Another Side, Another Story

Sora was straining with the door, Riku was helping but it was still closing ever so slowly. Looking inside he could see more Darksides rising up behind Mickey, and he could also see something else; a patch of darkness darker than the rest, if that was possible, in a familiar shape, it was the negative of the very door he was straining to close.

The doors edged closer and closer together as he, Riku, Donald and Goofy pushed, (or in Riku's case pulled) with all their might. Just as the doors closed Sora saw a flash of a familiar hooded figure standing before the door of darkness, then the doors were closed.

Sora awoke with a start, he had been having that dream again, he had had it more and more often recently, what did it mean? It was tied to the Enigmatic man, the third power, that much he knew, but what about that other door? If there was darkness behind the light, could there be light behind the darkness?

Shaking his head, Sora got out of his bed. He was in the house in Traverse town that Leon and Co. had used as a base during the Kingdom Hearts crisis, he had been stuck here ever since the crossroads, where he had been separated from Donald and Goofy by a strange dark light that had enveloped him and warped him to a void similar to the ones in which he duelled the Heartless at the End of The World. He had stumbled around for what seemed an age when he came upon a keyhole, unlocking it with the Keyblade had transported him here where he'd been for about a month.

His birthday had come and gone, but the strangest thing was that a grey trenchcoat, exactly the same as the one the Enigmatic man wore, had appeared on his draws and it fit him perfectly. He had used the money he had accumulated during his adventure to buy himself some new clothes; a plain white t-shirt, grey, slightly baggy trousers and a pair of black shoes similar to his old pair, he had also bought a new pair of grey, fingerless gloves to replace his old worn ones, but he had slipped the medallion bands from his old pair to his new pair.

He was walking across the square in the second district when he spotted it, a black creature with large round eyes and two antenna, a shadow heartless, one of only a few kinds of heartless that didn't have Ansem's mark on them. It shouldn't be here, Traverse Town was sealed, Ansem was gone and Kingdom Hearts was closed, it couldn't be here, and yet it was. Sora looked around, trying to see a way the heartless could have come, when he saw it, the keyhole that he had used to seal Traverse Town had appeared again, but this time it was emitting sinister pulses of dark light and the mural around it was beginning to crumble and fall apart.
The keyblade materialised in Sora's hand, he had the Ultima keychain attached, the golden heart transforming the Kingdom Key into a deep green blade, covered in twisting gold filigree and surmounted by a stylised heart. The Shadow exploded in darkness as the keyblade cleaved through it and Sora looked about, searching for more enemies and that was when he saw him.

He knew at once that it wasn't Unknown, the Enigmatic Man, but it was another like him, dressed in the same trenchcoat, the hood obscuring his face. This unknown walked away from the keyhole, where he had presumably appeared, and strode to the centre of the courtyard, arms behind his back, hands clasped, leaving a puddle of darkness with each step.

Sora charged at him, only to be deflected by a barrier similar to Aeroga and fly backwards, crashing into the keyhole and mural, shattering most of the tiles, and sliding into the water before the mural, dazed, as the unknown turned to him and lowered its hood.

A pale face was revealed with dark blue, almost black, eyes and jet-black hair that was tied into a ponytail and fell to the bottom of his shoulder blades. He gave Sora a smirk and unzipped the jacket, causing darkness to spill out in wisps along the floor and dark light to pulse from inside the coat, his head changed and was now a smooth black sphere with huge, round, blue eyes and two zigzagging antenna tied together an the back of its head.
A new type of heartless began to spill out of the darkness, both the puddles and from beneath the unknown's jacket, they were taller than the Shadows that they resembled with the same zigzagging antenna as the unknown and they appeared to work together much more than the Shadows did, they began splitting up into groups of five and going in separate directions.

All this time the keyhole was becoming bigger as more of the mural fell away, now it was an uneven circle of darkness that suddenly blossomed into light and began to drag Sora away from the carnage of the unknown and the heartless, the last thing he saw was the unknown's head split into four of the new heartless and the jacket crumple to the ground revealing a pulsating purple and black portal with more and more heartless appearing by the second, then there was a flash of light and Sora was standing somewhere he never thought he'd be again.

Kingdom Hearts.

But on the wrong side of the door, he was with the heartless, an ocean of them, and no King Mickey to save him this time. He began to hunt around for a way out as the darkness stirred, he didn't want to fight another Darkside, and remembered his dream, Unknown had been standing before a door, a dark door, yes, but a door was a way out, dark or light.

There. He saw it, high up on a ledge on the far side of the chamber, he climbed the ledges on his side and glided across, pulling his arms to his sides and pressing his legs together to speed up. He landed on a ledge just below and to the left of the door and climbed up, he was now standing in front of the door.

"A dark door, is this right?" he asked no one in particular, "If there is darkness behind the light…" he looked over his shoulder at the white door on the opposite side of the cavern, "then there could be light within the darkness" he said, trying to convince himself.

He heard something move behind him, and made up his mind. Pointing the keyblade at the door he took a few steps forwards until the point of the blade was touching it, then he turned it sharply to the left.

The door flew open and Sora got a blast of light in the face as brilliant white swallowed him up.