Kairi opened her eyes, and took a confused look at both her surroundings, and herself. Her clothes were different, she was wearing a dark purple jacket over a white shirt with a hood, and a pair of dark purple shorts.
"Great" She thought. "Yen Sid thinks purple is my color. Or maybe Sora and Riku made him do it, they're probably tired of me wearing pink."
Despite the minor fashion catastrophe, Kairi was still eager to prove her worth, as soon as she had found Sora and Riku.
It was still weird being in her fourteen year old body. There was still a sense of familiarity about it, and yet it still felt so alien. It wasn't much different, mostly just height and hair length, but it was enough to make it feel strange. She thought she was probably going to get used to it, and then she would return to her real body and have to get used to that again.
She walked down the streets while examining the world she was in. It seemed to be a small and rather old town. The houses were made of wood, and the ground was made of cobblestone. It was a dark night, but lit by thousands of shining stars, lampposts and light from the houses. Though the houses were lit, there didn't seem to be anybody there, the town was completely silent, right until:
"Shiki look out!"
Suddenly Kairi felt herself being punched forward into a wall. Her body ached, and she felt dizzy for a second. Once she pulled herself together, she got up on her feet again, and tried to make sense of what was happening.
A broad-shouldered and muscular young boy dressed in a white tank top and a black hat with a skull on, was fighting a black and blue panda with red eyes and a strange symbol on it's chest.
"Well...this is probably completely normal to Sora and Riku" Kairi said and summoned her keyblade.
She quickly ran towards the strange panda, and with a jump and a few quick strokes with her keyblade, defeated it.
The boy looked at her with a look of awe, and slight confusion.
"Well you're definitely not Shiki" He said.
"Heh, no I guess not, I'm Kairi, nice to meet you."
She directed her hand at him to shake hands with him, but he just stared confused at her hand.
"You're not a player?"
"A player?"
"In the reaper's game, it's...oh forget it, you can't help" He started to walk away.
"Hey wait, you don't know me, maybe I can be of help. I could help you look for that girl Shiki."
"...Well actually I'm not really looking for Shiki, you just looked like her. I'm looking for my little sister, Rhyme. Maybe you've seen her, she about this tall, and she was wearing a red shirt and a hat that looks like mine."
"No I haven't seen her. I just got here."
"Huh, what's your story then?"
"Uhm...It's complicated...like really, really complicated."
"Fair enough."
"Hey, you never told me your name."
"It's Beat."
"Beat. Now what was that thing you were fighting before?"
"You don't know? That was a Dream Eater."
"What's a Dream Eater?"
Beat took out his arm to the side as if a bird was sitting there. And in the next moment there was. It was a brightly coloured giant furry and smiling bat. It sort of just poofed into existence, much like the keyblade. For a moment Kairi wanted to scream over how cute it was! But she thought she should remain professional, this was an exam after all.
"Creatures of this world. There are two kinds. Spirits and Nightmares. The one you defeated before was a Nightmare, they're enemies, Spirits are allies."
Kairi stared at the smiling bat, and for a moment forgot all about her professionalism.
"Uhm can I...can I pet it?"
Beat looked surprised again, then he chuckled.
"Actually you can have one."
He summoned another one, this one had the form of purple cat. It had eight legs and some kind of musical note as it's tail. And it was equally cute! She was petting it, it was purring and smiling.
"Looks like you're already bonding."
"No I...I can't take this."
"Consider it a gift, as a thanks for saving me before, and for helping me find Rhyme. You can find a lot more of them around, they're pretty helpful. You summon them by..."
Suddenly the cat Dream Eater poofed away. Kairi had already figured it out, it was just like using the keyblade.
"I got it."
"Great! Now let's go."
Suddenly Beat jumped towards a brick wall, suddenly light started flashing around his body, and he started jumping from building to building.
"What the...?"
"It's called flowmotion! Come on try it!"
Kairi was skeptical, but intrigued. She ran towards the same wall, jumped against it, and the same kind of light started flowing around her. Then she jumped of the wall in an enormous leap. It was uncanny, the keyblade had already made her agile, but never this agile! It was like flying. Her and Beat started journeying through the town like this, jumping from buildings, flying through the air, surfing on railings. It was incredible. Kairi's heart pumped, she could feel the adrenaline pumping through her veins. Then she started chuckling a little. Then laughing a little. Then laughing a lot. Then falling down to the ground in an enormous outburst of maniacal laughter, echoing throughout all the town. She couldn't breathe, couldn't think. It was just too fun.
Beat flowed down to her on the ground, looking confused at her, again.
"Uhm...are you okay?"
"No! This is amazing! Oh my God, how could I ever have lived without this? Has Sora and Riku been able to do this all the time? Oh I'm gonna kill them when I find them!"
She continued laughing, tears in her eyes, her body almost going into seizures. Then she started feeling dizzy. Her eyelids started getting heavier with each "ha". Then she fainted.
Everything was dark, for a long while. But a small white light started getting closer. The closer it got, the more Kairi realized that it wasn't light. It was a person, dressed all in white, Kairi couldn't see who it was, the person was turning her back in front of her. But Kairi had some idea...
She woke up again to the sound of Beat's voice, and the feeling of being carried, but it wasn't a feeling of safety.
"We had a deal hoodie! That if I brought her to you, you would send me and Rhyme back to our world!"
Then she heard another voice, she didn't know the voice and yet..."
"And do you really think you and sister carries even one little piece of my interest."
"You said you wouldn't hurt her! Bet you ain't even a reaper!"
Kairi fastly took out her keyblade and punched the man carrying her in his face.
"It can't be" She said, once she saw the man.
It was an Organization member. Or at least he bore the cloak. No matter who he was, she knew that those people were far too dangerous.
"Beat we have to run! Now!"
She quickly took Beat's hand and flowed away with the bewildered boy. But the Organization man simply took out his hand, and summoned a Dream Eater. A Nightmare. A giant Nightmare. It's form was some kind of combination between a lion and a Jack-in-the-box.
"Beat get to safety! I'll take care of this!"
"But..."
"No buts! Go!"
Beat ran away, and Kairi held her keyblade, and looked at the Nightmare with a determined look.
"Okay, tough guy, let's see how you handle the princess...no, the queen of flowmotion!"
The next few minutes, Kairi went completely berserk. She had never, fought against an opponent like that before. She jumped and flew around it with her newfound flowmotion ability. Sent her new cat spirit after it as a distraction. Slashed the monster with her keyblade, and shot the it with both fire and ice. After a long session of intense fighting, it vaporized and flew up into the sky.
Kairi was breathless and exhausted, but she also felt more proud and accomplished than ever before.
"Kairi 1, Nightmares 0. One step closer to becoming a master."
"That was pretty impressive."
Kairi turned around at the sound of the unfamiliar voice. It was another unknown boy, dressed in a white shirt. He had blonde hair and a somewhat feminine and mysterious face.
"Almost on the same level as Riku, though definitely better than Sora."
"Riku? Sora? Do you now where they are?"
"They're in this world, though not the same world."
"You're not making sense. Who are you?"
"My name is Joshua, I watch over the players in the Reaper's game. You must be Kairi, Sora did mention you, he never seems to keep quiet about you."
Kairi blushed.
"Yeah, I knew that. But where is he?"
"Follow me."
Kairi followed the strange boy to an opening full of springs, Beat was there too. And a lot of other people too, though they looked different, almost like ghosts. Sora and Riku was there too! Riku was with a girl with red hair and a stuffed cat, Kairi guessed that must be Shiki. Sora was with a boy she didn't know, he was very thin, had spiky brown hair and a pair of weird things in his ears. Must have been some kind of fashion accessory from this world. Though with Sora there was a little girl whom Kairi quickly guessed who was.
"Rhyme!" Beat shouted.
"She can't hear you Beat, they can only hear me, I'm the link between the three worlds."
"You need to elaborate some more."
"I'll field your questions one at a time. Let's start with Rhyme."
He looked like he was talking to everyone, it was weird.
"I'm hanging on to her dreams for her. They're my portal. Let's just say her dreams are a gateway between worlds. Next question, how could I possibly know your names right? This town has a little secret. It only appears when someone out there has need of shelter. I'll spare you the details, but right now they're made up of my dreams. So of course I know you, I dreamed you up. These projections you're seeing are other events happening in the other versions of this world, which is trapped by the Dream Eaters As for how the world got split in three, well I have a feeling you're going to have to ask this guy."
Joshua pointed to Riku, he was speaking with the Organization member. He took of his hood, to reveal a young man with grey spiky hair and ominous yellow eyes. Kairi knew something was wrong.
Soon, both Sora, Riku and Kairi were standing in front of Joshua, who was explaining who the other kids were.
"Something happened that brought their existence to an end. To keep them from fading altogether, I gathered up the very last remnants of their dreams and looked for a place to give them refuge. It was then this world appeared to answer my call, and Rhyme's dreams allowed us to reach it. Here, I thought they might have a chance, that the pieces of their dreams could make them whole again. Imagine my surprise when I realized dreams take bodily form in this world. It struck me, by linkin their dream pieces back together, maybe I could make them exist again. Maybe I could give them another chance."
Kairi could see Riku saying something, but she couldn't hear him.
"Well, why can't it? By ourselves, we're no one. It's when other people look at us and see something, that's the moment we each start to exist. All they needed was for someone to see them, connect with them. And the three of you were a big part of making it happen."
"Joshua...just, who are you?"
Kairi could see that Sora and Riku was talking too, perhaps they were all asking together. Joshua said he was watching over the games, but that wasn't enough of an explanation.
"Heh, let's say...a friend."
Suddenly angel wings sprouted at his back, he smiled at them, and flew elegantly up to the sky. The three seperated friends were all looking bedazzled up at the sky. But they had no time to dwell on it, the keyhole had emerged at a stone wall in front of them. Then they looked at each other, and nodded. They took out their keyblades, and locked the keyhole together once again.
They looked at each other one last time, before Sora and Riku headed of.
"Are you going now?" Beat asked.
"Yeah...I'm sorry but I have something important to do. I promise I'll come back, I strongly feel like there's some unfinished business here.
She took one last look at Sora and Riku before whispering:
"Don't ever forget, wherever you go, I'm always with you..."
"One dream is connected to another, which means we must choose in which 'Sleeping World' you will begin. I will return you to the Destiny Islands, just before they were swallowed by the darkness and plunged into sleep. Once dreams take you, you must let them guide you to the Sleeping Worlds. As there are seven pure lights, there are seven 'Sleeping keyholes'. Unlocking these will both grant you new powers, and free the worlds from their wakelessness. Complete this task, and return here safely, and I will name you all three...true masters."
