Hello, everyone! Lilith here.
And here we are. As promised, I've gotten a start on the next story: Chained Hearts!
Now just to give a word of warning to you guys, this one might be a tad slower than the norm because of the precariousness of writing out the escalating floors of Castle Oblivion. But rest assured, I'll try my hardest to make it interesting to the best of my ability.
To Gry20 (back in Tainted Hearts): I noticed your review some time ago. I really appreciate ideas and suggestions for my work, wholly. However, what you suggested unfortunately, to me, gave me the impression of the dangerous territory called 'Mary Sue'. I am trying not to cross the line I've drawn since starting this series. I hope you understand my serious reservations about it.
Anyways, without further ado, hope you enjoy!
I own nothing of Kingdom Hearts except my OCs.
Read, leave me a review, but flames are unacceptable.
Prologue: Finding Castle Oblivion
When Luna abruptly woke up, the first she saw is a clear night sky stretching out across a wide, seemingly endless field of greens with a dirt road next to her that appeared to stretch on forever in two directions. As she sat up from her initial sleeping position, she looked around to see Donald and Goofy on one side of her, asleep on top of one another and snoozing away, and then looked to her other side to see Medea lying face down on the ground, lightly snoring in contrast to the duck and the dog.
After chasing down Pluto for a while, they sadly lost track of the dog as he disappeared for parts unknown and have no clue what became of him after all the trouble of giving pursuit. Being forced to give up after all the effort they put to get any leads, the gang opted to rest until they can go further down the road, hopefully to find out wherever they're going.
Not wanting to bother any of her friends, she slowly got up and started walking over to the dirt road just to see if she can scope out anything of interest before going anywhere.
Funny thing is, she still wore the clothes she had from the moment she had been forcibly torn away from her foster home – the white, no sleeved blouse and short blue skirt held by a leather buckled corset, thigh-high black boots, long fingerless gloves, blue mini hat with a veil over her eyes, and the gold-decorated brooch holding a moonstone in its center. But who could blame her? It wasn't like she could change her clothes at any time.
But that didn't matter because she focused more on trying to discern where they are now – and for that matter, where the heck Sora went off to. Luna noticed from the start that he wasn't with the rest of the gang when she woke up. Did he go off searching without them?
"You couldn't sleep either, Luna?"
Recognizing the familiar boyish voice, she turned around to find Sora coming up near her, surprised to see her awake. He was still dressed the same as well, but it didn't bother him in the slightest.
Almost automatically, Luna nodded in response. "I woke up. I didn't see you anywhere. What were you doing?"
Sora shrugged his shoulders. "Yeah, I couldn't sleep either. I just thought I'd take a look around, but I can only see miles of green everywhere and that road we've traveled on for hours." He shook his head. "At this rate, I don't think we'll be able to find anything at all."
Luna felt disappointed at the news. When they began adventuring through the worlds with Donald and Goofy from the moment they lost their home world, they had fought through many perils and overcame many enemies that tried to oppose them until they confronted the witch Maleficent – only to find that the real mastermind behind the destructions of the worlds was a monster under the name of Ansem. They tracked him down and successfully stopped him from fulfilling his plans with the Heartless, but in order to prevent more of those black fiends from spilling out, they had to close the door to Kingdom Hearts with Riku and King Mickey trapped on the other side.
However, she remembered Riku's promise to her before the door closed, separating them:
"I'll come back to you. You'll see."
It gave her a small, comforted smile, thinking on Riku's vow to find a way to return to her; she felt sure that he'll find a way out of the realm of darkness and come back to her. Still, she would've given anything just to see him again.
"Hey, you gonna be okay?" Sora's question interrupted her thoughts.
She quickly looked to him and nodded. "I'll be okay. But I wish I could be with Riku again."
Sora gave her a reassuring smile. "Don't worry, Luna. He'll be alright. He's stronger than you think. For all I know, he's probably looking for you right now!" Then, he looked ahead of him towards a crossroads stretched out before them. "Now, if only we knew where to start searching for him and King Mickey…"
He was right about that. Where are they going to find them now? The crossroads laid out ahead of them doesn't really help things in the slightest.
But then, both of them suddenly felt a sharp, nervous jolt running down their spines as they sensed something within their vicinity.
"Along the road ahead lies something you need," a soft yet dangerous voice beckoned from behind.
In an instant, Luna and Sora both turned around – but found nobody there! They looked around, trying to understand what was going on, but then felt that alarming vibe force them to turn back and – to their surprise – found a suspicious figure in a hooded black coat hovering by one of the roads, taunting them.
"However – in order to claim it, you must lose something that is dear to you," the mysterious figure continued.
Then, as quickly as he mysteriously appeared, the stranger disappeared without a trace, leaving Sora and Luna baffled as to what happened there. And for that matter, what was that whacky rabble all about?
"What was that?" Luna couldn't help asking.
"I wish I knew," Sora confessed, baffled at what happened. "We'd better head back and let our friends know what we saw."
She nodded in agreement, allowing Sora to hurry ahead and alert the others. But just as she started to follow behind him, though, she stopped and looked back to see the hooded man hovering where they had last seen him. But the man seemed intently focused on her for reasons she doesn't know.
"…To think the frail flower has grown to full bloom," the mysterious man mused.
Perplexed at the cryptic curiosity, Luna was about to question what he was talking about, but he vanished again, leaving her with more questions than answers. As much as she wanted to ponder over what she heard, she didn't want Sora to come looking for her due to her dawdling, so she hurried away from the crossroads as quickly as possible and rendezvoused with the rest of the party to relay what happened. Apparently, Sora had just told Donald and Goofy about what they saw with Medea listening intently before Luna arrived on the scene.
"Are ya sure your eyes weren't playing tricks on you?" Donald asked with skepticism.
"I'm sure of it! Luna was with me when we saw that hooded man," Sora insisted, "He was saying weird things to us, and then he disappeared."
Medea, despite hearing what Sora said, noticed her master just arrived. "Hey, Luna, what held you up? You see something that Sora didn't before you came back?"
When she heard that question being directed towards her, Luna wasn't sure if she should tell what she heard to her friends, especially considering how out of place the situation was when it was just her out there at the crossroads. But when she saw the confused look on Sora's face and Medea's fixed gaze at her, she knew that she might as well be honest about what she witnessed – even if it sounds ridiculous.
She took a breath before answering, "Yes…I did. That same hooded person – the one that Sora told you about, I'm sure – appeared again as soon as Sora wasn't around to see him. Then, he said something strange, just like what happened on the islands. Only…the man compared me to a flower, and I have no idea what he meant by that."
Nobody knew how to respond to Luna's testimony without thinking she was crazy, too. Granted, Sora had a slight idea as to how she felt considering he had seen a hooded Ansem direct certain words towards her previously; Donald and Goofy, on the other hand, were at a loss as to what to say about it. Not even Medea had an explanation as to what might've happened without them knowing it.
Then, a familiar cricket jumped out to speak with the group personally and speak his mind on the matter.
"All the same, it's rather suspicious. It could give us a clue as to where the king and Riku could be, or it could a trap set for us," Jiminy said, uneasy to the developments.
"Maybe we oughta see what's past where you guys saw the person," Goofy suggested, "and then we can figure out what to do."
"Sounds good to me," Sora agreed, "I don't wanna see him again on those roads."
"I don't think we'll see him again, at least not for a while," Luna doubted, "But…if we do see him again, we'd better be ready for anything."
That is something everybody can agree on; after what they've gone through so far, it wouldn't be too surprising if after what they've accomplished, they might run into some other trouble that would interfere with their chance to finish their mission and return home once they found what they're looking for. After all, there's no knowing what unknown they'll be stepping into this time around.
However, unknown to the boys, Luna and Medea are the only ones who have the strangest feeling that wherever they are going, they'll be finding themselves in one particular location neither of them would be looking forward to…
…Which is unfortunately confirmed when they followed the road the stranger was last seen, until they found themselves in an uncanny environment.
Luna couldn't help looking up at the eerie castle she once gazed upon ten years ago, remembering the tragedy that came with the place she used to know. Seeing the impractical structures of the towers and the stained glass windows decorating the otherwise otherworldly fortress gave her a bit of a sinking feeling, like she was about to receive a heartbreaking homecoming even though she already saw what happened to her adoptive home as a child; to her knowledge, she and her Guardian are the only select few who know about it…along with a person she once knew so well, but she didn't want anyone else to know about that since it would be too difficult to explain.
"Never thought you'd see this place again, huh, Luna?" Medea suddenly asked her as she watched the boys debate on what to do.
Luna shuddered a little before she answered, "I thought I wouldn't. But…it seems something wants us to come here." She paused. "Still…I can't shake off the feeling that something is wrong about this. I'm not sure what it is, but there's something not right inside the castle. It's like something doesn't belong there."
And she had every right to think that way, considering how she immediately sensed several auras lingering deep within the castle. She didn't know what they were, but she had no doubt that it isn't very inviting.
But then, Donald brought up a big question. "Should we go inside?"
"But shouldn't we knock first, just in case?" Goofy replied, not wanting to ignore etiquette.
"Oh, sure, you can do that," Medea answered sarcastically, "if you're not expecting someone to either kidnap you the moment the door opens or kill you the moment you step inside."
Sora gave the Guardian an 'are you kidding me?' look. "What are you being pessimistic about, Medea? You make it sound like you've been through that stuff before."
"Sora, please don't push our luck. I don't want us to have any trouble," Luna warned her friend cautiously, "This castle…I don't know what the deal is, but we shouldn't be too relaxed about it, unless we want to get into trouble."
"Luna's right, you know. This castle doesn't look too inviting," Jiminy agreed, peeking out of Sora's hood. "I don't like the looks of this place myself, if you know what I'm saying."
"Maybe, but we don't have any other choices, don't we?" Sora insisted, "And besides, what if we do find something in here?"
There was just no dissuading Sora's mind at this point, since he is determined to enter inside the castle and find out what's the deal with the place. Left with no other options – and with nowhere else to go after traversing the road earlier – to use, the party had no choice but to step inside the main hall of the imposing castle and find out what dangers await them once inside.