elements from both actors. This eventually led to the possession of Terra's body in the prequel by Xehanort and how they would become the villains from the main games. Nomura claims a hidden message in Xehanort's last lines when he hints that somebody else is in Terra's heart. Chikao Ōtsuka died during the development of Kingdom Hears III. While Square was compiling Ansem's voice, in the same scene they could hear Master Xehanort's line. At the time, no substitute voice actor had been chosen, so the staff thought that maybe some line they had recorded previously was playing, but it turned out that Akio Otsuka, the voice actor for Ansem that took Xehanort's identity, was playing the part. The staff, surprised by how uncomfortable they felt, decided to ask him to play the role. Master Xehanort was voiced in English by Leonard Nimoy in Birth by Sleep and Dream Drop Distance. Following Nimoy's death in 2015, Rutger Hauer assumed the role in Kingdom Hearts III, later to be replaced by Christopher Lloyd in the Re:Mind DLC and Melody of Memory following Hauer's own passing. Meanwhile, the youthful Xehanort was voiced by Takanori Okuda and Benjamin Diskin. Diskin commented he had to manage his pitch to sound as young as Okuda. As a result, Diskin was afraid about his performance due to how the early trailers of Kingdom Hearts III could be received. Diskin had played the numbered titles of the franchise and thus had little knowledge about his character since Xehanort's identity was primarily explored in the non-numbered games. Throughout the recording of Kingdom Hearts 3D, no one told him what his character was going through, or what his motivations were. As a result, the actor had little understanding of the narrative. Appearances Xehanort is re-established as an elderly Keyblade Master from the Destiny Islands who acquired the means to transplant a piece of his heart into the bodies of others, which he uses to orchestrate the events through Kingdom Hearts III to suit his agenda. Throughout the series, Xehanort is driven by an obsessive interest in the Keyblade War, a historic cataclysm that produced the universe's present, fragmented state. In Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep, he attempts to use the hearts of his pupils Ventus and Vanitas to forge the χ-blade and unlock Kingdom Hearts to incite another war. He wanted to create a new world where light and