I mean, the fact that no one uses their armor and that Aqua never summons her old Keyblade again are reason enough for me to doubt she got her old one back at the end of the game. Like, nothing proves she did, meanwhile as for the opposite the absence is telling.
It's not a matter of which case was more severe, Terra's was just so much different than Aqua's. LW by itself and the fact that it was carrying Terra's old Keyblade around are enough to make any connection between the two kinda impossible.
Aqua has no active LW to return to her, no Guardian-like state and her Keyblade and armor are in a very specific location laying around.
I'm not sure anything confirms that you have to physically get your hands on the armor, especially since in DDD Ventus' heart makes it appear inside Sora's. Xemnas conjures No Heart and I'm not sure he actually had it on the fly right at that moment.
So if we wanna count the Riku fight in DDD as something with lasting consequences that answers why Ven never gets into his old armor, Terra doesn't use it because "Terra" never fights, he comes back when the fighting is over save for Sora, Riku, Mickey and D&G.
That leaves Aqua, who had all the reasons to conjure her armor yet still doesn't.
Same goes for the Keyblade, it has been shown how it can travel and even persist without direct contat with its owner more than once, and in the Final Episode Aqua could use both her own (to battle Terranort) and Master's Defender (to seal the Land of Departure) during the same time frame, meaning Master's Defender didn't "override" her own.
Ignoring the obvious "they just didn't want to focus on those accessory components" for argument's sake, I can only infer that both armor and Keyblade were somehow "inactive" and powerless, unable to return to her.
But why is that, it's never explained or implied.
Aaaw, I see. Honestly, I can agree with that for the most part. I won't deny that the absence of both her Keyblade and armor is pretty questionable. You would at least expect it to be referenced in some way, but they never even allude to the idea of her getting them back at any point (even after the battle). It's odd and, frankly annoying now that I think about it. Still, you could technically argue that no one among her allies knew it's location until Terra himself was restored (assuming he had any of Xemnas' memories). That is of course, if it was simply a matter of physically obtaining the armor/Keyblade and not just summoning it back to her. On that note, we see the Master's Defender persist (like you said) despite being separated from its wielder, and said wielder having their body destroyed. Aqua was then able to pick it up and use it effectively, so it didn't seem to become inactive or lack it's original power once something bad happened to it's wielder. And if that's the case, doesn't this show that if a Keyblade is physically retrieved by another wielder (let alone it's original, alive wielder), that it would become/still be "active" once it's claimed? Kinda like how Aqua snatched Mickey's Keyblade and was able to do all of her usual things with it.
Yes, she didn't, and probably couldn't, resumon her Keyblade back to her once she escaped the RoD, but just because it was out of her reach doesn't necessarily mean the blade lost its power (it's not broken or anything I don't think). It's tie to it's wielder was definitely severed though based on the evidence, I agree with that. But so was Eraqus', and it worked just fine. Either way, if she does ever go to retrieve it, do you think it's normal properties would be restored? Or would she ultimately have to get a new one?
Last edited: