Don't Let Go

Chapter 1

The Final Day

"Sora, get off your lazy end, you bum!" A voice called. Sora lazily sat up and looked behind him. His friend, Kairi, had just climbed out of her boat and was headed his way. He just smiled wide and laid back down on the warm sand. Kairi just sighed and sat down next to him.

"Hey, Kairi, where's Riku?" Sora asked, sitting up.

"I thought he was with you," she replied, concerned.

"Get off your ends, both of you!" A familiar voice called. There stood their silver haired friend, Riku. He walked up to them and brandished his keyblade, the Way to the Dawn. "C'mon Sora, I wouldn't want you to get out of practice."

Sora grinned evilly and hopped to his knees, calling his own keyblade to hand. Riku tauntingly threw back his silver hair. Kairi sighed and shook her head. Sora dived at Riku, who just leaped high into the air before gracefully touching the ground over next to Kairi. Sora threw the keyblade at him, but Riku blocked it with his own. Sora called it back to his hand and ran at Riku again.


Namine just sighed as she watched Roxas/Sora fight with Riku. But she liked this life, she was complete. It was a perfect life, and she got to spend every day with Roxas. Whenever Kairi and Sora were together (which was more often than not) she and Roxas were together. But something felt wrong, was this life maybe TOO perfect?

Is there such a thing as too perfect?

Namine certainly hoped not.


That night, Sora laid in bed fuming about his loss. How could Riku have gotten behind him and tied his feet together?

"Don't worry, you went easy on him, he could never beat you if you went all-out," His thoughts assured him.

Sora stared at his ceiling. He liked this quiet life on Destiny Islands, but it just didn't seem right. He was a Keyblade Master, he should be out on adventures like before, not this mundane life as a regular boy. It was nice that for once the worlds were at peace, no heartless, no nobodies, no Maleficent, and no Organization XIII.

But who he missed the most were Donald and Goofy. His back still hurt from when they had first met him.They weren't the only friends he missed, there was Leon, Aerith, Yuffie, Cid, Cloud, Tifa, Merlin, King Mickey, and so many others.

Sora turned over and closed his eyes with a sigh.


Sephiroth slid a book out of the bookcase and examined it.

"Heartless...hmmm..." he muttered with a grin as he examined the book.


Cloud tensed up. He began tapping his foot impatiently.

"What is it?" Leon asked as he walked out of the main computer room and noticed Cloud.

"I don't like this peace. I know Sephiroth is around here somewhere, trying to lead you all into a false sense of security," he said, crossing his arms.

"Calm down, Cloud. Everything is finally peaceful, and you seem to be the only one who thinks anything's wrong," Leon said as the two of them walked back into Ansem's study.

Cloud just sighed irritably and clenched his fist, "you just don't understand."

Leon shook his head and opened the door to Ansem's old study. The room was wrecked, and all over the room stood Shadow Heartless armed with long swords. As the door opened, each and every Heartless turned their attention to the arrivers. Leon and Cloud drew their swords and started attacking them. Cloud slashed one as another leaped toward him. He punched it aside and hacked away at another one. Leon slashed an attacking Heartless in half before sending a fireball on one attacking Cloud from behind.

"Thanks for that," Cloud said as the two warriors stood back to back.

"I had to save your sorry tail," Leon smirked.

"You know I've saved you more than once," Cloud replied as he slashed at an oncoming Heartless.

"Really? Can't think of a single time," he replied as heblocked an attack from anotherHeartless before slashing it. They hacked and slashed away the Heartless, but they just kept coming. Every Heartless Cloud sliced in two with his Buster Sword seemed to only create three more to replace it. All of Leon's skill with his Gunblade seemed to do nothing, the Heartless would just duplicate. The door to Ansem's study suddenly blew off its hinges, narrowly missing a preoccupied Cloud. The two warriors stared dumbfounded at the figure who appeared in the doorway, so astonished that the Heartless were able to attack them without resistance.


Donald Duck walked along the long hallway to the throne room, passing the enchanted brooms doing their chores on his way. He stopped in front of the giant set of doors and cleared his throat before knocking. Instead of the giant doors opening, a door the size of an average adult opened on the doors themselves. With a smile Donald entered.

"Good morning, Your Majesty," he greeted, only to see an empty throne. Pluto appeared from behind it with a note in his mouth. Donald snatched it out of his mouth and read it quickly. He blinked to understand it before breaking off into a run with an echoing, "GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHH!"

He ran to find Goofy sleeping in a flowerbed blissfully. He stopped for a moment to think about how deja vuey this was already starting to look. He shrugged and cast a Thunder spell to wake up Goofy. Goofy shot up at least a foot in the air in fright.

"G'Morning, Donald," he yawned.

"Goofy, read this letter from King Mickey and keep it quiet. It's top secret, so you CAN'T TELL ANYONE," he said, stressing the last three words.

"Queen Minnie?" He asked.

"Not even the Queen!"

"Daisy?" He asked.

"NO!" Donald yelled.

"G'Morning ladies," Goofy sighed. Donald smacked himself in the head for falling into the same trap twice.

"Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me," Donald grunted to himself before turning to face Queen Minnie and Donald's own girlfriend, Daisy.


Riku rose from his bed and looked outside. The sky was dark grey and covered in storm clouds. Only the moon was visible, and it glowed with a burning red. Waves were crashing on the shore with a terrible force. Riku grabbed his shoes and bolted out of his house. As he ran through the rain down to the pier, he called his keyblade to his hand in case of an attack.

When he arrived at the pier, he saw Sora already there and untying his boat.

"Where's Kairi!" He yelled over the crashing waves to Sora.

"I don't know! Her boat isn't here, so she must have already gone!" He yelled back as he finished untying his boat.

Riku was worried, was the door opening again? What was going on? The weather was never this bad here.

Sora had already embarked, and the waves had already taken him far out to sea by the time Riku finished and climbed into his boat, grabbing the oar and shoving off. The water crashed and splashed against the boat, making it difficult to control.

"SORA! KAIRI!" He called out to the dark waters. Then he saw something that scared him, Sora's boat was crashing back and forth, but Sora wasn't inside it. "SORA! SORA!"

His cries went unheard, as a great clap of thunder echoed louder than his voice could possibly yell. With some relief, he saw Sora emerge from the tumbling waters. But he wasn't swimming towards his boat, or the island, he was swimming towards a figure floating on only a little bit of flotsam... Kairi.

Then, a giant wave crashed over Kairi, and when it passed there was still the flotsam, but no Kairi. Riku watched as Sora took a deep breath and dived underwater.


Sora dived under the raging water as his friend tumbled into the dark depths. She was unconsious, and her long,red hair floated away from her sleeping face. He worked his muscles to their extent to catch up to Kairi. He grabbed the neck of her pink shirt and lifted her close to him, even as they fell further and further below.

Bubbles came out of Kairi's mouth every few seconds, only making Sora fear more and more. He was running out of air himself, and found it difficult to resist the water's pull while also holding Kairi. He became weaker and weaker, and soon he began to fall instead of rise. The red full moon was the only light he could see, and he extended his right hand to it before falling unconsious.


Riku waited anxiously for Sora to surface with Kairi, but nothing happened. He tried diving into the water to find them and drag them back up, but he could not find them in the dark waters. Riku was beginning to get petrified with fear, when suddenly, a great beam of light shot up out of the water.

He dived under and down to the source of the light to find Sora and Kairi being dragged down by Heartless, both of them fishlike and gruesome. The light was eminnatingfrom the keyblade in Sora's hand. Riku gripped his own keyblade and swam down enough to slash the Heartless. They relinquished their grip of Riku's friends as they vanished. Riku grabbed his friends and kicked as fast as he possibly could, as their time was running out. It had been a long time since they had dived, and Riku felt the adrenaline pump through him. Even with the adrenaline, Riku was a stronger and more experienced swimmer than Sora, and could carrytheir weightwith more ease than Sora could.The red moon above was becoming brighter and bigger with every kick, until finally they emerged from the water. Sora gasped and quickly drew in as much air as he could while coughing up water.

"I need some help!" Riku yelled to Sora as another crash of thunder shook the water. Riku and Sora both gripped one of Kairi's arms and swam toward the boats. Sora pulled Kairi into his boat with Riku's aid before climbing in himself. Riku had to swim further because his boat had washed away. They were more than 3/4 of the way to shore, so the remaining journey to the island was quick. Sora dragged Kairi out of his boat and laid her on the sand.

Kairi was breathing, slowly but surely. Riku sighed in relief as she opened her eyes and sat up slowly. Sora gave her his hand and helped her up. After she had regained composure, she hugged Sora's neck tightly.

Riku felt his face burning as he watched this, so he was forced to look away.

Did Riku wish he was the one she was hugging?

No, it couldn't be...could it?


Sora's face turned bright red as Kairi hugged him. Riku headed toward the Secret Place and stopped in front of it. Sora took a step before Kairi stopped him.

"If anything happens, Sora, I just want you to know that-" she began.

"Are you guys coming or not?" Riku called.

"C'mon, Kairi," Sora said, grabbing her wrist and leading her over to the Secret Place.

"Wait, first I just want to ask you something," she asked, blushing.

"What is it?" He asked.

"If anything happens, grab my hand. It makes me feel stronger. And don't let go, okay?" She asked, blushing deep red.

"Okay, Kairi, I promise," he swore.

The two finally arrived next to Riku by the entrance.

"The door. The only place that could cause a storm of this magnitude..." Riku began.

They entered together, that way they would remain together. They felt a chilling wind drawthem in, and in front of the door stood a man with long, blue hair and spiked bangs.

"I ask for the power to control these dark beings. Please, Door to Darkness, grant my wish," he spoke to the open door.

"Who are you!" Sora cried as the wind tried to suckthem in.

He turned to face the trio, and his cold eyes and malicious smile greeted them.

"I will tell you, in the last seconds of your lives. My name is Seymour Guado, and I will exterminate all life in all the worlds. I will free them from the prison that is life so their souls can rest in peace for all eternity. These beings, these...Heartless can help me achieve my goal," he smiled.

Kairi grabbedSora's hand and hid behind him.

"Those are beautiful blades. Your Heartless will be beautiful ones too, and I'm sure they will bring salvation to a great many lives," Seymour laughed. At a gesture of his arms, black shadows appeared and began to drawthem into the door. Kairi seemed to be unable to resist the pull, and only my hand kept her from plumetting into it's dark depths.

"SORA!" She cried. The pull increased and Kairi's fingers began to loosen until finally Kairi lost her grip and went plummeting into the door.

"I see those blades protect you from the darkness. No matter, I shall return," Seymour laughed as he entered the door. Sora ran to the door, but it closed right in front of him.

"Fine, I'll open it with the keyblade!" He cried, pointing the keyblade at the door.

"SORA! Are you insane? If you open the door, the Heartless will destroy this world. I promise you Sora, we'll find her," Riku said, placing his hand on Sora's shoulder.

"Fine, but how?" He asked, making the keyblade disappear.

"I don't know, but we will," Riku promised.