A/N: I know I said that I would wait until I had more reviews, but I found myself with Biology homework I didn't want to do and in the middle of my procrastinating, I ended up finishing this chapter earlier than I thought I would. So, I thought to myself, I'll just upload it anyway, even though I only have one review. I will be honest and say that I have never played a Final Fantasy game, so all I know about those characters comes from Kingdom Hearts. Also, I haven't yet played Birth By Sleep or 3D, so I apologise if I get some of the lore wrong. Good, now that the confessions are out of the way, I'll get back to the actual story. Oh, one last thing, if anyone has any artwork that they think would work well as a front cover for this story, please let me know. I have been having trouble finding some on my own.
0000 before/after a section of italicised text indicates the start/end of a flashback, dream or vision.
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Chapter II: Awakening
When Sora woke for the first time, it was to the sound of a fire crackling. He lay there for a few moments just listening, then slowly opened his eyes. He found himself looking at a high wooden ceiling shrouded in shadows. Tilting his head forwards slightly, he turned his neck and took in his surroundings. He was lying beneath a layer of thin grey sheets on a hard wooden bed. This bed was in the corner of, what looked like, a run-down shack that someone had tried to turn into a home. The floor was made of hard, grey stone and was covered in places by tattered old rugs with faded colours. The walls were made of a similar material and the holes in them, that may once have held windows, had been patched up shoddily with crates and wooden boards. On Sora's far left side was a section of wall that seemed to have collapsed slightly, leaving a hole which appeared to lead into another room. The hole was only partially covered by ripped purple curtain that hung down over it, Sora assumed that there had been a door there at one point. Switching his attention back to the room he was in, he noticed a firepit in the centre of the room that was responsible for the sound he'd heard when he first awoke. The smoke from the fire was allowed to escape the room by a small hole in the ceiling. Stood over the fire was the girl who'd saved him. She had her back to him and was stirring a black pot of something that hung over the fire. The pot was steaming slightly and giving off a pleasant and hunger-inducing aroma. Sora took a long, deep breath and his nostrils filled with the scent. He sighed at how good it smelled and his stomach groaned.
The girl turned to him at the noise and the corners of her mouth lifted into a smile. She had dark, waist-length hair and eyes similar to the colour of wine. She was wearing an almost entirely black outfit and had a small, tear-drop shaped earring through her left ear. Sora thought she looked about 18 or 19. "About time you woke up," she said, crossing her arms over her chest, "I was beginning to think I'd dragged you back for nothing." Sora was taken aback by that, then he saw that she was still smiling at him. He chuckled,"So, what happened to running away?" He asked, raising an eyebrow. Her smile widened at his comment, "I'd just jumped into an army of heartless to save a boy I didn't know. Suddenly, we're facing odds we can't possibly win, when this boy decides to use up all his remaining energy to let me escape. Then, I watched him collapse as the heartless are crushed," she leaned forward and looked the boy right in the eye, "And you thought I'd just leave you?" She let out a small laugh, but her statement hit Sora right in his heart. He turned away from her, "It wouldn't be the first time..." his smile dropped as he remembered what had happened, 'All for one and one for all?' he thought bitterly, 'I guess I can't blame them. They have their own quest.' Shakily, he raised his right hand up to his face and stared at his palm. He tried summoning the Keyblade, focusing all of his concentration on it. He was willing it, begging it to appear.
Nothing happened.
Once again, he felt as if his heart had been torn, leaving behind a gaping hole where the Key had once been. The sound of someone clearing their throat broke him from his thoughts. He turned back to the girl in black. She had one hand on her hip and was looking at him with a look of curiosity. "While I'm sure your hand is very interesting, I can't help but feel a tiny bit offended by the fact that it's more interesting than I am." She said, still grinning. He laughed again, forgetting his worries for the moment. "Sorry, just thinking about... stuff." He apologised. She nodded, obviously realising that it was something personal. "Stuff is cool," she said, shrugging, then turned back to the pot and lifted it off the fire. "You must have some sort of sixth sense or something, you managed to wake up just when the food finished." She grabbed two wooden bowls from a shelf and started to fill them with steaming soup. He laughed again, deciding that he liked this girl. "Isn't that just called sense of smell," he asked. She smirked and passed him a bowl and a spoon. "Just be quiet and eat. You were out for while, I bet you're starving." He stuck a small spoonful of the liquid in his mouth and gulped it down. It seared his throat and tongue as he swallowed it. It was too hot, too thin and had almost no taste. It was the best thing Sora had ever eaten.
He quickly finished off the bowl and lay back down, his stomach feeling a little better. The girl was just watching him, eating her food much slower in small spoonfuls. He frowned at her, "What?" he demanded, and she chuckled a little, "Nothing," she answered, "Just wondering how you managed to get soup in your hair." He looked up and scratched the back of his head, "I was really hungry..."
"I noticed." She said. He frowned at her again, but this only served to make her laugh even more. 'I guess my face just wasn't made to look angry.' Suddenly he found himself laughing as well. He didn't know why, but he liked the sound of it so he continued. He sat there in a ruin of a house, with soup in his hair, laughing for no reason with a girl whose name he didn't even know. 'It's good to be back.' he thought to himself.
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Tifa sat there laughing with a boy she didn't know. She knew she'd passed up on her chance to see Cloud. He was probably long gone by now, just like every other time. Strangely though, she found that it didn't really matter to her. When she had jumped down to save this boy, she'd intended to help him fight off the heartless, then continue looking for Cloud. However, when the boy had collapsed from exhaustion after, quite possibly, saving her life, she couldn't just leave him. 'I'm better than that,' she thought, her mind wandering back to that moment...
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Tifa readied herself to run as the boy faced down the overwhelming odds. She knew that he was right, there was no way that they could fight this. Their only chance was to run as fast as they could in the opposite direction.
"Now!"
She went to run, but once again her body disobeyed. She watched as the boy fell to his knees before her, the heartless in front of him crushed by his magic and falling into the ravine. As he fell forward and the ground beneath her began to wobble, time seemed to stop. Her mind was struggling to process what had just happened. 'I came down here to save him, not the other way around!' She found herself subconsciously running forward, grabbing him by the shoulders and shouting incoherently in his ear. 'Time to do what came to do' she thought as reality began to set in again. She found herself running with him over her shoulder as the ground shook and threatened to collapse. She leapt from the platform and landed on solid ground, tripping and ending up sprawled on the floor. She slowly stood and lifted the boy again, then began walking away. Just as she reached the entrance to the gorge, she turned her head to the destruction behind her and saw several heartless rise up from the rubble. 'Sorry Cloud.' She turned back and started running.
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"Uh, hello?" Tifa snapped back into reality at the sound. The spiky-haired boy was staring at her and she realised that she'd been staring off into the distance. "Oh, uh... sorry, I was just thinking about... stuff." She watched him smile as she repeated his words. "So, what were you saying?" she asked, annoyed at herself for doing what she'd laughed at him for earlier. "Hmm? Oh right, I was saying we haven't actually been introduced yet," He said, holding out his hand. "I'm Sora."
"Tifa," she replied taking his hand and shaking it, "A pleasure,"
"I'm sure it is." They both laughed a little when he said that and Tifa found herself thinking that this kid wasn't that bad. "So, Tifa." he said, looking up at her. "Yes?" she prompted.
"Where are we?"
"We're in the town on the outskirts of Hollow Bastion. This is my current base of operations," She replied, looking around at the house, "I got a tip that a someone I'm looking for was here, so I set up in this house while I searched the town. So far, I've had no luck." She moved her eyes back to him, "What about you, what brings you to the biggest pit of darkness ever created." He gave her a slightly shocked look, "Pretty much the same reason as you, I came here looking for some friends I lost a while back." She smiled at that. "You know what they say about great minds..." He tilted his head to the side as he replied, "They're often completely mad minds as well?"
"No!" she retorted, her laughter growing "Don't be stupid." He was laughing as well now, but suddenly his smile dropped and he started wobbling slightly, then fell backwards onto the bed. "Hey," she said, moving to help him lie down. "Maybe you should get some rest," she suggested. He looked at her. "How long was I out?"
She bit her lip, "N-not long, maybe a... a few hours." He frowned at her again and she sighed, "Three days, including the day it happened," He grimaced when she said that, then looked back at her with a small smile, "Thanks Tifa. Thanks for helping me." She shook her head. "It was nothing, now try and get some rest okay?" He nodded and closed his eyes. It didn't take long for him to fall asleep.
Once she had extinguished the fire and made sure Sora was asleep, Tifa walked towards the hole in the far wall, grabbing their empty soup bowls as she did. She pushed the curtain to the side and stepped into the second room, depositing the bowls in a cracked sink. Walking towards the front door, she stepped outside and sighed as the cold air hit her face, then set off down the ruined street. Now that she knew Sora was okay, she could get back to finding a way out of this mess. Pausing in mid step, she looked down at the object she had just stepped on. She bent down, picked it up, then started turning it in her hands. It was about half a foot long and an inch thick. It's surface was bright green and there were small chunks of various colours sticking out of it. This wasn't a gummi she was familiar with, but it told her she was on the right track. She looked around and saw another block to her left and another further on. She began to follow the trail, moving off the street and into a more ruined part of the town. The trail led to a house with a sizeable hole in its roof and gummis scattered all around it. She walked inside, hoping she would finally find something useful.
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When Sora woke for the second time, he was alone. He gazed around at the dimly lit room and shivered. The fire had burnt out, leaving only charred and smoking remains in the middle of the pit. The room felt cold and dark without the fire, the only light coming from the hole in the roof and the cracks in the walls, but that wasn't why Sora felt nervous. He glanced around again to confirm he was alone. "Tifa?" he said, his voice sounding eerily loud in the silence that surrounded him. There was no reply. He sat up in bed and squinted as his eyes adjusted to the darkness. 'She's not here,'he thought, 'I'm alone...' The thought filled Sora with an unexpected feeling of panic. He pushed himself up and got of the bed, leaning on the bedpost to support himself. He felt a cramp is his legs as he put weight on them, but that was to be expected after three days in bed. "Tifa?" he repeated, louder this time. Still there was no response. He felt his panic rapidly growing as he stumbled over to the purple cloth that hung on the far wall and pulled it to the side, revealing a slightly larger and less damaged room. "Tifa? Tifa, where are you!?" His heart dropped as he was yet again answered by silence. In his head he was trying to think of reasons she had to leave or places she may need to go, but in his heart he could only hear two words, repeated again and again, 'She left.'
He sighed and was about to turn and go back through the makeshift door, when the real door on the far side of the room slammed open and Tifa burst in, her arms filled with multi-coloured blocks and looking incredibly out of breath. "Sora, are you okay? I heard you shouting from outside." Sora relaxed as she came barging in all red-faced and he gave a small sigh of relief. He allowed a small smile to form on his face and looked down at the floor, his breath gradually slowing back to normal. "Sora?" She said and he looked back up at her face. Her red eyes were filled with concern. He felt a small stab of pain in his heart. "It- It's nothing. I just thought that..." His voice stopped and she looked at him expectingly, but he had no words to give. 'I just thought that what?' he asked himself, 'That she'd just run away for no apparent reason? That she left me when I was weak and alone? What kind of a person do I think she is?' He glanced into her eyes and then quickly looked away, "It doesn't matter. I- I'm fine." He continued to avert his gaze, not able to look her in the eye.
"Okay... so, I see you're up and about already. Feeling better?" She asked and he silently thanked her for breaking such an awkward moment. He turned back to her, smiling again. "Yeah, much," he confirmed, nodding, "I'm still aching from being in bed for so long, but other than that I feel fine," She returned his smile, "That's great! Here, do you think you could help me with these?" Sora's eyes finally moved to the objects in her arms and he realised that they were gummi blocks. "Yeah sure," he agreed, taking some of the brightly coloured bricks in his arms and pushing aside the drape behind him. "Where do want them?" he asked, looking from side to side.
"Just over here," she said and walked over to large chest in one corner of the room. She kicked it open and Sora gaped at the contents. There were gummis of all different shapes, sizes and colours, some of which he'd never even seen before. He dropped his pile inside along with hers and turned to face her. "Forgive me for asking, but why do you need so many gummi blocks?" he asked, baffled. Tifa's smile faded as she explained, "Well I came to this world using a gummi ship I got from an old friend. Only, I may have underestimated the amount of heartless that would be guarding it," She sat down on a stool near the fire and looked up at Sora. "They managed to damage my ship heavily and I was forced to make a crash landing." Sora sat down on his bed and watched her, waiting for her to continue. "If it had just been the armour or the weapons that were damaged, I'd have been fine, but the impact destroyed my warp gummi as well." She looked at her hands as she continued, "So now, I either need to find a replacement warp gummi or repair my ship enough that I can fight my way off this world. When I'm out searching the town, I make sure to keep an eye out for gummis that might be useful. It isn't hard to find them, this town is like a gummi graveyard." she tilted her head back up to look at him again, "Either way, I'm trapped here unless I do something about it."
Sora had a thoughtful expression on his face and was looking at the wall next to him, "You know," he began, "Me and my friends travelled to a lot of different worlds before we came here and we managed to build up quite the collection of gummis." He turned to her, "I'm sure that there's something on our ship that could help you out," Her face lit up as he said that and she sat up a little straighter. "You think so?" she asked a small sparkle in her ruby eyes. He nodded, "Yeah sure, and if not we can use my warp gummi to reach Traverse Town, I know a guy there who's something of a gummi expert. I'm sure he'd be able to help you out." She stood up suddenly with a determined look on her face, "That's great! Thanks," she looked a bit puzzled for a moment, "Where is your ship, is it in town somewhere?" Sora shook his head.
"No, it's just outside that fortress. Near where we first met" She crossed her arms and stared into the distance, biting her lip a little. They stayed like this for a few moments and when Sora was about to ask if something was wrong, she replied. "That... complicates things a bit," she said, then shook her head, "It doesn't matter right now. It's getting late and we should probably get some sleep. We'll talk about this in the morning." Sora looked up through the hole in the ceiling and saw that it was indeed beginning to get dark. 'I guess I was asleep longer than I thought' He found himself letting out a long yawn without meaning to and heard Tifa giggle at the sound. He scrunched his face up into a frown. "What?" he said. She began to laugh harder at his attempts to look annoyed at her and replied, "You've been asleep for three days and you're still tired," she chuckled, "You're such a lazy bum, Sora," she finished and his heart dropped. Deep down he knew it was just a poor choice of words, 'She doesn't know about Kairi, how could she?' That didn't stop him from wincing as she used that phrase to describe him. Unbidden, thoughts of Kairi came flooding into his mind, but he pushed them away. He thought he saw her stood in the corner of the room, but he turned away, he didn't want to think about her right now, it would just bring back more memories of what he'd lost. As he turned his eyes away from the vision, he found himself looking straight into Tifa's. Those red orbs held a familiar look of concern, "You okay?" she asked, "You were staring off into space again." He shook himself out of his memories and lay back on the bed, "I'm fine, just tired. You're right, we should get some sleep." He closed his eyes and turned on his side, facing away from the girl next to him.
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Tifa bit her lip again. She knew it was something she'd said, but she also knew that Sora probably didn't want to talk about it. She sighed and made her way over to the other bed in the room. In truth it wasn't really a bed, just a spare mattress that she'd found in the back of the house, pushed into the corner and covered in a few blankets. She'd had to give up her bed to Sora while he was recovering and that was where he lay now. 'I suppose he can have another comfy night, I'm not about to point it out to him right now.' She lay on her back and stared at the ceiling, exhausted from the effort of taking care of Sora and salvaging gummis. She felt her eyelids drooping, but before she succumbed to sleep she called out, "Goodnight, Sora." She waited for him to respond and for moment thought he was already asleep, but then she heard him reply, "Goodnight, Tifa."
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A/N: And there's the second chapter guys, I think I prefer it to the first, but that's just my opinion. I had to put the thing in about madness and genius being interchangeable, it seems like the sort of thing Sora would say, especially after visiting Wonderland. Once again please leave me a review to let me know how I did and if I can improve. This time I will definitely wait for a few reviews before I release the next chapter. Until then, farewell my good readers.
