exploring an alternate ending to KHII. Don't worry, it's only the beginning that's depressing.

Kairi often told her that the islands had once been beautiful.

Inō lay on her back and stared at the blackened amalgams, death-still, colorless, barely visible against the ink of space, and she could not force herself to imagine them as beautiful.

But of course, Kairi always told her that every one of those black clumps had once been beautiful, as they lay staring up through the glass ceiling of Sora's gummi ship at the sprightly lights of the few worlds that had not been heartbroken - she just became especially impassioned when she talked about Destiny Islands. Her once-home. The black clumps welcomed nothing except the darkness now.

Kairi's eyes would glisten when she talked about the islands and she would become animated, pacing about the floor and swinging her arms in an exaggerated facade of happy memories - at first Inō thought the islands were just that wonderful. Then she realized after the first few times that the motions were just to hide her bitterness, and the glistening in her eyes were angry tears. As she traipsed around the pilot room to hide her sadness, Kairi would reminisce.

She held Inō's hands in her tired ones and told her about Sand and about Ocean and about Tree, and about Riku and Sora. She talked about the raft that they had built when they were kids, how Riku and Sora had fought over who would share a paopu fruit with her, how they would all wait out the melting sunsets on the bent paopu tree while they dreamed about going out to visit the other worlds. How she had given her charm to Sora before the earth split between them and she made him promise to bring it back. She didn't tell her about the months she waited for Sora and Riku to come back home, and how the islands had been claimed by the darkness a second time before they could come back.

Now she had had her fill of wanderlust. Now she just wanted to go home. But the prodigal daughter returned to find nothing - her family had moved, the house was in tatters. Darkness had taken everything.

She wanted to go home.

Kairi never said it out loud - she was too sweet for that, she wouldn't want to make Inō a cynic. She was too selfless for her own good, and she would never indulge herself in the sadness that she so longed to vent to anybody other than Inō - Instead she would spend every day living with the motherly mask on, Kairi who was seventeen and Inō's age, trying to singlehandedly raise a girl who had been born into the universe as an empty husk, waiting to be filled with ideals.

But Inō saw. She had been born an empty husk - a girl who had been in Kingdom Hearts' womb for seventeen years instead of one inside her mother's - but the fleeting

nothings

in the back of her mind - perhaps Inō had once lived a lie as well - told her that Kairi was not just reminiscing about old happy memories. She wanted to reach out to her, but how could a husk that had been born in a ship floating in space possibly provide human comfort?

Scraping metal, then dragging footsteps. A pause. Inō heard Kairi sink onto the floor next to her, then felt her hand grasp hers awkwardly but as motherly as possible.

Inō felt the fatigue emanating from her side. The complete lack of desire to advance. It felt familiar. It was painful for her. It must be painful to Kairi.

What did Inō say at this point? What did you like most about the destiny islands? She had already told her a thousand times: being with Sora. Tell me more about Riku and Sora? They were gone, they had gone into the realm of darkness and never come back. How am I supposed to make her feel better? Where was I supposed to learn this? Why don't the nothings tell me anything?

Inō opened her mouth.

"The worlds that are still there - what are they like?"

Kairi laughed and indulged her. The fatigue lingered like a Shadow.