The Mission of a Keyblade Master

Chapter 3: Friends

Riku:

We exited the Old Mansion and were walking through the forest. I looked at the girl and couldn't help but smile. Boy was she strong and smart. Everything about her fighting seemed so balance and perfect. I couldn't even detect the slightest of darkness from her. The way she moved with the cartwheels seemed so elegant and fluid. And she could kick ass!

She noticed me staring at her and turned to me. I just gulped with my eyes widened. Hana just smiled sweetly at me.

"Sorry if I seemed a bit rough on you." I just shook my head vigorously. Why was she apologising?

"It's okay, don't worry!" I exclaimed and she nodded. "Where are we going anyway?"

"It's a surprise." She stated and my eyebrow raised; what could it be?

We got out of the forest quickly and appeared in a town. Everyone who walked by us smiled at Hana and said hello. She was pretty well known around town then.

Hana and I got to an ice cream vendor and we saw 3 friends there with ice creams in their hands. I smiled to myself; I thought about me, Sora and Kairi.

"Riku…" Her voice made me snap out of daze and I looked at her. She held up a blue ice cream up to me and I smiled whilst taking it.

"Thanks, you didn't have to." I stated and she smiled at me whilst shaking her head.

"You fought well so you deserve ice cream." She said and I smirked.

"Are you using this as an excuse just to buy ice cream?" The question made her cheeks go all red which I found cute.

"W-what? This is a treat!" She exclaimed and I started laughing.

"You need to lay off the ice cream, no wonder you look a little fat." I said whilst pinched her cheek really hard.

Hana's reaction was very funny and cute. Her green eyes widened and she punched me on the head. At least it didn't hurt as much as the punches in training.

"I'm not fat!" She countered back.

"Hey, I'm kidding. Of course you're not fat." I poked her forehead hard and laughed. She just pouted whilst crossing her arms; it was the first ever time I saw her childish side.

"Wow, you guys really look like a cute couple!" We heard a girl's voice and turned to see the girl from the group of friends smiling at us. She had brown hair, dark green eyes and wore an orange shirt.

"Couple?" We asked in unison and the girl laughed.

"Yeah, a couple. Like boyfriend and girlfriend." She stated.

"No way! I would never end up with this kid!" I heard Hana yell.

"There is no way I'd fall for this grandma." I mumbled and she turned to me.

"Who you calling grandma?!" She punched my stomach and I shrieked, god she was freakishly strong! "You should look at your hair." My hair?! My hair was amazing, excuse me.

"My hair is silver and is amazing." I said.

"You look like an old man." She retorted and I just rolled my eyes.

"Whatever, grandma." I stated whilst huffing and heard the other friends and the ice cream vendor laughing at us.

"Come on." Hana said and I followed her.

We walked in silence and I looked at her. I sighed and felt bad for calling her fat and old.

"Hey, I didn't mean those things I called you." I muttered whilst avoiding her gaze.

"It's alright don't worry. I know what a joke is." I turned to her and saw her smile at me. At least she knew how to take a joke.

"So, where are we going?" I asked curiously and we got to the Station Plaza and stopped.

"I wanted to take you somewhere special and realised we can't go there." Hana said with a frown.

"How comes?" She huffed and looked up. I too looked up.

There was a large Clock Tower which was on top of the Station. Now I understood, she wanted to take me there.

"I always sat up there by myself to eat ice cream, alone with my thoughts. But then these other people took that spot." She said. "Those people, something about them seemed off."

I grew more curious. Who were those people and why did they seem so weird to Hana? Suddenly these 2 people walked around the corner and were walking past us. It was true, even I felt something off about them. And then it hit me; they were part of Organisation XIII. They wore those black coats. One was shorter than the other; he had blonde hair, blue eyes and slightly tanned skin. The other man had bright red hair, green eyes and these tear shaped marks underneath his eyes. They both turned to look at us but then looked at my female friend.

Then, when I looked at Hana, I grew worried. Her eyes widened and filled with tears. Her bottom lip quivered and she looked frozen from shock. I didn't know why at the time, but it really worried me. I placed a hand on her shoulder reassuringly.

Suddenly, Hana ran away very quickly towards the station. As she ran, I saw her glistening tears fall down her cheeks.

"Wait!" I yelled and ran after her.

I entered the Station and ran after her. I followed her around a corner and saw her leaning against a wall on her side, with her back towards me. With caution and slowly walking up to her, I placed my hand gently on her back.

She turned to me and I felt my heart saddened when I saw her face. That was the first ever time I saw Hana sad. My heart ached ever more when I saw a tear fall down her cheek.

"I'm sorry for running off like that…" Hana said quietly and I shook my head.

"It's okay, don't worry about it. Come on, let's get going to the place you wanted us to go to. And then we can talk about it, okay?" She looked up at me with wide eyes and I just smiled at her. She too had a small smile on her face and nodded.

I then followed her to the ticket vendor. She bought 2 tickets to Sunset Terrace and we walked to where all the trains were. After just a few minutes, we entered the train and sat down opposite each other.

I stared at her, as she looked out of the window, and for some reason I felt my cheeks get warmer. The train started to move and her hair danced in the wind. Hana looked like a simple girl, seemed like there was nothing special about her, but there was. She was really pretty too, her eyes looked unique to me. The colour of her eyes reminded me of the ocean from back home; so beautiful and peaceful. And boy was she strong. It wasn't wise of anyone to mistake her simple and innocent appearance as harmless.

She then began to eat her ice cream and I looked down at mine. My ice cream began melting a little and I began eating it. I smiled; wow it was really nice. It was salty yet sweet and wondered why they never had this on Destiny Islands.

After 10 minutes, we reached our destination; Sunset Terrace. Hana and I got off the train and began walking out of the station. It seemed more peaceful than Twilight Town and was very quiet too.

Before I knew it, we arrived on a hill which the view was amazing. You could see trains coming and going and other districts of Twilight Town. Hana sat down on a bench and I sat next to her.

"So do you wanna talk about it?" I asked and she turned to me. Her smile quickly disappeared and she looked down. "If you don't want to, it's fine. But it's always better to talk about your problems, then keeping them in."

"Those 2 boys looked like these people I knew from my past." She answered. "It seemed so uncanny."

"Those people from your past…who were they?" I asked.

"The boy with blonde hair reminded me of this boy I knew since I was a baby. His name was Ven and I don't know why that boy looked exactly like him." Hana stated. "The man with red hair reminded me of a boy I grew up with, a childhood friend called Lea."

"Your friends…" I mumbled.

"It really hit me because I lost my friends and those 2 looked exactly like them." I looked at her and felt really bad.

"Is that all there is?" I asked and she looked up at me. For some reason, I had that 6th sense where I could tell if there something wrong or not.

"I miss my friends." She stated and I frowned whilst placed my hand on hers.

"It's hard, I know." I said. I knew the pain she was going through. "But we have to do whatever we can to help them."

"I don't know what I can do. But I know part of my friend is safe…" Hana said as she placed her hand on her heart. I was confused, part of her friend? "Without my friends I feel like I'm weak. But I know that my friends are always with me, and that makes me stronger. We share an unbreakable connection."

Hana took out something from her pocket. It looked like a star shaped good luck charm made of a stained glass. There were 5 different colours which were red, blue, green, orange and yellow. In the middle was a heart token. She held it up and the stained crystal sparkled from the reflection of the setting sun.

"Did you make that?" I asked and she shook her head.

"My friend made it for me. She made more for my other friends so that we all carry one each." She answered and smiled to herself. "Somewhere out there, there's this tree with star shaped fruit…"

"Star shaped fruit?" I whispered quietly to myself as I looked down. My eyes widened; she was talking about the Paopu Fruit!

"….and the fruit represents an unbreakable connection. So as long as you and your friends carry good luck charms shaped like this, nothing can ever drive you apart." I looked up at her and saw her smile widened. "You'll always find your way back to each other."

She put her good luck charm back into her pocket and stood up. She stretched and turned to me with a face of determination.

"So that's why you shouldn't give up on your friends. Someday, you'll be reunited with your friends too!" Hana exclaimed and I just smiled.

"You're completely right." I stated and stood up too. "We're gonna find a way to find our friends!"