Chapter Ten
ଓ
Let me show you my heart
"Much of my life has been dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. That knowledge has guarded this world well. Not a soul doubts that.
I am blessed with people's smiles and respect. But though I am called a sage, there are things I do not understand.
I believe darkness sleeps in every heart, no matter how pure. Given the chance, the smallest drop can spread and swallow the heart. I have witnessed it many times.
Darkness...Darkness of the heart. How is it born?
How does it come to affect us so?
As ruler of this world, I must find the answers. I must find them before the world is lost to those taken by the darkness."
When we got back on the Gummi ship, Sora told me of a report that they found about Ansem, as well as a torn page from a book. I took the report from him and had already read it, and I got to thinking about this Ansem man. Something struck my heart when I read the words 'ruler of this world,' and 'sage', and figured it was the same feeling I got when I first heard or thought about Ansem. I looked down and saw the torn page in my hand, and I asked about to the guys.
"Maybe it belongs to Merlin's book?" Sora questioned, examining the paper as he moved it sideways and then upside down. Sora, Donald, and Goofy knew about my mission around Traverse Town looking for Merlin and giving him the tattered book, but I never thought we'd find a page this fast. Goofy looked at us and suggested we give it back, and I smiled at them as I agreed.
We landed in the accessory shop, but we were met with a small child, except… he was a pretty wooden child. He had scrawny arms and legs, a white shirt covered by a black vest and red shorts. His shoes were black, but what surprised me the most was his face—he had black hair and blue eyes, but his nose was just a long stick. "Well, well," Jiminy said as he propped himself on Sora's shoulder. "As long as I live and breathe! If it isn't Pinocchio!"
Was it a doll? Whatever, he was on the floor covering his head, probably hiding from someone. I got a closer look and he did in fact look a little frightful. However, he looked up and a huge smile grew on his face as his eyes grew wide. He called out to Jiminy with a chirp in his voice, but our cricket buddy crossed his arms and asked what he was doing on Traverse Town.
"Um...Playing hide-and-seek," he said, although he had to think about it. I couldn't help but chuckle, this boy seemed so cute. Jiminy was relieved that he was safe and sound—even to the point that he had been searching all around for him being very concerned along the way. But, as he kept talking, we noticed Pinocchio's nose grew longer than it already was. It was weird, very weird, and for once I felt like I couldn't say or think of much.
"Pinocchio! Are you telling me the truth?" Jiminy asked. The boy in questioned replied with a nod rather quickly, telling him it was the truth, but then Jiminy eyed the poor boy. "Then tell me," Jiminy pointed at the box beside Pinocchio. "What is this?"
"It was a present," Pinocchio said. Jiminy pointed at him and told him he wasn't supposed to tell lies. True to his words, we saw his nose getting longer and longer, and Jiminy told him that a lie only grows and grows… till of course, you get caught, and he pointed at Pinocchio's noise as it grew. I covered my nose, did I tell any lies? I'm pretty sure there are some lies I've lied to myself about, and I was starting to think that my life was currently a lie. I didn't lie to Sora or any of them, did I?
"I'll go find Geppetto, so you just wait here," I heard Jiminy say. Completely taking me out of my thought. He told him that we would be helping him out, and I tilted my head, we were doing what now?
"We will?" asked Sora. Heh, it was almost as if he read my mind! Jiminy smiled and told us if we were ready to go, and Sora looked at Jiminy with a solemn face. "You could've asked us first..."
"Hey, no biggie!" I cheerfully said as I brought my hands close to my chest balled into fists. "We'll help out Jiminy after we head to Merlin's! It'll be a piece of cake!"
Sora started to laugh at my cheeriness, but he agreed nonetheless. As we started walking to towards Merlin's, Sora's hand lightly brushed off of mine and I looked up to see him staring back at me. He gave me such a warm smile and the whole feeling I got was very natural, like it was normal for us to keep doing this. I smiled back as we continued walking. We made it to Merlin's house, and there we saw the book. I kept thinking how this book got tattered like so, but the next thing that happened shocked me. The book opened by itself, and a puff of smoke started to appear. Sora, Donald, Goofy and I all watched as sparkly dust appeared from the book, and when I stared at the book everything turned white, and I felt myself getting small once everything around me was getting bigger.
"Whoa, where are we?" Sora asked. I looked around the place and I noticed there was forest that sort of popped up a bit like a popup book. My eyes grew wide as I looked up, and I was able to see Merlin's ceiling, and that indicated the only other place we could be.
"We're most likely in the book," I said. Sora nodded, seemingly unfazed at the fact that we somehow ended up in a torn book full of unknown pages. I sighed and almost immediately Sora pointed out towards something I looked ahead and we were able to see an empty meadow. We walked over to the meadow and we saw a big log in the middle. I squinted my eyes when I saw something yellow and pudgy, and when I decided to walk a little closer my eyes grew wide in excitement as I saw a stuffed teddy bear sitting on the log. I scrunched up my nose and brought my hands close to my face I stared at him in awe.
"Think, think," the teddy bear said. "Think, think."
I squealed and I ran towards the teddy bear—he looked so much cuter up close and looked so fluffy! Awe, I bet he'd be perfect to cuddle with! I noticed something fidgeting in the corner of my eye, and I turned around and noticed Sora giving me a weird look—almost like he didn't approve of my squealing at the teddy bear. Geez, come on! A girl isn't allowed to get girly once in a while? What a world I live in.
"Hi, there," Sora looked at the teddy bear. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing, just thinking," he replied. Sora and I looked at each other for a bit, not really knowing what to say, so Sora just stood there as he gave a simple nod to the bear. "I was thinking of how to say goodbye to pooh," the bear said.
"Pooh?" Sora asked. The bear responded to the question, asking if he called him, and I tilted my head in confusion. Wait, was he Pooh? I asked if he was the one named Pooh as I took a seat next to him, and I saw Sora sitting on the opposite side of him. "Yes, I'm Winnie the Pooh," he confirmed. "Pooh for short, who are you two?"
"I'm Sor-"
"I'm Marie! And you're the cutest thing ever!" I blurted out. I couldn't help it—he was such a fluffy little thing. I heard a low growl from beside Pooh Bear and I looked over to see Sora looking a little angry at the little guy—oops, did he get mad at the fact that I interrupted him suddenly like that? Probably shouldn't have cut him off like that…
-x-
Sora didn't really experience jealousy to its full extent. Until now.
He didn't really like the fact that Marie was coddling and giggling all over Winnie the pooh, sure he was a teddy bear, and he knew girls liked that sort of stuff, but was it really necessary for Marie to get all girl like that? He looked over to her again and he could tell that she wanted to pet the bear.
"Oh. Hello, Sor, Marie," greeted Pooh. "Have you come to say goodbye to Pooh, too?"
"Uh, it's Sora actually," replied Sora, correcting his name before Marie cut him off. He sighed, maybe getting her an actual teddy bear might pry her off the one they were looking at now. But he ignored it for now, and asked Pooh why they would feel the need to say goodbye to him, considering that they've only just met.
"And you're too cute to say goodbye too!" Marie said as she giggled and patted the poor bear on the back. Yep, she was enjoying the stuffed teddy and Sora could wallow in jealousy right now. He still tried to ignore it for now, and the bear told them that everyone went away. Marie asked what he meant by that, and the bear sighed.
"Well, we all lived here in the Hundred Acre Wood and we'd take walks together, or play Pooh sticks..." he said as he moved his paws about. "And every day, I'd eat some honey, just one smackeral would taste very good right now." Pooh bear rubbed his belly as he giggled and kicked up his pudgy toes, which caused Marie to fawn over at how cute the bear was—it also caused Sora to glare intensely at the thought. Pooh told them that everyone was pretty much gone, and he was awfully sad to see his friends gone along with his favorite hunny tree. He mentioned that he took a nap and figured they must have left then.
"So, who knows?" Pooh said as he jumped off the log. "Maybe I shall end up going away somewhere as well."
Marie stopped fawning over the bear once he said this particular sentence, and she lowered her eyed as it triggered another memory deep from within her subconscious.
-x-
"Ansy," Marie called out from reading her book. "May I go for a walk around the town?"
"I suppose," Ansem looked over to Marie. "But I would prefer if Dilan accompanied you."
Marie and Ansem were in his study as he looked over his work. She was reading a book that was required for her studies, but she grew a bit bored and wanted to take a breather. Ansem realized that Marie was at the stage of curiously, and he knew that she loved the scenery of the town. However, because of her predicament, he feared she would be snatched away from the same man who kidnapped her prior. Yet, he didn't want to stunt her growth of curiously, and knew a girl like her needed to see and feel the world around her. She was learning and growing at such a rapid rate, and was an incredibly clever and bright girl. He didn't want to limit her knowledge, so he offered the young girl an escort as she strolled across town.
"Ew," she said, clearing not taking a liking to that brute of a man. "He's scary looking, why can't Even come instead?"
"He's much too busy with work and looking after Ienzo himself," replied Ansem. "So Dilan or Aeleus will do."
Marie looked over her options—Dilan was tall, bulky and completely scary, but he would talk to the young girl whenever she spoke. Aeleus, however, was a giant, scary silent man who didn't give a grunt or anything of a sound. She sighed, and told Ansem that she would have Dilan be her escort. The older man smiled and looked down at the young girl. "Perfect," he replied. "I will let Dilan know. I shall also accompany you to the gate."
Marie got up as Ansem walked towards the door. He opened it for her and she passed through as she thanked him. She held his hand as they started walking down the corridors and towards the gate, and along the way Marie saw the man named Braig. She grew scared every time she saw him and she never once liked him because she could feel that he was a bad person. She also knew that he was the only person who talked to the man that had once kidnapped her. She passed by him as she glared at the man, who could only watch as she walked by. Of course, Braig was having a hard time himself. The man who had kidnapped Marie ordered him to take her back as she had no darkness in her heart and wanted to use her for his experiments involving the power of darkness and the power of light. This was incredibly hard for the man, as it proved difficult to get the young girl alone—she was always with someone, and he knew that it was Ansem who made sure that was never left alone.
Outside the castle, Marie saw Dilan waiting. She hated being followed around, but if she wanted her freedom, she would have to comply. Ansem walked along towards the scary guard, and Dilan bowed down towards them both. "Are you ready for your walk?" asked Dilan, he was scary, but had least enough respect for the young girl to be nice around her. Still very scary though.
"Yes," she said as she looked up towards him. She let go of Ansem's hand and the man looked over to Dilan as he ordered him to keep a close eye on the girl. Dilan nodded, vowing to keep her safe. Marie started walking ahead after this and met with people she had grown a relationship with, such as Cid, and bought some sea-salt ice cream from scrooge, whom she just referred to as 'uncle'. But today was a unique day, upon eating her ice cream, she bumped into someone, resulting in her ice cream to fall.
"Oh!" the person said. "I'm so sorry!"
Marie looked at the ice cream, and then looked at the person. She was a tall woman with a fair complexion that sported short blue hair and bright blue eyes. She wore a weird set of clothes in the hues of blue, white and silver, and she had a weapon with her, but this didn't really bother Marie all that much as she wasn't able to sense anything bad about the woman. Marie looked at the woman as she smiled at her, and the woman bent down to her level and she smiled back. The young girl stuck out her hand, and the woman looked at it as she wondered what she was doing.
"That's okay, I can always get some more," Marie said. "Please come with me, I'll get you one as well!"
The woman smiled again and took Marie's hand. They walked back to Scrooge, and along the way, Marie and the woman had a mutual interest in each other. Marie was able to see a protector inside the woman. While the woman, was able to sense the kindness, and purity within Marie's heart. After buying the ice cream, Marie and the woman were sitting on a near-by bench. They both watched the sunset, and started eating their ice cream. All the while Dilan stood at the far side from them.
"I'm Marie," the blonde introduced herself. "What's yours?"
The woman smiled and chuckled. "I'm Aqua."
-x-
"Aqua..?" Marie said aloud, unsure of who the woman was in her memory. She was certain that the memory she experienced wasn't hers, but when Ansem appeared in it, she began to question it. From afar, she could hear Sora asking her who Aqua was, and the blonde looked towards him. She decided to fib a little and told him that it was no one—that she was just thinking about the color Aqua.
"Oh," he said, clearly not believing a world she said. Her eyes were dazed and she seemed lost in thought—not exactly a state to be in if she was just merely thinking about a color. "You were really out if it, I said your name five times."
She gave a short reply, it was all she could say at the time. She wasn't feeling all that well—she was out of it and her heart dropped a bit at how sad she had suddenly become. "Annnd, you're not paying attention to me are you?" she heard him as she was paying attention, she realized she was still sitting on the log and that Pooh bear had left already. She looked up towards the sky, and knew that whatever was happening with her wasn't normal. She looked back at Sora, and wondered if she would be able to tell him.
"Sora, is it normal to forget everything you know about?" she asked abruptly. He tilted his head to the side at her questioned and wondered what she meant by it. Well, it's just—"she hesitated for a bit, but quickly shook her head, she needed to have someone know what was going on with her. "I've been forgetting stuff that I really shouldn't. I used to remember things like my parents and where I used to live, but I can't remember any of it anymore… I don't remember how my parents look and all my memories are being replaced by ones that I had no clue I had."
"How are you forgetting everything? And what kind of memories?" he asked with noticeable concern in his voice. She told him that she had no clue how she was forgetting, but the things that she remembered were things she never knew about—her voice began to crack, and Sora looked at her as she struggled not to cry then and there. She just looked down and told him that when she first met Cid it felt familiar, like she had seen him multiple times prior. The same thing occurred when she saw Riku, telling him that she knew him way before as well.
"Riku? Where have you seen him?" Sora's eyes widened when he heard this—Marie and Riku knew each other? Maybe them holding hands back then was a sign of that, but he would have never figured it out. Riku never made any mention of Marie or anyone that sounded like her. The girl told him that after she passed out during their time in Agrabah, she experienced a memory with Riku.
"I was a little girl talking to Riku, we were meeting for the first time. I don't know where we were, but it looked familiar," she said as she sniffled lightly, still looking down at the floor. "Jafar really scared me when he said I had this 'otherworldly' power, and on top of that I'm remembering all of these things—like, is any of this for real, or not?"
Sora looked at the girl with a melancholy look on her face, and he truly felt or her. Was she suffering all of this on her own? Those moments where she seemed distracted or distant must have been when she was remembering. Sora shook his head slowly as he looked at her, opting to say anything to cheer her up. "What I know is that we're here now, and this is real."
She just looked away as depression had seemed to wash over her. To forget everything was horrible, Sora thought. He wondered how Marie knew about Cid, and more importantly, Riku. He was glad Marie had told her about her personal vendetta, but at the same time he was a little annoyed that she hadn't told her earlier. He now knew why she was so gloomy and distant at times, or why she was so out of it. Knowing that he couldn't help before killed him, but now, everything changed. He was granted the chance to help her, granted the chance to even save her from all the stress. But one thing did cross his mind, if Marie was forgetting everything, would she eventually forget about him? Would she forget their adventure together? Sora didn't want this, he didn't want to become a memory, especially Marie's memory.
He wanted to be in her mind twenty-four seven, and somewhere along the way he found himself to really care about the young blonde. Somewhere along the way all the laughter, smiles and supportive pats on the back meant way more than just friendly gestures. He really liked Marie, and it was probably the first that he felt this way about any girl—more so than Kairi, who was the first female he had.
"Marie, would you forget about me?" he decided to ask. Her voice shook as she was unsure if she would or not, but she really didn't want to forget anything she experienced at this point, especially anything to do with Sora. He looked at Marie and noticed that she was struggling to keep herself from crying. Sora always liked how Marie was such a strong person, she was never faltering, never showed any signs of true weakness and never gave up. At least until now, her weakness was the truth about herself and she was showing it, although barely. She struggled so much, but kept pushing forward strongly. Sora was quite glad to see her fragile side, if anything, this little moment made their friendship stronger.
"Marie," he softly said. "If you want to cry, you can cry on my shoulder."
Marie looked at Sora for a moment as she bit her lip trying to keep her whimpers from coming out. She slowly brought her hands to his sleeve and tugged it a bit, but Sora eventually grabbed her closer to him and held her in his arms as she began to cry into his shirt. She hiccupped and trembled within the warmth of his arms, and all he could do was stroke the back of her head as she let it all out. All of the anger and frustrations that she had were let out through her cries as she held Sora tighter than ever.
It was at this moment that Sora realized what Marie was to him. She was important—far more important than any girl he's ever met. He wanted to protect her, to keep her safe from harm's way and love that beautiful smile of hers. He blushed a bit at that word but he really and truly cared for the girl to the point that he was going to make it a point to fight and be by her side for as long as he could.
-x-
I kept crying into Sora's shirt and I could feel the wet moisture from my tears forming in that spot, and I felt bad about wetting his shirt—although I don't think he minded too much, since he was hugging me so tightly. It felt like a huge weight was lifted off of my shoulder from telling Sora about my worries, and I was so grateful that he was the one I was able to tell about this. I eventually stopped crying and forced myself to look up at him as I wiped away the excess tears forming in my eyes. I gave him a weak smiled and thanked him. I got off the log before Sora did, but I noticed that I had gotten his sleeve wetter than what I thought I had. I slowly walked up to him and started rubbing it lightly, feeling really bad about wetting it, but then I felt Sora's hand grasp mine as tightly as he could and I looked up at him. He was smiling as usual.
"I'll help you anyway I can, and I won't leave your side," he told me. I chuckled a bit as I smiled again, and he closed his eyes for a brief moment. "I'll always be here."
All I could do was smile and stare at him—Sora was amazing, and behind that boyish charm of his was a caring person with a generous heart. I know that I'll be struggling with these memories of mine for a while, and even if I forget everything about me or if I suddenly remembering the truth about my life, I do know this—I want to stay with Sora for as long as I can. I really liked the kid and he made me so safe and secure, that I don't know if this was called love or not. I hugged his side. "Thank you Sora, I really appreciate it."
"Let's go help out pooh," he said, ruffling my hair. "I'm sure he needs our help too."
I nodded and started walking ahead, but then I felt my hand being held back and I turned around to see Sora holding it. He gave me another warm smile of his as he walked up and squeezed my hand in his. I noticed he was blushing a bit and I couldn't help but blush as well, but we both left the meadow holding hands, and throughout helping Pooh and his friends we didn't stop holding hands.
We helped Pooh as much as we could, but with the pages still missing from the book there wasn't much we could do. We left the book and met up with Goofy and Donald, who seemed to have eyed us up and down. Sora raised his eyebrow at this and asked what they were staring at, and Donald crossed his arms.
"Something seems different about you two," he said as he looked at both of us. I couldn't help but blush because of what just happened, but Sora waved his hands up defensively and looked at them both. He told them that we just went to help out Pooh, and eventually they believed us, but I felt like they were still suspicious a bit. We walked back to the ship and left Traverse Town for now until we got a few more pages, but we also had to look for this Geppetto fellow. While we were sailing around, I looked over the report left by Ansem to see if I could find any more clues about this man or myself, but sadly only one report didn't help much.
"What is that?" I heard Donald ask. I looked up to see something big and blue blob disappear from the screen and I tilted my head as I got up from my seat to examine it a bit closer.
"Wow, it's huge!" exclaimed Sora. I squinted my eyes and saw the big and blue blob thing return, and it started coming towards us. My eyes widened when I saw it moving and I was starting to get scared a bit so I held onto Sora as I kept staring at it. It started to move to the left and what I saw was a giant whale as it passed us. I sighed in relief that it disappeared, but that thing was definitely huge!
"It's a giant whale!" exclaimed Goofy.
"It's Monstro!" exclaimed Jiminy. Geez, everyone was exclaiming a lot. Jiminy told us that it was sort of like the king of whales, and a really mean and vicious one to boot. I sighed again—why can't we get a break with these things? I quickly glanced at the screen again and I saw Monstro coming back, and I gasped as I saw it coming back towards us—geez, is that thing going to eat us whole!? I heard Donald telling Sora to get us out of the vicinity and I panicked when I found out that Donald wasn't taking the wheel this time, I shouted a bit when we felt the ship move, and I started seeing the whale's mouth opening up.
"Too late!" I shouted while I covered my eyes. "It's gonna swallow us!"
-x-
"KNOCK IT OFF!" shouted Donald as he placed his hands on his hips and started tapping his foot on the ground. Sora awoke and rubbed his head when he heard Donald yelling, and wanted to find out what the commotion was.
"Hey, Sora, are you okay?" asked Goofy, he was shielding himself from something above and Sora took the moment to take in what was happening, and what happened. He asked them what they were doing, and where they were at the moment. He didn't wait for them to answer when he looked around, and something felt a bit off—he looked and looked around again until he finally realized what the problem was. He turned around and asked the two where Marie was, and right after he said that, a treasure chest fell from above. Sora was able to dodge it, but he still wanted to know.
"Uh, ya know, I think that big ol' whale Monstro just swallowed us and separated us," said Goofy as he still kept his hands above his head. "And for today's weather: expect showers," Goofy said as he covered himself, a treasure chest fell on top of his shield. "Heavy showers!"
Sora began to worry, right after promising to himself that he was never going to leave her side—they get separated! What rotten luck, he thought, but he sighed knowing that they were going to find her, she just had to hold on for a bit, but he was going to find her.
"Hey! Who's there?" shouted Donald as he grew annoyed at blocking attacks from the whale's mouth Pinocchio appeared not to far from them and addressed himself as so. Donald just shrugged. "Oh, it's just Pinocchio," he said, taking in a moment to realize why he was here. "Pinocchio!"
"Pinocchio!" Jiminy propped himself on Sora's shoulder as he looked at the little wooden boy, but he was walking away carrying a gummi block with him. Jiminy called out to him and asked where he was going, but the boy just ignored him. Jiminy sighed and looked at the rest as he told them they needed to go after him. Sora agreed, telling them that Marie might have gone or fallen deeper within the whale's stomach. Jiminy agreed and hoped for the best that Marie found Pinocchio be anything bad happened.
-x-
Today was a very special day for Marie as she was going to hang out with her older sister without having Dilan or Aeleus escorting her. Ansem seemed quite comfortable about Aqua, and allowed the young girl to hang out with her for a little while. Now, Aqua wasn't Marie's real sister, but the bond that these two had was similar to that of one. They even went so far as to call each other sisters and it didn't feel awkward saying it.
"Sis!" Marie called out. She waved at Aqua and walked over to her. "Where are we going today?"
"Well, sis, we're going to eat some sea-salt ice cream," Aqua replied. "I've got something to tell you."
Aqua had a frown on her face, she wasn't coming back to see Marie again, and this was going to be her last visit. Her friend Terra was in trouble as he had been taken by the darkness. Aqua needed to save him—she felt like she was the only one who could. She also had overheard Braig talk with the man who kidnapped Marie, she found out that Marie had no darkness in her heart, and was supposed to be fused with Vanitas in order to complete the X-blade, but when Ventus came back, Braig had told the man about it, and thus calling off the plan to kidnap Marie. They arrived at the benches just outside of the castle, and they both sat down. Aqua looked down at her ice cream, too sad to eat it for the last time.
"So what do you gotta tell me?" Marie asked, smiling at Aqua. The woman hesitated for a bit, she didn't want to leave. Regardless, she told Marie that her friends were in trouble and that she needed to save them, thus telling her that today would be her last visit. Marie stared at Aqua, she was getting sad at the thought of her sister leaving her, but her friends were in trouble. Marie had to understand.
"If your friends are in trouble," said Marie. "Then you should help them, because they need you. Don't worry about me, sis. If people are in trouble, we need to help them, right? I love you a lot, sis, but I'm not in trouble, so you don't need to stay."
Aqua smiled, she knew Marie would understand. She feared she would first object to it, but Marie understood better than anyone, because she was always the type to help people. Aqua thought for a moment, Marie had always told her about wanting to help people when she was older, and in fact was able to sense the power of the Keyblade within her—but she thought for a moment—who passed down that power? It couldn't have been Terra or Ventus, and Master Eraqus was out of the question. She wanted to do the ritual with the young girl, but that wasn't going to happen. Aqua had initially meant to do the Keyblade inheritance ritual with Sora, the young boy on Destiny Islands, but when she found out that Terra had done the ritual with Sora's best friend Riku she refrained from doing it. She didn't want him to fight his best friend like she was about to.
"Marie, I want to tell you something. When you're older and you decide that you really want to help people, you'll have that power to do that," she told her. Marie just smiled—she already knew this, Ansem would always tell her that she was special. Instead, Marie just took out a necklace with a little tiny jar that had a flower inside of it. She handed it over to Aqua and told her it would be a lucky charm because she placed all of her love and powers in it.
"Ansy helped me make it," Marie said. "My mom would tell me that flowers make people very happy, so as long as you'll have it you'll never be sad!"
Aqua smiled, and put on the necklace. She touched it and she could almost feel the purity of it. It was made by someone with a pure heart after all. Aqua hugged Marie, it was a beautiful farewell present. "You're going to be my guardian angel, right?" said Aqua. "Thank you sis, I'll keep it with me forever."
Marie smiled, and Aqua got up. She said farewell to Marie and wished her the best of luck in her future. Marie told Aqua that she'll help her friends, and that she along with her friends will hang out with Marie one day. Aqua smiled, and proceeded to walk away. Marie waved until Aqua wasn't visible anymore, although she was happy that Aqua wanted to save her friends, she was going to miss her. Because that was the last day that Marie ever saw Aqua again.
-x-
I groaned as I grabbed my head and rubbed it—I looked around and noticed I was separated from the boys again. I sighed, this was the second time being separated from Sora. Although I wasn't worried back then, mainly because I didn't know Sora that well, I was a little worried now. I knew Sora well, and he could easily fight off heartless, but I knew he was worried about me. He always is, but I'm good right now. I didn't break any bones or anything, so good start so far. I did notice a paper beside me and I picked it up. It was another Ansem report, but I didn't bother to read it until I met up with Sora and the others. I looked around, there was a lot of places I could go, but I had to choose one so I decided to go towards the left route.
As I walked over to the left opening I heard a crunching noise and I looked down to see two pieces of paper on the floor. I picked them both up and examined it, and while the second piece was a report of sorts, the first one caught my attention because of what was written on it.
Maybe if you read this you'll remember me…?
I raised my brow, what the heck? Maybe this was meant for someone else, it wasn't signed or anything though. I looked over to the other paper, and I noticed it didn't have an author's name or anything like that either. But the title of the report said 'Marie'. So I began to read aloud.
"The moment I saw this girl I knew something was special about her. She had offered to help in the experiment on repressing darkness, we wanted to see if there were any traits someone with a pure heart had that could help in repressing darkness. We had linked her up to the machines we had in the laboratory, and so far everything seemed all right.
But I couldn't have been more wrong.
The machine went awry, and it damaged the child, placing her in a coma. What I saw that the others did not see was that a glow of light appeared on her forehead very quickly. We left the young girl in a coma, and did not touch the machines, for fear of harming her even more."