Prologue

The sword got past her defenses and hit her in the stomach. Hard. She felt the air whoosh out of her lungs, and she doubled over as she tried to bring air into her lungs. Her arms automatically wrapped around her stomach, with her sword still in one of her hands. She felt a shadow fall across her. With a sudden jerk of her arm, she flung her arm out towards her opponent, hoping she would be able to finally hit him. Of course, she only managed to clip him in the arm. In retaliation, another blow went to her shoulder with a dull thud. She let out a grunt of pain, but still held her ground. Her shoulder and body were now screaming in exhaustion and pain as she tried to raise her wooden sword to try to strike her opponent.

"Okay that's enough." A voice called from over on the sidelines of their fight. "You've beaten up her enough for today, Rune."

Rune, who stood a few feet from the girl, shrugged his shoulders. "We've gone over this so many times with her. You would think that she would be able to get a full hit on me by now. At least you were able to finally able to land one on me…sort of." He chuckled at the last part of his statement, looking over at the girl.

Kaia, however, had dropped her sword on the ground, and she had one hand holding her shoulder and the other arm wrapping around her stomach. "Let's go again." She said to Rune, her breathing a bit ragged. She bent over to pick her sword off the ground.

"No." The guy on the side, Kierce, said firmly. "If you go on anymore you'll just pass out from exhaustion."

A hand clamped down on her shoulder. Kaia turned her head to see Rune standing right next to her, a smirk lying upon his lips. For as long as Kaia had known him, that smirk had always kind of made her want to just smack him across the face. She resisted doing so this time. "Come on. Let's go get something to eat."

Kaia hadn't known Rune and Kierce for long. They had all lost their home worlds and somehow ended up here. They were all each other had now. Kierce with his longish black hair that hung partially in his hair and his pale blue eyes that seemed to take most things too seriously. He was like her older brother. The one she knew would look after her and that she could tell anything to. Rune, on the other hand, was practically the opposite. His hazel eyes were always sparkling with mischief, and his hair was a lighter brown that was a bit spiky. It seemed that Rune always lived to creating trouble and never seems to take a lot of things seriously. Besides those things, Kaia loved him as one would love their younger brother, even though he was a year older than her.

They made their way towards the First District of the town known as Traverse Town. They had all only arrived here a few weeks ago after their home worlds had been destroyed. They believed that they were the only ones that had gotten out of their worlds. Despite that, Kaia was happy that the other two had gotten out of their worlds when they did. She wouldn't have known what to do without them at her side. As they got here, they noticed that this town was almost deserted, save for them and a few other people. They didn't really know what happened to the other people, but they never went searching for answers.

They reached a small café that had magical candles that never lost their flames. There was only one waitress that worked there, but it wasn't as if the place was ever busy. They all took a seat and ordered themselves each a sandwich and some coffee. Kaia loved herself some coffee. It's what she's always in the mood for and drinks it on a daily basis. It had to be her favorite thing in the world and she couldn't go a day without it. Once the waitress brought them their food and beverages, Kaia's coffee was gone in a matter of minutes.

They finished eating and talked for a little while. It went on for a while until from the corner of her eye, Kaia saw a shadow move. She turned back to the others and saw that they had seen it too. The heartless rarely ever came into the First District, but that didn't mean they never came here. With a nod from Kierce, Kaia produced a weapon from a holster on her hip. It was a simple pistol. She fired a shot at the heartless and it disappeared in a cloud of shadows and a single heart floated up to the sky.

"There's got to be more of them near." Kierce pointed out. "We'd better be going before more show up."

"You guys go on." Kaia said, now leaning back into her chair with her arms behind her head. "I've gotta do something, but I'll be back soon." Kierce looked steadily at her, worry showing in his eyes. "I'll be careful." She promised and pointed towards her gun at her hip. She stood up and headed off towards the Second District.

She made her way past a shop and caught her reflection in the window of the now abandoned shop. The first thing everyone always noticed about her was her natural bright blue hair that reached midback and seemed the go in every direction. Under the messiness of her hair, she had smoky gray eyes. She was also wearing ripped skinny jeans, a plain black leather vest, and huge black boots that reached up to her knees.

Kaia passed through the giant gate that leads to the Second District. She immediately headed off towards the fountain in the corner of the district. The fountain was her favorite place to just sit and think in this world. The biggest reason why is because it reminded her so much of her own home world. There, they had a giant fountain in the middle of their town.

Kaia settled on the edge of the fountain. As she listened to the beautiful sound of the water trinkling down into the water below, she let her mind wander. She thought of her parents, of her other friends, and of her home world. She missed them all so much, and she knew it was likely that she would never see any of them again. She could still remember that fateful day clearly as if it happened yesterday. Shadows everywhere, devouring her world. Her parents pleading with her to get into their single gummi ship.

Movement brought her out of her thoughts. Oh, it was just another heartless. Just one so it shouldn't be a problem. She took out her gun and fired at it. It disappeared. Kaia was about to put up her gun when even more movement caught her attention. There were more heartless.

A lot more heartless. There had to be hundreds of them, and even more kept showing up by the second. They came from all the shadows and trailed down the surrounding buildings. What made the situation even worse: they had her cornered. There was no way that she would be able to get past them and get to the doors. So she did what she could. She held her gun out and fired at them.

From their house, Rune heard a single gun shot ring out in the air. He shot an alarmed look at Kierce, but he was already heading out the door. The gun shot was followed by several more and then they just shopped. Kierce, with Rune following closely behind him, sprinted off towards the source of the noise, hoping that it was just a false alarm.

Kaia had run out of bullets. Now she was kicking at the heartless and tearing them off her. They were the only things she saw, just endless blackness. She had flung one off her back when two more just replaced it. She collapsed under the weight of them, and more of them jumped on her and crowded around her. She could only see partially beyond them and that was the door. It was so close, but she hadn't been able to get to it. As her vision started to cloud over, the last thing she saw was the door opening and Rune and Kierce struggling to get over to her. They slashed away fiercely at the heartless, making many of them vanish but more replaced them. "Run!" Kaia felt the word rip from her throat as she screamed at them. She knew there was nothing they could do for her now, and she refused to let them get hurt or die by trying to save her. She felt an excruciating pain coming from her chest, more specifically her heart. She glanced down to see that a Shadow had ripped his clawed hand into her chest for her heart. She fell into darkness.