Attention: Due to the confusing nature of this chapter, all sudden scene changes will be indicated with a:

We repeat, from here on out, all scene changes will be indicated with a:

Thank you for your patience and cooperation in these uncertain time. Remember, if we stop reading (and reviewing) fanfictions, the terrorist have already won.

Chapter Nine: A Tale of Two Graceless Segues

Sora looked up at Noel in shock. "But… but… you loved that thing!"

Noel smiled weakly and held up the broken remains of his PS2. "Hey, don't mention it," he said. "I forgot to bring the controllers anyway."

"I wonder who this guy is?" said Sora, nudging the body with his shoe.

"Don't touch the body! Let bleeding dogs lie."

"Umm… excuse me," a girl's voice said.

"Who are you?" said Sora, looking for the source of the voice.

Standing in the distance was a chubby prepubescent girl wearing a green tank top, tan shorts two sizes two small, and knee-high socks. Noel cringed. She looked like some poor, deluded soul trying to cosplay as…

"I'm the great ninja Yuffie!" She struck an uncomfortable pose and grinned, girth jiggling noticeably. "The angsty male you just knocked out is Squall. Here, help me drag him back to the Hotel."

Squall, temporarily regaining consciousness, muttered "That's 'Leon', bitch. No, wait, it's 'Antonio.' No, it's 'Zidane.' 'Mr. T'?"

"I should've hit him harder," said Noel, dragging Leon by his ample hair, "He's still talking."

Yuffie rolled her eyes. "Go easy on him. 'Mr. T' here lost a legal battle with Square-Enix over his own identity. Soon, he will become a Heartless."

"A what?" said Sora.

"It's not just him either. Soon, it'll be all of us. You and that Keyblade are our only hope!" She opened the door to the hotel room and threw Leon on the bed.

"Why don't you start making sense?" said Sora, "What's going on here?

Aerith turned toward Donald and Goofy in the adjacent hotel room. "Okay, you know that there are many other franchises other than your Company, right?"

"But they're supposed to be a secret," said Goofy.

"They've been secret because of interdimensional copyright laws. Until now. When Kingdom Hearts came out, it changed everything."

"'Kingdom Hearts?'What's that?"said Sora.

Yuffie grinned. "The video game you're in, right now."

Leon picked his head back up. "The game that transcended copyright laws. Once it came out, the barriers between the worlds of Square-Enix and Disney disappeared. We were able to escape our corporate masters by leaping from world to world. But then something terrible began to happen, something none of us suspected."

"It starts slowly," said Yuffie. "Once the Corporations realize you're missing, they sue your homeworld. Anyone who manages to escape its destruction begins to slowly fall apart."

"Why?" said Sora.

"Because fictional characters need copyrights to survive. They're what keep our hearts from breaking apart. The first thing to go is your public image." She grinned weakly. "You put on weight, lose hair, that sort of thing. Any super-human abilities go too."

"Then, it goes deeper. Your mind starts slipping away from you," said Leon, "You forget your past, your friends, even your own name…" He fell silent.

"Finally, you become… one of them," said Yuffie.

There was an awkward silence.

"Hey," said Yuffie.

"Have" said Aerith.
"You" said Yuffie.
"Heard" said Aerith.
"Of" said Yuffie.
"Someone" said Aerith.
"Named" said Yuffie.
"Ansem?"" said Aerith.

"Ansem?" said Goofy.

"He was a Square-Enix employee who was studying the Heartless," said Aerith, "He compiled his findings in a very detailed report."

"Gwarsh, uh, can we see it?" said Goofy.

"Its pages are scattered everywhere," said Aerith, "To many worlds."

"Hey!" said Goofy, "Maybe the CEO went to find them!"

"I highly doubt that," said Aerith, "He's been working for the corporate bastards for a long, long time. And so have you." She whipped out a 9mm and aimed it at Donald's head. "So. Tell me why he sent you, or I'll make your head go 'splodey."

"Holy crap!" screamed Donald.

"So," said Sora, "What's with this 'Keyblade' thingy?"

"The Corporations fear the Keyblade more than anything else. It's the only thing with the power to rewrite their copyrights and set worlds free. They'll keep coming after you, no matter what."

"Well, I didn't ask for this!" cried Sora.

"Hey, that's nice. But your skank-ass friend sure did," cursed Noel.

"Huh?"

Noel gave him a patronizing look. "You're an alright guy, Sora, I've got no beef with you. But your bitch friend Kairi stole the Keyblade from me."

"What did you call Kairi?" said Sora, waving the Keyblade menacingly.

"I called her a bitch, bitch. Why, you got a problem with that? The rodent gave that Keyblade to me!" screamed Noel.

Leon put his hand on his Gunblade. "'Rodent?' You're…Yuffie, get out of here!"

Yuffie ran for the door, puffing hard. All those donuts were catching up with her.

Aerith leaned in close to Donald, brandishing the 9mm. "C'mon you punk, spill it! What's the CEO planning?"

"I don't know, you crazy bitch! Get away from me!" Donald screamed.

Aerith grinned and squeezed the trigger slowly. This was her favorite part. "Won't talk, eh?" she said. A bead of sweat rolled down Donald's forehead. Suddenly, Yuffie barged through the door, wheezing like she had a punctured lung.

"Yuffie?" said Aerith, looking away from Donald, who seized his opportunity and slammed into her chest, sending them both tumbling to the ground.

"You freaking punk!" she screamed, emptying a clip directly into his face.

Donald's brain exploded out of the back of his skull in a satisfyingly cartoonish fashion. Aerith sat up and shoved his decapitated corpse off her chest while slapping in another clip. She leveled it at Goofy.

"Alright, you freak that nature never intended, start talking!"

"Gwarsh, okay!" said Goofy, "But first, why don't you introduce your friend?"

"What?"

"You know, the fella crouched in the rafters?"

Out of the corner of her eye, Aerith saw a silver-haired bishounen in a long black leather trenchcoat leap at her from the ceiling, waving a sword the size of a small whale.

"Ah, crap! Not again!" she screamed.

Sephiroth's blade rammed down hard, cutting straight through her torso. A shower of blood sprayed out, staining the walls. He pulled his sword out of Aerith's chest and liked the dead girl's blood, chuckling grimly. The expression on her face was very satisfying. With a grim wave toward Goofy, he leaped out the window.

Leon waved his cardboard Gunblade at Noel. "So, you're working with the CEO, huh? Probably sent to lead the Heartless to the Keyblade!"

"Dude, they freaking blew up my world!" said Noel, grabbing a lamp off of a table to defend himself, "Why the hell would I lead them here?"

"Yeah, Leon! He helped me fight them," said Sora.

Leon frowned. "Well, I guess no Heartless have attacked us yet…"

On cue, a Heartless popped out of the floor. It waved its hideous claws at them in a grisly pantomime of life.

"Alright Sora, that proves it! He's one of them!"

Noel groaned inwardly. This was really starting to blow chunks. He began backing away from them towards the wall.

"Now, I'm sure we can work this out in a rational manner," he said, and then promptly flung himself out the window in a rain of shattered glass.

"After him!" cried Leon, "And quick, the chapter's about to end!"

The Heartless was stunned. He went out of his way to attack the heroes, and they completely ignored him. Why did everyone abandon him? They were just like his parents, always running around with no time for their malformed, evil son. He brushed away a silent tear.

Donald sat up and rubbed his head, which had magically reconstructed itself. It's good to be a cartoon character. Shaking himself off, he walked over to Aerith's corpse and gave it a sound kicking.

"Gwarsh, is that one of those Heartless guys?" said Goofy, gesturing to the moody demon that walked silently into the room.

"There you go again, labeling everyone!" screamed the Heartless, "Yeah, so I'm a soulless abomination bent on evil. You got a problem with that, you intolerant buck-toothed genetic freak?"

And with that, he seized both of them by their necks and flung them off of the balcony, onto Sora, and into the next chapter.

Author's Notes:

Although the Author's Notes a seperated from the previous section with a:

They are not a new scene. Just the author's notes.

So how about this new policy about not responding to reviews in the author's notes? That seems kind of bad. In good news, Corporate Hearts was recently added to "The Portal of Crazyness," a C2archive managed by eikothewerewolf. Which was very nice of her.

Personal Note:

I AM IN FREAKING JAPAN. But Air Canada lost my luggage. And I have a fever. And I've only eaten three times in the last 60 hours. And I'm running out of money. But CH marches on! That is just how much I love all of you.

Deleted Metaphysical thingie:

Actually, this chapter never had a metaphysical thingie. So here's a humorous story instead:

A Marine is using the bathroom, when aGI walks in and uses the next urinal over. The Marine finishes and heads for the door. "You know," says the GI, "In the Army, they teach us to wash our hands. The Marine looks at him and says, "In the Marines, they teach us not to pee on our hands."

Next time: Part Ten - Find the Subtle Political Metaphor