Thank you! :)

Great to see Maleficent in top form again and using the ark to escape.
So was Darkness impersonating Ava and get Ven to kill Strelitzia or is Ava working together with Darkness? Both options don't make 100% sense.

Things starting to get real, I wonder what the translations will say...

Getting back to the "Darkness, Vanitas, Ventus" discussion: in my honest opinion, I think that Vanitas is an amnesiac Darkness that created a new identity based on his connection to Ven and Sora. In a sense, he's a new Apprentice Xehanort: an amnesiac person with two hearts that developed new memories and then realized who he was.

Here's the gist of the update:

[spoiler]Maleficent reveals to Lauriam that the machine is the "exit" of the data world, before defeating him and taking one of the pods, destroying another in the process. Five remain.

Meanwhile, Brain and the others try to pull more info out of Ventus. They're convinced that Strelitzia's disappearance isn't Ava's doing, but Ventus remembers meeting with Ava in the empty house, and walking with her to an area near the tower. However, Ven has no memories of the events immediately preceding Ava's arrival. When pressed on the missing moments, Ventus' head starts to hurt and Brain suggests returning to the tower for now.[/spoiler]

Looking forward to seeing these translations as I'm now keeping up with this. I'm still holding out that Skuld is the killer.

Ooof, Laurium, poor guy.
I saw someone elses summary too. Ven had pieces of memories of what happened. It really looks like a setup to make Ven seem more and more like the murderer, but I still think he's not. But, I guess whoever darkness is finds him to be a very useful vessel/pawn.

Gosh, is Ven going to be worried now that he did something bad and freak out? Plus, he's kinda the running away type, I'm surprised he hasn't already.

Maleficent actually getting a win over a wielder & a future final boss, who'd a thunk it?

Nobody here said about ven and skuld relation yet I think. I think ven spends the most time with her and in this scene Skuld is the one comforting him first when he has a headache. I hope in future arc they will have good relationship again but who knows.

It's also possible that darkness is the one impersonating as Ava, knocks ventus out, kills Streli and gets the book to give to Ventus
we are told that Ventus is given the book iirc. If he killed her in "darkness" form, he would wake up with book in hand

Funny that Maleficent defeating Lauriam came right after a recent thread wondering if she was even still a legitimate threat, lol

Everyone seems to be automatically assuming Maleficent is the one who knocked Lauriam out when the scene cuts right after and UX has already proved that a looot can happen inbetween scenes.

Boy, Ven sure can hold a lot of amnesia into his tiny head! I believed he was the killer from the very start when he was revealed as a Union Leader, but now the more we get the more I'm inclined to believe it was Skuld instead.

Still, knowing WHO is the killer isn't really important to me as much as knowing WHY. At this point the story is making it seem like the killer might not even have been a bad person, but just a victim of the actual mastermind.

I just checked and there were main story updates planned for both March and April.
Now that the March update has been released in April, will we get another update later this month or just this one?

I was never that interested about the foretellers when all the X stuff started, but I must admit I love the dandelion leaders. Can't wait to know where all of this leads and how it will impact the next games in the 'present' storyline.

The last scene of Lauriam knocked down might be already in the future (or out of data world). Imagine that during the fight with Maleficent, instead of she getting away, it was Lauriam. The ark shall exist at the other side as well as we seen it in KH1. It would be a nice plot twist of their fight in my opinion...

So before I theorized that Ventus being normal was the point of adding him to the Dandelions. I am now convinced my theory was correct and thus will restate it here.

The Dandelions are wielders resistant to darkness, the exceptional ones who wouldn't give into the darkness no matter how great it was. The MoM most likely did this because he knew "Darkness" could possess others and so he was trying to make a world where Darkness couldn't get a foothold, doing it in a very messed up way by using the war and bangles to weed out that special glimmering light that doesn't cave. Meanwhile Darkness had their own plan, replace one of the special wielders with a normal one, an average wielder whose heart it could get a foothold in and use them was their pawn. So with that in mind this is I think the most likely series of events.

They lured Ventus there pretending to be Ava when they found out strelitzia was heading there. When Ventus arrived Darkness entered Ven to take control of him and used him to slay her so he could get her book. Once she vanished darkness released Ventus, took the form of Ava, and appointed him as a dandelion leader. With that Darkness had their pawn in place, whenever it needed it would be able to take control of Ventus and use him to wreck stuff. That being said I think there are some potential things to consider now.

First Maleficent is gone seemingly having used the arc and yet we never saw her learn about the box, which makes me thing the poor girl is being used again and like Xehanort she was told by the box off screen by darkness so she could eventually start searching for it for Darkness like the princesses of heart for Xehanort. However while maleficent is gone so to is darkness and given recent circumstance I can't help but worry that darkness may in fact have jumped ship into Lauriam, he might not be able to control him but it can probably still hide its presence. If Lauriam learns the truth of his sister that might blacken his heart and give darkness a foothold but I'm getting ahead of myself.

5 pods remains and luxu said 5 traveled so that checks out. We know Ventus and Lauriam are two of them, Skuld is heavily implied to be the third, which leaves Brain and Ephemer as seemingly the 4th and 5th...yet we know Elrena also travels. So I will postulate something like this. Ventus is taken hold of by darkness and he travels using the arc to the future. Lauriam and Elrena pursue to get revenge against Darkness for what he did to strelitzia (well she goes because of her crush on Lauriam but whatever) and so that brings us to three. Skuld heads with them with the priority of rescuing Ventus and Brain uses the arc to escape the datascape so he can try and free them from the outside. This leaves Ephemer all alone with Player to watch over the Dandelions so they aren't just left without any leaders.

Ventus+Darkness wind up just before BBS times as do Skuld, Lauriam, and Elrena but all of them lost their memories. So that's why they all wind up in roughly the same place and end up being roughly the same age except Ventus because his growth was stalled by roughly a decade due to Xehanort shenanigans. Brain's is less severe, instead of just time he jumps space and escapes back to the ruined original war world. He can't free the others but he can rebuild society and thus he builds daybreak town into Scala and passes on the myths and keyblade training stuff, and that means as people speculate he ends up being the ancient wielder Eraqus is descended from. As for Ephemer he's remained in that seemingly time locked datascape with the rest of the dandelions and that's why he is there to receive Sora's heart vibes and send the dandelion's power to help aid them.

If the pods are how Elrena, Ventus, Laurium, Darkness, and Skuld came to the future that still leaves Luxord and Demyx.

Of course the alternative is that they never came from Daybreak Town to begin with

Thanks for waiting! English subbed videos are now available, with translations thanks to goldpanner as always <3

Oh shoot. Things got real. Also it is very probable that Ven is an unreliable narrator at this point and that even if not by his own mind he slew Strelitzia. Shoot.

Ventus: Having memory problems since the age of fairytales

Things are getting really interesting now. It's nice to see Maleficent being a threatening presence again. I hope we eventually get to see Brain and Elrena's keyblades.

It's curious neither Demyx or Luxord have appeared yet. They'll probably show them in the last of these...or if that other theory on Luxord is true. That just leaves Demyx, the red herring of MoM.

I am quite sure this machine isn't the ark. It is the means to exit the data world. Darkness told us that the ark had to found once Maleficent entered the real world. I say a lot of dumb things but this seems pretty clear to me.

After Remind new cutscenes, there's no reason to not think Vanitas isn't Darkness until proven otherwise.
Feels like we're reaching UX endgame, but at the same time seems like they will stretch this forever.

Everyone talking 'bout the main story, and I'm just here wondering if the Mentos will be called Mentos.

Am I the only one thinking that this twist about Ventus being the killer (if it is indeed true) feels way more anticlimactic and predictable than it should be?
I mean, my guess is that ALL of us would have OUR JAWS ON THE FLOOR if the buildup to this twist had been more quickly fed to us. I feel like the gradual, piecemeal story dripping has made what could have been a mind-blowing revelation into a mundane twist that all of us have seen coming for MONTHS now. Again, if UX were given to us in more sizable chunks, I bet this would have been stunning to everybody. But it's like we've been watching the criminal get unmasked one frame at a time over a period of months, and it's really ruined any momentum or impact this twist could have had.
And if, on the other hand, it turns out to be a red herring with someone else being the murderer, then it'll feel like Nomura is just throwing that in at the last minute because he knows we've all been on to him for so long now about evil Ventus, and he has to switch it up in order to be really surprising.
Just wanted to rant a bit.

So I guess since there is a Darkness hiding within Ventus, he sees visions or the Darkness appears in front of him sometimes. So assuming it's strictly inside his head for the sake of argument: The Darkness tells him (As Ava) to go to the house, he meets Strelitzia, becomes possessed and murders her, picks up her book, then the Darkness lets him go and appears as Ava to continue the deception. You could also assume he was knocked out but I don't think it really makes a difference.

I've been thinking this since they hinted the whole 'Darkness creatures hiding in people' thing, but I'm glad this twist ultimately swerved away from throwing Ven's character under the bus. For a long time over the course of this plotline I was afraid they'd go with the 'Ven was actually evil the whole time!' thing. It's pretty clear to me he's just being possessed and misled and I personally enjoy that more.

And yeah, poor Lauriam lol. I wonder what the significance of destroying a pod is. Is there a recharge time? It it was a one-time thing there wouldn't exactly be a reason for that to happen. And since Maleficent definitely escapes, would that perhaps leave Darkness to be the one who trashes the thing? Or does it blow up on her way out? Also, kinda surprised no one is talking about the pod that has been stolen from the room??

Obviously it seems like darkness is the one manipulating everything. But I still think there could be more to Ava’s role. She clearly found out something probably from luxu that shook her. She was devastated/angry. It just seems odd to me that her only way of messing with the Master’s plan is to give someone else the book. Clearly she pushed to a different mindset and breaking point from the character we saw in back cover. If you really are “breaking bad” why just stop at a simple book switch. It seems suspicious which leads me to think there is another twist coming regarding her involvement.

Now that Maleficent is in the real world, I wonder if we'll finally see what Ava and Luxu have been up to on the outside.

Hm, so it seems that Darkness is more than likely behind Strelitzia's murder afterall. I'm still holding out hope there's more than meets the eye with Ava and/or Skuld being involved in some capacity. But I guess it's just a wait and see thing. This probably means that Vanitas is coming back in some capacity. I never cared for his character but it is what it is. Eventually, maybe it could be that Darkness reflects the inner darkness of the person it possesses, thus having a different physical form each time and broader personality (or personalities). I'd actually be interested in that take on the character.

Poor Lauriam getting his booty kicked. He seemed pretty aggressive towards Maleficent, so what's to say he doesn't try to smite Ventus too now that he has some kind of involvement with Strelitzia? I can't imagine he or Elrena are just going to be as accepting of Ven's account like the others. Gimme that juicy drama, Nomura!

If these pods take people to the real world, then maybe Demyx and Luxord are already on the other side. Maybe they weren't specifically picked to be Dandelions but survived the keyblade war somehow.

We are definitely missing info from the cut to Lauriam on the ground. I assume that whatever clash occurred destroyed the pod Maleficent was going to enter and so instead she used the one that is now missing from the back.

As for Ven... Idk what to think. It seems like darkness is controlling him, but the memory manipulation is throwing me off. And of course if it seems like one thing, it’s most definitely the other with this series. My question now is how did Ava summon Ven? Did she send her chirithy for him??? I still think another character is involved in Strelitzias murder besides darkness. If darkness is even involved at all. And where the heck is luxu right now??? Where is he watching all of this unfold from??

Let's think about Ven's claim that he was summoned into the building by Ava. My understanding is that one of the following has to be true:
[LIST]
[*]He was really summoned by real Ava
[*]He was really summoned by fake Ava
[*]He is lying about it
[*]It is a false memory installed by the killer
[/LIST]

We can rule out lying, because why would he mention the building at all? Real Ava is also unlikely. Even if she had some reason to talk with Ven, she wouldn't choose Gula's hideout as the meeting place. If it was fake Ava, why was it done? It can't be related to the murder, because the murder was not planned. The killer had no way of knowing that Strelitzia would come to the building at exactly that time.

So, false memory seems to be the best explanation. The most likely chain of events is: Ven by conincidence walks by the building when the murder is happening. He hears noise, goes in to investigate, sees the body, freezes/faints, and is caught by the killer. The killer disguises himself as Ava (or was already disguised, it makes sense if Gula was his intended target), erases Ven's memory of the events, gives him the false one, and proceeds to lead him out and name him as a replacement union leader.

There is surprisingly little new information in the whole update, only the fact that Ven saw the murder, and confirmation that the Ava Ven met is a fake one. Real Ava was on the hill with Luxu at this time.

Now, please point out if I have missed something!

[USER=255248]@LoneFox[/USER] I think your reasoning is good. The only bit I would say isn't so sure is about the Fake Ava option.

If I remember correctly Strelitzia's Chirithy pointed her towards that building and seemed to be a bit irritated too about her behavior beforehand. Did Strelitzia's Chirithy see Player there or was it a different Chirithy who just told Strelitzia's?

There's also the option that "false Ava" speaking with Ven is actually Gula using illusion powers just like Ava impersonated Ira once. It doesn't have to be "Darkness".

On a different note though....what if all instances where one Foreteller is impersonating another actually was "Darkness" all the time?
If "Darkness" has shapeshifting abilities and can impersonate anyone they wish we could actually have had them right under our nose several times without knowing even during the events of Browser-Chi.

It would be interesting if Darkness possesses Ava and she becomes a villain, making another good female antagonist.

In the next episode:

Brain: Lauriam is in magical sleep. To wake him up, someone must kiss him.

Skuld: Kiss him?! Ewww... No, I'm not going to do it.

Ephemer: Brain, don't look at ME like that!

Brain: (looks disappointed) I guess we need to find someone else...

:p

Ephemera would 100% kiss him.

What I do wonder if that person there still is "Lauriam" or if that is his nobody, which has yet to wake up. What if he lost his heart in the fight against Maleficent? We do know that she can steal them (BBS), without the need of a heartless and who knows what Darkness can do. I'm aware that this would also begs the question how Marluxia ended up in the time of Sora & Co, too, since if he does enter the machine as a nobody he is getting nowhere. And still, I do think that this could be Nomuras way of showing us how Lauriam lost his heart and how his Nobody was formed. Him unable to feel or summoning his keyblade (or could he?) would be a reason for him to ask Elrena for advise - who in return would learn that it is possible to live without a heart.

On the other hand... the issue with how the machine is working is to big of an issue. Also Maleficent would have to get beaten somewhere between her reappearence in KH2 and Marluxias defeat in KH3 or else his heart couldn't return (I doubt she would let go of it on her own) - and we didn't fight her even once during that time. The best guess would be her appearence at the end of the Radiant Garden fight in KH2 and even that case seems unlikely to me.

So as long we don't learn anything new about methods of escaping this data-world (side note I love how that evil fairy always ends up messing up spelling data) and about an ability of Darkness to also steal and keeping hearts that idea is going to stay unrealistic... well atleast until Lauriam notes that he stopped feeling.

Ven was summoned by "Ava", who I believe was not actually Ava. Already already picked her 5 new leaders and gave them instructions. She was now off doing her own thing, eventually finding Luxu to ask him questions.

Someone else disguised themselves as Ava, summoned Ven to that warehouse, tricked Strelitza into thinking Player was nearby and bringing her to that warehouse as well.

What happens beyond that is the mystery. From Ven's point of view, he blacks out right after seeing her and when he comes to, "Ava" is giving him union leader instructions.

From Strelitza's point of view, no one seemed to be in that room, but when she turned around, a shadow attacked her and then stole her book and she fades away.

I do think Ven's memories have been altered, like, was he knocked out? Did something possess him? No way he stood quietly in the darkness as he watched a girl get murdered unless something made him be silent to witness it.

The brain aches he's feeling are very similar to BbS whenever he starts recalling something painful that happened... TO him, not necessarily something he did. (Roxas too, followed by trashing a computer out of rage)

I'm 100% positive he must've witnessed the murder and his memories were altered. But, the question is, how exactly did he witness it. Did he get possessed, or something forced him to silence/freeze. Hm

The more I think about it, the more I feel like darkness isn’t an evil character. They are being portrayed to be all bad literally called darkness and working with Maleficent, but it seems to me this character is trying to foil the MoM’s plan. And that guy definitely doesn’t seem like a good guy.

Think about it. Darkness’s main goal in getting Maleficent back to her time is to create a thread between the Five and the future allowing them to escape their cage into a different time. According to Eraqus’s new game pieces the foretellers and the MoM are fighting against Sora in this next chapter and the saying goes: “The enemy of my enemy is my friend”.

While it does seem like Darkness is using Ventus as a sort of vessel, and there’s a clear connection to Vanitas and Darkness I still don’t think it’s as simple as them being the same person. Vanitas is his own person formed by Xehanort. Maybe he was amnesiatic, but the fact that Sora literally says “Vanitas?” Means it’s too obvious and not Normura style at all.

Watch darkness be revealed to be Luxord simply carrying out yet another mission for his “commander”

I want the team to develop a 3D fight scene between Lauriam and Maleficent! I need that!

On another note, Ventus amnesia creates a dark vibe in this story.

I really don't think the real Ava is responsible but chronologically it's not strictly impossible. Ava and Luxu clash Keyblades just before Skuld and Player leave the warehouse and soon after (but how soon is unclear) Strelitzia goes in and is killed. So it is just possible Ava could have 'teleported' to the warehouse in time to kill Strelitzia, though her also summoning Ven would be a stretch.

What makes me think Ava can't be responsible is I can't think why she would both replace Strelitzia and leave the list of union leaders with Brain.

If I were to guess on what was going on at this point I'd say the dark chirithy the player encounters is behind everything. It's unclear what exactly happened to Ava but I think it must either be that she was killed or (more likely) she was consumed by the [darkness] which would explain the knowledge that [darkness] possesses - either way, according to what Luxu said about "carrying out her goal" it may be that the master of masters intended for her fate to end up the way it did and that giving the book to brain was really the only thing MoM didn't predict, or maybe he did.

Perhaps Luxu was instructed to tell Ava a lie (or the truth) sending her into a rage that opened her heart to darkness?

Whether she was killed or taken over by darkness though, her likeness was clearly controlled in order to recruit Ventus. It would raise red flags if this new Ava appeared before the dandelion leaders so [darkness] takes control of Ventus and kills Striletzia to take her book and seemingly removes some of Ventus' memories from the time that he kills Striletzia. Later I would assume darkness uses Ventus as a vessel to travel to the future and becomes Vanitas in the process. Maybe darkness is also responsible for the amnesia Ven has in BBS, but the mysterious girl also has Amnesia so it could be for other reasons - or completely unrelated.

The only hole in this theory is explaining how [darkness] would be able to jump between manipulating Ventus/using him as a vessel and helping Maleficent. It would seem that Ventus is not hosting [darkness] as a vessel from the point he becomes a dandelion leader until now - and being the Xehanort had to rip Vanitas out of Ventus it wouldn't seem that darkness can simply possess someone and leave at will. There could be multiple darknesses but that seems somewhat underwhelming in a way.

Nomura, I'm not getting any younger.

Anyone noticed how Lauriam lies on the floor mirrors Strelitzia 's death scene? Also with how their boots is kinda similar? Really, Lauriam is and Strelitzia is pulling that sibling yin yang trope I see, that ironically how they are opposites yet still similar is how you can tell they are sibs.

That also reminds me that how recently Disney also released Twisted Wonderland, a gacha based on the Disney villains, and the guy based on Maleficent got the most pre-release promotional material, is in the middle of the game's banner, and in universe ppl are scared sh**less of him due to his immense magic, it could be the Hades-based or the Ursula-based guys who are this hyped but no, it has to be the Maleficent-based guy who is the local OP char. And then Maleficent in UX proves her to be threatening again, hmmm, wonder if it's intentional, after all, SE also did have a hand in TW's development...

Now, how does this new idea affect the murder scene? Lauriam knows that he cannot prevent the murder, because the past cannot be changed, but he can pick up the pieces of Strelitzia's heart in hope to restore her later. The fake Ava is probably Elrena wearing Ava's clothes stolen from her room in the clock tower (Lauriam is a naughty boy :LOL: ). Somehow they knew that a third vessel was needed, and Ven seems like a good choice for that. He probably didn't understand much of what was going on, but agreed to help because "Ava" was involved.

The pieces of Strelitzia's heart have been mentioned before. One ended up becoming the unknown part of Vanitas, and another is Larxene's little secret. That's two additional mysteries solved! There is probably a third piece in Lauriam's own heart as well.

The killer can still be Ira hitting wrong target, or perhaps Gula got so obsessed with his role that when he saw something resembling a sigil on Strelitzia's clothes, he attacked her. No new information here, except Lauriam now knows what happened and who the killer is.

Finding Strelitzia's rulebook must have been a big surprise for Lauriam, but after some discussion he realized that Ven doesn't have one yet and got it from here. Ven at this point was so confused and horrified that Lauriam decided to call up his Chirithy and instruct it to perform the memory erasure that was meant for removing the memories of the Keyblade War. Elrena would get the same treatment later when it was done to all the regular Dandelions. We have seen its shortcoming before with the Player Character, it does not work well on very traumatic memories.

Then there is the heart we saw flying away after Strelitzia's death. I was already suspicious of it when I first saw it, because why wouldn't they show it coming from Strelitzia's body. It is actually Lauriam leaving the scene after everything is done. He doesn't have a body, he can probably choose to appear either as a heart or as a ghost like Eraqus did at the end of KH3.

See how well this connects in all directions? I really believe it is the correct solution.

I'd still say Skuld is the most logical killer/fake Ava (probably with Darkness's involvement). When the leaders voted on Shift Pride only two voted to break the rules: Ven and Skuld. Ventus shouldn't have been there but what's Skuld's excuse? And when the leaders meet for the first time we did learn that Ven didn't really know Ava, which proved to be significant, so it's interesting that they soon talk about how Skuld is like Ava.

Plus I still don't get why Brain and Ava said specifically that the union leaders weren't meant to meet ahead of time when this has no bearing on Ventus. Skuld's whole Chi arc revolves around her looking for Ephemer and they definitely do meet ahead of time.