/ A/N: Please read this fanfic with the black background. Just click the (Dark) in the upper right corner. It was written with white on black, so I think it fits it the best.

Also, though this is my first Kingdom Hearts fic, I am quite serious about it. I wish you'll tell me honestly what you think after reading, since I really haven't got that many readers. :3

This is an AU fic which manages to mess together Kingdom Hearts (the first, CoM and II) and FFVII. Yes, you heard me right.

I never do Disclaimers because everyone knows who own these labels and I never use my ocs in fanfics. ^^'

Please enjoy~ /

Night 0.

The Stage

"Sometimes…it feels like forgetting it all was my own choice", the actress sighs on the stage, her very being falling into the agony her character was going through.

"No, you can't give in to the search, Laurelia!" claims the man beside her, taking her hands to his, "You just can't! We're so near to the answer, Laurelia, so near! I can almost hear it, we will find out what happened to you!"

"I'm not sure I want to know anymore… I need some time alone, Rafur. Please…"

The man playing Rafur gives away such strong emotion, sadness and worry, that the younger man seated in the back row, a boy in his 17th year, has to blink away tears. Not that he's the only one. Basically the whole audience is in flames from the skill of these two in the main parts.

Or maybe not in flames, but deep water, the boy corrects his thought lines. Since most of them are crying not only on the outside but inside as well. So many people are being touched so easily through these artificial emotions and lives.

Rafur leaves Laurelia to quietly think. She lays down on his bed and sighs, raising her hand delicately on her forehead. The curtains fall slowly and just before the heavy material closes out the voice from behind it, Laurelia screams in a heartbreaking way. The boy in the audience jumps up from his seat, her voice is so real and pleading and horrified…he understands it, he wants to help, go and say: IT'S OKAY… Yuffie's hand stops him from moving any further. She has tears in her eyes as well, but they also wear an expression that tells Sora, that this is no time for him to go, reminds him, that this is a play. Just an act. Slowly he sits back down. Lucky they were in the back row. He hadn't stood in the way for anybody.

For the rest of the play, he makes sure he doesn't fall into the trap of his own inner hero. Instead, he chooses to compare the acting of these two in the main roles to their earlier demonstrations of skill. Rika Bright is actually a redhead, he reminds himself. The blond, curly hair doesn't look strange on her, though…but the (make-up?) dark sacks under her eyes are something never before seen on the natural beauty. She wears make-up now that makes her gentle blue eyes look weary and about-to-cry. She is his favorite actor. After having seen her doing a cross role, the role of a man, he had been…well, basically awestruck. Even though she hadn't really made her voice much lower or worn a beard to cover her feminine jaw, she had been a man. A woman, who can take any role, is what she was to him. She was at her best at the roles of tomboy young women, though…and people say it's because she is like that herself.

The other actor, Kuri Cloud, is one who he follows just…just because he thinks Kuri is actually the silvery haired boy he was once best friends with. Of course, he is immensely skilled as well, but when he goes to the melodrama Sora can't help but feel strange. It's because the silvery haired boy he knew was not one to be melodramatic, quite the opposite, actually. Sure he had made up some weird competitions and called Sora his enemy, but…Riku was Riku. He was actually the real reason Sora was here today. It was uncomfortable, not knowing if you're right or wrong about knowing, like, really knowing some famous actor. So he had told Yuffie about his suspicion and BA BOOM her money had flowed in and they had gotten seats from the most expensive theater fifty kilometers from his home in the center of the infamous under-culture destination people still called "The World That Never Was". Here they were, not only to watch the play, but also to later infiltrate the back stage "to get Kuri's autograph".

This talks volumes of how likely Sora is to do what he means to. He meant to analyze the acting, but instead he ended up just randomly scrambling about things he knew about them. And the reasons he's here today. Not that he and his friend really are that out of place here…they belong to the underworld, head and toes. Night is their day and daytime living is mainly pretence. Sure, it was a bit on contrary with the both of their natures, since they were quite emotional, straightforward and not scary at all…but it was their life anyway. Sora didn't really care what people thought of them and him having worked as a waiter in Seventh Heaven bar since years ago… It was their affair, not someone else's.

He was messed up enough to be any common runaway.

The last scene of the play was memorable. Rafur held Laurelia in his arms, kissing her to the lips first, then her cheek and slowly down her neck. She turned her face – which had been rather sad throughout the play – to the audience, bending slowly backwards as she let him kiss her lower and lower. Then a small smile crept to her eyes and lips, she took eye contact with the audience (though to Sora it felt like it's him she's looking at) and then the lights go out and the curtain falls once more. The way the applause explodes into being after a small silence tells of raw emotion. He's the first one to actually stand up, when the curtain is opened slightly and actors start flowing to the front in small groups.

The main duo is the last ones returning and there are actually some who try to grab their feet. Rika, slightly trembling from returning to her usual self, takes off the wig and closes her eyes before throwing it to the audience. It's her one and only kind of an expensive habit. On live performances she always throws something from her attire for the eager crowd. Yuffie makes a grand jump at it but she fails to snatch the piece of golden locks and decides to throw a tantrum on Sora. That turns out futile, because he's in a daze, watching Kuri and Rika…

Even their names match… Sora muses to himself, I'm becoming a supporter of their pairing… Pairing? I've been with Yuffie too much…

He tries to catch contact with Rika's glittering eyes far down on the stage, but it's useless. She doesn't occupy her eyes with the back row at all and soon they all disappear behind the heavy curtains again, this time for stay.

Yuffie's intelligence sources are the greatest of mysteries. This time, as the time before this and the one before that, Sora makes a mental note to uncover her secrets. It's not like he has forgotten or that he hasn't tried…but Yuffie is just so slippery. She easily dismisses all her friend's attempts at finding out something, ANYTHING, about her sources of intelligence, money, power and her ways of covering all this from the general public of Midgar Garden. What she offers though, is an endless flow of reasons for her superb ninja skills or optimism – which leads to stories about people with many names that are all her friends and always need her advice and so on. Sora doesn't really take much of it seriously.

But what he does take seriously is what she leaves unsaid. Like how the heck did they actually get to just waltz in the backstage at the very right moment after everyone else including the famous actor's bodyguards had left except for Kuri who always stayed last? How had Yuffie found out about the man's habit of sending a text message right after every shoot or show? After all, sending a text only takes a couple of minutes, max.

No matter where she had gotten that information though, it had been very accurate. There was just one little BUT in their way to perfect infiltration: a half-naked Rika Bright wearing a face of shock.

"Eh? You airhead, you said he was gonna be alone", Sora growls at his accomplish who was now trying her best at unlocking the door she had very, very skillfully locked a second earlier. Just where did she get those super locks anyway?

"Yeah, and I thought I was right too just a few seconds ago!" Yuffie snaps back.

"Oh fuck you…" he mumbles, the ring-free hand messing his hair. This was an awfully awkward situation and they had no good way out of it.

Kuri was standing now and Sora more than half expected a fist or at least some venomous words and a hand pulling the red-haired woman away from his reach. But as seconds ticked and none of that happened, he started to get a bit worried. The look of shock had changed on Rika's face – it was still shock but of a different kind. More like happy shock. Weird enough, Kuri was also looking a bit off, kind of…like he'd just lost and was apologizing. It was messed up all right…

"…Sora…"

"Hm?"

...Wait…how does she know my name?

"Long time no see", her smile is brighter than her name, it's actually prettier than he remembers from his DVDs.

"What?"

"Stop it, Rika. You're confusing him and you know it."

She turned to look at her counter-actor, leaving the indeed confused Sora to stare at her t-shirt's ugly turtle man print.

"Stop pretending, you know I see through it! You are just as happy as I am to see him! Riku, it's Sora, Sora!"

"No, I am not happy for seeing someone I don't even recog—"

"…So Kuri Cloud really is just an alias", Yuffie grins, her small hand landing on Sora's shoulder. The two turn to look at her for the first time during the short but somehow lengthy meeting. She beams at them and then pulls a bit, a mark for Sora to follow. She had gotten the lock open…?

"…Riku?" the name comes out of his lips before the brunette is able to seal it off. The other man raises his eyes to meet Sora's. They're such icy blue. He frowns, looking rather sad. Sora finds himself sad as well. What is this sadness?

/ A/N: For your information, if there's gonna be romance for the main character, that is, Sora, it will not be with Riku, but Kairi. I know there're many fans for those two boys out there, but I stand proudly as not one of them.

Please review so I can gather up my twigs and roses! The next chapter is done already as well...but I wonder if it's worth posting...? ;D /