Kingdom Hearts

Embrace in Between

Chapter 3

Entering the second district, I was immediately ambushed by several heartless. Shadows, soldiers, and large bodies surrounded me and struck first. The shadows and soldiers were no problem; it was the large bodies that took effort. I was able to get behind and slay them nevertheless. I jumped over the stone railing by the stairs and entered the alley that led to the third district. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. To the left of me was a vacant house; a little further right were stairs that led down to an open area. The door to the first district was in front of me now. Beside it was the keyhole. Pointing a Keyblade at it, a beam shot out into the hole.

"There," I said as I heard the sound of a door unlocking. But that wasn't the only sound I heard. A large metal clanging noise rang behind me. I turned around to see a pile of huge armor. I moved closer to it. The armor was purple with…with the weird X-ed out heart on it.

It began to shake then came to life, putting itself together. The suit threw its fist at me. I rolled out the way as quick as I could.

"Wonderful…" I muttered to myself. All it did, however, was waste time that I needed to move. This thing, whatever it was, was quick, quicker than me. It was all I could to keep away from its detachable limbs. [Wait that's it! I need to get rid of those first!]

The heartless let its hands and legs go. Now was my chance. I sprang into action and attacked the legs first. I got hit a couple of stomps, but managed to defeat the feet. Now the body tried its own attacks. Spinning and moving wildly, it managed to knock me over many times. If that wasn't bad enough, the hands were trying to pummel me as well. I needed the hands to go first. Though the body tried its hardest to stop me, the hands were destroyed regardless. The body went absolutely out of control as one last attempt to kill me. It was no use without the arms and legs, the heartless went down easier than expected.

On the final slash it stopped dead in its tracks and fell to the ground. The floating head slammed to the ground and a heart was whisked out of the chest plate, up into the sky and disappeared.

I was wiped, if this was how fighting heartless was going to be, I was doomed. I haven't even fought that many heartfelt yet either. Tidus was right; I needed a lot more training.

"Impressive," I heard Tidus say coming up behind me. "You took down that heartless all by yourself?"

"Yeah, but I'm exhausted right now." I painted.

"Here, take this. It'll help out." He threw a weird shaped bottle at me. I uncorked it and drank the liquid inside.

I felt completely rejuvenated. All the cuts and bruises I got seemed to go away instantly.

"Wow! What was that?" I asked.

"It was a potion. Heals up a bit. Comes in handy in pinch."

"Thanks for that. But I'll probably need a lot of those if I'm going to fight anything like that heartless again."

"Actually, you might not. The only way to get better at something is to keep doing it. You've done enough fighting for one day. Now comes the fun part. With the Keyblade comes the ability to use magic, another thing that'll help in battle."

"Magic? You mean like fireballs and all that? You're going to teach me that?"

"Nope, can't do much of it myself. But I do know of a guy that could help. He used to live here, but moved back to his original home a long time ago. I think the place is called Radiant Garden."

"How do I get there? Is it around here?"

"No, it's a completely different world. You can only get there by Gummi ship, but…"

"But what?" I was thoroughly confused on what a Gummi ship was.

"But we don't have an expert on it or even have a Gummi ship just lying around." Tidus put his hand to his chin when Yuna and Wakka came in from the first district.

"Tidus, there's something you should see." Yuna said. Tidus and I followed.

When we got through the door we saw a weird hole of some sort. It radiated bright light.

"What is it?" I asked.

"It's a light gate, but the only person I know who could summon one is…" Tidus pondered for a minute. "Eien I think this is meant for you."

I looked at him like he was insane.

"Trust me on this. Just step through there and your magic lessons will begin."

Reluctantly I agreed. I took one step forward.