The school bus was filled with the sounds of students talking. There were currently twenty students and thanks to a lack of staff there were only five teachers on the bus with a couple more on the way as the days went by. Anyway, the students of Crown Key Academy were heading to the Destiny Islands for an entire month for their trip thanks to the distance between Crown Key and Destiny Islands. Most of the teachers dismissed the chatter as nonsense however, though it meant more to the students which was to be expected.

Turning to the person she was sitting next to (that being Neku Sakuraba) Shiki grinned slightly and asked him, "Hey Neku! Do you believe in that myth about Destiny Islands?"

Sighing a bit, Neku sighed and shook his head.

"Come on! You know what it is. The one about the mermaids."

"No. I don't,"

"Aw, come on! Why not?"

Neku knew that Shiki wasn't going to give up until he gave her an answer. He'd gone to school with Shiki since the sixth grade, so it was a given that he knew her well enough to know that. In fact, Neku knew her as well as Shiki knew him. Though sometimes the girl...well, wasn't the easiest to be around.

"Simple; because there's no evidence of it."

"Aw, you're no fun. Mr. Mew agrees," Shiki folded her arms and looked back to the front. She peeked over the seat and saw Riku and Sora talking to each other, in curiosity, decided to listen in.

"So what do you think we're gonna see here, Riku?" Sora asked, sounding excited about this trip.

"Sora; you do remember that we went here every summer until we turned ten?" Riku questioned, turning to his friend. "And we did anything to try to find something back then so something tells me we're not going to find anything special."

Pouting a bit, Sora argued back a bit. "But Riku! There was-"

Riku smiled in a slightly sly manner before interrupting him. "That one time when you thought you saw a mermaid girl."

"But I did...!" Sora whispered, pouting again.

"Oh come on. Besides; maybe by some miracle you'll be right."

Shiki's hat soon fell onto Riku's head, covering his teal eyes. "What the...?!" Riku muttered, his hands reaching for it, before tilting his head back far enough to see the pink-haired girl without her hat. Riku sighed a bit and handed it back to her.

"See Neku!" Shiki poked Neku, who was lying back. The boy with the headphones sat up and turned to them. "Looks like I'm not alone," she winked a bit at Sora.

Riku felt a sense of deja vu, only this was happening to Sora and not him. "Here we go again..."

"Has Shiki done this before-"

"Yes."

Shiki hugged Mr. Mew to her chest, before turning and seeing Ventus, the boy in the third seat, the seat by the window. The blonde was staring out the window, briefly talking to Terra and Zack.

"Ventus is lucky enough to be friends with a prefect," Shiki commented, Terra being the prefect in question. "Any thoughts Neku?"

"None from the looks of it." Joshua chuckled a bit.

"Because I don't." Neku stated, seeming to turn something on. Now no matter what was said to him, it seemed like he didn't even hear.

Sora briefly peeked over the seat and noticed the word 'Hikaru'. "Must be some music artist...!" he smiled a bit, tilting his head. Neku had his hand up in a way that he wouldn't let anyone touch his headphones, the ones that he never seemed to take off.

Seeing how the conversation featuring Shiki, Neku, Sora and Riku had basically ended, the brown-haired boy decided to see if he could start a conversation with Ventus. "Hey, Ventus...!" he said, smiling a bit.

The blonde seemed a bit lost in thought, before turning to the brown-haired boy. "Oh, hey Sora...!" he said eventually, putting his hands behind his head in his usual manner.

"Are you okay...?" Sora had detected that Ventus seemed...anxious about something. "You look pretty anxious,"

"Y-yeah. I'm fine." Ventus replied, he had a secret - it was about his brother. He for one felt...out of it. He had felt like that for about two years. There was only one person who knew that, and that was Terra.

The group felt like they were being watched, making their gazes turned to the front of the bus. They could have sworn that Mr. Nasexm had been watching them a second ago, making them feel slightly uneasy.

In fact; if the students were to be honest, due to a disappearance there, everyone had felt a bit off once the trip to Destiny Islands had been mentioned. Although students like Seifer, Rai and Beat tried to act like it didn't bother them, it was still slightly nerve-racking. Truly there only seemed to be one student who didn't seem to care - that being Fuu. The steel-blue haired girl just sat, her red eyes staring straight ahead.

Sora took a deep breath, grinning a bit. "This is gonna be great, I know it." he muttered to himself, sitting up.

Thanks to the distance and Destiny Islands being, well, islands, the students had to take a boat.

Quite a few of the older students chose to stay inside but a small amount of students such as Ventus, Roxas, Sora and even Terra came outside.

As Sora stared down at the deep blue water, he could see movement underneath the waves, confusing him slightly. That was when a cerise pink tail appeared out of the water, splashing him in the face. On the other side, a white tail and a baby blue tail spattered the liquid on Ventus and Terra, while a black tail did the same to Roxas.

"Hey, Terra! Did you see that?" Ventus pointed at the sea, but he was getting far too enthusiastic from the sight making his body tilt over the bar, hanging above the water.

"Ven!" Terra shouted, bending over the railing and just barely grabbing Ventus by the feet. "Come on...come on..." he mumbled, trying to pull him back to the boat. Two teachers, Miss Lockhart and Miss Farron assisted the brunette in pulling. Sora and Roxas ran to help once they saw what was going on.

While hanging over the railing, he saw someone staring at him in the water. It was a girl with bright blue eyes, rosy cheeks, pale lips and shoulder-length blonde hair which draped over her shoulder, only for her to swim back down - and there was that white tail again.

As all students were brought inside, Ventus was left wondering. "Was...was that a mermaid? Like the legends say?"

Turning to his best friend, Terra asked, "Are you feeling okay, Ven?"

Ventus nodded a bit, smiling a bit. "Yeah...and thanks, you guys.." he said in reply.

"Hey, we couldn't let you fall in." Terra said, placing a hand on his friend's shoulder.

Wakka got to his feet and went over to Sora and Riku. "Looks like we're almost there, man..." he said to them. "Hey man, me and Selphie and Tidus, we're gonna be recordin' over the month; show what it's like livin' on an island for a month, ya?"

"Sounds like a good idea!" Sora smiled a bit. "I heard Shiki, Neku, Hayner, Pence and Olette are going to be interviewing people around the island to see while investigating some legends around here."

"Me, Selphie and Tidus might join 'em." Wakka replied, looking out the windows. "It could help us out, ya?"

Nodding in agreement, the people sitting down jerked slightly before stopping. The teachers stood up.

Clearly they had arrived. "Students, please go in an orderly line in your groups for your assignments or into your school clubs. As you already know, siblings please stay in the same group."

Eventually they found themselves unpacking in the medium-sized dormitories. As Sora took his clothes out of the suitcase, he noticed someone staring out at him in the water. She had ocean blue eyes, shoulder-length auburn hair and fair skin. He had to admit she was quite pretty, but he didn't know what was attracting him to her. About a second later, she was gone, back in the water.