Hello again folks! I'm back from watching Avengers Endgame and let me tell you - it was freaking FANTASTIC!
For 3-hour long movie, it certainly does a very good job with its action sequences as well as its story-telling and its *ahem*, fan-service moments. Definitely worth the price of admission!
With that being said, this story will definitely link up with the events of the movie... eventually. There's a long way to go before Kairi and co. finally meet up with the rest of the Marvel gang.
Also, I've taken the liberty in updating the companion kill list of I Hope They Remember You, in light of KHIII. Go check it out. You'll never know who else will be sauntering into the party!
Alrighty, I've said enough for this time. Enjoy the story people!
The atmosphere had a feeling of tension in its winds, and the ground was barren and littered with destruction, like a warzone.
All around her, the smell of death invaded every one of her senses like a rotting corpse. It was revolting and she did not like it at all.
And as she looked on with a sense of helplessness, her blue eyes bore witness to what she could only describe as a squash match. And by squash match, she meant that her three allies were being completely wasted and absolutely destroyed right before her.
They were barely on their last legs, Riku, Mickey... and Sora. They had given everything they had, and still it wasn't enough to countermand the combined forces of Heartless, Nobodies and Unversed that were being led by Ansem, Xemnas and all the other Seekers of Darkness.
All except one however.
"As you can see, Your Highness..." a smooth, baritone voice said from beside her, "Your pitiful band of friends have been brought to their knees, and in no time at all."
She barely even casted a glance at her captor, Young Xehanort who was smiling ever so smugly. Sometime during the conflict, he had staged a coup against the older version of himself, whose heart had been used to form one of the copies of No Name Keyblade that hovered behind him.
"A shame though, I had truly hoped to have one last clash with the so-called "Chosen One". But it seems that such an idea appears trivial now compared to what I have planned."
Xehanort turned fully to face her.
"Which brings me to you. After you have bear witness to the demise of the worlds' last remnants of hope, I will let you bear witness to the World that is yet to come. And then I shall grant you eternal peace with your friends and loved ones."
He let out a dark chuckle that sent chills up and down her spine and made her stomach twist in disgust.
It took Kairi all she had to repress her anger; the only sign being her tightly clenched fists at her sides.
Down below, Mickey had just been struck to the ground by a now-brainwashed Xion and he got swept away by the Heartless swarms before she could recover.
Riku meanwhile was in a fight for his life, and he desperately tried to fend off Ansem and Marluxia whom were double-teaming him. That was until Larxene snuck up from behind him and stabbed him in the back and slice his throat simultaneously with her daggers.
Kairi's eyes widened with terror and horror as one of her two best friends fell to the ground, dead.
Xigbar sauntered up to the body, picked it up and gazed at it for a moment before tossing it to one side, joining the pile of other corpses that had once been their other allies.
Aqua... Ventus... Donald... Goofy... Roxas...
The only one that wasn't there was Axel, considering his brutal death at the hands of Saïx.
Which left only Sora now, as he fought with rage and vigor against Terra, or should he say Terranort, who so casually deflected every one of his attacks with ease. Leaping up into the air, Sora prepare to use his signature Ragnarok shotlock attack when Vanitas teleported behind him and sliced down on his back.
"SORA!" Kairi cried out and she watched helplessly as the sixteen-year-old tumbled down to the ground, his Keyblade falling out of his grip.
Xehanort let out a scoff, "So much for the Keyblade's Chosen."
Down on one knee, a battered and bloodied Sora looked up defiantly at Xemnas who had strode up before him.
The Nobody levitated his body and extended out his palm. In an instant a torrent of white lightning tore into the teen's defenseless body. And Sora let out a scream of agony, one that Kairi would forever have buried into her subconscious.
Noticing her reaction to this, Xehanort taunted, "And you said that Sora was the greatest Warrior of Light alive today. A pity. If only I could share your mutual sentiment..."
His words stung her to her very core, and deep down inside Kairi could feel unimaginable fury course through her veins.
Her heart of pure Light was blazing brightly, fueled by her emotions that were spiraling out of control.
Enough was enough, she thought. She wasn't going to stand by and become the protected any longer, as she had been since kindergarten with all those bullies.
Sora and Riku had been the protectors all this while.
Now she would be one herself.
"NO!" she yelled out angrily and in a blink of an eye, she leapt right off the edge of the gigantic pillar Xehanort had created.
Her sudden move caught the evildoer completely by surprise, but she had little time to notice it and and give him a mocking smirk.
Doing a somersault in the air, the Princess of Heart dove downwards and planted her boots down on the side of the cliff.
She started skidding all the way down like a snowboarding professional.
Recovering from his shock, Xehanort ran over to the side and glared daggers at her.
Raising his hand, he called forth all manner of Heartless and Nobodies to appear at the side of the pillar.
Narrowing her eyes at the oncoming swarm, Kairi summoned her Keyblade Destiny's Embrace and went to work. She swung her Keyblade ferociously at the dark creatures that were charging at her.
And for those at a distance, she unleashed every form of spell that Merlin had taught her. Fire. Blizzard. Pearl. Thunder. They were basic spells at best, but the power of Kairi's heart made them almost at level with Sora's own.
"Stay back!" she cried out at a lone Shadow Heartless who tried to attack from behind and she jumped and did a backslash at it.
Up above, Xehanort looked on at her performance, his anger slowly giving way to an impressed stare.
"Remarkable..." he thought with a stroke of his beardless chin.
By now the other Seekers had caught wind of the commotion on the pillar and they all had their attention focused on the angry Princess who was heading their way.
But Kairi made no second thought as she touched down on the ground. Twirling her blade at an angle, she charged straight towards them, specifically Xemnas.
"Looks like somebody's getting cranky about her boyfriend!" Vanitas goaded in a sing-song voice as he charged towards her and fired Dark Firaga balls.
Kairi expertly cut through the balls with no fear or hesitation and and delivered a swift kick to Vanitas' gut just as he teleported before her.
A handful of the Seekers were stunned seeing the masked teen fall by the wayside, except Larxene who was laughing out in amusement at this.
Luxord went next as he began dicing out his cards. But to his surprise, Kairi slid past all of them and even started surfing on one of them straight towards him.
"I think you dropped this!" she yelled out as she hopped over him last minute.
Luxord's eyes went wide as his own giant card sliced him in half cleanly.
Next was Ansem who had summoned forth his Guardian to try subdue her. But Kairi simply frowned at it and called upon the Light within her.
Just as the monstrosity attacked, Kairi shot forth chains of light from the tip of Destiny's Embrace and it wrapped around the Guardian, holding it firmly in place.
She raced past it as it struggled against its prison. Try all it might, it could never break those chains, only she could.
Angry that his main servant was incapacitated, Ansem flew forwards and prepared to attack. It only served to hasten his imprisonment via chains as well.
Alarmed that a mere Princess was tearing through their lines of defense, Marluxia and Larxene charged right at her from opposite sides.
The pink-haired produced an energy beam with a slash of his scythe and Larxene shot out a barrage of her own lightning from her fingertips.
Kairi saw both attacks coming and she did a high backflip, allowing them to sail past unhindered straight towards the opposite ends where the two Nobodies were. Both were struck down before they even knew what had happened and they faded from existence.
With them out of the picture, she finally had a cleared path towards Xemnas who was still unloading lightning unto Sora.
By now he had stopped screaming and was now settling for gritted teeth. But he was noticeably weaking and growing paler. He didn't have long until he joined the others.
"Sora!" Kairi exclaimed at the top of her lungs and she charged straight at Xemnas with her Keyblade raised, preparing to dish out pain to the damned leader of the original Organization.
But then all of a sudden, she felt sharp daggers implanting themselves into her back and she halted.
Slowly but surely, she glanced over her shoulder... to see a handful of glowing arrows sticking out from her.
A distance away was Xigbar who had his arrowguns aimed at her.
"Forgot about me, sweetheart?" he taunted with a sickening grin before he shot one last arrow, this time at her knee.
Pain shot from both the shot and the injuries on her back registered in her mind in full force and with a cry of pain, Kairi collapsed onto the ground.
In no time at all, her blood began spilling out all over the ground, seeping into the dust and stone all around her until a puddle had formed.
Taking in harsh, labored breaths, her eyes barely even registered Xemnas, Xigbar, Vanitas, Xion, Saïx, Terranort, and Ansem walking up towards her. Xehanort aside, the remaining Seekers of Darkness crowded around her, gazing at her with equal amounts of contempt and disgust.
"Who'd have thought a useless girl like you would have so much potential to become something more...?" Vanitas commented darkly as he calmly kicked aside Destiny's Embrace from Kairi's grip.
Aiming Void Gear, he conjured a energy ball of pure darkness and shot it right at the blade, effectively shattering it into a dozen pieces.
Now defenseless and all alone, the next best thing Kairi could do was stare up at her oppressors, a defiant look on her pained features.
"Oh ho... looks like she's got that angry look down too!" Xigbar remarked coyly with a chuckle.
"You cannot defy us, Kairi," Saïx stated coldly, "It is pointless at this moment. You are all alone now."
"Even Sora has sadly left you behind," Xemnas stated calmly, and gestured with his arm, "Utterly useless and forgotten."
Kairi followed his gaze and to her horror, Sora laid unmoving where he was. His body was charred beyond recognition completely limp and smoke continued billowing from his burnt muscles.
She felt tears forming at her eyelids, and emptiness slowly taking hold of her heart.
Sora was gone. Dead. Passed on.
Just like all her other friends.
Even Riku and Axel.
She had nothing else to live for now.
Kairi lowered her head in absolute defeat, allowing the guilt and self-loathing to take control of her thoughts
Xigbar frowned slightly at the change of mood.
"Aw... you just had to go ruin it, Xemnas," he complained to the Nobody, "I was kinda enjoying her moment of spite towards us!"
"It would not have mattered anyhow," Ansem stated with a fold of his arms, "Soon her heart, mind and body will all be destroyed. Never again will she have a chance to be reborn."
Vanitas rolled his eyes behind his mask, "Ugh... spare me the dramatic theoretical poetry why don't you? Can we just kill her now?"
Xemnas took a step forth and summoned one of his red ethereal blades in his palm.
He shared a stare with Kairi, and the latter swore she thought she saw a hint of... regret in his eyes?
Before she could even dwell on this, Xemnas went for her neck with his blade, and all her troubles ended in an instant...
With a loud, stifled gasp, Kairi shot up in her bed in a sitting position.
Acting as if she had been underwater for too long, she took in big gasps of fresh air out of desperation.
She wiped away fresh sweat that had formed on her forehead and she clenched at her chest tightly, feeling the hard poundings of her heart against her ribcage.
As her mind calmed and she regained her senses, her eyes started darting all around to the darkness that shrouded her room.
"Another one..." she thought bitterly in her mind and she lowered her head. All her memories of reality came back to her like a huge tsunami wave.
She was fighting in the Keyblade War when Xemnas snatched her up and took her to Master Xehanort who knocked her out and dangled her right in front of Sora to taunt him before he...
Hissing softly to herself, Kairi fought against the urge to remember how traumatizing and painful her death was.
The way she turned into some water/glass statue before shattering into a million pieces...
Her life flashing before her eyes...
Just thinking about it made her instinctively curl up into a ball and wrap her arms tightly around her legs.
That was something she was not certain she could ever experience through again, and come out the same person. Especially on Sora's life...
Oh Sora... as selfless as he usually was...
He used the Power of Waking to traverse back to the Final World where he had helped her regain her body.
Seeing a handful of her copies running around in circles or dancing about stupidly was something she was definitely embarrassed about. She made Sora swear on his life to never talk about this to anyone else.
And thus they returned to Destiny Islands after that, where they and everyone else celebrated Kairi's return.
At that moment, everything felt right with the world again.
As it had been so for several months, that was until it happened.
All over the world, many innocent people suddenly vanished, turned into ash that flew away with the wind.
Amongst those lost were also her friends.
Wakka, Riku... and Sora.
A lone tear fell down her cheek and Kairi bit back a sob.
Oh how had she remembered breaking down emotionally after sharing that kiss with him before he too disappeared. And even the combined efforts of Tidus and Selphie were not enough to console her.
Which brought her to tonight, mere hours after the event. Still in despair and wracked with sadness and anguish.
"Why...?" she mumbled under her breath, "Why does fate hate us being together?"
Raising her head, she looked out through her window to the outside.
Normally, nights like these would still be a bit bustling. There would be scores of folks walking about at random times. But this time however, there was no one.
The mainland felt more like an ghost town now. Everyone was probably at home, going through the same thing as she was. Crying themselves to sleep.
And even though the authorities and the world's best scientists, or what was left of them, were looking into this, Kairi was almost certain that they would find nothing. No evidence of any kind to explain what had transpired. After all, Sora himself had voiced his suspicions of this being a universal crisis. Too bad he was no longer around to investigate it.
And since Kairi was amongst the lucky ones to survive, he had bequeathed his Keyblade to her.
She, who had no personal knowledge or experience, was now given a monumental new task to save the worlds.
And despite the promise she mafe to him earlier, a sense of melancholy was now plaguing the teen's mind.
How was she able to do this? Where did she even start? Could she ever be able to solve this mystery? And most importantly, could she ever be able to bring back everyone that was lost?
A heavy burden was now settled on her shoulders.
Wherever they were, Sora, Riku, Wakka and everyone else were now counting on her to lead the way forward.
A Princess of Heart to her friends, but practically a nobody to everybody else. Even Tidus and Selphie were unaware of what had transpired during the Xehanort pandemonium, not that Sora had neglected to tell them anyhow.
With all these thoughts circling in her mind, Kairi let out a soft whimper and lowered her head against her knees.
"What am I going to do?" she wondered quietly to herself.
But just then, there was a flash of light coming from outside that partially illuminated her room.
Raising her eyebrow at this, Kairi got up from her bed and went over to the sill. Peering outside, she watched as a lone falling star moved across the night sky.
Just seeing this astronomical phenomena taling place brought a saddened smile to her face.
"It's so beautiful..." she muttered in awe, "If only Sora, Riku and Wakka could've seen this..."
Her mind briefly thought back to all those times when all of them would gather together to watch the shooting stars streak across the sky.
There was a sense of wonderment every time they saw it, and even to this day, they still did.
According to Selphie, the shooting stars would always bring about a sense of a joy and happiness to her life whenever times got real tough on her. And Sora said that dreams really do come true if you ever wished upon it, although Riku ridiculed him for still thinking something that was too childish for his age.
Kairi giggled softly to herself as she remembered the banter they had.
"Sora. Sometimes I wonder if your brain grows up with the rest of you."
"Of course it does! It's just that I think differently from the rest of you!"
"And you thinking differently constitutes rushing into things without a plan?"
"Wha-? What makes you think like that?"
"I... have my sources..."
"Sources? What do you mean by... Donald!"
And that was only just two months ago. When life was returning back to normal again pre-Xehanort.
Kairi should have known it was too good to be true.
Something bad always had to make itself known through terrible means. And now this time she was the one who had to fix it.
She continued staring up at the star in the sky, sighing softly under her breath as she did.
And then all of a sudden, the star suddenly changed course sharply, angling in the direction that... she was in.
With widening eyes, Kairi backed away from the window and rolled over her bed to the other side.
From there she watched as the star flew directly into her room and hovered right at the centre.
Staring at it warily, she quietly contemplated her options.
It didn't look... that dangerous... She should she approach it or something?
And that was when the star suddenly flashed its brightest, and Kairi's vision went white before she shut her lids and shielded with her arms.
And then it dissipated, allowing her to open her eyes and blink out the spots.
In the place of the star, now stood a female figure. She was youthful in appearance, maybe about a year or so older than Kairi. Her light-green hair was tied up in a ponytail. She was donned in a red dress, high-heeled boots and had a cape draped behind her back.
But what alarmed Kairi the most, was the visible signs of bruises and injuries all over her body. And then the girl's violet eyes looked towards her, acknowledging her.
With a pained smile, she weakly addressed, "Finally found you... Princess Kairi..."
Her eyes rolled into the back of her head and she collapsed onto the ground.
Squeaking in surprise, Kairi raced forwards and knelt down right beside her.
She was no medical expert, but she had seen enough movies and TV serials to know what to do in this situation.
Kairi placed two fingers on the girl's wrist to check for her pulse. She felt a weak rhythm of the pumping, but it was holding strong.
"At least she's safe now..." she thought to herself with relief.
Noticing Sora's Kingdom Key leaning by her bedframe, she brisked over to it and grabbed it by the handle.
Walking back over to the girl, she held up over her head and whispered out, "Heal."
A wave of green washed over the teen, and all the injuries quickly disappeared as though she never got them in the first place.
Setting the Keyblade aside, Kairi slowly and carefully picked up the girl by her arms and dragged her onto her bed.
Surprisingly she was lighter than she had anticipated, so Kairi didn't have to waste much effort carrying her. With that done, she gentle covered the girl with her blanket.
Standing off to one side, Kairi stared at the slumbering girl for a brief moment.
"There's a stranger who came through my window and passed out in my room..." she thought to herself, "And now she's sleeping in my bed."
Not that she was unhappy with that. She was always happy to provide shelter to those in need. But this one was a very special case.
"Her injuries... how did she get them?" she wondered under her breath, "And more importantly, why is she here for me?"
Kairi did pick up on the use of a formal title "Princess", as well as her name.
Could her apparance here be connected to whatever happened earlier?
Unfortunately however, questions were going to have to wait, at least until either it was morning, or the girl woke up.
And until then...
With one final glance to the girl, Kairi quietly walked out of her bedroom.
She wouldn't mind sleeping at the couch.
Just this once.
Kairi: Wow. Way to start of a story.
A/N: I apologise if it's a bit of a touchy subject (especially for yourself), but hey, at least you've gotten a bit of time to shine! Even if it's just a dream.
Kairi: So that a preview of what I could potentially become?
A/N: ... Maybe? Why get caught up in the details this early in the game?
A/N: Also, here's a fun fact for you guys! The whole sequence with you wrecking half of the Seekers was partially inspired by a Youtube video I've watched online recently. It's a mini-animated film titled "Crimson Alpine" by Resh. Go check it out! P.S. the main character in the video looks an awful lot like Kairi for some reason, from my point-of-view anyways.
Sora: Whoa really?!
A/N: Oh yeah! The way she skids down the side of a snow mountain and snipes the hell outta-hey, what the heck are you doing here Sora? Aren't you supposed to be finishing up on the sets?
Lea [OC]: Yo, Sora! You mind lending a hand with this thing?
Sora: Coming Lea! Well, see you guys later!
Kairi: I'll help out too.
(Both of them brisk over to help Axel and Roxas carry a bunch of props.)
A/N: As time goes by, there'll be more characters you'll see as the story goes along, so stay tuned for that! Anyways, I better go get the rest of the sets ready! See you guys later!
"CRASH!"
Xion: Lea! You toppled over the blue police box!
A/N: Good God...!
(Runs over to help the others with the prop.)