A/N: This update is very late. It's a bit short too, but if you look past that, this is a great update for the fic.

Kirby was in a new part of the kingdom now. It is said that the kingdom is ever-expanding and that it will inevitably grow. Seeing how Kirby had found the edge of the kingdom, he wasn't so sure about that. However, there were still parts of the world he had not explored, and this giant jungle was one of them.

Kirby had been on the run for a full year now if you can believe it. The journey made him tired, but he kept going, for he knew that wherever he went, Dedede would hunt him down and end him. So he kept running for his own safety. Surviving in the wilderness like this had taught Kirby many things. It had taught him how to tell what berries are edible, how to prepare wild animals so that they are cooked right, and how to hide.

A few months back, Kirby suffered a strange illness that he had identified as withdrawal. Kirby hadn't absorbed anything in at least six months at that point and the separation from it had caused him to endure much pain. "It must just be the natural order of things," Kirby had thought at the time. "Birds fly, fish swim, and Kirbies absorb." So every few months Kirby became very ill. To prepare for this, he stocked up on food and found a safe place to hide. Kirby wished so bad that he could just go and absorb something, but he couldn't, because it would alert King Dedede to his presence.

Kirby thought back to when this all started. If he had to place it, it would be the moment Meta Knight let him out of his cell back at the castle. "Meta Knight," Kirby thought. "I sent him to the border telling him that he could escape from his past there. I can't believe the moron actually believed me. He's gonna be mad when he finds out that you can't cross the border." Kirby chuckled at his own genius. "And to think that he thought that he could escape his past. After what he's done, there's no way somebody would forget." Kirby laid back in the hammock he had constructed a few months ago and hung up everywhere that he went.

King Dedede was at the window again. He had long since been sending his living warriors out to find Kirby. Instead, he had more KB9000s made and sent them in all directions to find him. But there was more trouble in King Dedede's life. The public had begun to think that King Dedede might not be doing so great, and that he might not be fit to be king anymore.

"It all started when Meta Knight ran off. He was officially the person who was thought to have let Kirby loose again. And because I let a criminal get under my watch, the public is less trusting of me now. Every decision I make could be one that brings the kingdom closer to doom. They're even starting to believe that I might have helped Meta Knight release Kirby." King Dedede muttered to himself.

The horrible truth was, Dedede was going out of his mind. His sanity was crumbling. If he made just one move in the wrong direction, he would be kicked out of any position in power, or worse, executed. Most previous rulers who were kicked off the throne were shunned from society, and died in poverty. King Dedede couldn't let his power escape him, he couldn't.

King Dedede walked to his bad, weary from a day of protecting his image. He closed his eyes, and almost immediately drifted off to sleep.

Kirby, deep in the jungle was sleeping in between two trees on a hammock. He too closed his eyes, and dreamt of a world that was better.

And while both of them slept, Meta Knight was at the border of the kingdom, staring into other worlds of pipes and rings, thinking that he could finally escape this endless torture. But like Kirby, he too found that one must stay with their own kind, even if it killed them inside.

A/N: And that concludes this update of Kirby: Wanted. Thanks for reading my FanFic!