world could be saved now is if one of the Yuu’s had a Keychain made from defeating each of the people used to make a heartless for the ritual. They could theoretically use those bonds to stabilize Wonderland and mitigate the worst of darkness's power.

About that… Coincidence is a funny thing. 

Somehow between all the traveling, team ups, and wacky shenanigans, you managed to be present for the creation of every heartless used in Maleficent’s plot. And wouldn't you know it, you have a Keychain formed from each confrontation.

We all know where this is going, but everyone objects anyway. There's no guarantee that it will work, and even if it does there's no guarantee you'll survive. Someone invites Addie and Zain to the call and now they're yelling at you through a gummiphone.

And it's not like you want to die. This mission has been a train wreck from start to finish. The whole world felt like it was hand-crafted to stress you out. 

But despite your nerves, your queasy stomach and shaking hands, you go through with it. Because even if it's a hot mess, Wonderland doesn't deserve to be abandoned. The people you've met deserve the chance to live. Your friends deserve a happily ever after.

There's no way to tell if you succeed, but even as your legs give out and black spots gather at the edge of your vision, you find peace in the knowledge that you did your best.

…

And now here we are. Isekai number four. You survived your heroic sacrifice which is nice, great even!

But also whatever force that kept you alive also sent you to a boarding school that worships your greatest enemies for some fucking reason. 

The world isn't overrun by Darkness, so that's good. But it's definitely not the same world you entered for your graduation. Twisted Wonderland indeed. You quickly learn about the biggest impact of Maleficent's failed ascension.

Blot. 

A type of darkness that takes a liquid form. It feeds off of magic and negative emotions. The biggest difference between blot and regular darkness is that rather than turning people into self-replicating heartless, blot induces a transformation known as overblot. When someone becomes consumed with blot a second being known as a phantom is formed. If the overblot is allowed to progress long enough then the phantom consumes its creator and goes on a rampage.  

It looks like most people can be broken out of an overblot state fairly quickly thanks to an organization called STYX. In the modern era most phantoms are left over from past ages when the world wasn't as united. Still, if a strong enough mage undergoes overblot then their magic can offer it enough power that STYX cannot save them, and the resulting phantom is leagues stronger than the average phantom.

Furthermore, vast swaths of land are rendered inaccessible due to a blot-based miasma that sends people into madness. Only phantoms have been recorded as surviving extended time in miasma-rich areas. There is an ongoing issue of phantoms leaving the miasma to ravage nearby lands. Some texts theorize that powerful phantoms from ages past have survived in the miasma and may one day follow their lesser brethren back to civilization.

Now, this is all a huge problem, but there is one final change that you suspect is also a consequence of Maleficent's meddling. 

During your adventures Team Yuu learned that the Thorn Fairy intended to basically inoculate herself from Darkness in order to prevent it from controlling her. General consensus among Team Yuu was that Maleficent is a sociopath, so imbuing her heart with darkness probably didn't change much of her personality. 

But the average person? That's a different matter. Most of the population is classified as dark-hearts, a condition where emotions you associate with the Light such as compassion, joy, and fulfillment are all dulled. 

You personally suspect this is a side effect of Maleficent's darkness inoculation. The darkness infused into their hearts might prevent the creation of true heartless, but it's also likely suppressing sensations brought on by the Light. But you're a shield, not a staff, so it's just conjecture at this point.

Individuals who are free of contamination are referred to as light-hearts in most texts, though more modern documents have taken to using the term ‘darling’. When a dark-heart is in extended contact with a light-heart the suppression over their positive emotions is lessened, however the degree by which it works is varied.

It would seem that some hearts are more compatible than others, and dark-hearts will quickly become jealous and possessive over compatible light-hearts.

Delving further into the history textbooks reveal that this post-twisting world has not been kind to the light-hearts. 

Twst’s early history is filled with attempts to extract whatever quality it is that allows light-hearts to experience the full breadth of life’s joys. Strategies include blood transfusion, ritualistic sacrifice, and creating cures made from parts ‘harvested’ from light-hearts.

Yikes.

Some would even hunt and eat light-hearts under the belief that doing so would transfer their light to the hunter.

Big fucking yikes!

At least that was easily disproved. Though some cultures still hold up that cannibalism can be romantic if done the right way.

The hell do you mean “the right way”!?!

After it was made clear that no you can't just yoink the goodness from a light-heart the dark-hearts started changing their approach. If they couldn't live without the light-hearts then the light-hearts wouldn't get to live without them.

In theory thats better but in practice things still suck. The normals were still outnumbered and usually found themselves under the authority of more powerful dark-hearts.

It must have been miserable being at the mercy of their quasi-sociopathic, emotionally-stunted peers. It wasn't uncommon for a ruling dark-heart to barter off non-compatible light-hearts as a way of securing favors or alliances with other factions.

As countries developed their own centralized governments they also developed their own laws, however those laws could often be bent or broken in the name of securing your compatible light-heart.

Different regions had different laws on the handling of light-hearts with the most consistent similarity being that dark-hearts were given leanancy when acting in the name of protecting their light-heart companions.

In the modern era treatment of light-hearts is more consistent across the board due to the different countries becoming closer. With this came things like standardized money, language, and rights. A little under two hundred years ago an event called the Darling's Rights movement took place. 

The core of Darling’s Right’s was that the light-hearts are people in need of protection rather than a resource to be exploited. Light-hearts and sympathetic dark-hearts pushed their governments to take a hard stand against brutal practices such as the heart hunts and sentient trafficking.

In the current era things aren't exactly great, but at least the normals seem to have gained some autonomy. You should probably focus on something more relevant to your current circumstances, like how Keyblade wielders are viewed. (Narrator Voice: Foreshadowing is a literary device…)

Records of Keyblades are mixed. Some stories describe you as forces of good that work tirelessly to keep Twisted Wonderland safe from nightmarish monsters. Others decry you as the reason for basically everything wrong in the world. Rude!

The general consensus is somewhere in the middle, viewing you as mysterious figures with unknowable goals. In stories and myths it's a toss up whether the Keyblade wielder will help or harm the protagonist. A bit like how your birth world viewed spirits, funnily enough.

As much as you would like to correct the record, you doubt people would just take your word that Maleficent is the root of all evil and Team Yuu was simply doing your best to stop her. Also Wonderland wasn't meant to know about Keyblades in the first place.

But there's still the issue that you don't have an identity in this era. TW has developed to the point that you can't just call yourself a wandering adventurer and be done with it. 

Somehow you wind up convincing Crowley that you are from a society that was cut off from the rest of the rest of the world due to becoming surrounded by the miasma. Maybe a better hero could have come up with something simpler, or more creative, but you were coming off the shock of waking up in a coffin in a cult that venerates a bunch of narcissistic psychos. You need to do something to avoid multi-world contamination while also explaining away your ignorance of basic things. This is good enough. Yup. 

There is definitely no way your half-assed backstory could come back to bite you. 

Somehow he buys it and the staff are informed of your circumstances. Crowley says it's so that they can help facilitate your transition to “real civilization” but you suspect he’s just the kind of person to excessively delegate.

You’re sent into a moment of heart-stopping despair when you realize that it's been thousands of years since Team Yuu adventures across Wonderland. You recover when your gummiphone still gets a signal to ULD, but only for a few hours at night while you're near a specific mirror in Ramshackle. Not sure how that works but at least you figured it out before following through on your threats to drop out of NRC.

Despite the passage of time you manage to call your sister, and from her you learn that it's only been a few years from the perspective of the rest of the worlds.

The other members of Team Yuu were safely recovered and healed back at ULD. They insisted on going back to save you, but Wonderland had already been sealed off. You felt your heart break as Addie explained how it felt, thinking that you were lost forever.

“I’m sorry. I'm so sorry.”

But King Mickey himself stepped forward with an idea. He said it’s the Keyblade king's duty to do whatever he can to look after his subjects and together with his aids they came up with a way to craft a stabilization field around the now twisted world and then temporarily distance Wonderland from the rest of the universe’s time-space.

The technical details go way over your head, you're a shield not a staff, but if it worked then it worked.

Wait. You've basically been in stasis until TW synced back up with the universe. But time still passed for your family…

“Am I still older than Zain!?”

“Really? That's your biggest concern? Learn to prioritize!”

“Answer the question!”

When you left Disney you had a good four years over your baby brother. It took roughly three years from their time for TW to stabilize. You've narrowly avoided being demoted to the family baby, but it was a close thing. Another round of stasis for any reason could be devastating to the family dynamic!

“You're still such a brat.”

Some might say that you wasted your first call home, and they would be wrong. 

After figuring out when your gummiphone could and couldn't get a signal out of twst you all hash out a plan to get you back home. Reconnecting TW to the Lanes Between will be time consuming, but the hard part is dealing with blot.

The multi-world contamination department is unlikely to ever sign off on a reconnection project until they can confirm that blot and phantoms won't become heartless 2.0 and start spreading to other worlds.

Honestly, you get it.

With the constant arms race between Light and Darkness you can't afford to be careless with new variations. Disney World is literally made up of the remnants of worlds that were shattered by the forces of Darkness.

Disney’s best tinkers are working on a program that would allow your gummiphone to scan blot and phantoms. By sending that information home they can analyse blot and work out a way to neutralize them. The only issue is that the scanner doesn't work from very far away so you'll have to get within punching range.

No worries. It shouldn't be too hard to go beat up some I-cant-believe-its-not-heartless. The Dark Mirror recognizes you but seems willing to cooperate, or at least he didn't spill your identity at the intro ceremony. He’ll probably be amicable to cooperation in the name of saving the world (or at least making it less bad).

To summarize:

Your little brother has almost caught up to you in age (Devastating). You are a girl at an all boys school. You are indefinitely stranded in Twisted Wonderland. You may have accidentally created a new type of Darkness. You become the parent of a pyromaniac cat monster with delusions of grandeur. Some of your classmates want to hunt you for sport.