Hello, there, people! Kichi Hisaki here. And if you haven't read any of my other works, then you're probably not really knowing what the hell you're getting yourself into.

I pride myself in my originality (even though I'm still stuck on getting past my writers block for some of my other fics and my two books...), so don't expect something that many of the other people are writing.

This does follow up on the Kingdom Hearts games. Mostly. But isn't that what fanfiction is all about? You take something with copyright on it and make it your own (without actually going through lawsuit and all that stuff), and either do your best not to mess it up, or you eff it up so badly people don't even really know what the f!ck they're reading anymore.

Um... Enough of the fanfiction psychology...

Anyways, as I was saying, this takes place AFTER KH II. Why? Because it'll make a hell of a lot more sense that way. So if you haven't played the second one, (or first one, for that matter) either click out of this or sit yourself down and take notes on all the spoilers. (No, I won't tell you when or where the spoilers are going to pop up. If you can't figure that out, then whatever.) This fic also takes place after my good fic, Shadows Hearts Memories Gone. (Originally written Shadows--Hearts--Memories--Gone) So if you haven't read that one, it might take you a while to figure out exactly what's happening here. So, read up peoples! (And leave a few reviews, while you're at it...)

So... Now that that's all said and done... Onward reading!

DISCLAIMER: I do not own in any shape, form, or fashion Kingdom Hearts, Kingdom Hearts--Chain of Memories, or Kingdom Hearts II. If I did, do you really think that there would be no blood and no major angsting? ...Didn't think so.

Chapter One

Two months.

Two whole months since he, Kairi, and Riku were thrown into many different worlds and a chaos of adventures. Two months since King Mickey, Donald, and Goofy went back to their kingdom with sappy goodbyes and promises to keep in touch. Two months since he, Kairi, and Riku had gone back to school. Two months since he has been unable to summon up the Keyblade.

And he couldn't be happier.

Sora grinned as he jumped from his window and onto the sidewalk below next to a walking Tidus, decked in the mandatory school uniform (white, button-up shirt with blue plaid tie and pants Sora had to admit, they didn't look so bad on him). There was a perk to having traveled and trained all over many different worlds—he could now handle jumping from a two story window and not receiving a violent shock running up and down his legs. Tidus blinked as his short friend seemingly appeared out of nowhere beside him on the sidewalk, then grinned.

"Hey, Sora! Ready for the big test in algebra today?" he asked, slinging his arm around the shoulders of his spiky-haired friend. "Riku said that you probably forgot to study last night."

And at that comment, Sora groaned, bowing his head in his shame. "Ah, crap. I forgot." Pouting, he shot a glare at the image of a laughing Riku in his head. "Stupid Riku, he jinxed me!"

Tidus laughed. "No, he just knows you so well. So, guess what?"

Sora glanced over at his friend. "What? You and Selphie finally decided to get together?" he joked, poking Tidus in the chest as said boy blushed a bright red.

"N-no! What I was going to say was…" Tidus reached down into his bag, rummaging around in it for a moment before pulling something out. "I got this at the library yesterday."

Sora blinked, peering at the dusty old book in the hands of his friend. It was large and worn—the title wasn't visible anymore. The pages had turned yellow with age and it looked as though it hadn't seen a proper shelf in over a century. He rose a brow. "And you willingly went to the public library…?"

A smack to the back of the head was he got in reply. "I do so read! Anyways, I was looking all over the place for something to do my book repot on and I ended up finding this. Here, look," he said, shoving the heaving thing into Sora's hands.

Sora frowned and carefully pulled back the cover, coughing a bit when dust came flying out to meet him properly in the face. Blue eyes skimmed over the pages as he turned them slowly, and his eyes went wide as he recognized what he was reading in the neat hand writing that littered the pages.

"This… This is magic!"

Tidus grinned ear to ear as he snatched the book back from a stupefied Sora. "I know! I asked the librarian about the book and she said that the library had received it from this old family that lived in this place called Mystic Rein. Said that the person who wrote it was a person that studied things like the paranormal," he explained, gently placing the book back into his bag. "I already read some of the stuff in there--let me tell you, this stuff is crack on crack--and there were some things about bringing back the dead, making dreams a reality, and something about making those that aren't visible, visible. What the heck could that mean, anyway?'"

Sora gave him a skeptical look, ignoring the question. "Oh, come on, Tidus, you and I both know that magic isn't real."

Tidus frown. "Oh yeah? Then what's all this stuff I keep hearing about you, Kairi and Riku getting thrown into other worlds, filled with magic and monsters that steal hearts?" he asked, staring at a silent Sora. He sighed and ran a hand through his hair, feeling suddenly awkward.

"… You never did tell any of us where you and Riku disappeared to all last year."

"… I told you, it's nothing. Just something that happened back at the islands."

"Whatever you say, Sora…"

A silence fell between the two as they continued their trek to school, both keeping to their own thoughts. Sora breathed in a breath of air as Tidus began talking about blitzball, veering away from talking about what had happened.

The three of them had decided that it was for the best that none of the others knew about what had really happened those two months ago, and what had transpired throughout the year before. The things they saw, the people they met, the things they've done… The secret was to be kept between the three of them, and never to be shared with anyone else.

As King Mickey had said, meddling with the affairs of different worlds would be disastrous.

The sun shone brightly down into his eyes, blinding him as he blinked awake. The soft call of seagulls and the subtle crash of waves against his feet roused him out his state of sleep. Sand lay underneath him like a warm bed, heated by the gentle beating of the sun.

He brought a hand up to his head as he blinked away the sleep from his eyes, shaking his head to clear his thoughts. Looking around, he saw himself in a fairly unfamiliar place. Tall palm trees swayed in the gentle breeze along the edge of the beach, and bright green grass stuck out the of the ground further away from the water. A small spring drizzled water in the cool shade of some rocks and trees, creating a small pond in the depths of this strange, but calming place.

Looking away from the beach and out in front of him, he saw bright, clear and untainted water spilled out before him, waves leaping high every now and then to gently fall to the soft sand and crash into whatever may lay on the beach, lapping at his feet before repeating the process all over again.

'This looks like… the Destiny Islands…'

At least, that what people had once told him they looked like. Bright, sunny, peaceful, and a nice beach with clear waters that never went mad in the summer storms that sometimes hit.

He stood up and surveyed his surroundings once again, frowning in thought. 'Now… How did I get here?'

Sora yawned as he stepped into his bedroom, dropping his bookbag on the floor by his door, then plopped into a pile of messy sheets with a content sigh. "Ah, it's so good to be home," he mumbled, stretching tiredly on his bed. He looked around the room with a satisfied grin: he had passed his test today with a good C+.

Of course, his mom wouldn't be the happiest in the world, but at least he got a better grade than he did the week before.

'Mom...'

On the day of his return to the islands, his mother had fallen into a pit of joyous tears at his return. Apparently, he had been missing for over a whole year, and after a while, the local police had decided that he had drowned in the storm that hit the islands so very long ago. She had been so happy at his return that she had invited Kairi's and RIku's families over to celebrate their happy homecoming.

Sora had never really thought much about how his family might have felt about him leaving. He figured that if he disappeared for a while, his parents would think that he was spending his time at the islands. 'Well, I don't think that I would have spent a whole year on the islands,' he reasoned with himself, rolling his eyes. 'Cheese burgers are too yummy to give up for so long.'

Speaking of food... His stomach gave a low growl, and he blushed a bit. He forgot about those silly Roxas cravings that now had to be fulfilled everyday.

His food habits had taken a slight turn ever since Roxas had became a part of him--like the sudden cravings for Sea-Salt ice cream. He figured that because Roxas had split from him and become a Nobody, that part of himself developed different taste for things. So, when Roxas had finally merged back into him, (thus making him whole once again and allowing him to wake up from a comatose state) he had received some of those differences.

(Riku had asked him a while back ago about that when the three of them went for ice cream at the local parlor and Sora had gotten Sea-Salt instead of the usual cookie-dough. "Sora? I didn't know you liked Sea-Salt..." "Huh? Oh, well, I guess it's the Roxas in me..." "Roxas? Oh! You mean that boy that came out to talk to Naminé?" "Yeah, him. Apparently, he likes Sea-Salt." "Hmmm... I remember that he always used to get that flavor every time that Hayner and them got together for ice cream." "...How long did you spend working for Ansem, again?" "Oh, shut it Kai."

When Sora had explained his reasoning for his sudden taste, Riku had given him a gold star for being smart for once in his life.

And Sora had punched him in the face for making fun of his brains.

And Kairi had sighed and bribed them to stop fighting or else their ice creams would melt.

...And the bribe worked.)

Sora could have sworn that Roxas was smiling in him as he loosened his school tie from his neck and made his way downstairs to get the Popsicles out of the fridge. 'Mmm, Sea-Salt...' He grinned happily as he licked away at the light blue treat, skipping his way into the livingroom on socked feet (nearly slipping on the wood floor and cracking his head open). He plopped down onto the couch, turned the television on, and immediately began to watch the cartoons that were on the screen.

'Who cares if I'm nearly seventeen? Cartoons are what keep us sane!' He vouched for himself, pumping a fist into the air as if to prove his point. '...Or maybe they make us think we're sane...' He gave a pout. 'Oh, I don't know anymore... I have to stop listening to Selphie's theories at lunch...'

The cartoons continued as he slowly ate his ice cream, the small characters slicing each other open and knocking each other out before sending themselves to refuges in space. He laughed and gasped at the silly and outrageous things the cartoons did, and eventually came to licking nothing but the left-over taste of the Sea-Salt on a stick.

He pouted again as he stared at the accursed thing, died blue in its crime. (How Irronic.) "Oh, that's no fair... I wanna eat more!" He cried, pushing himself up from the couch and back into the kitchen. He grinned to himself as he slipping up to the refrigerator, purposefully ignoring the note magnetized to the front of it by his mom telling him not to eat more than one Popsicle, and opened the top of the fridge. The cold air blasted out onto his warm face, and he relished in the feel of the chilly fog as he reached into the back, a small voice in the back of his head urging him to take the delicious treat--he earned it; he passed the test; he earned it just as much as any other teenager out there--and grasped the box that held his prise with his numbing fingers--

"Oh, you know you shouldn't do that, Roxas. What if your mom finds out?"

Sora froze, and not just because of the sudden puff of cold air that came drafting against his skin in the warm, summer day. A sense of sudden awareness hit him as the familiarity of the voice rang true in his memory. His muscles tensed as he slowly turned himself around, eyes wide as his shining sapphire's landed on the one thing that he just knew wasn't there when he first entered the kitchen that afternoon.

"... You aren't supposed to be here."

End Chapter.

Haha, cliff hanger! Aren't I a smart one?

Thank you for reading thus far--it makes me smile when I find that people actually read the crap that I came up with (but you better continue reading to the next chapter...)

So... Yeah. I like reviews. And you know what? I don't really care if I receive flames--so if you wanna flame me, flame me with all you've got! (Just leave the first grade out of this. I don't really want to remember my first grade class.) (And if you do flame me, make sure it's worth my while. If I get something with so many typos and all caps that it's illegible, I'll just ignore it.)

Again, thank you for reading, and I'll update whenever I get the chance. And that means if you want me to update faster, give me reviews! Make them long too... Long and... review...y... Yeah.

Wee!

Love you.

Review.

Hearts. (Not meant in the KH way, just the I -heart- you way.)