AN: Hello there! If you've come to read this fic, domo arigato! I wanted to do a Kingdom Hearts story around a character that didn't have anything to do with the usual Mary-Jane blah blah or whatever - prepare to feel sorry for her! Just kidding. I'm still including the major characters - Riku, Sora, Sephiroth, Cloud, Ansem...you know, those people. However, this fic will be mainly focused around three characters - my two characters which are brother and sister, and my friend's character. If you don't think this is interesting, then please, prove yourself wrong and just read a little bit of it... Please? I don't care about the reviews - I'm not going to force you people to review because I want you to. Whether you like it or not, I'm continuing this little story of mine.

Disclaimer: All terms affiliated with Kingdom Hearts, FF7, FF8, etc. do not belong to me. There.

I suppose it all started when I was very little.

This 'it'...the darkness, the Heartless, Father - everything entwined in a tale of souls and sorrow, happiness and sadness - my past, the past that will determine my future. This journal, or rather, what you are about to read, is my own journey amongst the worlds and my own experiences, so if you are not interested in this sort of thing, I advise that you turn back to the previous page and find a story that will suit your needs. Otherwise, you are welcome to follow along with me, experience what I experienced, and listen to my story in the time that is provided.

Yet again, I say that it starts when I was a small one.

I used to live in a giant castle - a spiraling mass of interlaced machinery, concrete, and manmade masonic brilliance - with my family...my mother, father, and older brother, Haze. Truly only pure genius could have devised such a twisted castle that - built firmly upon a glacier that looked frail from the place that it was hooked to yet another larger glacier. However, even my father had his ways to keep that castle there - his many spells, his frequent research, and his power - pure power, untold and completely immeasurable by the tools that look like mere playthings compared to father's vast collection of technological endeavors. He used some sort of spell to create thin wires that were stronger than the hardest of diamond, wires that would pull the lifts around to get to different places in the castle. Remarkable, is he not?

Father was the ruler of that world, thus explaining why we lived in such a large and confounding castle. He was so kind despite mother's death, generous, loving - all the qualities you would want in a father if you had one, or wished you had one. One of his...less redeeming qualities, however, was the fact that he had a limitless supply of curiosity - which is probably where I got that from. He began to research this thing...this darkness, perhaps for my sake, and perhaps to quench his need for knowledge. It seemed his desires knew no boundaries. He plunged into the research as if it was his last hope...

My mother had died four years after I had been born. They had said it was from some sort of unknown disease...yes, I could remember this 'unknown disease', how it made her...it made her forget me, it made her forget father. It made her forget everything about this place that we had come to call home. I remember sitting by her side with my older brother, bathing her face with a cloth, though I was still so little then, and having her ask who we were, it tore our hearts in half. I would not sleep, I would not eat, and I would not rest unless I had assured that she was all right. Everyone living at the castle worried - they had to pin me down to a bed and wait until I had cried myself to sleep.

I seemed to get better after a while. My heart had mended partially. Father's gentle words, his kisses and hugs seemed to be all that filled me and Haze's days, playing in the library, reading to one another, falling asleep after a playful game, and just spending time together, period. Haze had become more quiet than his usual outgoing self, which I could understand - I myself had been altered in such irreversable ways, scarred permanantly, and no matter how hard Father would try, I was not myself - not my true self anymore, at least. It seemed as if my heart had been taken by something, engulfed until I could see no light in front of me at all...

I had been lost...until I found someone, a light to help guide me through the darkness.

Her name was Mierie.

She lived in the village outside Hallow Bastion - such a small village. Haze had known her for a while, and while I remained unaware of her existance in the company of my loving Father, he had visited her every day since he had met her. I had decided to investigate my brother's disappearing act which he so cleverly pulled every day, and had told Father that I might disappear into this mysterious place as well as soon as I could find out what it was. He had smiled and then ruffled my hair, then patted me on the back and then told me to go do as I wished.

I soon found Haze about to board a lift that lead out of Hallow Bastion, and managed to convince him to bring me with him. He was hesitant at first, but when I pleaded with him, intrigued, he nodded and then let me onto the lift with him. I would have never thought that my older brother would have let me go...but he must have felt sorry for me. I had always been inside with Father - I'd never seen the world outside my castle, my father's embrace, and the soft exotic orangy red of his eyes. I can remember staring at the village like an idiot until Haze nudged me, grabbed my hand, and then pulled me over to a house - a cozy-looking house at that. I just dragged out the time, staring numbly with my mouth hanging wide open, trying to see everything at the same time.

'Hi Haze! ...Oh! Is this her?' A squeaky, good-natured voice reached my ears and I jerked my head around to see where and possibly who this squeaky voice was coming from.

'Yep!' Haze said happily, though I was still gripping his hand tightly, staring at the stranger. 'This is Raine!'

'Hiya, Raine, my name is Mierie!' The girl stuck out her hand and I examined it with a quizzical stare. 'Uhh...haven't you heard of a handshake?'

'Uhm, excuse her if she doesn't know much,' Haze sounded embarrassed at my lack of knowledge of this place. 'You see...she loves to stay with my father...and doesn't get out much.'

'I can tell.' Mierie paused before looking at me again. She had bright aqua eyes...yes, I can remember her bright aqua eyes above anything else. 'Awright, Raine, we're gonna have to teach you everything!'

I could only blink in wonder as this gregarious girl was soon leading me around everywhere, and soon I was asking her questions, questions that made her laugh because I knew so little. I liked her...she...reminded me of Mother. She reminded me of all of the things that I was not, and how insignificant I was compared to her. How much that I had to achieve to be just like this pretty, happy girl who knew everything.

Haze, Mierie, and I became inseperable. My father had soon taken an extreme liking of this little girl, seen laughing and chasing me and her down the halls of Hallow Bastion, yet I could feel that bond that my Father and I shared grow stronger and stronger. It was stranger now, strange that I could read his thoughts, that I knew what he was thinking, that I could see inside of his head.

I developed a bond with both Mierie and a man who had arrived at Hallow Bastion a very long time ago. He was my father's most trusted friend, his most deadly sparring partner, and the only one who could understand his curiosity for the unknown. He was so strange, yet it seemed the strange appealed to me over all others. He was much bigger than me, but I could understand his thoughts, and some of the mutual anguish that we both shared, though he never shared it openly, like I did. He would listen...then his eyes told me the rest. Despite his locked emotions from a physical point of view, his eyes were an uncontrollable fount of emotions - love, laughter, anger, misjudgement.

His name was Sephiroth.

Mierie, unlike my new older friend, broadcasted her feelings well - straight to the point. She'd tell me if she liked something or not, what she thought on something, or whatever she had on her mind at the point. I was more the quiet type, listening to what she had to say - I never told her what I was thinking, even when she asked. A simple, 'Nothing' was all that answered her, and then she'd look at me for the longest time before continuing to talk. It relieved me that I did not have to talk while I was with her, though she insisted that I talk to her, and tell her things - stuff girls were 'supposed to do', she said. I saved my thoughts for my father and for Sephiroth.

Everything seemed to be going well - Haze, Mierie and I were together almost all of the time, Father was finding out more and more about this darkness, and Sephiroth would even take me out flying once in a while. I was getting settled into my new life with these new friends of mine, and so was Haze. He was talking more, laughing with Mierie, playfully wrestling around with me while I whined in protest and tried to struggle out from his arms, playing baseball again with his other friends, and doing all of the other things that the old Haze used to do. I myself had changed - I was doing all the stuff I used to do, also - ballet, playing the violin with Father again, reading, running countless laps around Hallow Bastion...

It sounds good, does it not?

We all know that the good does not last long.

Father became enthralled with his project on the darkness - he would neither look up and let his eyes even stray from the papers in front of him. We began to worry about him. He became dark, angry...maddened with the darkness that had been in my heart, that strange desire to have power. Mierie and I had been chasing each other through the halls of Hallow Bastion, until she had noticed something that was not there before - a door. Not an odd door, but a door, nonetheless. Interested, we approached this door, and soon found ourselves in a huge hall that even I had not seen before... The Grand Hall, we had decided on calling it.

'The Grand Hall...' Mierie giggled at our name for it as we raced up the broad carpeted floor, heading towards the stairs. 'Wow, Raine, your dad has some weird taste!'

'I know...' Was all I said back to her - this was indeed strange.

When we reached the top of the stairs, Father was standing there, looking into some strange device he must have been working on. And...before our very eyes, something...big began to emerge from the device. A horn. A frightening face, hooves... A Behemoth. Massive in proportions, this creature stared down at my father as if waiting for instructions of some sort, and to my amazement, he back to examine it as if it was nothing at all. At this point, questions ran through my mind, questions that still go on unanswered right now.

'Mierie,' I whispered in a small voice. 'He's saying something to it...'

And in that next moment...I'd never felt so scared in my life.

The Behemoth saw us, and seemed to feel for something, before going out of control. He charged right at us - knocking us to the ground and standing with hooves pressed flat to our chests. I could feel ribs breaking...but who was it who cried out so, Mierie, Father, or I? Why wasn't he moving from his spot, why wasn't he calling it off? Why? WHY WON'T HE HELP US!

'Raine!' My brother. He was here...he'd save us...wouldn't he? 'Mierie! Hold on, please don't go! Don't leave me here!'

What was he talking about?

As I thought this, I felt something wrapping up around my arms...something both hard and soft. Something that seemed to bring out a deep yearning in my heart, and as I looked over to Mierie...she'd gotten free. Haze was crouched above me, trying to pull the restraints off, trying to save me... I couldn't move, before a desperate look crossed over my face.

'Help me!' I cried up at them. Haze managed to get some of those restraints off, which only proceeded to wrap around him and I. He yelled and struggled against them as if they were poison, while Mierie tried to get them off.

I could only scream in terror and cling to my brother as the darkness surrounded us...