Chapter Two: The Key and the Seal.

Kairi stood on the beach looking out at the sea. She was dressed in blue shorts and a blue, sleeveless shirt, her workout clothes. A soft, calm breeze blew her red hair across her face and she took a deep breath of the cool air.

"You ready," asked Riku from behind her. She turned around to look at him, he was dressed his blue pants, black shirt, and yellow and white vest. Riku also had a bokken in his right hand.

"You know it," Kairi replied grabbing he own wooden sword she had stuck in the sand.

They both took their stances. Riku stood perpendicular to her, knees bent, sword by his side in his right hand. Kairi stood with her right foot back, shoulders square, and sword in both hands in front of her. They waited, eying each other. Riku made the first move and charged in with a thrust. Kairi dogged to her left and countered with a swing from the left that Riku was able to block. They clashed for three seconds and then broke apart. Kairi's next attack was jumping in the air and using a hard downward swing. Riku dodged by rolling to his left, stood up, spun to his right and did a horizontal slash. Kairi ducked the attack and countered with an upward thrust to Riku's chest. He steeped back, evaded it and swung his sword down at Kairi's shoulder. Kairi put so much force into he thrust that she could not evade Riku's attack and his sword connected with her left shoulder.

"Ow," she yelled as she lost her grip on her sword with her left hand. Her arm felt numb from the blow.

"Sorry, did I hit to hard," asked Riku, an apologetic grin on his face.

"No, I'm ok."

"Your getting pretty good, Kairi."

"Well you and Sora have been training me even sense you got back home."

"Speaking of Sora, where is he? We sent him to get lunch about fifteen minutes ago," Riku asked turning around and looking towards the dock. Sure enough Sora was just tying off his boat. Sora, like Riku, was wearing the same clothes from three years ago.

"Hay, Sora," Kairi yelled, "hurry up with the food!"

"Coming!" Sora called back. He started to run with three boxes in his hands.

"Finally," Riku said when Sora got to them.

"Oh, like you would have been any faster," Sora said.

"Probably."

"Can we eat already boys?"

"Yeah. Hear ya go," Sora said and handed one of the boxes to each of his friends.

"So, how did you do today Kairi?" Sora asked with a mouth full of food.

"Not bad," she answered. "Its been getting harder though. You and Riku have been getting better too, not to mention stronger." It was true both Sora and Riku had put on some muscle over the past three years. Kairi's muscles too toned nicely.

"The fact that you continue to keep up means your improving at an equally fast rate," Riku answered. At that Kairi smiled and they finished eating.

"Now what do we do?" asked Sora.

"I got to go home," said Riku, "my mom wants my help moving furniture." At that Riku got up and left. "See ya."

"How about you Kairi," Sora asked.

"I promised Selphie I would go shopping with her. What do you have planned for later Sora?"

"I think I'll play some video games," he replied. Giggling Kairi stood up, walked over to Sora and kissed him on the cheek.

"I'll call you later, 'k."

"Right," Sora said with a grin on his face.

Later that night Sora was lying on his bead waiting for Kairi to call. He almost fell asleep until hunger griped his stomach. Sora got up off his bead to walk down stairs to get and apple. Before he got out of his room he saw something in the mirror.

"Roxas!?"

"Long time no see, Sora," Roxas said waiving.

"Didn't think I'd see you again."

"This is important. I sense darkness, I think the Heartless are on the move again," Roxas said with a grim expression.

"The Heartless! Who's controlling them this time? Ansem?"

"No, not Ansem. This feels different then Ansem, but I have no idea. The King should know more."

"How can you sense the Heartless? Are they on this world?"

"Not on this world, no, but remember I'm the part of you that controlled the power of darkness. That must be why I can sense them." Sora nodded in understanding. "I've already informed Namine. She'll tell Kairi what I've told you."

"Good. One last thing. How do I get to the King?"

"Remember that note you found three years ago," Roxas said and then disappeared from Sora's sight. Sora took a second to think and then moved to his desk and opened the top drawer. Their he found the last note from the King.

Dear friends,

"Sora, Riku, Kairi, if you got this letter it means that our worlds are still connected. This time however they're connected by a path of light so you won't need a ship to travel between them. All you have to do is open a path with your three Keyblades and you'll be at the castle. Come see me if you ever need advice."

-King Mickey

Sora's phone rang just as he finished reading.

Five minutes earlier

Kairi was trying on some of the clothes she bought with Selphie when her reflection was replaced with Namine. "Namine!? It's so nice to see you."

"Same," Namine replied. "However, I have some unfortunate news. Roxas has just told me that the Heartless are active again."

"The Heartless!?"

"Yes. I felt something dark but had no clue what it was until Roxas confirmed it."

"What do we do," Kairi asked worried.

"You'll have to go see the King for help. I don't know any more than what I've already said."

"How do we get their," Kairi asked as she looked around for more travel worthy clothes.

"Slow down. Sora will know how to get you all their soon enough, but your not leaving tonight. First get some sleep. The Heartless won't get out of hand if wait eight hours."

"Ok," Kairi nodded. Having passed on her message Namine faded. Felling determined Kairi thought "I'd better call Sora."

Five minutes earlier.

Riku was sitting on he rough of his house looking as the stars. He loved the peace that they brought. He had looked at the stars often ever sense he got back home. Even though all the worlds share the same sky this view was special because it was from his home. Once he had thought about trying to figure out which star was which world he had been to. But like most teenagers, life distracted him and he decided it was a task for an adult. "Maybe I should try now," he thought. Thinking about other worlds made him miss his friend King Mickey. Riku closed his eyes to picture his friend's face. However, what he saw was not the face of Mickey but the bright yellow eyes of the Heartless. He quick opened his eyes and sprang to his feet. "What! Why do I sense Heartless? Did I imagine it? No." he thought for a moment. "If they are active again, maybe my past will to control them makes me able to feel them. I need to call Sora."

Riku moved to the edge of his rough and climbed down the small escape ladder he had that brought him to his window. Once in his room he ran down stairs to grab the phone.

The next morning all three key wielders were on the island farthest out in the ocean. Riku and Sora were dressed the same as their last quest. Kairi was in clothes that were the same shade of pink as last time but she was in karees and a shirt with sleeves that came down to half way down her forearms instead of what she had last time.

"Ready," Sora asked.

"Yea," Riku replied. Kairi nodded.

"Let's do it," Sora said. They all produced their Keyblades, Sora had the Ultima Keyblade. They held their Keyblades out in front of them, out towards the ocean. They all created a beam of light from the tip of the Keyblades that met after a few feet. Imagining Disney Castle a large door appeared where the beams met.

"Time to go," Riku said. "Let's hope that the king knows what's going on." the other two nodded and they all walked to the door and passed through.


Hideya had gotten home in time for breakfast. He sat eating his rice in silence until Hidaki spoke to him. "You don't look like you did any running this morning. What's up?"

"Got distracted," Hideya replied, not looking up from his rice. He was thinking about the events of that morning. "This is too weird," he thought.

"By what?" Hideya did not want to sound crazy so he quick came up with something that sounded good.

"I saw a guy doing some strange martial arts style and I stopped to ask him about it."

"What was it called?" his brother asked.

"Um, Kook Sul Won," Hideya said.

"Who was this person," asked their father.

"His name was Solf something." Hideya wished he had come up with a cover name but could not.

"Odd name," his father said.

"Even so, he said he would show me some more later so I'm going to cheek it out after breakfast."

"Is that how you're going to get better than me," asked Hidaki. "By learning a martial art."

"Exactly!"

"Not bad, wouldn't have thought of that one."

"Do you two ever stop," asked their mother.

"No," they both said at the same time.

"Well, I'm done. See ya all later," Hideya said and went up stairs to change. He changed out of his workout clothes and into a dark blue, sleeveless shirt, a lighter blue, button up shirt, that was unbuttoned, and gray pants. After he put on those clothes he got his spiked necklace and put that around his neck. Then he ran down stairs put on his shoes and was out the door within five minutes of leaving the table.

Hideya walked to the field in the woods where he met Solf that morning. Solf was already their, or never left, sitting on the ground with a book in hiss hand. "You're early," Solf said.

"Not by much, five minutes," Hideya replied.

"Let's get started then."

"Ok," Hideya said. "I've just got one question before we begin."

"Ask away."

"Why did you offer me magic training as a way 'to fight the Heartless with out your sword'."

"You seemed defeated not being able to help me. Also because the Heartless are becoming increasingly more active in this sector. So in a sense I'm actually using you to make my job easier," Solf said. It was a truthful sounding answer.

"Well I'm using for to get stronger. So I guess this is a normal economic trade."

"If there are no further questions we should get started." Solf put down his book and walked over to the center of the field. He held his right hand out in front of him, palm up, and put his left hand on his right wrist. "Haaaaaaaaaaa!" he yelled and in his hand appeared a large red orb. He turned his hand upside down and plunged the orb into the dirt. With a loud sound of a quick spreading flame a large, red, intricate magic circle appeared on the ground. It , consisted of two outer circles with runes in between them, two circles near the center, and two intersecting squares that touched the outer most circle,

"You are going to sit in this circle and follow my instructions from their, understood?"

"Got it," Hideya nodded and walked into the circle and sat crossed legged.

"Good, now make a C shape with both hands, palms facing up." Hideya did as instructed. "Put the fingers of your left hand under those of your right and touch your thumbs together. This will create the correct hand sign to allow you to focus the magic power into your hands, as is the ultimate goal." Hideya again did as instructed and created the hand sign. "Now focus everything you have on bringing power to your hands from your stomach."

"Then what?"

"You will keep it up until I say other wise. This will unfortunately take a very long time so do your best not to waver. Got it?" Hideya nodded. "Now begin!"

Hideya took a deep breath and closed his eyes. "Hummmm." Immediately the inner most circle started glowing.

"Good, he's that far already. I guess a few years of sword training gives a person at least a little bit of magic control," he thought. Solf looked at his watch. "Eight o'clock now. Humph, he won't be done before noon." Solf was right. After three hours and forty five minutes Hideya had almost all of the circle glowing. Then the outer most circle began to glow. Solf looked at his watch. "Quarter of twelve. If he holds this for fifteen more minutes he'll be able to do magic." At twelve o'clock the circle was still glowing and Solf shouted "Good, you're done, you can stop now."

"Finally," exclaimed Hideya. He fell onto his back and started breathing heavy.

"Impressive," Solf thought to him self. "I may have been a few years younger than him but it still took me six hours to get that far. Ok," he was talking out loud now "It's time to get a seal."

"A what," asked Hideya.

"A seal. Only with a seal will you actually be able to do magic, everything up until now was just to get the power flowing."

Hideya was still tried. "Was their no quicker was to do this?"

"Well if I had given you a magic item like a wand then yes, that would be quicker. This was the only way I could teach you how to channel magic because I was taught this way. Now, I'll go and get some lunch and you pick a seal from this book." Solf tossed Hideya the book he was looking at before. "Your best bet would be the seal with the same name as my organization."

"Ok." Solf then walked out of the clearing to go buy food. Hideya looked through the book confused. "What was the name of the organization again? It started with an 'A' right? Hear we go ATRUM, was that it? It looks cool, let's go with that." Hideya looked for something to draw the circles with and found a bag that Solf left. In the bag was a brush with some ink and he used that. He drew the seals on the inner part of his forearms just bellow the wrists and let them dry. When Solf came back 20 minutes later he dropped the pizza and the ground.

"Y-you used that seal?"

"Yes. Is it the wrong one?"

"Yes, but... its fine. I just need to teach you some different spells."

"Huh?"

"The seal you took was not a seal for light like I told you to, but a seal for darkness."

"WHAT!? What the hell do you mean?"

"It's fine. We'll fight fire with fire against the Heartless I guess." Solf spent the next four hours teaching Hideya spells like dark missile, gravity, barrier, and dark orb of destruction. The last one took the longest and required Hideya to condense dark energy into a orb the size of a basket ball in his hand and when complete their was dark lighting coming from it as well.

"So," Hideya asked once he completed the spell. "If the darkness is bad why teach me dark spells?"

"There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so."

"Huh?"

"If you don't allow the darkness to rule you it won't harm you, understand?"

"Yea, I do." Hideya was tired now and did not want to stand.

"Take these," Solf said and offered Hideya what looked like two wrist supports. "Use them to cover up the seals on your arms." Hideya put them on and then felt a chill.

"What was that," he asked.

"What was what?"

"I thought I heard, no, felt a scream."

"Felt a scream," Solf thought. "Heartless! Let's go, their must be Heartless near by." They ran though the woods, Hideya doing all he could to keep up, and came across a large group of Heartless near a large boulder. As the Heartless got closer a door appeared on the boulder. "Damn, the door was hear. Hideya, don't let them get any closer to the door!" They both stared to run in but before they got any closer a dark portal appeared and from it came a tall man with dark hair and pale skin. He was dressed in black armor and a red and black cape. He faced the door.

"This was easy to find," he said. "And this world is just so perfect. So many people to turn into Heartless-it's exactly what I was looking for."

"Fira!" yelled Solf and shot a large fire ball at the unknown man. Unfortunately it stopped just before it hit him. "A barrier."

"Did you think that week of a spell would work on me?" He turned around to face them an laughed. "Fools."

"Then try this," Hideya exclaimed "Dark Orb of Destruction!" running as fast as he could Hideya attacked the mysterious man with he spell. It hit the barrier and pushed the man back. "No good." The spell had only one fifth of its destructive power because he was so tried.

"Darkness, huh? Interesting. Tell me boy, why do you use darkness against the Darkness?" the man walked towards Hideya.

"Get back," Solf yelled stepping in front of Hideya. "THUNDAGA!" Solf blasted as many Heartless as he could but could not get through the enemy's barrier. "Hideya. If the Heartless get to the door this world is doomed. Stop them!" Hideya tried to take a steep forward but fell on his knees due to lack of energy. "Damn, he's too exhausted to fight any more."

The strange man grinned. "This was too easy." then just to show off he teleported over the door. "Now this world belongs to the Darkness!" He opened the door and dark clouds of smoke escaped from it. Hideya looked shocked. He tried to stand.

"Got to... close that door," he said.

"It's impossible, boy. You will become a Heartless like the rest of the people on the silly little world."

"Hideya," Solf yelled "don't fear the darkness, you can control it. You'll stay you..." And with that Solf faded into darkness. Hideya look up and saw that the man and the Heartless were nowhere to be seen and that the rest of the world had also faded. As the world shrunk towards him he hoped his family would be alright and allowed the darkness to take him where ever it was it was going to take him. For he had a feeling it could not touch him, yet.

Authors note: Hope you liked this chapter. Sorry it is still a little slow and that Sora is still out of the loop, but K. H. II spent three hours as Roxas so... I promise that it will get more interesting and more action packed. The next chapter: The Sanin of Darkness. The identity of the new enemy will be revealed and old characters will finally meat the new.

P.S. any thing that I write in italics is a quote. If you want to know what it is from just ask. Also please review.