My Good Readers: I have a hopefully easy request. If anyone could go back in the game and figure out the exact wording of the quote for when you answer the questions in the Dream at the VERY beginning, and get the slow-level up, "your path begins at nightfall" road. What is the rest of the "Your path begins at nightfall" quote? Please just pop that in a review, and I will give you super kudos at the beginning of the chapter afterwards. Thanks for the help! Read and enjoy.

Chapter 9 Hazy Memories

"Look down there!" shouted Sora, as he stared through the glass encasement of the ship. "Something's glowing!"

Everyone in the ship whipped around, staring down at the Coliseum, which was getting smaller and smaller as the ship ascended. There was a collision of glowing "somethings," red and blue, whirling around the arena. One was diving about, the other flying through the air, until a flash of white light illuminated the architecture and both of the small dots vanished, the planet shrinking from view.

"That was Cloud," said Sora, his voice stiff with certainty. "He's gone."

Donald stared at him, about to question Sora's knowledge, but then thought otherwise and turned to the control panel.

The ride was quiet for a while, stars drifting slowly past, still space engulfing every inch of every place around their craft.

Sora leaned forward, looking over to Jiminy, who was sleeping beside a quill much larger than his tiny body, and beside that was both Ansem's Report and a journal. Sora lifted up the notebook and paged through.

It was incredible. There were lifelike sketches of all the Heartless they had told the little cricket about, and in-depth descriptions of their travels. There was diagrams of the Keyblade and transcriptions of the tournament brackets at the coliseum. Sora was mesmerized until Goofy jumped in the front of the ship.

"Look!" he shouted. "That planet's not on the map!" Down below, a world surrounded in dense green jungle poked through the blackness everywhere else.

"If it's not on the map, then the king wasn't there!" complained Donald.

"Hold on," argued Sora, moving to the controls, "my friends could be down there! Let's just check it out!"

"Forget it!" retorted Donald. "We're on an important mission!"

"Just land!" shouted Sora, seizing the controls from Donald's hands.

"No!" bellowed Donald.

"Come on!" screamed Sora. He snatched at the wheel and the ship lurched, throwing him back, as he was no longer buckled in. He felt his body slam against the metal of the door, and then slam forward against a steel dividing wall as the Gummi ship nose-dived toward the jungle.

"Look what you've done!" cried Donald, trying to desperately right the balance of the ship.

"Drop frontal weight!" ordered Goofy, leaning forward to hit a release.

"No!" shouted Donald in alarm. "I'm tipping some equipment to weigh down the back!" But it was too late, Goofy ejected a few supplies from the front of the cargo, Donald lurched the plane back, and weight went haywire, twisting the plane into a deeper dive.

"Emergency open all the doors! Ditch whatever cargo's left!" cried Donald.

"NO!" screamed Sora in terror, feeling his waist leaning on the latch of the iron entry door behind him. He tried to lean forward, but it was too late, for Goofy pressed the release, and Sora went flying out into the air, boxes and sacks flowing out beneath him.

"SORA!" he heard from somewhere inside the plane, but his mind was already racing. He was at least a thousand feet over the ground, and descending rapidly. He surveyed the air below him. There were a few crates, sacks of food, and a large tarp.

A tarp!

He maneuvered his arms and legs in to cannonball down and decrease any air resistance. His fingers lowered slowly. He snatched out and missed.

He was halfway past his falling point, and saw an enormous tree-house rising up below him. A crate snagged the edge of the tarp and it slammed faster down.

Sora cried out in fear.

A barrel shattered on top of the crate, releasing the tarp, and tearing the last ropes binding it together. It flapped outwards and slowed tremendously. Sora seized it, and let it swing above him.

A sharp pain hit his arms as the cloth became a parachute, but it was no matter.

He was alive.

He slowly took the last hundred feet and landed on the reed roof, which was apparently too weak to hold him.

He collapsed through, the parachute stuck outside, and he fell, screaming, to the log floor below.

Unconscious.

¤

"Oh… my head…."

Sora stood, looking around. He couldn't remember much, but he could recall vague snapshots of the Gummi Ship lurching from side to side, and then a fall. Sunlight streamed through a hole in the roof above him. The windows around him typically had no glass, and when they did, it lay in shards below the sill.

Vine and wood ladders climbed the three floors to the top of the tree house. Boxes and barrels lay shattered along the floor, and a few older containers were covered and hidden along some walls under the wood lofts of the higher floors.

Sora stood up, feeling serious pains in his shoulder joints and on his knees, which were scraped badly, blood staining the floor under him.

His hands and forearms were bruised or cut, a few splinters marking a hard fall. He wondered how he could have survived a drop from the roof to the floor, and then looked to his waist.

To the Keyblade.

That thing had become a real life-saver.

Sora looked around, and then called out into the still morning: "Donald? Goofy?"

There was a rustle on the tree house's top floor. Sora brushed himself off, and winced as he struck yet another bruise he didn't know he had.

"Guys!" he called to the sound. "I'm down here!"

There was a crash of breaking wood, and then heavy fast footfalls.

"I'm alright!" he shouted. "Don't run so fast!"

The pattering grew quicker, and Sora realized it was neither Donald nor Goofy.

A flash of yellow crossed the floor just above.

Then there was a loud roar as the flash pounced at Sora, white paws out stretched, feline jaw gnashing out.

It was a leopard.

Sora fell in fear, and then tried to roll aside, but saw how well the monster had caught him. Sora had pinned the Keyblade with his fall, and could do nothing but hold his hands over his eyes in terror.

But he never felt a thing.

He opened his eyes, and saw that a man, practically nude, save a loin cloth around his waist, had assaulted the leopard, and he bore a long spear. Sora's savior was massively strong, wrestling the animal across the floor, his wild brown dreadlocks getting in his face as he slammed at the creature with his muscular arms, until the animal slipped out of the tumble and ran for its life, clearing ground with terrific speed.

"Sabor…" said the man, heaving and pointing at the fleeing animal. "Danger…" he warned.

"Um…" started Sora, surprised. "Thank you."

"Thank you," repeated the man.

"Huh?" asked Sora, raising an eyebrow. "Um… err… what is this place?"

"This place, this place," repeated the man, who was now squatting with his arms dangling in front of him like a gorilla.

"Okaaay…" sighed Sora. "Where did the others go? Look. I got separated from my friends. Have you seen them?"

"Hmm?" asked the man, tilting his head like a bird.

"Friends…" said Sora slowly.

"Friends?" asked the man.

"Right!" smiled Sora. "My friends! There's two of 'em. The loud one is Don-"

"Hmm?" questioned the man, cocking his head in the other direction.

"You know what?" said Sora, recalling snippets of his battle with Donald. "Never mind. I'm looking for my friends, Riku and Kairi."

"Look for Riku? Friends?" asked the man once more.

"Right!" laughed Sora.

"Kairi friend?" asked the man, and as he said this, Sora saw a flicker of movement further past where he stood. He turned to look, but saw nothing. Nevertheless, he was sure he had seen her.

Kairi.

"Yeah!" shouted Sora, remembering what the man had said.

"Friends here," nodded the man.

"Really?" stammered Sora in surprise.

Then the man made strange, deep grunting noises, as if it were trying to speak monkey, or something similar. It sounded like "hua, hua," and then he finished by saying, "friends here."

"Not sure I understand," said Sora, "but show me! Take me to Riku and Kairi!"

"Tarzan. Tarzan go," said the man, presumably named Tarzan.

"And I'm Sora," smiled the Keybearer. "Tarzan go, Sora uhh… go go!"

¤

"Gawrsh, where are we?" asked Goofy, disembarking from the Gummi Ship. "I sure hope Sora's okay."

"Aww… who needs him?" growled Donald. "We can find the king without him." A quick brown blur shifted in the foliage. Donald looked around, seeing a wide rotting tree trunk, and the green light that the canopy reflected into the glen. But the blur had vanished.

"Hmm…" questioned Donald. He walked forward, and a large, hairy brown creature burst through the bushes. Donald screamed in alarm, and so did the animal, which turned out to be a large gorilla, running in fear of… something.

Or someone.

Behind it, a wide blue cube fell to the ground, and Goofy immediately stashed it, beaming with surprise as to what he had found.

As the gorilla ran across the glen and back into the jungle, there was another sound ahead, as a long silver glow appeared behind the overgrowth.

Out stepped a man, dressed in bright yellow hunting gear, with a long gun pointed forward.

Directly at Donald.

¤

Tarzan led Sora down a wide tree branch, nearly ten or so feet thick, to an even wider one below. The latter was covered with a thick, moist moss, vivid and springy. Tarzan made a wide, airplane-like gesture with his arms and said, "Surf."

He pointed to the mossy branch, and then leapt on, his feet gripping tightly and letting him slide. He shot off like a bullet, keeping his balance as he slid from branch to branch, his bounds like a gorilla.

Sora climbed on, and hesitantly took his balance, his arms outstretched. He unsheathed the Keyblade and pointed it at the tree, hoping it would help.

He was right, but in a manner of speaking.

The weapon whipped him backwards, and then released a sphere of air, thrusting him quickly backwards so that he went flying down the tree. It whipped side to side, blasting out more air, tossing him properly from one tree to another as he screamed as if he was on some enormous jungle roller coaster.

Finally, mercifully, he felt his shoes clap the ground. He fell to his knees, clinging tightly to the grass in gratitude and then shoved the Keyblade hard into his belt.

"Jane!" bellowed Tarzan.

In the distance, a young woman twirled around, her yellow skirt twirling under her white blouse, the sunlight catching her brown hair.

She was beautiful, with an upturned nose, and glistening brown eyes. She was tall and skinny, and her smile radiated as she saw Tarzan.

"Tarzan!" she shouted back in a soothing English accent. "Oh, and who is this?"

"Uh, hi there," said Sora. "I'm-"

"Oh, you speak English!" she cried gleefully. "So, then, obviously you're not related to Tarzan."

Well, duh, thought Sora. Look at me, and then look at him.

"Are you here to study the gorillas?" asked Jane.

Somebody else answered for him:

"Highly doubtful."

The yellow clad hunter stepped into the clearing, his moustache stretched over a malicious frown, and his gun strapped behind his back. Donald and Goofy followed hesitantly behind.

"Sora!" Goofy suddenly called out, shocked and relieved to see his friend.

"Goofy!" cried Sora ecstatically. "Donald!"

Donald reached for Sora's hand, and before they both met palms, they decided otherwise, and turned around, arms crossed, lips pursed.

Goofy shook his head.

"A circus of clowns," sneered Clayton. "Not much use for hunting gorillas."

"Mr. Clayton," said Jane, her arms crossed furiously, "I don't want to have to tell you again. We're studying them, not hunting them. This is research."

Clayton turned and left, with no form of reply.

Jane gestured for everyone to follow, and brought them to an area where the clearing widened out into a large campsite. There were roughly five tents, and a few large tables stacked with research equipment. A pile of boxes were heaped against a rock wall, and various household items, like a clock, a pot-belly stove, and even a lone tea set, glimmering in white and purple, were scattered haphazardly around the area.

"The more the merrier," smiled Jane. "Make yourself at home."

Tarzan followed her into the first tent.

"Well, anyway…" started Sora, who ended up saying simultaneously with Donald:

"I'm staying!"

"Huh?" asked Sora, somewhat angrily.

Before the petty bickering went on any longer, Goofy shoved his way in, with the blue cube from before held in his hand.

"Another Gummi block?" asked Sora.

"Just like we use to build our ship," nodded Goofy.

"So that means…" started Sora.

"The king could be here," mused Donald. "So, we've gotta work together to look for him. For now."

"Fine," smirked Sora. "I'll let you tag along. For now."

¤

"Apparently, Tarzan was raised in the jungle by gorillas. Communicating with him still isn't easy, but he's learning."

Jane was sitting in the tent, conversing with Sora, Goofy, and Donald over some fresh, warm tea and biscuits. Being the most food they'd had in a while, it tasted incredible.

"So he was speaking in 'gorilla' back there?" asked Sora.

"That's right," said Jane. "You're looking for your friends, is that right?"

"He said Riku and Kairi were here. And one word I couldn't understand. It sounded something like 'hua.'"

Jane chuckled at Sora's imitation. "Why don't we try this?" she smiled, reaching for a projector. "We'll show Tarzan some slides and see if any of them match that word."

She flipped on the projector and drew Tarzan's attention.

"What did you say to Sora, Tarzan?" she asked. "In the Treehouse? So…ra," she repeated. "Tree…house."

"Hua," he said, puzzled.

"Okay," she replied, now actually impressed by Sora's imitation. "Um… do any of these match that word, Tarzan?"

Tarzan looked at the first slide, of a bicyclist on an old Victorian bicycle. He shook his head. A gorilla appeared next, but Tarzan already knew how to say gorilla. A couple walking down the street appeared, and then something unbefitting of the other images.

It was a castle, with what looked like floating glaciers all around it. It was an enormous building with towers and turrets climbing one atop another in every fathomable place, outward and upward and forever on. Large pipes clambered between the turrets, connecting an infinite array of walls and rooms.

Sora was speechless, not in amazement, but with something else that pulled at him. Something like a memory. Familiarity.

"What's wrong, Sora?" asked Jane.

"What? Um… Nothing."

But it wasn't nothing, obviously.

This place, he thought, it just looks so familiar. But how? I've never been off my island…

"There's a journal that goes with the picture," Jane said. "I'm afraid it's only the second part, I don't know where the rest of the collection is."

Sora's ears perked up.

"Would you like to see it?" she asked.

"Please!" shouted Sora and his friends in loud unison.

"Oh," smiled Jane in surprise. "Here we are."

She reached into a box and pulled out a very familiar looking set of tattered parchment.

"Why don't you take it outside where the light is better? I'll finish going through the slides with Tarzan."

Sora and his group ran outside, sitting hurriedly on the ground as Sora opened the cover of Ansem's Report, volume 2:

It is my duty to expose what the darkness really is.

I shall conduct the following experiments:

Extract the darkness from a person's heart.

Cultivate darkness in a pure heart.

Both suppress and amplify darkness within.

The experiments caused the test subject's heart to collapse, including those of the most stalwart. How fragile our hearts are! My treatment produced no signs of recovery.

I confined those who had completely lost their hearts beneath the castle. Some time later, I went below and was greeted by the strangest sight.

Creatures that seemed born of darkness… What are they? Are they truly sentient beings? Could they be the shadows of those who lost their hearts in my experiments?

"Sora…" moaned Donald. "Tell me you can see what this one tells us."

"Well, look," pointed Sora proudly, re-reading the document as he went.

"First off, this Ansem guy has some duty with revealing the truth of this darkness. Doing this, he's actually created Heartless himself, and if I'm not mistaken, the castle he's referring to is the one in that slide. So wherever that was is where we'll find this guy. Assuming he went back."

"Speaking of back," said Goofy, standing up, "let's go check on Tarzan."

They went inside the tent, as Jane clicked through three more slides, and then sat back unsuccessful.

"Well, Tarzan?" asked Donald. Tarzan shook his head.
"Where are my friends?" cried Sora, desperately. "Riku and Kairi!"

Tarzan shook his head, and Sora was near tears.

"I thought you-"

"That leaves just one place," said Clayton, entering the tent. His moustache quivered over a devilish smile. "Young man, we've been in this jungle for some time now. But we have yet to encounter these friends of yours. I'd wager they're with the gorillas. But Tarzan refuses to take us to them."

"Really, Mr. Clayton," said Jane, standing up. "Tarzan wouldn't hide-"

"Then take us there!" shouted Clayton to the gorilla man. "Take us to the gorillas! Go…ril…las…"

Tarzan turned to Sora, wanting badly to help him, to prevent the onslaught of tears he could see in his eyes.

He nodded his head solemnly.

"Tarzan… are you sure?" asked Jane.

"Tarzan go see Kerchak," said Tarzan.

"Kerchak?" Jane asked.

"He must be the leader," said Clayton. "Perfect. I'll go along as an escort. After all… the jungle is a dangerous place…"