Sora had been sitting in the dinning hall of the castle for some time.
Waiting for the keyblade wielder to get out of the shower.
He kept himself busy by reading the book kairi had given to him.
He was liking her story so far. It was fairly similar to his first journey, but not an exact novelization of it. The hero of the book was a keyblade wielder by the name of Vincent, who wielded both the keyblade and the powers of darkness, the book described him as loyal, Protective, and serious at most times but as the character developed, he seemed more lighthearted, sarcastic and funny.
(so in a way, this was the personality of sora and riku combined)
the other character was Selena, a princess of heart that was being guarded by Vincent.
(This character seemed to be based off of kairi)
sora really was liking the story. The interactions between the two characters was well done.
They first start out hating each other but as the story goes on they become good friends, and grow to depend on each other. It was kinda like the way sora and donald used to act.
He was missing those guys. Sora would have to pop in and say hi to them later.
He put the book in his pocket for now, He could read later. He had to speak to this keyblade wielder and find out what was going on. He wouldn't jump to conclusions until he heard the whole story.
Aerith directed him to the room the girl was staying in which was all the way on the third floor.
"what happened to those lift things?" sora asked. There used to be tons of those things when sora first came here, so where did they all go?
"their all damaged. Cid is getting them fixed" aerith said.
They soon came to the third floor of the castle, After walking an ungodly amount of stairs.
Aerith pointed sora to the room and went back downstairs, leaving sora to himself.
He stood in front of the door and breathed deeply. There was no telling what would happen once that door opened, the girl in the room could attack him on sight, It could be a trap. Or nothing could happen at all. He took a chance and pressed his knuckles on the door three times.
"come in" said the girl on the other side of the door. Sora summoned his keyblade into his hand,
just in case.
He opened the door slowly. Prepared to fight, if it lead to that.
Ria's eyes widened in shock, she couldn't believe what she was seeing. It was him, the boy from her dream, the one that was sitting on the island.
Sora couldn't believe it. It was her, the dream girl. She looked exactly the same.
Same long silver hair, same beautiful red eyes, same pale skin. The only thing different about her was her outfit, it was a nice outfit, all the black made her silver hair much more noticeable.
Riku's words echoed in sora's head "she could be your greatest ally or your worse enemy"
right. Sora had to be careful.
Ria noticed the weapon the boy held in his hand. A Keyblade?. It certanly looked like it.
It looked kinda bland when compared to her keyblade. Maybe that was the point? Maybe it was supposed to look more realistic?.
She felt an odd sense of fear course through her. What if he was going to hurt her, what if he worked for the black coated freaks, organization XIII. She wouldn't go down without a fight.
She turned her head to her right and saw her keyblade, lost memory. leaning against the bedpost. The boy noticed it too. His eyebrows jumped up in shock and his mouth hanged wide open, she kinda liked that surprised look on his face...wait, if he knew who she was then why would he be so surprised to see that she had a keyblade. Maybe he didn't know?
She held her hand out to the weapon and it disappeared and reappeared in her hands.
She didn't go into her fighting stance, that might provoke him. She just held the blade tightly in her hand. It always made her feel safe. She wasn't scared, She could take him!.
"you do have a keyblade" he said in a shocked voice.
"i do. And if you're going to take me back to those black coat weirdos. you'll have to knock me out first!"
"knock you out? I don't wanna fight you" he said in a somewhat hurt tone.
"wait... you're not one of those black robe guys?"
"black robe guys?" he had a confused look on his face. So he didn't know who she was... good.
But she still wasn't letting her guard down.
Sora comprehend her words carefully. Black robe guys... keyblade... the Organization!.
"organization XIII?" sora said
he noticed how she tensed up when he said their name.
"i'm not a part of the organization and I don't wanna hurt you. I just want to talk" sora dispelled his keyblade and she seemed to relax a little.
"okay..." she said.
"are you the one unlocking the worlds?" sora said
"unlocking the worlds?, What worlds?"
"the worlds. Somebody has been traveling from world to world, unlocking the keyholes." she only seemed confused by his words. "you don't know about other worlds?"
sora sat down on one of the velvet chairs and begun explaining.
"so... there are more than one world?" Ria asked after the boy had stopped explaining.
"yeah there are a bunch of different worlds. And each world has a keyhole. A direct link to the world's heart" "if darkness enters the heart of a world, it will be corrupted and destroy itself"
"as a keyblade wielder. It's my job to protect and defend the worlds, but some people use the keyblade for other things" he continued
Ria had heard story's of other worlds but she didn't really believe them, she always thought they were just made up fairy tales to help kids fall asleep at night.
"so... how do you know about the organization?" he said
"well it's a long story"
"i got time" he said
she breathed deeply and began to explain.
Sora was shocked by her story. The organization capturing her and forcing her to collect hearts for them, forcing her to unlock the worlds. He felt sorry for her.
"if you don't mind me asking, when was this?"
"i don't really remember, I lost track of the days a long time ago. I think... half a year?"
she really had lost track of how long she lived in that horrible place. She was just glad to be out of there.
"that doesn't make sense" sora said "the organization are dead they've been dead"
"they looked very much alive to me"
this didn't make sense. Her story and sora's story didn't add up. If the organization are dead then why was she here? How could she be forced into doing those things if there was nobody to force her to do them?
"well we better see what master yen-sid say's about this"
"we?" she questioned.
Sora only nodded.
"i'm Sora, by the way."
"i'm Ria" she said as she shook his hand.
her hands felt so soft and small compared to his, he never held a girl's hand before.
"Ria, that's a pretty name" sora said to her.
"really? Thank you" Ria said to him, no-one had ever called her pretty before.
Their little moment was interrupted when they heard an explosion and the sounds of screaming people coming from outside the window.
"what was that?" sora said as he looked out the widow. He glared hard at the marketplace below him.
"Nobodys!" he said as he dashed out of the room. Ria quickly followed, not even stopping to see what was going on.
The marketplace was filled with Nobodys that were trashing and destroying the many shops that surrounded the small area. People were running in multiple directions. And the only ones that were fighting back were leon, cloud and tifa.
Sora and ria summoned their weapons and got into their fighting stances.
Ria was confused, these...things didn't look like people. They looked more like walking white jumpsuits with blades for hands. Once the nobodys saw her they began to shake erratically. And charged...floated... right for her. 'Finally, things to kill!' she thought. She jumped high into the air and began slashing and slicing right through them with ease, she had to admit, she was having fun.
Sora was amazed by ria's display. She held her keyblade the same way riku did and even swung it the same way too. He saw how she hacked and slashed the duskes with great ease, she moved with grace as did the duskes and it looked more like dancing then actual fighting.
Sora had to focus. Now wasn't the time to look and stare, he had to get rid of these things. They all charged at him and he defended himself with a combination of physical and magical attacks.
Ria had easily cleared out ten of those white things in no time. her attention was drawn to one of the rooftops, standing tall and proud was one of those organization guys with a hood covering his head.
This angered ria, those freaks had come here just to capture her again, they were terrorizing the whole city just for her.
"Ria look out!" sora shouted from a distance.
Tuning her head, she saw a dusk run up to her and prepare to attack, it ran so fast that by the time she saw it, she had fallen onto the cold stone and felt a great pain coming from her cheek.
The nobody's blade hand...thing, had cut right through her flesh leaving a large gash on her face, she could see blood leaking from the cut, when she pressed her hand over it, she could feel how dangerously close it was to her right eye, another two inches and she could become half blind.
Right. No more distractions! She focused on the enemy that had slashed her and instantly felt her rage grow, she was griping the hilt of her weapon tightly and even though their was a large gap between her and the dusk, she still took a swing.
She swung hard with two hands towards the ground, when the keyblade made contact with the floor, a huge wave of dark energy shot out of it and hit the nobody dead center.
Sora had seen Ria's use of the darkness and he not only felt concerned but afraid.
The veins in Ria's body were dark black, and her eye color changed from crimson to bright gold.
Black smoke began flowing out of her. Every swing she took with her keyblade made dark energy erupt from the ground and her weapon. The nobodys began to take their attenion away from sora and onto ria, They had her surrounded. Ria was floating in midair and a volley of dark spheres flew out of her keyblade, hitting all the surrounding nobodys, destroying them in one hit.
(AN: ria is using the dark volley shotlock from terra's side of birth by sleep.)
after all the nobodys were destroyed, ria had collapsed onto the ground, sora ran to her and looked at her face. Her black veins had vanished and her eyes returned to their crimson color,
the cut that was on her face was now completely healed, there was no sign to show that it was even there.
"hey, wake up. Ria, open your eyes" he said as he shook her. Trying his best to wake her, but it didn't work, she was unconscious.
"oopsy dasiy!" sora looked to see one of the organization members looking down at him from the rooftop. He recognized the voice. Xigbar.
"have you been a good boy, roxas?"
"the names sora!" it always irritated him, whenever they called him by the name of his Nobody,
sora didn't like being compared to roxas. Roxas had the right to be his own person, not just sora's nobody.
"oh, whatever" Xigbar said as he jumped of the roof and landed on the ground.
Sora held his keyblade close, ready to hit Xigbar right in the face. "didn't I kill you?!" sora said with a venomous tone.
"you can't kill what don't exist" "besides, i'm not here for you, kid" he said as he removed his hood.
"i'm here for her" he pointed at Ria, who was still unconscious.
"you see... the boss man doesn't need you anymore. Now that we got her, we can get all the hearts we want." "it's a simple plan, force that little brat to unlock the worlds. heartless come to the worlds to create more heartless, then we make her collect the hearts. kingdom hearts gets remade and we get to exist again."
Sora was getting more and more angry as Xigbar explained his plan. He knew the organization was cruel, but to kidnap and enslave an innocent person (just for the sake of convenience) was awful.
"now why don't you be a good boy and hand that little brat over?"
"or have you grown an attachment to her?. not gonna lie, she's an upgrade when compared to the red head. all she ever did was wine and complain. Sora this sora that, she quickly became annoying"
"tell you what, since you seem awfully concerned, i'll come back for her later. Be a good boy, now!" Xigbar said as he disappeared into the darkness.
Ria soon awakend only to blush harder then she ever did before. Sora was...holding her. She felt his hands wrap around her waist and neck. it was a small combination of awkward and sweet at the same time.
"s-sora... let go of me" sora looked at her and began to blush as hard as she was.
"s-sorry!" he quickly removed his hands from her and shoved them in his pockets. Looking away from her awkwardly. He helped her onto her feet and immediately shoved his hands back into his pockets.
"so...why'd I black out?" ria wasn't really used to awkward situations. It was one of those moments where you would search for the right thing to say.
"oh... well you kinda used the darkness and..." sora planted his hands firmly on her shoulders and looked at her hard in the face. "Ria, how did you do that?!"
"i don't know, I just...did it" Ria was blushing again. Sora seemed so concerned, almost afraid.
"promise me you won't use the darkness again!" he said
"why?" why was he so worried? She was fine... well she felt fine.
"just promise me you won't do it!, that power has... changed people" sora said
"okay, I won't use it. I promise!"
"good" sora relaxed a bit and removed his hands from her arms.
Sora looked around the marketplace to see the damage the nobodys had done.
A few shops were damaged and some of the pathways were destroyed, but nothing was majorly damaged. Leon and the others could rebuild.
"so you said something about a master?" Ria interrupted sora's thoughts and reminded him of his original plan.
"oh yeah, master yen-sid!" sora said.
Ria glanced at leon, who was standing a few feet away. leon nodded "Ria, go with him, he can help you."
she nodded and said goodbye to everyone.
"you ready to go?" sora said holding his hand out for her to take. she took his hand and in a flash of light, they were gone.
