I've also brought this up a few times as it seems to be really blatant that
[FONT=Verdana]Nomura is already head-over-heels into the new saga with his thoughts and concepts.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana]So much in fact that he simply rushed the Dark Seeker saga to its end in the most quick and "flat" way possible.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana]Every character not named Sora is reduced to background candy and the whole "saving characters" is all crammed into the last quarter of the game and treated like working down a check list.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana]Beyond the admittedly well-done reunion scenes between the two other main trios there is nothing more done with those characters. They just stand there and sometimes give an one-liner (or in Roxas' and Ven's case give a meme-worthy glance at each other), even if someone can bring up the argument there not being the time for them all to interact, mingle and bond with each other, we do not get to see them fight together to end Xehanort either.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana]Not to mention that this could have been avoided if they had saved some of the characters before the big final clash which at least in Aqua's, Ven's and Naminé's case could have been possible with a little shift in pacing.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana]The whole bullshit with Aqua being forcibly darkified had only the single purpose to drag stuff out and prevent her and Ventus joining the active characters earlier.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana][/FONT]
As for the Power of Waking,
[FONT=Verdana]doesn't Mickey also say something along the lines of that this power isn't meant to chase disembodied hearts around? Riku proposing to meet Yen Sid and "locate Kairi" also goes into the same direction and if I remember correctly in the Re: Coded Mickey and Yen Sid speak about locating the hearts of the BBS trio and being close to discover where Ven's is.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana]From this I deduce that the correct way of using the Power of Waking is to locate the heart you want to wake FIRST and only THEN activate the power for short bursts, get in and wake that heart, then go back.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana]In DDD they also speak about the danger of getting lost into "the deep abyss" yourself if you want to save a heart i.e. when Mickey volunteers to bring Sora back in the end and Yen Sid states Riku has the better chance due to already having experience with diving into Sora's heart.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana]When Sora uses the power in KH III to wake Ven he can do so without any ill effects because Ven's heart is right there inside himself.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana]Going by this apparently the way Sora does it is activating the power, going in and then running around searching for the heart(s) he wants to save for extended time which of course increases the risks and that in turn lines up with what Young Xehanort says.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana]Going to Yen Sid, locate Kairi's heart (Xion already stated that she knows Kairi's fine and maybe she could have even helped with the locating) and then bring her back with a single use of the Power of Waking as Riku suggested would have been the way to do it with the least risks for everyone but Sora just had to be stubborn and do it "his" way.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana]And that folks is one of the reasons why he isn't officially a Master yet.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana]Sora's intentions are indeed almost always pure and with an aim to help, but there's neither a strategy nor a risk calculation to it and thus it can have ill side effects.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana]This time it affects mostly Sora himself but it can also be that others close to him will also suffer some of those side effects, and that's what Xigbar in Olympus was pointing out.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana]In DDD Sora already fell into the deep abyss once and if I recall correctly Young Xehanort implied this would happen again.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana]When Riku and Ansem SoD talk in DDD there is the statement that the Realm of Sleep and the Deep Abyss are definitely connected and there is apparently a connection to the RoD too as in KH III there is talk from Mickey about how Aqua fell even deeper.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana]Sora ending up in Shibuya I could actually see being Joshua's work. In DDD he states that both Sora and Riku helped Neku and the others return by connecting with them so this could now be the whole thing reversed by Joshua, Neku and the TWEWY gang locating Sora's heart in the Deep Abyss and guiding/transferring it to Shibuya. Riku is connected with them too so maybe they'll try to guide him over too so he can repeat the feat from DDD to bring Sora back.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana]The only big mysteries in this scenario are how the MoM and that Yozora-kid from Verum Rex play into it.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana][/FONT]
Regarding that part from the ending:
[FONT=Verdana]The main idea is that even if he doesn't remember Ventus would feel a connection and be drawn to the Chirithy since as Naminé said in CoM already, memories are immortal and never truly lost, only possibly buried and out of conscious reach.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana]Independent from this I'd say Ven is generally a person who likes cute things and gets drawn to those. In Union Cross when Brain/Blaine first shows the new Union Leaders drawings of the Spirit Dream Eaters Ven gets totally giddy and excited about them alongside Skuld.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana]In the bigger picture I am certainly convinced that Ven's Chirithy joining TAV is a sort of setup for their next story and character arcs as I doubt Ven would go into all this alone, Terra and Aqua will definitely want to support him.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana]If I recall correctly this is also explained in Union Cross by Ephemer or Blaine. Chirithys are prototypes that have some abilities regular spirits do not possess so maybe existing in the Realm of Light is one of those.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana]Another possibility is that a Chirithy can exist in the RoL due to the bond with its assigned wielder.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana]The main question is how this Chirithy, which waited so long in the Final World, got back to the RoL all of a sudden. Ven was awakened way earlier so theoretically it could have joined Ven even before the final battles with Xehanort.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana]In the Final World itself however it tells Sora that "he" is better off right now and happy with his new friends and implies it would wait until Ven joins him in the Final World some day, so what caused it to change its mind and seek Ven out?[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana]From how it behaves it also looks like it would be content with just watching from afar as it hides behind the tree at first, only jetting over when Ven explicitly invites it.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif][/FONT]