Yin-Yarn laughed evilly as he waltzed into Castle DeDeDe. "It's mine, it's mine! Popstar is mine, and I didn't even have to fight any of the heroes!" He stopped suddenly and sighed. "Yet again, I don't really know what I'm going to do with it, but I'm sure I'll find something to use it for. A giant potholder, maybe?" He continued to stroll through the castle, changing everything into yarn. "Now where is that stupid penguin king? This is like looking for a needle in a sewing basket..." he frowned and thought a second. "That doesn't even make sense. Of course you'd find a needle in a sewing basket, unless it was an extremely poorly stocked sewing basket." He paused suddenly when he began to hear someone shouting.
"What is goin' on here?" DeDeDe was roaring in the throne room. "All these stupid string Waddle Dee are back, and I can't find any of the others anywhere!"
"So I don't count as one of 'the others,' Kingy?" Escargoon asked with an offended huff.
"Well, you know what I mean. Don't you? I think you know what I mean. If you don't, I could pound you with my hammer..." the king replied.
"I'm good, thanks," Escargoon disagreed in slightly polite sarcasm.
"Hello, pathetic peasants. Bow to your new amazing overlord!" Yin-Yarn snickered as he floated into the room.
"Oh, Master Yin-Yarn!" one of the Yarn Dees cheered. "We did a really good job for you. Can we have a raise?"
"Sure, take what you want of this guy's treasury. I have no use for his currency, I only use Beads," Yin-Yarn shrugged at it. All of the Yarn Dees ran off cheering excitedly, and he turned back to DeDeDe and his sluggish advisor.
"So, DeDeDumb. How's tricks? You doing well in the weave of things?" Yin-Yarn laughed, settling into a spot immediately above the throne.
"Do I look like I'm doing well? You are sittin' in my royal chair! Get out!" he shouted in aggravation.
"No. I'm the king now, get used to it. Ooh, what does this button do?" Yin-Yarn suddenly asked, using one of his knitting needles to punch it. Nothing happened. "Hmph, broken, huh?"
"They haven't done nothin' since Kirby and the others got rid of Nightmare Enterprises years back," DeDeDe told him. "Duh."
"Yeah," Escargoon agreed. "What sort of idiot are you?"
"Nightmare Enterprises? Never heard of them. What were they like?" Yin-Yarn questioned, actually sounding interested.
DeDeDe and his shelled henchman briefly explained that it was a monster ordering service. Yin-Yarn laughed at the end of this. "Pity they're not around anymore, they 'seam' right up my border."
DeDeDe and Escargoon shrugged in agreement, then groaned as Yin-Yarn turned them into yarn. "Now go clean something, or something," the stringy sorcerer ordered with a cackle.
Unbeknownst to him or the two royal stooges, punching that button really had done something. Nightmare wouldn't just go down without a revenge plan. Sure, he was gone, but that didn't mean he hadn't left any nasty surprises for Dreamland.
Up in orbit around Popstar, a satellite began to beep softly as it received the signal from the castle. In response, it sent a signal down to a carefully hidden box in a cavern. A screen lit up on the box, showing a fuzzy NME logo, then a timer appeared, set for forty-eight hours. With an annoyingly cheerful 'bing,' it began to count down.
Sakura sighed. "Time for bed, guys. I've let you stay up ridiculously late," she told Prince Fluff, Kirby, and Bandana Dee. At first, the first two had been leaving their Waddle Dee friend out without really meaning to. They had just been so excited to see each other again. Now, though, Bandana was a part of the trio. They had been happily wrapping up monsters all day and becoming good allies as well as friends.
She had been mostly occupied with keeping Magolor from killing himself. He wasn't doing so on purpose, of course, it's just he was extremely inept at everything. He had wrapped himself up in yarn every time he tried to help with anything, and he had a tendency to fall into every pit they encountered. Every single one, without exception.
Now, Magolor was sitting quietly in a nearby tree and humming sadly to himself. Sakura sighed when she realized the boys either hadn't heard her or didn't care and decided to join him. "Hey, 'Lor. What's up?" she asked.
"Oh, so you're going to be nice now?" he huffed, not turning to look at her.
"Sure, why not? We're stuck with each other for now, might as well try to get along, right?" she offered. "Besides, you were right earlier. You've never betrayed me. You've sent monsters after me, but then, so has DeDeDe, and I can act civilized towards him."
"Yeah, DeDeDe is a bit of a jerk, isn't he?" Magolor murmured with a quiet laugh, then sighed.
"You okay? You seem sad," Sakura observed.
"Yeah, I'm okay. I'm just... homesick," he told her. "I really am genuinely sorry for going after the Master Crown now, I just want to go home."
She felt a little sympathetic for him. "I'll make you a deal. If you're good, I'll try to talk Meta Knight into helping you get your ship back." She paused a moment, then added, "I sort of know how you feel. I was gone for a really long time recently, and I just finally got home."
"Really? Where'd you go?" Magolor inquired, turning towards her.
She sighed. "That's the maddening thing. I can't really remember. I know it was in another time and place, and I keep remembering little bits and pieces when I sleep, but nothing much. There was this really sweet little kid who loved books and cookies and wanted to be a hero, and I think I called him 'Blue.' But that's all."
"That must get old. How long were you there?" her blue-cloaked companion wondered aloud.
"I can't really remember that, either. But I think it was over a decade, which is weird, seeing as how I can only remember this kid as being a little kid. If I had been there that many years, he would've grown up," she murmured, staring off into the stars.
"Yeah, I guess so," Magolor agreed. "It explains a lot, though."
"What do you mean?" she asked, her eyes narrowed.
"Sorry. I just mean, you seem... older. Not like old old, just wiser, like you've been around the block a few times, know your way in the world better now," he explained.
"Oh, I see," she shrugged. "Yeah, I guess that makes sense." Just then, she heard bad singing. "What is that? It sounds like Sword and Blade, but it couldn't be."
"Well, I don't know who Sword and Blade are, but there's Meta-not. Hide me before he decides I'm breathing wrong or something," Magolor rolled his eyes and floated higher up into the cloth tree, where he was more covered by the felt leaves.
Sakura laughed. "All right, Magolor. I'll go talk to them."
"Catch you later, alligator, all that," Magolor told her, snuggling into a forked branch for the night.
"Halt, knaves!" Prince Fluff was shouting at their three new companions as she returned. "You may only enter if Princess Sakura says so!"
"Princess Sakura?" Sword muttered in disbelief.
"Sheesh narfarffen, oi," Blade sighed.
"Fluff, kiddo. For the last time, I'm not a princess," Sakura sighed, waddling over. "Now. Go. To. Sleep!"
"Sorry, Pr- I mean, Sakura. I can't sleep. Me and the other two are telling ghost stories. Like the one about the three kids who got stuck inside a zippered pocket and were never heard from again," Fluff told her spookily, then ran back to join his friends.
"Sorry about that," Sakura sighed, turning back to them.
"Why does he think you to be a princess?" Meta Knight asked, eyes glowing green in amusement.
"Magolor called me 'Princess' to be annoying, and Fluff misunderstood him. At least he doesn't call me Weasel like he does 'Lor," she told him, then added, "And, by the way, Magolor has joined us."
"Oh, just perfect," Meta Knight sighed. "Well, now we have all found each other."
"Yepp, oi," Blade nodded, then went and sat down under a tree, falling asleep. Sword joined him not long after.
Meta Knight turned to find a place to rest himself, but Sakura stopped him. "Meta Knight... I'm sorry about earlier. I shouldn't have been so quick to try to stop you. I just... you know I hate killing things, and that I always have. I can if I have to, but I like preserving life much more than ending it."
He looked at her a moment, his eyes yellow. "I know, my friend," he sighed finally. "That is something I could stand to learn from you."
"Are you still mad at me?" she asked hesitantly.
"No, I am not mad at you at all," he assured her. "I just have a bad feeling. I don't think Yin-Yarn is the one causing it. I feel like there is something worse coming."
"I've felt that a little bit today, too," she murmured. "I feel like there's something really bad out there, just counting down to when it's going to come after us all."
"Exactly," he agreed. "I am glad we are... how do you say it? On the same page of the pattern?" he looked at her sideways and smiled as she laughed quietly at his yarn joke.
"Same seam of the project?" she suggested with a grin, and he chuckled softly. "Don't worry, Sir Knight. I'm sure that whatever it is, we'll be able to handle it."
"You are probably right," he acquiesced. "Shall I take first watch, or would you rather do that?"
"I can," Sakura offered, then asked as he turned to go, "I've been wondering something lately. Why did you pick the name 'Sakura' for me?"
He paused a moment, staring up the softly glowing button-stars that were pinned to the cloth sky. He finally said, "As I have told you before, it means cherry blossom. I had a close friend named Blossom once, and you remind me a lot of her. I always thought her name should actually be something along the lines of 'Sakura,' Blossom just didn't suit her all that well. Plus, you received your tools at the ever-blossoming cherry tree, and both your sword and your cape were shades of pink. It just all worked together."
"So I'm sort of named after an old friend of yours?" she asked with a smile.
"You could say that," he nodded once, then chuckled. "I think she would be very envious of your cape. She always wanted a cloak like mine, plus she told me she wished she could fly like I could."
"What happened to her?" Sakura asked out of curiosity.
"I assume she passed on in the war. I never saw her again after I joined the army," he murmured sadly. "She was a very, very good friend of mine. I looked up to her more than anyone else. She helped me through one of my hardest trials, and she was always there for me."
Sakura frowned sadly. "I'm sorry. I wish I knew where she was, really. I bet you would love to see her again."
"I would, but I do not think that will ever happen," he sighed, his eyes a deep blue of sadness. "I just hope that, whatever happened to her, she was happy. That is one way you remind me of her, she had an easy smile. Even as a Waddle Dee, you were always happy. She loved children, too. And she was also a very good cook." He turned to her. "She even looked very much like you do, minus the cape, of course."
"That's an awful lot of coincidences," Sakura mused with a smile.
"You were just both 'cut from the same fabric.'" he joked, then walked away to rest.
She sighed and let her cape turn into wings, just because doing so made her feel less nervous. She could definitely sense some sort of coming evil in the air, and now that she knew that Meta Knight felt it too, it made her even more worried. Having her wings out was just something her fight-or-flight instinct made her do, as if the split second it took her cape to transform would really endanger her in a bad situation.
"I'm sure we'll be okay," she muttered, then spun around. She could've sworn she felt someone watching her, but there was no one there. "You're getting paranoid," she muttered, rolling her eyes. Walking back to where the kids where, she laughed when she saw they had finally dozed off, all three in a row, Kirby in the center. She sat down by herself across from them, and hummed an old lullaby about a river that was often stuck in her head these days. She couldn't remember any of the lyrics, but it was still a pretty song.
Meta Knight heard her in his sleep, a tiny smile appearing on his face. Deep in his dream, his younger self laughed hysterically. "Blue is the river, Blossom ooyo! That's so silly."
Blossom gave little him a hug. "That's about right, Blue. That's about right."