A/N: I just got too excited and decided to post the new story right away haha
To everyone who just started reading this story, please read New Beginnings and Little Adventures, the comic version of the prequel of New Beginning at my DA account. There will be a lot of elements taken out from Little Adventures to be sure to check it out :D
Reply to the reviews from the last chapter of New Beginnings:
Lulu9814: Hehe thank you! I hope you like this story too!
AllSpark Princess: Thank you so much, I hope you like this story too ^^
Guest: haha and no to finals! (I hate finals because I always stay up late to study lol and college yay :p) aww thank you! I just love writing Yuffie's character. Lol he's such a jerk in KH1, but I'm happy that he isn't in COM and in any of the other game. And yay! Genie! And thank you so much! I hope you like this sequel as well ^^
DisneyFreak-Lover: thank you! I hope you like the sequel ^^
Full summary:
The adventure continues for Hikari as she search for the people important to her. A trip to Castle Oblivion made her realize for what mattered the most was remembered the least. She vowed to always remember, but things get a lot trickier when a Nobody is involved. One day, she met a boy similar to the one she met 10 years ago. Who is this mysterious boy? COM/DAYS. AU. OC. Gen. Sequel
Kingdom Hearts (C) Square Enix, Tetsuya Nomura
Noli oblivisci: Don't forget (in latin)
Chapter 1
Noli oblivisci
23 days.
It's been 23 days since you disappeared, Sora.
I miss you.
"Done already?"
Hikari turned around, giving a nod at the black-haired ninja. "Yeah." she walked closer to the older girl, stuffing her hands inside her pants' pockets.
Yuffie crossed her arms, humming. "That's weird... Your inner monologue usually last more than an hour or two." she pointed out as she rubbed her chin, giving a thinking pose.
The brunette's eye twitched. "You've been counting?" she gave her a look.
"Well, yeah." Yuffie answered casually. "You stare at the castle every morning and night for more than an hour, sometimes three. So I decided to time you."
Hikari blinked. "Really? I never knew I was staring at the castle for that long." she said, glancing back to look at the castle.
Ever since day one, the brunette had always spared some time to gaze at the castle. She would stare at it for an hour or two before going back to help out. Everyone from the committee didn't need to ask her to know what she was doing, but sometimes the residents of the world would come up to her and ask what's wrong. In reply, she would just say that she's admiring how big the castle is and then she would leave. During the first week, a lot of people would come up to her. But since the second passed, everyone decided to leave her alone since it was a daily sight for them to see her staring off at the castle.
Yuffie shrugged. "Time flies." she said. She took a step closer to the younger girl and raised her hand up. She slapped the younger girl's back, almost making her lose her balance. "C'mon! It's our turn to do a round!" she grinned.
Hikari glared at her playfully for slapping her back. "Right. Let's go kick some Heartless butt!" she pumped her fist up, summoning her rod into hand.
The black-haired girl laughed. "That's the spirit!" she winked at the brunette before turning around.
Hikari followed after Yuffie, giving a short 'hello' to greet the people she passed. After Sora defeated Ansem, a part of Hollow Bastion returned. Before, it was just a floating castle with nothing around it. Now, there's a town with residents, even though it's not in the best condition for people to live in at the moment. The committee worked hard to rebuild the town to make it more suitable for people to live in. They took turns from doing rounds around town and helping people rebuild homes and stores. Sometimes, they even pulled an all-nighter just to reassure some kids that the Heartless won't bother them when they're asleep.
Between her role in the committee and staring at the castle to 'talk' to Sora, she still managed time to go look for Sora, Donald and Goofy. Since they can't use the gummi ship anymore without opening the world's keyhole, the only source of travel is the Star Shard. Leon explained to her that if they use the gummi ship, they would have to open the world's keyhole to get inside the world and they will need a keyblade wielder to lock the world before leaving, which they don't have at the moment.
The brunette went over to the worlds she had visited, asking the people she knew if they have seen her brother or not. The answer would always be the same, but they did helped her look around. After a long and tiring day, she would help Aerith out in researching through the books from the library. She tried her best to read the thick and picture-less books to find out more about how to get her brother back, but it was a little too boring for her.
"Hikari! Duck!" Yuffie shouted.
The brunette quickly ducked down.
"What are you doing?" She heard her friend ask as she took a few steps closer.
Hikari blinked, glancing up to look at Yuffie. "You said 'duck!' so I ducked." she answered as she stood up, staring at the black-haired girl confusedly. "Wasn't there a Heartless behind me?" she asked.
Yuffie suddenly burst out laughing. "Oh hahaha! Seriously?!" she doubled over, clutching her sides as she continues to laugh loudly. Hikari crossed her arms, puffing her cheeks out as she glared at the older girl. A minute passed and she finally stopped laughing, raising her hand to wipe the tears from the corners of her eyes. "There's no Heartless! When I said 'duck', I really mean a duck! Look!" she pointed her finger to the duck behind Hikari.
The brunette followed Yuffie's finger and her blue eyes widened slightly. "Wow... It really is a duck..." she trailed off, sure she had seen the triplets, Huey, Dewey and Louie, back in Traverse Town, but after being in a town where there's only humans for a few weeks, seeing a walking duck is a rare sight. "I never seen him before..." she said, turning to look at Yuffie.
"Maybe he just arrived today or something? Or maybe we've been too busy to notice." Yuffie placed her hand on her hip, staring at the duck.
"Think so too." Hikari grinned sheepishly. Her blue eyes stared at the duck before her eyes wondered over to the person who approached the duck. She blinked a few times before rubbing her eyes, hoping that what she was seeing was an illusion. But when the image stayed, her jaw dropped down widely. "Isn't that Cloud?! He's talking more than ten words!" she gasped out dramatically.
"You're right!" Yuffie gawked.
Over the weeks she had been working with the blond man, he rarely interacts with the residents, plus he rarely talks to the rest of the committee. Sometimes Yuffie and Hikari would make a joke by counting the words he said for a day. They really did counted and ended up with a slap to the back of their head by the blond himself.
As if Cloud knew, he turned his head to the direction of the two girls. "I can hear you both loud and clear." he said, furrowing his eyebrows at them. "If my hands aren't full I would hit you two again." he continued as the two girls walked closer.
"One, two..." Hikari counted, raising her finger in each word she counted. She whistled in amazement, at the amount. She looked up to Cloud and grinned. "More than twenty! It's a new record!" she laughed. "Aw! Hey!" she shouted in complain when she felt a slap to the back of her head.
"I warned you." Cloud said, crossing his arms over his chest. He picked up the box from the ground and walked towards the closed shop, placing the box with the others. He stood back up and turned around to face the two girls. "Isn't it your turn to patrol?" he asked.
Hikari pouted. "It is. We were on our way, but we found you. We were only having some fun... Besides, there's no one to bother except you, Leon and Cid." she crossed her hands behind her head.
"Go bother Aerith or Merlin then." the blond man said.
"I don't want to bother Aerith and Merlin." Hikari answered. "She might stop making Barley tea if we pulled pranks on her everyday. And Merlin's my teacher, he might zap me with Thunder or something!" she added.
Yuffie laughed. "She's right."
Cloud shook his head, pinching the bridge of his nose.
"Thank you for yer help, lass!" the three turned to look at the duck who came out from the shop. He walked towards them with a cane, a hand behind his back. As he reached Cloud, he tucked his top hat up, showing his gratitude. Cloud nodded his head. The duck then turned his head to Yuffie and Hikari. "Scrooge Mcduck, traveler and businessman. My card." he handed Yuffie his business card.
Yuffie took the card and nodded her head.
"Oh?" Scrooge turned to look at Hikari, he fixed his glasses and he smiled. He walked closer to the brunette and she kneeled down to the duck's eye level. "Why if it isn't little Hikari! You've grown a lot since I last saw ye, lassie!" he cheerfully said.
The brunette blinked and laughed. "Sorry... I think you've mistaken me for another 'Hikari'." she smiled. "We never met before today."
Yuffie nudged the younger girl. "But he knows your name." she whispered. "You never introduced yourself." she continued, stating the fact.
Hikari's eyes widened in realization. "I...don't know..." She turned her head from Yuffie to Scrooge, her face scrunched up in confusion.
"Think harder, maybe you've met him before." Cloud said, staring at the girl.
Hikari closed her eyes as she began to try and remember if she met Scrooge in the past or not. She doesn't remember meeting anyone by the name of Scrooge when she was little. A minute passed and the brunette let out a loud sigh, shaking her head 'no'. Scrooge rubbed his chin and an idea crossed his mind. He reached something inside his pocket and pulled something out, showing it to the three.
"Perhaps these might jog yer memory!" Scrooge said as he showed Hikari the tickets. Hikari took one and both Cloud and Yuffie took one too, examining the ticket. "Lifetime passes to Disney Town. I gave these out because a young lass helped me."
"Lifetime passes?! Awesome! Can I have this?" Yuffie asked, holding out the ticket with her eyes shining.
Cloud took the ticket from Yuffie's hand and she shined in respond. The blond kneeled down to gave the two tickets back to Scrooge. He turned to look at the brunette who stared at the ticket with a serious gaze as she tries hard to remember.
"Disney Town? Disney Palace's town, right?" Hikari asked as she stared at the words on the ticket.
Scrooge nodded his head. "Yer right 'bout that! So do ye remember now?" he asked.
Hikari sighed as she gave the ticket back. "Sorry... I don't remember anything... Everything's a blur." she apologized.
Scrooge pocketed the tickets, shaking his head. "It's alright. Ye were very young, so I don't really expect ye to remember." he said. He held his can and sighed in content as he recalled the memories. "I remembered that the lass dropped ye off to me! Telling me to babysit ye while he handled a few things." he laughed at the old memories.
Hikari's eyes widened. "He? Do you remember his name?"
"Sorry, lassie... He never told me and ye didn't either." Scrooge said.
"Oh... That's alright." Hikari sighed, giving a smile.
"Thanks for the info." Cloud thanked the duck before he stood up. "We should get going." he said to the two girls.
"Yeah, we need to patrol around." Yuffie said, nodding her head in agreement.
Hikari stood up and looked down. "Thank you so much, Mr. Scrooge. I'm sorry I forgot you... I'll try to remember harder." She said. "Maybe we can talk later." she smiled.
Scrooge nodded. "Aye. That's a splendid idea."
The brunette left the duck, jogging to catch up with the blond man and the black-haired girl. She walked in the middle of the two, her face scrunched up in thought. She tried again to remember anything from the past, but nothing came up. She remembered when they found Kairi, but before that, everything seemed to be a blur.
"Don't think too hard or else your face might be stuck like that forever." Yuffie said, placing her hand on Hikari's shoulder, snapping her away from her thoughts. "You have plenty of time to remember. So don't worry about it okay?" she grinned.
Hikari nodded. "But it's weird... I can't seem to remember... Shouldn't I remember if I met a talking duck when I was a kid?" she asked, turning to look at Yuffie.
Cloud shrugged. "He said so himself, you were young." he said as they continued to make their way to around the streets, patrolling. He suddenly stopped, making the two girls stop as well. His blue eyes were averted to look at the brunette, who in return stare back. "But I'm curious... How did you meet him in the first place? I'm sure you don't have the Star Shard back then."
Hikari's eyes widened. "You're right!"
"Wow... Freaky..." Yuffie mumbled, crossing her arms. She raised her hands up. "Okay, enough of this freaky talk. Let's just go around and talk about it later, 'kay? It's kinda freaking me out." she said as she placed her hands on Hikari's shoulders, turning her around and then pushing her to continue walking.
Hikari couldn't agree more.
-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-
"We're back!" Yuffie shouted as she slammed open the door to Merlin's house widely, stepping inside the house before Cloud and Hikari.
Aerith smiled. "Welcome back." she greeted from where she sat.
"Argh... So tired!" Hikari mumbled, stretching her arms above her head as she walked inside the house. After their talk with Scrooge, they continued on their patrol, not one of them mentioning about her past. They got their hands full to even talk. Heartless kept on popping up everywhere, if they killed one, then one would replace its place. But by the end of the day, they finished the wave of Heartless and returned back to the committee's home safely. She let out a deep sigh as she sat on the empty chair. "Thanks Aerith..." she thanked when the woman gave her a glass of barley tea.
The woman nodded her head with a smile. "This is our first month here... So it's going to be the hardest." she said.
Cid snorted. "You got that right."
"We have a long way to go, but things are looking better." Leon said, crossing his arms.
Hikari took a sip from her tea, staring at the table in front of her. There were books stacked up to mountains and papers everywhere. She cringed at the sight of it and felt sorry for Aerith that she has to look through them everyday. She stared at the woman as she seemed to be searching for something. "What's wrong Aerith? Did you lost a paper or something?" she asked, holding the glass as she didn't want to place it on the table.
Aerith kept on searching. "I seemed to misplace a few books..." she said.
"That's unusual of you, Aerith." Yuffie said as she approached the older woman. "You usually put things in easy places to look for." she said and she helped pick the books up.
"What book are you looking for?" Leon asked, helping out as well.
"Mava volume 4 and Theon volume 6." Aerith answered.
Everyone started to search for the two books. There were mountains of books stacked on the table and on the floor, so it took them quite some time to go through all of the books. The committee told the residents that the castle are is restricted because it was too dangerous for them, the rule also goes with the committee too. The members can't go to the castle alone. They have to bring someone else from the committee. The castle is still not a safe place to wonder around, the library included. So they decided to take some of the books from the library to Merlin's house.
Hikari picked up a green book. "Ah! I found-! Never mind..." she quickly said after reading the Roman numbers again. She misreads the Roman number of six to four. She placed the book down and glanced over to the woman. "Maybe you forgot them in the library?" she said.
"Maybe..." Aerith trailed off.
Hikari clapped her hands, dusting the dust off her hands. "I'll go look for it."
"I'll go too." Leon said as he followed the brunette to the door.
Aerith nodded. "Alright, be careful."
-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-
"Theon, Theon, Theon..." Hikari's fingers grazed through the lines of books she passed, trying to look the certain book. The library was huge and it was going to take them forever to look for the two books. They decided to split up and search for the book individually, and if they ran into some trouble, they could just yell for help, but she doubts that Leon would actually yell for help. "Hey Leon! Did you find it yet?" she shouted.
"Not yet." a reply was heard.
The brunette sighed before continuing to look for the book. "This is gonna take forever!" she groaned, her shoulders sagged. She took a deep breath and let it out a second later before glanced around. Her eyes wondered to the books placed on the table at the end of the case. She walked towards the table and picked up a few books, putting them aside to revile the book pilled underneath it. Her eyes widened when she read over the title. "Ah! Theon 6! Finally!" She yelled out happily, picking up the think book.
"You found it?" She heard Leon.
"Yeah!" Hikari shouted, turning her head to the direction where she heard him.
"Great. Now help me find Mava."
"Okay!" Hikari held the book with both her hands as she started to help Leon look for the second book they need to find. Her footsteps echoed in the quiet library. She stopped walking when she noticed something was amiss. She furrowed her eyebrows and turned around. "Whoa!" she exclaimed in surprise when she saw someone standing a few feet away from her.
Hikari dropped the book out of surprise. "Geez! Don't scare me like that!" she sighed, placing a hand on her chest, feeling the fast beating of her heart. Her eyes observed the man. He wore a black hooded leather coat, along with black boots, black pants and black gloves, basically everything the man wore is black. She took a few deep breaths to calm her heart. "Sorry, but you can't be in here... It's not safe." she said.
She tilted her head when the man didn't reply. "Well I'm going to help Leon look for a book, after that we'll go out together. How's that?" she smiled, offering to help the man.
"You look a lot like him." A deep baritone voice said, surprising Hikari. It was no doubt that the man before her just spoke.
Hikari took a step forward. "What are you talking about?" she asked, furrowing her eyebrows down, staring at the man suspiciously. "Look a lot like him... Do you mean Sora? Do you know where he is?! Tell me!" she demanded.
The brunette quickly summoned her rod into hand when the man lunged forward. She placed her rod in front of her, shielding herself from the man's incoming attacks. She closed her eyes tightly and waited for the attack to come, but it didn't. She slowly opened her eyes and looked up, finding the man was no longer in front of her. The young girl glanced around, trying to find the man, but it was useless. The man had disappeared.
"Who was that?" Hikari mumbled as looked down. She tilted her head when something was placed on the floor right in front of her. A blue crown-shaped card. She bends down and picked the blue card up, turning it over. A picture of a castle was seen. It didn't look like the Beast's Castle or Hollow Bastion. Her eyes kept on staring at the card, turning it over and over again. "What's this? A trading card?" she asked aloud.
"Castle Oblivion." the baritone voice appeared, making the girl jump. She quickly turned around, standing in a fighting stance as she looked for the man. The man reappeared a few feet behind her, making her turn around. "There you will meet the people you have known in the past, and you will meet the people you miss." he continued.
Hikari looked up, staring at the man with wide eyes.
"You have no memory of the castle, so I will lend you mine to lead you there."
Hikari glanced down to look at the card. "Who are you really? Why should I trust you?" she lifted her chin up, staring at the man.
"I am one of the people that you have met."
"Huh? What? Wait!" Hikari reached her hand out as she ran forward, trying to stop the man from leaving. He disappeared in a dark portal, leaving the girl alone in the library. She stared at the spot where the man had disappeared. There were so many questions that she wanted to ask the man. She glanced down to look at the card in her hand. "Castle Oblivion..." she mumbled.
"Hikari!" said brunette turned around to find Leon running towards her, a green book in hand. "I heard yelling. Did something happen?" he asked.
Hikari glanced down to the card and gave it to Leon. "Someone gave me that card..." she said.
"Someone?" Leon echoed. "No one is allowed to enter the castle..." he said as he inspected the card.
Hikari nodded.
"Let's head back to Merlin's house. We'll talk there."
-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-
"So this man suddenly appeared out of nowhere and gave you a card and then tells you that he knows you and to go to this castle?" Cid asked as he crossed his arms.
Hikari nodded. "That sums it up. Yeah."
Cid sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. "I don't know, kid... Seems like a scam to me." he said.
Yuffie hummed as she stared at the card intensely. "This card seems legit, gramps." she said as she handed the card back to Hikari.
"Perhaps that man is trying to help you out?" Merlin suggested, taking a sip from his tea. "He did said that he will lead you to the people you care about." he placed the teacup down on the saucer, folding his hands on the table.
"It's from a guy who wears all black and he didn't even show his face. Don't you think it's suspicious?" Leon asked as he glanced over from Merlin to Hikari.
The brunette held the card between her thumb and finger. "Merlin's right... Can't hurt to try, right? Who knows... I might find Sora there." she grinned, glancing around the room to look at the committee's members.
"Typical of you to trust a shady man." Cloud said from where he stood.
Yuffie placed her hands on her hips. "And like you didn't!" she smirked.
"Ooohhh! Burn!" Hikari sniggered as she high-fived with the black-haired girl.
Cloud shook his head, rolling his eyes.
Aerith giggled. "If you're going to this castle, please be careful. We won't be able to accompany you, so please be aware of your surroundings." she advised, smiling at the brunette who stood up from her seat.
Hikari nodded her head. "I understand. I'll come back soon to help out again. So leave some work for me, 'kay?" she grinned.
"Don't worry, there will be plenty." Leon answered.
"Gee, thanks." Hikari said sarcastically at the man, rolling her eyes.
The brunette said her goodbyes to the committee before going out from Merlin's house. She took out the card from her pocket before taking the Star Shard out from her pouch. She stared at the picture printed on the card with a frown. She took a deep breath and pointed the Star Shard to the darkening sky.
"Alright... Take me to Castle Oblivion!"
The Star Shard glowed brightly, taking the brunette up to the sky.
