Sora was surprised to see another Gummi Ship parked outside of Master Yen Sid's tower, until Goofy reminded him: Riku must have returned from his own journey.

"A journey? Where?"

Donald tapped his foot. "Sora, you never listen, do you? Riku was going to get Kairi and Lea, so that we'd have all the guardians!"

"Oh. Oh! You mean Kairi's here?"

And with the Ship barely landed and the doors only starting to open, Sora jumped up and raced past Donald and Goofy, who were unbuckling their seat belts; past Aqua and Ventus, who had spent the flight huddled in the back of the ship; and onto the lawn outside.

The Tower staircase seemed more winding than normal, but that only made Sora run faster. Last time, he'd arrived too late, and everyone had left before he'd even come back – something he was still annoyed by. Not this time, though. This time, he'd –

He pushed the doors to Yen Sid's study open. Something smaller and covered in pink rushed at him.

"Sora!"

Sora felt his cheeks grow hot. From behind the pink figure, he could see Riku smirking. "K-kairi!"

There she was, in a new dress – the clothes the Good Fairies must have made for her, Sora let a piece of his mind entertain. Her hair was shorter than when he'd last seen it, too. That didn't shock Sora as much as her expression – as though she'd been waiting for this moment as long as he had.

A thought crossed his mind, before he had time to shoo it away: Had he been waiting for this moment?

Everything suddenly felt off. It was as though she, and even Riku behind her, were really…well, really distant. Like they were strangers. He'd barely thought about them at all, recently; he'd been so busy trying to get his strength back, and then trying to figure out how to free Roxas, and then…and then what? He'd been having fun, the back of his mind answered. He'd been having fun without them even crossing his mind.

For a moment, he looked at Kairi, and Kairi looked back at him, and her smile wavered. Sora had the distinct impression that he'd had when he'd returned to the Hundred Acre Wood and knew that his connections with Pooh and Tigger and Eeyore and everyone had diminished: that the something that had made them friends had disappeared, and they were now just acquaintances.

Suddenly, Kairi didn't feel like the Kairi he knew. Or maybe, Sora thought as he felt his heart pang, maybe he was the one who had changed.

And then Kairi stopped smiling altogether. She took a deep breath and reached out a hand in between them. Her Keyblade, somehow ferocious-looking despite the flowers, manifested in a flash of light. "See? I'm ready now, Sora."

"You're…ready?" Sora asked, dumbly.

"To help! I…well, I haven't been able to do much in the past, but I…" She looked worried for a moment; then she nodded and smiled. "I told you, I want to help this time."

"Oh."

For a long moment, he stared at Kairi, holding her Keyblade.

Did he know this Kairi? Did he miss this Kairi? He wasn't sure, and his uncertainty made it all the more unbearable.

"So what have you been up to, besides rescuing lost guardians?" came a wry voice somewhere to his left. Sora turned and smiled, both to see Lea's tall figure and to not have to face Kairi anymore. "Assuming you did find Ventus."

"Oh, the usual," he answered, moving his arms behind his head. "Jumping between worlds, rescuing princesses, steering pirate ships."

"Pirate ships? What, did you join with Captain Hook and his merry band?"

"You know Hook? Nah, Captain Jack Sparrow."

"Sounds fancy," Lea yawned.

"I bet you loved that, didn't you, Sora?" came Kairi's voice. Sora jumped.

"What do you mean?" He turned to face her again. She had let her Keyblade dematerialize and had put her arms behind her back. How could that look so familiar and so foreign at the same time?

"You used to love playing pirates with the others. Back on the islands," she said.

Riku chuckled, and Sora jumped again; he had forgotten about him. "I'm still convinced that our parents were crazy for letting us play with wooden swords so much. Who were we going to fight?"

Sora remembered trying to use that wooden sword to knock back Heartless, a lifetime ago. "I mean, it helped us, right? We all have Keyblades now."

"Yeah," Riku nodded. "Except we never let Kairi play swords with us, and she's apparently better than Lea at most of the drills. So maybe we'd have been just fine."

"Really?"

Kairi nodded, leaning forward. "I'm not lazy – like you."

And everything was like how it was before any of this, any of the world-hopping and Keyblade-wielding and prophecies of light and darkness, had begun. Sora scowled and leaned forward. "Hey! I'm not lazy. Just ask Donald and Goofy!"

"You did sleep through most of the Mark of Mastery exam," Riku quipped. Sora sputtered.

"That's something else entirely!"

"And for almost a year when Namine was fixing your memories."

"It's not like I can even remember that!"

"Don't worry, Sora," Kairi said, smirking. "If you fall asleep again, I'll make sure to be there to wake you up."

"Come on, Kairi," Sora said in mock-despair. This was familiar. This was what he missed the most, when he travelled, what he hadn't really known he missed (except a part of him had, the part that was sad when Pooh didn't really need him, that wanted to help Elsa, that was happy for Herc, that ushered some birds over for Rapunzel on a whim). "Have some confidence in me!"

"Hmmmm…nah. I know you too well, right?"

And then his heart was throbbing in an entirely different way. Sora smiled widely. "Right!"