I stepped out of the corridor and was greeted by familiar settings. Of course I'd end up back here eventually. Back in Radiant Garden, where it all began. It was the perfect place to end it.
I tracked my Heartless to the market. As usual it tried to flee, but I knew these surroundings well. A plan was already forming as I began herding it towards downtown. I dropped mines along the streets in front of me, limiting the paths available to my prey.
As I ran I passed many people, including a trio consisting of a spiky-haired boy, a very tall duck, and an anthropomorphic dog. Normally such a group wouldn't catch my attention, I had seen many stranger things in my recent travels, except this trio didn't run out of the way screaming like everyone else. Instead, they turned after I passed and followed me. I paid them just enough attention to ensure that they weren't going to interfere or slow me down.
Winding through the streets, and over the occasional building, we soon approached our destination. Blocking off all other paths, I forced my Heartless down a small back alley. The passage was narrow, only large enough for one person at a time to pass, and went on for a few dozen meters before opening up to a large, empty lot. The windowless backs of a dozen buildings encircled us. A quirk in the layout of the nearby streets and the architecture of the buildings had led to this purposeless area being created. I had discovered it when I was young, and it had been my place to disappear to when I needed to be alone.
There was only one way in or out of the area, and I was standing in it. Stretching my arms out, I placed my hands on both walls. Mines sprung forth from my fingertips and spread across the buildings until they covered every surface all the way to the top. These weren't my usual mines, though, but a special variant I had created after battling my Heartless enough times. It tried to scale one of the buildings in a cloud of shadow, but the moment it got too close a blast of light magic exploded from one of the mines, forcing it back to deer shape. The mines were modified flashbangs, with more emphasis on the flash than the bang. Covering the buildings with them meant I wasn't going to be able to use any more for a while, but that was fine. I just needed to keep my Heartless in one place long enough to make it submit.
"Organization XIII!" a squawky, hard-to-understand voice called from behind me. "What are you up to, leaving bombs all over the place like that?" It seemed the trio that's been chasing me had finally caught up.
I didn't take my eyes off my Heartless as I addressed them. "What makes you think I'm with the Organization?"
"You're wearing their coat," a second voice answered.
It did look similar, I supposed. "It's functional and comfortable, but I'm not with them. I'm just here for this Heartless." I entered the ring of buildings and summoned my bat. "I recommend staying out of my way."
The boy, who had thus far been silent, ran up to my side and summoned, to my surprise, a keyblade. "If you're going to fight that Heartless, you can't be all bad. Let us help."
If he was a keyblade wielder, he could probably take care of himself in a fight. "Alright," I conceded. "If you want to help, guard the exit. I can't have this thing escaping again."
He nodded. "Donald, Goofy, guard the exit." It seemed I was getting his help whether I wanted it or not. Well, fine then. Maybe his heart would be enough of a lure to keep my Heartless around. "My name's Sora, by the way. How about you?"
"Kikyo."
Sora made the first move, calling down a bolt of lightning. My Heartless avoided the bolt by turning into its shadow form and racing forward. It solidified in front of Sora and struck with its antlers, knocking him back. The moment it did so, I was already swinging. I caught it on its underside before it could disappear again, a concentrated explosion sending it into the air. Sora seemed familiar with fighting alongside others, because he quickly capitalized on its poor position. He flung his keyblade through the air, striking my Heartless in the neck, then calling it back to his hand and repeating the action four more times.
As the Heartless approached the ground I leapt forward, leaving explosive mines behind with every step, but it had already dissolved to shadows before I reached it. I sent a line of mines to either side of me, boxing my Heartless in. It backed off and lowered its reformed head.
"Watch out!" I warned my new allies.
Our opponent's antlers shot forward, stretching out, branching and bending to attack from every direction. Several tendrils swept through my line of mines, detonating them early. The rest targeted me and my allies. I didn't have much in the way of defensive skills, but I was fast, especially with the aid of my explosions. I dodged and deflected most of the branches, but a few made it through my defenses, stabbing into me like needles. I ignored the injuries; you could hardly even see the blood on the black coat.
Sora had come out of the assault better off than I had; a quick glance backwards showed the same was true of the other two. I shot forward, an explosion behind giving me an extra burst of speed, and grabbed my Heartless by the throat before it could disappear again. It struggled helplessly as I pressed it to the ground, covering it with my full weight.
"Submit!" I shouted. "Stop running away and come back." Yellow met green as it locked eyes with me. Then, giving a keel of defiance, the ground opened up beneath it and it sank downwards. It disappeared, leaving my fingers grasping dirt and weeds.
I stood and look around warily. It hadn't ever done that before. Would it escape again? I hadn't prepared anything underground to stop it.
The earth rumbled, and in the center of the lot, a pitch black sapling sprouted. It grew rapidly, unfolding upwards until it resembled a massive tree, with a thick trunk surrounded by a shifting mass of bare branches pointing in every direction.
It was like the antlers all over again, but larger and more numerous. Sora summoned an orb of light at the end of his keyblade, which shot forward as a set of lasers, each intercepting a shadow tendril. I did something similar, turning a handful of pebbles into small bombs and shooting them forward like shotgun pellets. We kept attacking and defending, but we couldn't stop every attack. One branch caught me in the shoulder. Another wrapped around my ankle and pulled me through the air until I collided with Sora. As we helped each other to our feet, a wave of green light washed over us, healing most of our wounds. Courtesy of the wand-waving duck, no doubt.
One of the thicker branches approached, but this time I dodged to the side, grabbed it, and pulled myself up. It was just wide enough to walk on, if a bit difficult to stay atop. Sora mimicked me with another branch, showing surprising balance for guy with such big feet, and we proceeded to make our way deeper.
Adrenaline pumped through my veins and I could hear my pulse pounding in my ears. I was right in the heart of danger, deftly dodging an onslaught of attacks. But I was also in my element, fighting and running in a three-dimensional environment, swinging and leaping from branch to branch. I left mines with every step, covering the tree like they were Christmas lights. I soon lost track of Sora, but I didn't pay that much mind. Instead, I kept pushing my way forward until I could see the trunk of the tree. I was low to the ground at that point, so I leapt down, keeping my head low. I was mildly surprised when Sora joined me a few moments later. It was good to know that my help was competent, at least. Maybe one day he'd match up to Aqua's level.
"Let's cut this thing down," Sora said. We both shot forward at high speed. A huge mass of branches headed towards us, twisting together to form a single, giant spear. Before it could reach us, I remotely triggered every mine I had set in the tree, more than a few of which had been wrapped up into the spear. It was blasted apart, and what few branches continued through were warded off by Sora summoning a ring of bright fire around us.
We both swung, blade and bat tearing through the base of the tree. The trunk exploded where I hit it, but were both well outside the blast zone in an instant. Mines were still exploding in the trees branches as it fell to the ground behind us. Hot wind sent our hair flying. The only way the moment could have been more perfect was if Sora and I had been wearing sunglasses.
Separated from its creator, the tree was already dissolving by the time it finished falling. It touched down with barely a sound.
The earth shook again, this time harder than before. Rock and gravel were overturned, and chunks of stone taller than a grown man rose to a standing position. A full set of antlers rose from the center of the lot, followed by a head, and the front half of my Heartless. However, in the time that it had been underground, it seemed to have undergone a growth spurt. It looked to be about three times as tall and thirty times as massive as it used to be. Even half inside a hole, it towered over us.
It swung its head, stygian antlers tearing gouges through the earth and pulling up still more stones. Sora rolled out of the way while I leapt back behind a large, upturned boulder to avoid the spray of gravel. The moment I stepped into the rocks shadow, however, I could no longer see. The stone seemed to be casting a shadow so thick, no light could enter it.
An invisible blow to my stomach knocked me out of the shadow. I backed off, stepping carefully. Now that I took a closer look at my surroundings, I saw that all of the rocks my Heartless had upturned were casting impossibly dark shadows.
The shadows began to separate from the objects casting them and take a new shape. Countless pure black clones of my Heartless appeared, ranging from the size of a small mouse, to as large as a moose.
I stood before an army, with only a boy and his key to back me up, and I could feel no fear. I couldn't afford to lose here; I couldn't keep chasing my missing piece across all of existence. I had it cornered, I would win.
The shadow copies proved surprisingly resilient. I'll admit, I'd grown used to most enemies falling in a few blows, but these were not so easy. The most effective way of destroying them was to lure them near the walls, then throw them into a mine. The light magic in the flash mines made short work of the shadows.
The small copies proved just as resilient as the larger ones, but were less powerful, so I took out the biggest ones first. Eventually, with time and effort, the number of enemies began to dwindle. However, the moment they got too low, my Heartless swung its antlers through the ground and made more copies.
I bit back a curse after it did so for a second time. All we were doing fighting the copies was tiring ourselves out; we needed to take out the source. But we'd tried to get close before, and when we did it swung a hoof at us, sending us flying.
I turned to Sora. We'd been sticking close together so far, watching each other's backs as we fought. That needed to change. "Go right, I'll go left," I told him. "If we split his focus, one of us can get close enough to do some damage."
He nodded and took off. I followed his example. The shadow copies tried to get in my way, but I didn't slow down. While they proved difficult to destroy, they were relatively easy to avoid or knock out of the way.
The moment Sora and I were at opposite ends of the lot, we turned directions, coming in with a pincer attack. My Heartless chose to focus its strength on Sora. I wasn't surprised; Sora's bright heart made better bait than me. Still, it didn't ignore me completely. While it swung its hooves at an extremely agile Sora, its entire army of shadow copies were free to focus on me.
I spun around one copy, knocked another out of my way, and slid under the legs of a third, stopping right as I came to the edge of the giant hole my Heartless was sticking out of. There was just enough room for me to slip down into the darkness beneath it.
Not wanting to give it the chance to retaliate, I acted as soon as my hands and feet hit the bottom. I poured magic into the earth, setting the biggest explosive I could fit on the ground under my Heartless. I rode the shockwave from the detonation into the air, easily keeping pace with my now-airborne counterpart. Once we were high enough, I swung my bat as hard as I could into its side, letting the resulting explosion add to the force of my swing.
My Heartless slammed into the wall, triggering a couple dozen mines in the process, and it was at that moment I realized I'd miscalculated. During all the fighting with the copies, Sora and I'd detonated a large number of the mines. My last attack, while causing significant damage to my opponent, had cleared a path straight to the top of the buildings. I knew in an instant my Heartless would try to flee again. After all, it was clearly losing the battle.
It shed weight as we fell to the ground, and by the time we'd landed it was back down to its original size. It seemed to be too weak to revert to shadow form, but that didn't seem to stop it from climbing straight up the side of the building, swerving around flash mines as it went.
I detonated a mine beneath my feet, catapulting me directly above it. I swung and it dodged, but it wasn't fast enough to avoid being grabbed by the scruff of the neck with my free hand.
I spun in the air and threw my Heartless straight back down to the ground. Sora had followed my lead and leapt straight up the side of the building, meeting it halfway between me and the ground. Keyblade met Heartless, and the Heartless gave way. Its body melted away, scattering to the four winds, and from its center, a single heart rose into the air.
In the moment of my triumph I froze, so surprised that it was over that I forgot to claim my spoils. My heart soared past, just out of reach, and I snapped back to reality.
"Give me a boost!" I shouted as I fell. I landed on Sora's keyblade as he reached the apex of his jump. He swung as hard as he could and, aided by an explosion from me, we went soaring in opposite directions.
I stretched out my arm. I could just about touch it; it was so close I could feel the desperation. The gnawing emptiness, worse than ever before, made it hard to breathe. My fingers brushed against it, and then my whole hand.
My heart was hot. It was cold. It was sharp and it was blunt. It was so many things it was overwhelming, but more than anything else it was alive. I held it tight against my chest, never wanting to let go again.
I don't remember hitting the ground.
x-x-x-x-x-x-x
I once compared being a Nobody to falling into the black, but looking back I could see there were differences. When you fell into the black, all of your emotions were suppressed; pushed down and buried under a pile of darkness until you could no longer hear their call or taste their pleasure. When you became a Nobody, however, your emotions were ripped out of you, leaving a gaping wound where they used to be. Likewise, recovering from the two states was also a different experience. If you were lucky enough to come out of the black, you did so slowly, the world around you regaining a little more color and life with each second. Regaining your lost heart is a very different experience.
The first thing I noticed as I regained consciousness was how soft the bed I was lying on was. I hadn't slept in a proper bed in years, and this one felt like laying on a cloud. I almost drifted back to sleep when I noticed the low murmur of whispered voices nearby. My eyes snapped open as I felt panic for the first time in a decade. I was in a strange bed, in an unfamiliar house, surrounded by complete strangers.
I leapt from the bed and made for the nearest window. It wasn't open, but I didn't let that slow me down. Outside I was greeted by a small pack of Heartless, which didn't do any good for my mental state. Rather than stay and fight, I vaulted up the side of the building and fled. Soon, the thrill of leaping across rooftops caught up to me, and I was whooping and hollering across the city.
My emotions were extremely erratic, and I recognized that I was having trouble controlling them. I stopped and leaned against a chimney, taking deep breaths until I'd calmed down.
Whoever's house I'd been in, I thought, they hadn't seemed to be trying to keep me captive. I hadn't been chained to the bed, nor had the windows been barred. Thinking back to the last thing I recalled before waking up, I determined that Sora and his friends had probably brought me somewhere to recover after I'd gotten my heart back.
I turned back, making my way more slowly this time, until I found the house I'd woken up in. I leapt to the ground and knocked on the door.
A man with bright blond hair and aviator goggles answered the door while chewing on a stick. "Well look who came back," he said.
"Hey, um…" This was kind of awkward now. "Sorry about your window."
"Ah, don't worry 'bout it," he shrugged. "The dang thing breaks nearly every week these days. Too many Heartless around. We've got a dozen replacements in the back."
"Right." The awkwardness wasn't going away. What else was I supposed to say? I didn't think "thank you" was quite the right thing. "I take it Sora was the one who brought me to you guys?" The man nodded in response. "Is he still here?"
"He's running some errands with Leon right now, but he'll be back soon. Come in." The man stepped to the side, letting me pass through the door. "Name's Cid, by the way." He waved his hand at a girl in a pink and white dress. "This is Aerith."
"It's nice to meet you, miss Kikyo," Aerith greeted.
"Likewise." I accepted the seat and cup of tea I was offered, and sat and waited.
Sora walked through the door as I emptied my cup, accompanied by his two friends from before and a brown-haired human in a leather jacket. I took a closer look at Sora than I had previously had the opportunity to. His spiky brown hair rung familiar in my head. In an instant, I remembered him and was half out of my seat. "You're the boy from the island!"
My sudden outburst drew everyone's gaze. I rubbed my neck sheepishly. "Sorry, my emotions are a little… hectic right now. I'll get them under control soon. I'm just not used to having them."
Sora grinned at me. "You seem a lot happier than before. I guess that battle must've been pretty important to you. But what do you mean, 'you're not used to having emotions'?"
I sighed. Sora had helped me out a lot in getting my heart back. I owed him at least something of an explanation. "Do you know what a Nobody is?"
"So you are with the Organization, then," leather jacket said.
"No," I replied. "They offered me a spot once, but I turned them down." I turned back to Sora. "Until very recently, I was a Nobody. The Heartless you helped me defeat was my other half. I've been tracking it for around a decade, through the Realms of Darkness and Light both. I've been empty for so long that it's taking some adjustment to having a heart again." The room was silent after that, me enjoying the feeling of being whole again, and everyone else not knowing what to say or not wanting to interrupt. Aerith refilled my teacup and I snapped back to the outside world. "Right, like I was saying, I've seen you before. You're friends with Kairi, aren't you?"
"You know Kairi!" he exclaimed.
I nodded fiercely. The boy's enthusiasm was dangerously contagious. "She's my little sister. I haven't seen her since our home was attacked by Heartless. I'd love to see her again. Where is she?"
"She's back at our home, Destiny Islands."
"Sweet. Where is that from here? Do you have a map?"
"Ummm, actually…" Now it was Sora's turn to look sheepish. "We don't actually know how to get back, or where the islands are from here."
"What." I said.
"Right now we're trying to find our other friends and stop Organization XIII. Once we're done with that, we'll figure out some way to get home."
The teacup in my hand shattered, spraying me with hot tea and ceramic shards. I didn't take note. "So you're telling me you left your friend, my sister, behind, without even having any way of visiting her or checking up on her safety? While you went up against an extremely dangerous group of emotionless powerhouses? That seemed like a good idea to you?"
"Hey, hey!" he said, waving his hands between us as if to ward me off. "It wasn't our idea to get lost, it just happened that way. I'd love to visit home, but I can't."
I took a deep breath, held it, and let it out slowly. These mood swings were getting annoying; if I got much angrier things were going to start exploding. "Okay," I said once I'd calmed down. "Despite your current situation, you're still my best bet at seeing my sister again. Let me help you out. I owe the Organization a bit of payback anyway."
Sora shared a glance with the duck and dog. Neither seemed too opposed to the idea. "Sure," he said. "We'd be glad to have your help."
x-x-x-x-x-x-x
I hadn't realized, when I offered Sora my assistance, just what I was getting into. Traveling through the worlds was a dangerous thing for someone like myself to do. Even when I'd been hunting my Heartless, I had made an effort to avoid people whenever I could. I'd even been mostly successful.
Our first destination had us landing in a thick bamboo grove. Not long after our arrival, we ran across a girl pretending to be a boy pretending to be a soldier, as well as her guardian dragon, who Sora, Donald, and Goofy appeared to be familiar with. I, on the other hand, was feeling like the entire situation was familiar, dragon included, but couldn't pinpoint exactly why.
We followed the girl, whose real name was Mulan but was going by Ping, back to the encampment where her recruitment group was stationed. The sense of déjà vu grew stronger as I approached. When we entered, Mulan pointed across the camp at a pair of men with the air of authority about them. "The man in the red cloak is Captain Shang; he's in charge of training us. The man next to him is his advisor, Councilman Zhu Jun."
I stared at the man she pointed out. From across the camp, our eyes met. 'Dammit,' I thought. 'This is why I don't like traveling to other worlds.'