Title: Kingdom light

Disclaimer: do I have to keep telling you I don't own Kingdom hearts? It's kind of depressing me.

Gold: I know this chapter is out quick so it's a bonus. I won't be able to update for a little while so its extra long (at least I think it is, don't quote me on it)

Chapter 4: friends of Sora's

Tami looked in front of her and saw the heartless that had attacked her had vanished.

"Hey, I don't know what you did to that one but do it to this one!" Marrissa yelled, smashing it across the head with force enough to send a full grown man flying. However the heartless just shook its head annoyed and began advancing again. Tami ran over and hit it on the head with the new keyblade. It disappeared in a puff of smoke and a small red heart floated up from its body, flying away.

"Cool," Marrissa muttered, then she fell to her knees, "ow… that kind of hurt… my knees…"

"Leon?"

Everyone turned as the gate opened. Two girls and one guy were standing there. The girl that had said Leon's name had black hair that hung over one of her blue eyes. She wore a green top with no sleeves that stopped above her belly and yellow shorts. White stockings reached up to her low thigh and she was bouncing back and forth impatiently on her brown shoes. The other girl had dazzling green eyes and long brown hair tied back in a braid by a pink ribbon. She wore a long pink dress with brown boots. A blue belt hung sideways from her hip. The boy had similar eyes to the second girl, green. He had spiked blond hair and wore a red cape around his shoulders and over one arm. He had a metal shoulder blade and a spiked hip guard. He was holding a large sword that had bandages wrapped all around it and his outfit was blue. Looking closely at his left hand they saw he had sharp metal fingers.

"Yuffie, help me get Sora to the accessory shop!" Leon called to the black haired girl, she looked about sixteen.

She ran nimbly over to Leon and put her hand on Sora's forehead, "his temperature is off the charts, ow, he's burning up!"

Marrissa ran over with the first aid box (which she'd dropped during the battle) and shoved it in Keshia's hands after she and Donald had set Goofy down so they could rest a minute. When Keshia looked at her curiously Marrissa pointed at Leon and she realized he had gotten cut.

She ran over, "Leon, let me put something on your arm."

He looked down surprised, as if he hadn't realized he was cut, "oh, we can take care of that later. We should take care of Sora before he gets worse, something jabbed him in the stomach good."

The girl with the long brown hair ran over to Goofy, "what happened to him Donald?"

"He hit his head or something like that, I really couldn't be sure Aerith," Donald shrugged.

The man with the blond hair came over and picked up Goofy. Aerith got up and followed him through the gate, looking back confused at the girls she called, "you guys better come too, we don't know when the heartless will appear again."

Leon got up and carried Sora after Goofy and the blond person. The three girls and Donald followed everyone else into a separate section of the town. They headed down a flight of stairs, rounded a building and rushed inside. The interior of the room was pretty simple. It looked to be a store of sorts. An old fashioned fireplace sat to the right and in the upper right hand corner there were cushions and a low table. To the left was a large bureau and next to that a counter facing the fireplace. The man behind the counter was leaning on it, he had a toothpick in his mouth, and was reading a magazine. Without looking up he greeted them in a bored tone, "hello welcome to the accessory shop. Look around and…" He looked up to see who had entered and his eyes went wide with shock, "…Sora!"

The man looked about thirty, give or take a few years. His blond hair was held back from his blue eyes with a pair of brown goggles. He wasn't tall but he was well muscled. He had a white shirt with an orange sash and blue pants. When he rushed around the counter they saw he had brown shoes.

"I know," Yuffie said, nodding her head, "I never expected to see him again either…"

"How did he get hurt?" Cid questioned as Leon went to lay Sora on the cushions by the table.

"I don't know, but he's got a fever and it looks like a few ribs are broken," Leon told the older man, crossing his arms across his chest as Aerith bent down to place a cold cloth on Sora's head.

"Cloud put Goofy behind the counter, I'll look at him in a minute," Cid told the blond haired guy carrying Goofy. He nodded his head and laid him down. Then walked over and stood next to Leon, his hand on his hip as he surveyed Sora.

Donald walked the rest of the way into the shop, "we were attacked on our way to seal a keyhole on one of the worlds by a man with short reddish brown hair that hung over one eye. He looked young, about eighteen or so, and he had yellow eyes. He wielded a strange weapon, a handle like a swords but with half a spear attached to it. His power was incredible."

Donald shook his head at the memory, "he flung Goofy and me to the side, like we were annoying insects, and went straight for Sora. He was able to hold him back until the ship started diving, Sora tried to turn and grab the controls but the man swung his weapon at him like a bat and sent him sprawling across the floor! Then he disappeared in a cloud of black smoke…"

The silence in the crowded room was thick, no one dared breath to loudly less they break it. Looking around at the faces you could tell they were all trying to digest what they had heard.

"Who…" Aerith coughed to get her voice working correctly, "who are these three girls?"

The three said girls were all huddled near the door, feeling like they had intruded where they weren't welcome. Keshia and Marrissa turned and looked at Tami; she hadn't said a word since the strange keyblade had appeared mysteriously in her hand.

Donald explained how they had brought Sora aboard the ship and how they had helped get Sora here. Leon's steady gaze never left Tami, who was clutching the new keyblade tightly as if afraid someone would take it away. Her head was lowered the whole time Donald went through his explanation. No doubt she had as many questions about what had happened as anybody else. Suddenly the three sisters began to fill a bit overwhelmed.

"Yes! His fever is down," Yuffie called triumphantly from Sora's side. He looked like he was sleeping peacefully anyway.

Cid got up and went over to Goofy, checking his vital signs and pulse, "I think he has a slight concussion from that blow to the head. He should be awake in the morning though. I'll get him an ice pack."

He left to do just that. Leon turned to Keshia, Marrissa, and Tami, "well you can stay in the upper shop of this building for now since the moogles have already returned to their world."

They found it tempting to ask what a moogle was but now didn't seem the time so they just nodded.

"Leon?" Yuffie asked timidly, "is that girl holding Sora's keyblade? He wouldn't let me hold it."

"It's not Sora's…" Tami spoke up for the first time, "Sora has his with him…"

"Do you know where it came from?" Keshia asked, "cause when we left the house I didn't see it in your pocket."

"No idea," Tami said, holding it up to the light so the keychain shimmered majestically, "but… I think it's… mine…"

"Of course your keyblade would be red and black," Marrissa muttered.

"I'm not sure that's a keyblade," Leon said calmly, "it's different from anything I've ever encountered. I don't think anyone here knows what it is. But I agree with you, it's yours. Powerful objects like this choose their own masters."

Tami held it in both hands, nodding her head.

Keshia stepped forward, "thank you Leon, for letting us stay here. Um… we… brought some more… friends of ours from our world."

Leon turned his gaze on her, "how many?"

She looked down at her bare feet (yes, they hurt a lot, but she hadn't found the appropriate time to complain as of late) seeming to find them interesting, "four, but they aren't humans, they're dogs."

Cid walked into the room then, bearing the promised ice pack and something that would win him the girls favor. He was carrying food. Noticing their wide eyed expression he laughed, "I thought you might be hungry, here."

Handing over the strange soft-round orbs he turned and put the ice pack on Goofy's head. When he turned back the girls were empty handed. Hey, they hadn't eaten since breakfast and it looked to be about dusk.

He put his hand behind his head and scratched the back of his skull, "wow, did you starve them Donald?"

Donald's face turned a beautiful shade of magenta, "sorry we didn't have time to stop for snacks while we were narrowly escaping doomed worlds and rushing to get Sora some proper care. Let me see… nope… I didn't see anytime where I could've played host and fed them did you!"

"Calm down, I didn't mean anything" Cid cried, putting his hands up defensively.

"Cid, they want to bring their dogs here too," Leon said quietly to stop the argument quickly igniting between the duck and the older man.

"Dogs?" Cid put his chin in his hands, "… I don't know…"

"Please!" They cried, the thought of loosing their beloved pets after loosing their entire world was right up on their list of unbearable things."

"They're potty trained," Keshia assured him.

"Okay," he shrugged.

"And they don't eat much!" Marrissa put in.

"Alright."

"Plus they're usually quiet and…" Tami interjected.

"I said yes!" Cid threw his hands into the air defeated, "I was just teasing."

"Oh…" Keshia replied softly, and then she smiled wide, something she felt she hadn't done in ages, "thank you… for everything…"

Tami and Marrissa nodded in agreement. Keshia headed for the door, "I'll go get them, they're still in the… Gummy ship? Right? It's called a Gummy ship?"

Donald nodded, "oh just so you guys know, this is Tami and this is Marrissa."

Keshia wished she could hit him. She really wanted to hit him. Maybe just one little…

"Are you leaving or not girl?" Donald shot at her, sitting down on the floor and leaning his back to the fireplace.

"She can't go alone," Cloud protested his voice was medium range and smooth; a calm similar to Leon's but without the cold.

"My name is not 'girl' it's Keshia," she muttered.

"The heartless are still outside," Yuffie informed from her window seat.

"Someone will go with you," Aerith told Keshia, "and… would you like to borrow a pair of shoes before you go? Your feet are cut up pretty bad."

"Yes, that would be nice," Keshia said thankfully, from the bottom of her wounded soles.

Aerith got up and behind the counter, emerging some minutes later with a pair of short black buckle boots.

"I'll go with her," Cloud volunteered, grabbing his sword from the wall where it had been leaning.

"Alright, come back alive." That was Donald's version of goodbye they guessed. Either way somehow Keshia ended up 'accidentally' stepping on his foot as she passed him. Cloud and Keshia bolted from the shop as he grabbed at his staff, thankfully he seemed to forget his arm was broken and when he went to get it so he dropped it right after.

"What's wrong Donald?" Leon asked after they left. He was sitting fuming on the floor, clutching at his arm.

"Oh this? I might have broken my arm in the fall," he shrugged.

Aerith scooted over and began to examine his arm, "might? No I'm pretty sure it's one hundred percent, honest to god, broken. Did it happen when you were fighting the strange man?"

"Yeah," Donald answered thoughtfully as Aerith's fingers began to move over the bones, "I don't like him. So how did the barrier between the worlds get torn?"

"Let's wait till Cloud gets back," Leon cut in, "he's the one who found out after all."

"Hey Squa… I mean Leon?" Yuffie called raising her hand in the air.

His blue eyes flashed with annoyance, "what?"

"Ow!" Donald cried as a sickening pop could be heard throughout the shop's interior.

"That hurt!" Donald yelled, jumping up and snatching is arm out of Aerith's hands.

"I'm sorry I had to put it back in place!" She tried to get him to settle down, "the painful part is over now, just let me splint it and…"

"You're all the same!" Donald informed her, pointing his uninjured hand at Tami.

Leon turned back to Yuffie as Donald calmed down enough to get the splint on, "did you have something to tell me?"

A light laughter filled the small space, looking over everyone saw Sora's form shaking. Yuffie's hand fell limp, "um… just that he woke up…"

Gold: well that's that. I have to know, do you people even like this story? Some people are still reading but I know they aren't reviewing. Please it doesn't have to be a novel just say 'update' or 'take this story of the net, you're a disgrace to writers everywhere!' I'll take flames at this point… constructive criticism anyway. Well have a good weekend people! (cause I'm gonna sleep through it)