Sora: Hello there, FanFiction universe! I'm going to be—
ElvenPrincess01: Get out of the chair, Sora.
Sora: Aw, man *gets off chair, pouting*
ElvenPrincess01: *sits down and clears throat* Hello there, FanFiction universe! Chapter 6 is up! Sorry for the wait, but I went back to look at the previous chapters and there were some grammar errors that I just couldn't ignore. I also made some minor changes, added in a sentence or two to make things clearer, but nothing major, so if you've already read the first five chapters, you don't need to go back and read them.
But anyways, I do NOT own Kingdom Hearts in any shape or form. Enjoy!
xxxxx
Previous Chapter
It's then I realize I'm worried about nothing. I'm not going into the worlds all by myself; I have my two best friends next to me. We would look out for each other and watch each other's backs.
"Thank you, Riku," I say with gratitude in my voice. "I needed that."
"Hey, what are friends for?" Speaking of friends…
"Where's Sora? I haven't seen him anywhere." I was half-expecting to see his bright, cheery face showing up during my training, but he remains nowhere to be seen.
Riku sighs, almost doing an eye roll. "That lazy bum is probably still sleeping. He's always sleeping. He's one of the most laziest people I've ever met."
"Oh right, I remember you saying something about that before. He would always take a nap on the beach when we were supposed to be working on the raft." Riku told me plenty of times Sora blew off working to take naps. Apparently Sora could fall asleep at any given moment. One time he took a nap in the bathroom of Riku's house. Riku just walked in and there was Sora, curled up on the tiles, sleeping away. Riku still had no idea what happened.
"Trust me, you'll see plenty more of Sora napping when there's work to be done." There's a mischievous grin on Riku's face now. "Wanna go splash some cold water on him to wake him up?"
I grin back at him. "Wow, Riku. I didn't think you were the mischievous type." He simply shrugs as if to say, What can you do about it?
I guess there's a mischievous side to me as well, because I say, "Let's do it."
Chapter 6: So Far So Great
So with day one of training done, it's now on to day two. I'm going to be doing something completely different from swordplay training with Riku. Today, I'm going to be learning magic from King Mickey himself.
But instead of the familiar sights of the shrubbery lining the Tower's courtyard where I practiced with Riku yesterday, the King and I travel to Traverse Town.
It's a town comprised of the remnants of worlds that were lost to darkness, and a sanctuary for people whose worlds were destroyed due to the Heartless. Anyone whose world was destroyed by the Heartless and survived the destruction ends up here.
It's a quiet and calm town, with street lamps casting a glow on the streets and alleyways and bright stars glistening over the town. But the King and I are on a business visit, and before I can gaze around any further, The King whisks me to what he calls the Magician's Study, where Merlin used to live.
We're en route to the Study in the Third District when we are attacked by the same Heartless that I saw in Spira.
Maybe it was because I defeated these types of Heartless before that I (almost) didn't waver when they appear out of nowhere in front of us from shadowy silhouettes on the ground, twisting this way and that wildly.
But I don't expect for them to come out nowhere like that without anyone beckoning them forward like Pete. My startled state forces a slow reaction out of me whereas the King immediately rushes in at them like a pro.
He takes care of most of them, leaving me to gape in rapt fascination as he flips through the air with expert agility, bringing his Keyblade down on the foes in the perfect combination of grace and power. Seconds later, I realize this is not a demonstration and I'm supposed to be helping.
It's too late for that however and I only take down a couple of the creatures before the King finishes off the last one.
"You ok, Kairi?" He asks. He knows I'm still new to all this.
"Yeah…I wasn't expecting them to just pop out of nowhere like that…"
"The Keyblade is like a homing beacon for the Heartless," the King explains as we resume walking to Merlin's old place. "As a Keyblade wielder, ya have to deal with random attacks by the Heartless. Plus, the Third District is always overrun with Heartless. Ya have to keep your eyes peeled."
"Oh, joy," I grumble sarcastically. No wonder the King charged so quickly into battle; he was used to stuff like this.
We finally reach Merlin's old place, standing in front of a door with a picture of a small flame on it. The King fires a fireball from his Keyblade at the door, and the door opens up for us, like we entered in a passcode. We tramp up the stairs to the upper level of the residence.
The King and I stop in a large, wide and empty room, giving us plenty of elbow room to move around.
There's a noise and Merlin appears in front of us in a puff of smoke.
"Oh goodie!" He exclaims. "You're right on time. Mickey, Kairi." He nods at each of us when he says our names.
"Shall we get started?" The King asks.
"Of course!" Merlin promptly snaps his fingers and all of a sudden, items of furniture like dressers and tables materialize all around us, dancing as they levitate in the air. Now I'm really wondering what exactly I'm going to have to do in today's training.
Merlin moves off to the side of the room, leaving me with the mouse.
"So Kairi...are you ready?" He has a pleasant smile on his face.
"Yes, I am," I reply. "I can't wait for today's lesson." I'm really curious to see what magic spells I can pull off. Ever since I learned I could perform magic, I've been super excited to get to this part of my training.
I had seen some magic performed in Spira, but I never would have dreamed that I had the ability to perform some spells myself.
"Then let's get to it!" The King takes out his Keyblade, ready to jump right into things.
The blade of the King's Keyblade is blue and decorated with stars, the teeth forming a crescent moon and a star. The guard is two shooting stars and the Keychain design is a crescent moon.
I do the same, summoning my weapon at my side without even glancing at my hand, just like Riku taught me to do. I do a little cheer inside my head in victory.
"Ok, so the first spell is Fire. It's easy," the King says. He points his Keyblade at a nearby dresser and yells, "Fire!" Just like how he opened the door to this place, a blast of fire shoots out of the tip of the King's Keyblade and hits the dresser, causing it to shake.
I think the dresser will be damaged by the attack, but I am amazed to see there isn't even a scratch on it. It just rocks back, the doors flying open for a second. Then it rocks back closed. It continues to hover mid-air as if nothing happened to it.
That must be why we're practicing magic here. I can perform magic on the furniture without ruining them. Unlimited practice dummies. It's perfect.
The King turns to me when he's done. "Now you try. Just concentrate and visualize."
"Right." I nod. I stare at the dresser the King had just fired on with determination in my eyes, taking aim with my Keyblade. Taking a deep breath, I yell, "Fire!"
The attack actually works and fire comes out of my Keyblade and strikes the dresser. I'm stunned. I can't believe I actually got it to work on the first try. The fire isn't nearly as impressive as the King's, but it's a start.
"Wow! Nice job, Kairi!" The King congratulates me with a wide smile on his face. "You got it on your first try!"
"Yeah. It wasn't as good as yours though." I purse my lips.
"Aww, it was only your first try. Just keep practicing it and you'll get it." Either he's trying to be nice, or he's genuinely sincere; I still appreciate it all the same.
When I first met the King, I wasn't sure how to act around him. Because he was a king, I thought I would have to bow to him at all times or kiss his ring or something. But I quickly found out that he was pretty easygoing and I didn't need to be overly formal with him. And he didn't expect Sora, Riku or me to be overly formal with him either.
"Now the upgraded version of Fire is Firaga. It's even more powerful."
The King takes aim with his Keyblade at the same dresser and shouts,"Firaga!" An even bigger fireball emerges from his Keyblade and hits the dresser. However, this time when it's struck by the King's attack, it disappears.
"You try," he commands me.
I raise my Keyblade and take aim at a tall dancing chair and concentrate, trying to make up for my last attempt of casting Fire.
"Firaga!" I'm pleased to see that my ball of fire is just as big as the King's, and it strikes the chair. It disappears into thin air just like the dresser.
"Nice job!" The King beams. "I think we can move onto the next spell. This one is named Blizzard. Blizzard!" He cries as he aims at a chair. A spreading burst of ice crystals shoot out in front of the King and hit the chair. The attack simply shakes it without causing any real harm.
Hmm...Seems simple enough. My latest success with Firaga is making me a little more confident in my magical abilities.
"Blizzard!" Ice crystals sprout out of my Keyblade and assail the chair.
"Great! Then there's Blizzaga," the King says. Just like Firaga in relation to Fire, Blizzaga unleashes larger ice crystals, effectively "destroying" the chair.
I attempt this as well and achieve similar results to when I casted Firaga.
Next the King teaches me how to cast the Thunder and Thundaga spells. He has me stand away from him as he lifts his Keyblade over his head and rains thunderbolts down from above him, as if there's an invisible raincloud above him.
The powerful bolts of electricity destroy all the furniture levitating around him. They are promptly replaced with new furniture in the blink of an eye.
Aero and Aeroga come next, which both create brief whirlwinds that blow the furniture away from us. The King explains to me that these attacks can help in deflecting certain attacks. I make a mental note of that.
Then there is Magnet and Magnera. Like casting the Thunder and Thundaga spells, the King elevates his Keyblade above his head once more and summons a purplish-white magnetic vortex above him that draws in nearby furniture, obliterating them as they came into contact with the vortex of doom.
When cast, Reflect and Reflega produce a transparent dome made of hexagonal shapes that encase the user in a shield. It can also be used to deflect certain attacks like Aero, and like its name suggests, if used at the right time, it can be used to reflect attacks back at the attacker. I also make a mental note of that one.
The King tells me after my first failed attempt at protecting myself with a shield that Reflect magic is an advanced type of magic, so it's not easy to learn. I'm barely able to form a shield around my body on the fourth attempt. He tells me to keep practicing.
And then the King moves onto the next spell, but he doesn't demonstrate it.
"The last basic spell is Cure, which is used as a healing technique to heal yourself if ya get hurt during battle," he informs me.
"I can heal myself? Just like that?"
"Yes, but you won't be able to use it 'just like that'. Cure is one of those spells that you can only use so much in battle before ya have to wait a while to use it again. So don't use it too often," he advises. "It's a good idea to keep potions and such on hand."
"So what's next?" I ask. It feels like our training lesson is coming to an end by the way the King is speaking. Magic training didn't take nearly as long as I thought it would, but I know it won't be that easy. There has to be something else. I just hope I don't have to fight the King one-on-one.
Instead of answering my question, he makes eye contact with Merlin. "Merlin?"
The wizard immediately understands, nodding his head. I guess they had planned the next step in my instruction out beforehand.
"Right." Merlin snaps his fingers and the items of furniture levitating around the King and I begin dancing around more. They flit from one spot to the next.
"Now it's time for you to apply what ya learned," the King smiles. "Just use the magic I taught you to get rid of all the furniture in this room. I'll tell you when to stop."
My eyes sweep the room, glancing at the tables, chairs and dressers all circling around me. "You mean…all that furniture?"
"Yep. I need to see what ya learned so far. It's just a little test. Just relax and do your magic." On that note, he leaves my side and joins Merlin at his side.
"You can go when you're ready!"
"Okay." Glancing up at the furniture, I try to think out a battle plan.
I have Fire, Blizzard, Thunder, and Magnet as my attack spells. Aero is used to push enemies and attacks away. Reflect defends yourself from attacks. I guess I don't really need Aero or Reflect, since I don't think the furniture is going to attack me…I cast a wary eye at a couple of chairs, just in case though.
Ok, Kairi. This is simple. It's just furniture. You can handle this.
I eye a chair to my right and point my Keyblade at it. "Fire!" I shout. A burst of fire comes out and blasts the chair in a direct hit. I fire another shot at it, and another one, and it disappears, not being able to withstand any more damage.
Pleased with that, I move onto the next target. I see a couple of tea kettles twirling around in front of me from side to side. I set off a Blizzard spell at one of them but I miss. I try again and fail once more.
Pausing for a moment, an imaginary light bulb appears over my head as I come to the conclusion that since I'm facing a moving target with a fixed pattern of motion, I shouldn't fire an attack at where it is, but where it would be in a second.
The tactic works to my advantage and I get rid of both kettles with perfectly-timed Blizzaga attacks.
I progress like that, using the spells the King educated me on. At one point during the test, at Merlin's command, all the furniture drifts closer to me, spinning around me rapidly like a whirlwind.
They're trying to throw me off. Overwhelmed, I turn my head left and right, not sure which piece of furniture to go after first.
An idea springs into my mind as I remember the Thunder magic spells. I raise my Keyblade over my head.
"Thunder!" Flashing bolts of lightning descend on some of the pieces of furniture. For the pieces that remain, I use a Magnet spell to draw them into the magnetic vortex that obliterates them.
I'm having a blast, practicing magic like this, defeating furniture item after furniture item. Being able to cast magic like this excites me more and more with each spell I pull off. I train with the furniture for a few more minutes until the King says, "Ok Kairi! You can stop now."
A pang of disappointment briefly flashes through me at having the fun cut so short as the furnishings becomes stationary, sinking slowly to the ground at Merlin's command. All the items disappear a moment later. The King strides over to me.
"Well done! That was excellent!" He praises me with a broad smile stretching across his face.
"It was?"
"You picked up the magic spells faster than I would have thought. And ya did a great job against the furniture. But you do have a penchant for magic so I guess that's why. I guess the memory loss didn't affect your natural abilities."
"Huh. I guess not." I admit I was a bit nervous about the training week before it started. I never fought in combat before and I wasn't sure what to expect. But I did surprisingly well in swordplay yesterday, and I did even better in magic today. Looks like I was worried for nothing.
Then again, I only did two days of training, and those were just the basics. According to Sora, we were set to take our Mark of Mastery exams before I disappeared. Which meant I was at a much more advanced state than what I was at currently. Who knew what might be in store for the other days?
"That's all I'll teach you for today," the King says. "When we get back to the Tower, there's a book I want ya to read."
"Book? What kind of book?"
"It's in Master Yen Sid's study. It talks about the Heartless, Keyblades, and more. I want you to read up on it so you can be prepared for when ya go into battle."
A frown etches itself onto his face, a far cry from the gleeful smile he usually presents. "If what Master Yen Sid said was true about the darkness spreadin', then the battles may get a little harder. You'll need to be at the top of your game. Memories or not."
Top of my game, huh? I think. I am a bit curious about these Heartless creatures and the Keyblade itself. I haven't learned too much about those subjects since I returned to the Mysterious Tower. Reading the book would be a great way to get the answers I needed.
xxxxx
After saying thank you and goodbye to Merlin, the King and I travel back to the Tower where Master Yen Sid hands me a large tome off one of the bookshelves in his study. It's a large, simple and aqua blue-colored book that feels a little heavy in my hands. The words The Complete Keyblade Wielder's Guide are sprawled across the cover in elegant script.
Master Yen Sid reveals to me that a former Keyblade Master wrote the book, and it had been in his possession on his bookshelf for quite some time.
Taking the book back to my room, I curl up on my bed, getting comfortable. I didn't get to do much reading in Spira but it was something I enjoyed doing when I had the opportunity to do so.
Unsurprisingly, the book starts out with a chapter on Keyblades. I begin to read.
"Keyblades are mysterious weapons that can be summoned and dispelled at will. Generally speaking, all Keyblades share the same central features, modeled after a key: a guard with a handle, a hilt and a head at the end of the shaft that resembles the teeth of a skeleton key."
"The Keyblade chooses its wielder instead of the other way around, and it only chooses people with strong hearts. People with strong enough hearts are able to give or take Keyblades from others, or take possession of one if it has been abandoned. If someone does not have the right kind of heart, they cannot wield a Keyblade, regardless if a wielder hands it to him or her to hold."
"People become Keyblade wielders in the Keyblade Inheritance Ceremony, or the Bequeathing. A Keyblade wielder of Master status can choose someone to inherit the power to summon and wield a Keyblade. If the Keyblade accepts the inheritor, then he or she will be able to call forth their own Keyblade whenever they try to do so. However, I have discovered that inheritance can be passed on accidentally. If someone with a strong heart accidentally touches a wielder's Keyblade, it will give them the ability to wield one."
Sora did say that he, Riku and I had the Keyblade Inheritance Ceremony performed on us when we were little, right after I arrived on Destiny Islands, though we never figured out the men who performed the ceremony were.
"The Keyblade holds many different powers. Its signature ability, as its name suggests, is that it can open or close any door or lock. It can also unlock the hearts to worlds, or lock, unlock or extract someone's heart. "
"Keyblades are natural mediums for performing a variety of magic. Wielders can use elemental magic to inflict greater damage on their enemies. Keyblades can also be used to channel the forces of light or darkness for the wielder."
"The weapons are especially effective against the Heartless, since they are connected to hearts and darkness. The Keyblade is the only weapon that can completely destroy the Heartless. If another weapon is used to dispatch of a creature, then it will simply reappear somewhere else."
There was more information on the subject of Keyblades before it segued its way to the next chapter in the book: the Heartless.
"Heartless are beings of darkness, first originating from the Realm of Darkness. They are born from the darkness in people's hearts. Heartless are created when someone's heart has been consumed by darkness, giving the darkness shape and form, thus turning them into a Heartless. They can also be created when someone has their heart taken by the Heartless."
"Heartless are mindless creatures and react purely on instinct. Their main desire is to capture more hearts so they can create more Heartless. For that purpose, they attack innocent people, but even greater than their desire to turn people into Heartless is their desire for the hearts of worlds."
"They will invade a world and look for the heart of the world. If they find the heart, they will devour it, and send the world into destruction."
"Heartless seek out the users of Keyblades because the Keyblade has the power to lock and unlock hearts. The Keyblade is used as a homing beacon for the Heartless to find the wielder and consume the heart of the one who wields it. Due to this fact, Keyblade wielders are always under constant attack, and must be on guard at all times." Perfect. Just perfect.
"Heartless travel around worlds using Corridors of Darkness, inter-dimensional pathways that connect all the worlds. But since these Corridors are located in the Realm of Darkness, they are very dangerous for someone who isn't acclimated to the darkness, and they will be put at major risk if they use them frequently and carelessly." That line reminds me of when Sora first landed in Spira, carelessly using a Corridor of Darkness.
Following the general descriptions of the Heartless are highly detailed drawings of each of the different types of Heartless, provided with a summary of each Heartless type, which includes name, strengths, weaknesses, and more.
The first picture is of the Heartless Cat Dude summoned when I encountered him in Spira and the ones the King and I encountered in Traverse Town. In fact, they're the only Heartless I'd seen so far in person. The one in the drawing stares back out at me with yellow bulbous eyes.
"The Shadow" was headlined in bold letters at the top of the page. Below it the text reads, "The most basic type of Heartless, found in many different places. Has the ability to flatten itself into a silhouette on the ground, becoming a literal shadow. Attacks with a simple but vicious claw strike. Easy to beat alone but it can be slightly more challenging when numbers of them swarm. I have found the Thunder spell to be useful in situations like these."
I flip the page to see a Heartless with a more humanoid structure than the Shadow, and much taller, probably taller than me, but it still has the same pitch black skin and glowing yellow eyes. Long and crooked antennae stretch out from the sides of its head.
But that's all the Shadow and this Heartless have in common. This Heartless is more muscular, and it has very large hands and long feet.
"The Neoshadow. Stronger and faster than its Shadow counterpart. A little more difficult to beat than Shadows since they are more strategic in battle, lacking some of the impulsiveness other Heartless possess. Attacks include jumping into the air, spinning, and launching themselves at their opponent, and basic melee strikes. They will sink back into the floor to avoid attacks, much like the Shadows."
I flip through more pages of the book, looking at all the different Heartless. My head spins at all the various types of Heartless there are. When I was in Spira I thought that the Shadows were the only type of Heartless there were, but that obviously is not the case.
There are Red Nocturnes, Heartless that utilize fire magic; Blue Rhapsodies that use Blizzard magic; Air Soldiers that fly around and deliver quick attacks at any given moment; Darkballs which go into a "berserk state" in which they rock around a limited area and attack anything in their way; Large Bodies, that have a variety of strong attacks and can only be damaged from the back, and many, many more kinds of Heartless.
I endeavor to learn as much as I can, since I have to go against these types of Heartless when I start to voyage to other worlds. It would be very bad for me to make the mistake of using Fire magic against a Red Nocturne when, according to the text, I would actually end up healing them since they employ fire magic.
One of the Heartless that stands out to me is the Darkside. It's a highly massive creature, humanoid in structure, and very muscular. Its legs are somewhat short and its feet are thin and curled upward, though its long arms make up for its short legs.
Small, twisted wings sprout out from its back and a gaping heart-shaped hole is located in its abdominal area. It looks a little intimidating; however, the author of the book says that the Darkside isn't that hard to beat. All you have to is move around a lot to avoid its attacks.
My interest is piqued when I see a chapter on the Princesses of Heart later in the book. There isn't much in the section though, at least not much that I didn't already get from the other Princesses.
I do discover that Princesses of Heart can use Corridors of Darkness without sustaining any negative effects due to our hearts of pure light that can't be corrupted by darkness.
The guidebook is very entertaining to me, just like I was expecting, but when I move a leg and find it fell asleep, I decide it's time to take a much-needed break. Before I can catch myself I take a peep out the window to get a gauge on what the time is before I remember that the sky always looks the same.
And I suppose I had read enough for now anyways. My brain's starting to hurt a little from trying to process and memorize so much information.
As I leave my room to stretch my legs by walking around a bit, I see Sora leaving Master Yen Sid's study.
"Hi Sora!" I wave. I didn't see too much of him the past couple days since he was apparently doing some training of his own. He's been preparing for the Mark of Mastery exam, though when we would have the chance to take it was a mystery to me. It all depended on how fast I could recover my memories.
He grins at me. "Hey Kairi! What's up?"
"Just doing a bit of reading. What are you up to?"
"Well..."Sora places his arms behind his head. "I was planning on going to Twilight Town to get some sea-salt ice cream. I haven't had any in a while."
Twilight Town. That was the name of the place where you could take a special train to get here, the train that rides the railway I was so curious about when I first arrived here.
"Can I come with?" I ask. Taking a trip to Twilight Town to try this sea-salt ice cream seems to be the perfect way to reward myself after studying.
"Of course! You must have forgotten what sea-salt ice cream tasted like. We should refresh your memory."
"Is Riku coming?"
"Nah." Sora lowers his arms to his sides. "Riku doesn't like sea-salt ice cream." He shakes his head in mock shame. "Come on, let's go."
Sora and I take the Gummi ship. He flies it since I have no experience in doing so. I watch him as he drives so I would be able to drive the ship in the future. It seems easy enough. There aren't a lot of controls so it doesn't look too difficult.
Sora lands the ship just outside the town in a clearing within the woods. After we get out we pace along the pathway, framed by tall leafy trees, before emerging through a large hole in a wall into the town itself.
I can see why it's called Twilight Town. The sky's a yellowish-orange and red, and the sun glows softly from its place in the sky. Sora tells me that the sun stays in that same spot all the time, the town caught in an endless sunset. Just like the sky overlooking the Mysterious Tower that doesn't change at all.
Twilight Town appears to be a small, quiet town, like Traverse Town. Like one of those towns where everyone and their grandmother knew one another, and everyone formed a pretty close-knit community with each other.
The streets are long and winding, some of them steeply sloped almost like a hill. A grand clock tower at one side of the town rises towards the sky.
The place where Sora and I emerge into is called Tram Common, an open-market area with a bunch of shops and some people milling about casually, not in a rush to get anywhere.
"Let's go get some ice cream," Sora says, and he leads me to one of the shops, where a bright-faced vendor sells him two sea-salt ice creams.
"Wow, it does look good," I comment, examining the snack as I take the stick from Sora's hands.
"Wait till you eat it."
I begin eating it, letting the flavor pour down my throat. The ice cream lives up to its name; it's salty and sweet, neither one of the tastes overpowering each other, creating a perfect flavor. I can't understand why Riku doesn't like this. It's amazing.
"It's delicious." I lick my lips in satisfaction and smile. Sora smiles back at me.
"Here, there's something I want to show you," he says.
He guides me up to the top of the clock tower where we sit, gazing out at the sunset sky.
"Wow," I breathe as I stare out at the horizon. The sight is stunning. The sunset is even more beautiful up here. Sora and I have the perfect view, not only of the sky, but of the quaint little town below us. I look down at the tops of the perfectly-shaped houses and buildings below us. A soft breeze rolls through, adding to the peaceful and idyllic atmosphere.
Sora and I sit there in silence for a minute or two, just enjoying each other's company, the great ice cream, and the even greater view before he breaks the silence.
"So how was training today?" He licks his ice cream.
"Great. The King taught me how to do magic."
"What he'd teach you?"
"Just the basics. Fire, Blizzard, Thunder, Magnet, Reflect, and Cure. I practiced them on some furniture Merlin provided.
"He didn't teach you any advanced magic techniques or combo attacks?
"Nope," I answer before resuming the eating of my ice cream. "Why? Are you going to teach me?"
Sora sighs as he takes another lick of the blue treat. "Honestly, it should be the other way around. Between you, me and Riku, you were always the best when it came to magic."
"And...Riku was the best when it came to swordplay?" I tease, grinning as I recall Riku's bragging words from yesterday.
Sora turns his head sharply to look at me. "Did he tell you that?! I was better than him when it came to swordplay, not the other way around!" Yep, the two of them were rivals, no doubt about it.
I laugh at his reaction. "Calm down. You guys are both great. Let's just say that, ok?"
Sora mutters something under his breath about getting back at Riku, but lets it go. He eats more of his ice cream which seems to have a calming effect on him.
I sigh in contentment. "This is a really nice place."
"Yeah. We used to come here every once in a while just to relax in between saving the worlds. The last time we were here was just a couple weeks before you..." Sora trails off. I know what he was about to say.
"Before I lost my memories," I finish where he left off.
"Yeah..." His voice carries a hint of displeasure in it.
"Well...if it's any consolation..." I swing my legs back and forth. "I've been getting some of them back."
Shock shows up on Sora's face. "Wait, really?"
"Yeah." I tuck a piece of hair behind my ear. "I actually experienced a couple of my memories in my dreams back in Spira. And I remembered something a couple days ago. Who knows?" I shrug. "Maybe if we wait long enough, I'll eventually get them all back."
Sora can't help but grin in happiness. "That's great, Kairi! I knew they couldn't be completely gone." His face drops slightly. "Wish there was a way to speed up the process though."
"Hey, only time can tell, right? Guess I'll just have to take it one day at a time."
At that moment I remember there's something I wanted to ask Sora about.
"Hey Sora, after I finished training with the King, he had me read a book, The Complete Keyblade Wielder's Guide."
"Yeah, we all read it. What about it?"
"Well it talked about the Keyblade Inheritance Ceremony and how inheritance is passed from one Keyblade wielder to a successor. I know you said the three of us were made Keyblade wielders when we were much younger. I was wondering if you remembered what the people who performed the ceremony on us looked like."
"Hmm..."Sora thinks hard, his forehead creasing in concentration. "You know...I don't really remember. Neither does Riku...But, I do remember that one of them had black hair and...a mustache..."
"Uh-huh..." I was kinda hoping for more information than that.
"Hey, we were only four or five at the time!" Sora defends himself. "The details are a bit fuzzy. I do want to see them again." There's a thoughtful look in his eyes. "They gave us the ability to wield Keyblades and pretty much changed our lives. I want to meet them again."
"Hmm…" I stare up at the twilight sky, envisioning space all laid out above us. "There must really be a lot of worlds out there for us never to see any Keyblade wielders…have we?" I try to think if Riku or Sora had mentioned any other wielders when they were talking about the past with me.
"Nope." Sora shakes his head. " We've never come across any. Yen Sid knew some, but that was a long time ago." I ponder for a moment about how many Keyblade wielders there are in the worlds currently. Were there a lot of us, or just several of us? The King, Sora, Riku, and I couldn't be the only Keyblade wielders in all the worlds.
Sora and I stay up on the clock tower, just talking and laughing with another for a while, even after we've already consumed our ice cream and get seconds.
He tells me stories about the adventures he, Riku and I had on our journeys and back home on Destiny Islands, and I tell him a few about the stuff I did with Yuna, Rikku, and Paine.
Once we're done with seconds of the utterly delicious sea-salt ice cream, we decide to call it quits and head back to our Gummi ship.
While we're walking back, several Blue Rhapsodies appear out of nowhere and surround us.
It's my first time seeing non-Shadow Heartless in person, Heartless that I never fought before, but I'm not scared. These guys look pretty weak and harmless, and according to the guidebook, they are. I also feel more prepared this time around.
Even so, Sora is quicker on the draw than I am. "Heartless!" He summons his Keyblade out in front of him.
I'm about to summon mine when he says to me, "Don't. I got this one."
Raising one eyebrow in curiosity, I drop my arm back to my side, interested to see Sora handle the situation.
He raises his Keyblade towards the sky. "Firaga Burst!" He yells. A large fireball forms a few feet above Sora's head and smaller fireballs shower down from the bigger fireball, incinerating all the Heartless present into fiery oblivion.
Sora takes all the Heartless out in one attack. And a good one too. The book said Blue Rhapsodies were vulnerable to Fire magic since all they knew was Blizzard magic. That Firaga Burst move Sora performed does the trick.
"Whoa...That was pretty cool," I compliment him. That must have been one of the "advanced magic techniques" he mentioned earlier.
Sora places his hands behind his head, looking slightly cocky. "It was nothing."
"Are you training me tomorrow? In those 'advanced magic techniques' you talked about earlier?" I ask as we trek back through the woods, trying not to trip over any branches that might be in our way.
"Of course!" Sora beams at me. "Riku and the King got to teach you, so now it's my turn."
xxxxx