(blushing) Dammit dammit dammit! I can't believe I accidently posted chapter 9 again… that's so embarrassing…(curls up in a corner…please go on to the pre-arranged author's note)
Yea, plotful world! Very plotful! Oh, and I get to screw with Taichi and Takuya's heads, which is just plain fun. Hope you enjoy it, especially since some certain friends are along for the ride…
Man, I just realized that this fic has been going on for over a year and only has ten chapters in it! I'm sorry, everybody. I'll try to do better, I really will! I will do better, I promise, so please stay with me! (low bow)
Kingdom Hearts 2 is so utterly and totally cool! I just adore it! Axel and Naminè have the best voices, the game-play is just awesome, AND they finally reveal the mystery behind the constantly-rumored 'BHK' also known as tragic hero Roxas! It's sooo cool! I'm going to wind up putting some stuff from it in here, but nothing MAJOR. (For example, Organization XIII won't show up here) Just a few little things I find really captivating. Stay tuned.
Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon or Kingdom Hearts. Excel Saga and the City of F are property of manga-ka Koshi Rikto, who is crazier than I am.
Kingdom of the Elemental Hearts
Chapter 10: Destiny Islands
The Gummi Ship scooted along through interplanetary space with low puffing and humming noises, squeaking occasionally as the rubbery pieces rubbed against one another, the colorful machine dodging Heartless ships and colorful pieces of junk.
Kouji wasn't paying any attention to any of it. He was snoozing against the wall, arms crossed over his chest, completely indifferent to everything happening around him. One of the ship-staffing brooms wandered up to him, picked up his feet, swept the dust out from under his legs, and set them down again without the teenage swordsman ever stirring an eyelid.
Sora felt a bit envious. Kouji seemed to have the best of both the waking and sleeping worlds - acute senses and observational skills when he was conscious, utter and complete oblivion while he slumbered. Sora had always been a restless, unfocused sleeper, but his most recently added teammate might as well be dead for how well he slept.
The Keyblade Master sighed and leaned over to stick his head in next to the driver's seat. "We there yet?"
"Almost." Donald squawked, jabbing a wig-thumb over his shoulder. "You should be able to see it any second now."
Goofy hyuk'ed to himself brightly, standing to lumber back to the rear half of that cabin. "Gawrsh, I wonder what kind of world it'll be this time."
"Well, let's look." Sora braced his hand on the windowsill and leaned down for a good peek.
…
"No way!"
Kouji shot awake, his keen ears mistaking Sora's eager exclamation for a cry of warning. "What is it?"
Sora pressed his gloved hands to the window, blue eyes sparkling wildly and a wide grin across his ever-expressive features. "It's…my island!" He gasped, blinking happy tears from his eyes. "My home!"
( - ) ( - ) ( - )
Takuya whistled slightly, looking around at the glistening silver city he and Taichi were making their way through. Agumon was with them, of course, but he wasn't quite himself. He was wearing an extra-large brown trench coat and a big hat to hide the fact that he wasn't exactly a normal tourist.
"This is different." Takuya commented, bouncing the white 'soccer ball' off his knee harmlessly. "I don't see that many Heartless around here, do you?"
"Nope." Taichi shook his head and sighed, glancing around. "Seems pretty quiet, too…"
His words were cut off by the echo of a loud explosion, rippling through the steel-lined streets of the city as a large red-and-black mushroom cloud appeared over the top of the buildings. "Taichi, there!" Agumon shouted in warning, his hat flying off in the resulting mini-shockwave.
"I see it!" Taichi tensed up and burst into a run. "Come on, let's go!"
Takuya was right on his heels in a mad dash through the city, Agumon leading the charge towards the billowing cloud of smoke. They expected to find a crowd of Heartless swarming around the wreckage site, people running in fear, more and more shadows popping up as hearts were devoured…
But instead they found the half-baked, lightly charred, smoking ruins of an average small-business building, with a small crowd of people standing and staring as though it were some kind of fascinating show.
The two boys stopped a short distance away and stared blankly. "Do you think this happens…often?" Takuya finally asked. Taichi shrugged.
"WOW!"
The two brown-haired boys turned their heads to find a rather hyperactive-looking young woman with a long, thick blonde ponytail standing not far away, her hands planted defiantly on her hips and a wide grin on her face. "Look at that, Haa-chan! Another glorious victory for our Secret Ideological Organization ACROSS!"
"Lord Il Palazzo should be most pleased." Nodded a pale, dark-haired woman beside her. Then she coughed weakly and wiped what looked like blood from the edge of her mouth. "But perhaps we should take care not to attract unwanted attention, Senior Excel."
"EH?"
The blonde followed her friend's pointing finger to the two young boys and one little orange dino-creature staring at them. She freaked out almost instantly, backing up several feet. "Woah-woah-woah! Did you just hear that just now?"
"Uh…yeah." Taichi deadpanned, raising an eyebrow.
"OH NO!" The blonde spun to her friend, loud voice echoing slightly. "What should we do? What should we do? What is the procedure for this kind of information breech? Shall we eliminate them, Haa-chan?"
The three travelers were stunned into a sort of silence. "…Eliminate?" Agumon mumbled.
"Senior Excel?" The dark-haired girl quietly interrupted her friend's tirade. "Perhaps we should let Lord Il Palazzo decide what to do with them?"
"Of COURSE!" The blonde returned almost instantly to her determined hands-on-her-hips pose. "Lord Il Palazzo always knows what to do! He'll know what to do with these spies!"
"You were the one who yelled everything." Takuya muttered, pulling the Ball under his arm, but could only just react as the blonde grabbed his freed wrist and started dragging him down the street.
"COME ON, LET'S GO!"
( - ) ( - ) ( - )
The minute the Gummi Ship touched down on the shores of the largest Island, Sora leapt from the cockpit and bounded across the sands of the nearest beach, a wide grin spread across his face like a madman. Kouji followed behind him, a bit more cautiously, but he was curious as to what Sora's home was like.
It was a very beautiful place, he had to admit, with long white-sand beaches bordering gorgeous blue ocean that was so blue and clear you could see all the way to the very bottom. Dozens of fish darted back and forth across the sandy bottom, dancing through the loose, rustling seaweed. The trees towered above them, colorful and bright and heavy with fruit, reaching high into the sky. Levels upon levels of platforms worked their way over the entire island, connecting huts and shacks with rope-bridges, ladders and long poles. This island was small and practically uninhabited, more like a giant jungle gym than a place to live.
Sora dashed across the sand with wide, excited leaps and let out a delighted whoop. "I'm back!" He shouted, and the cry echoed through the island.
A clump of bushes ruffled and a curious head popped out, belonging to a young boy with a messy mop of light-brown hair on the top of his head. "What's all the racket?"
"Tidus!" Sora slid to a stop and grinned up at the smaller boy. "Hey, buddy! Look who's back!"
"Sora?" Tidus blinked once and rubbed his eyes. When Sora refused to disappear and just grinned wider, the stranger's face spread into a startled grin. "Wow, Sora! Hey everybody, Sora's back! Sora!"
Tidus dropped from the tree, his excited calls echoing through the wooden interior of the island. There weren't many people there, but one by one a few curious heads popped out of the bushes and trees and huts, then reacted very much the same way as the first, cheering and waving.
Sora waved to his friends and called excited greetings, but kept running down the sand at top speed. There was someone he wanted to see very badly, that much was obvious, and he was going to do that before anything else.
"Kairi!" He shouted at the top of his lungs, racing towards a small brown shack at the end of the beach. "Kairi! Kairi!"
The wooden door opened slowly, a girl's head poking out of the crack. She was rather pretty, with blue eyes and dark red hair that ran straight down over her shoulders without curl or interruption. She wore a small, cute pink and white dress decorated with zippers, a thick belt dangling from her waist, and white shoes with the black laces running up her ankles.
She gasped, unable to speak for a moment, then took a deep breath rather hesitantly. "S-Sora?"
"Kairi." Sora's grin spread even wider. Donald and Goofy glanced at each other with bright, knowing grins.
The girl took in a sharp breath to steady herself, then a wide grin burst out over her face. "Oh, Sora!"
The boy took a few steps forward, spreading his arms out wide, but Kairi beat him to it. She raced to him, flinging her arms out and throwing them around his shoulders so hard that, if she had not been such a small, petite thing, she probably would have knocked him flat onto the sand.
"You're back!" She gasped happily, hugging him. "You're home! Oh, Sora!"
Sora didn't even blush, which surprised Kouji to a certain extent, especially when the brown-haired boy folded his arms around her, his gloved hands coming to rest behind her head in a loving manner. "Kairi…"
Kouji crossed his arms over his chest in a rather unique 'I'm-happy-for-you-but-do-I-have-to-watch-the-PDA' expression. He glanced at Donald and Goofy seriously. "So I'll take it that's his girlfriend?"
Sora and Kairi both turned beat red, but refrained from shooting away from one another as most kids Kouji's age would have. Rather, Sora pulled back and craned his head to glare at his companion. "Kouji!"
The swordsman smirked. "I just call 'em as I see 'em."
Kairi, on the other hand, took in a sudden gasp and stepped forward. One of her hands rose slightly to point at Kouji's face, forgetting all manners in what seemed to be extreme shock. "It…It's you!"
"Excuse me?" Kouji leaned away from her and raised and eyebrow.
"You're that boy I…"
"Kairi, what's going on?"
The new voice was female, a bit higher than Kairi's and a little more breezy as it echoed from the small shack. The wooden door creaked open and a pretty girl with long, blonde hair stuck her head out. Her blue eyes scanned the new arrivals curiously, cocking her head to one side in a rather coy manner.
Sora blinked in confusion. "Kairi, who's that?"
Kouji pushed past him with a surprised expression. "Izumi?"
"Kouji?" The girl gasped, putting her hand over her mouth. She stepped out of the shed to reveal a pleasant, though a bit short, purple skirt-and-shirt outfit and a loose silver-and-lilac ring dangling from her ankle. She took a hesitant step forward. Then she let out what could have well been an excited shriek and threw herself forward. "Oh, Kouji, it is you!"
She flung her arms around Kouji, her elbows hooking just short of his shoulders in a definite 'cuddle' position. The boy went stiff as a board, arms straight at his sides, shoulders taught, this entire body rigid, but Izumi didn't seem to notice.
"I'm so happy you're all right!" She gasped, pulling her hug a bit tighter. "It's been so long since I've seen anyone, I thought maybe those…those things had gotten a hold of all of you! After that night I was just…oh I'm so glad…"
"…'Zumi?"
"Mm-hm?"
"You're hugging me."
Izumi realized what she was doing and shot away with a light blush. "Oh…sorry."
"Gawrsh, Kouji." Goofy hyuk'ed. "Is she one of you friends?"
"She's Izumi." He muttered, as though that explained everything, brushing himself off.
The new girl…Izumi…suddenly registered the others around them and blinked, a bit surprised. "Oh…Who's this, Kouji? Kairi?"
The redhead giggled softly, painting a cute expression on her face. "Looks like we've got some explaining to do, huh, Sora?" She nudged her friend in the side. "Come on in, everybody."
( - ) ( - ) ( - )
"HAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIL, IL PALAZZO!"
"…Zo!"
The blonde's snaggletoothed mouth spread into a wide, almost crazy grin as her eager exclamations echoed off the stone walls of the 'secret headquarters', which was really more of a barely-converted sewer line. A few steps behind her stood a smallish, sickly-looking woman with blue hair, who echoed the last letter of the phrase in a breathless sort of manner.
High above them, sitting straight and royal in a tall throne set high on a raised platform, was a tall, relatively handsome man with long white hair, a pair of rounded glasses slipping down the end of his long nose. He brushed some long locks of gray hair behind his shoulder, waving a gloved hand dismissively.
"Ah." He sighed in a royal tone. "Strikingly eager as always, Agent Excel."
"Yes!" Piped the blonde, snapping into a ready salute with one arm straight in the air. "Excel will work hard to be worthy of your praise, Lord Il Palazzo! What is your command for us today?"
Not too far away, Taichi, Takuya and Agumon stood in a bit of a cluster, watching the ordeal with various expressions of anxiety and confusion writhing their features.
"…How did we get ourselves into this one?" Taichi muttered absently. Takuya just shrugged.
( - ) ( - ) ( - )
The hut turned out to be a sort of clubhouse, furnished with a few straw chairs around a simple wooden table and a plush, though tattered, couch up against the wall. There were two doors, each framed by the greenery that surrounded the island and facing in opposite directions, the first to luscious beach they had landed on, the second to the forested, open half of the island that faced away from the rest of the grouped isles.
Kairi and Izumi took the couch, while the boys scattered around on the various chairs around the room. Kouji leaned over the table from behind, resting his head on his hands, as Sora leaned back from his seat in front of the counter and Donald and Goofy took places on either side. The various recaps of their past adventures took a good while, but the girls were more than eager to wait it out and demanded every detail the boys could remember.
"It's not fair!" Izumi finally sighed, leaning back and crossing her hands over her chest. "Here you've been out having adventures on your own, and I've just been here the whole time!"
Kairi grinned at the other girl. "What, you don't like it here, 'Zumi?"
"You know I didn't mean that." Izumi smiled as well, and tossed a lock of blonde hair back over her shoulder. "This place is great. It's nice, it's absolutely beautiful, but it's…dull."
Sora laughed, hearing Riku's voice behind the girl's comments. His silver-haired friend had often voiced such a complaint about their quiet, unnoticeable little set of islands for years before their adventure had started…
Speaking of which…
"Kairi." He said suddenly, setting the chair down on all four legs and leaning over to speak seriously with her. "Have you heard anything about Riku?"
"No. Nothing." Kairi shook her head. "I thought that, maybe, he'd come back with you, or that you'd run into each other somewhere."
Sora sighed sadly and shook his head. He could still see Riku's face as his best friend peered out from the steadily-closing Door to Darkness, the light smirk curled over his lips as though satisfied with his own self-sacrifice, the slight tinge of sadness in his eyes as the gentle whisper drifted back into the Light: "Take care of her…"
Kouji tapped the wooden table twice with the tip of his fingernails, blowing a few escaped strands of hair up contemplatively. Sora had that look on his face again, the same kind of slightly depressing pout with fogged, far-off eyes that Takuya got when his happy mood gave way to darker thoughts.
The swordsman sighed, deciding it would be better to leave the two to themselves, though Donald and Goofy immediately stuck their noses in. Kouji pushed away from the table to cross to the couch. "Hey, Izumi." He sighed, leaning against the couch's tattered armrest. "Do you mind telling me something?"
"What?" The blonde asked, turning her head coyly to one side.
"What happened to you…that night? When Shibuya…" Kouji left off. It was a hard thing to think about, and he didn't feel like putting it into words. He just glanced off to one side and hoped Izumi got the drift.
She did.
Her body language made it pretty clear. She curled in on herself just a bit, hugging herself lightly as though warding off a chill, and her blue eyes fell to gaze almost sadly at the silver anklet dangling from her right leg.
"It…It was weird, you know?" She finally sighed, brushing the same stray lock of hair back over her ear. "That night, those…those Heartless things…somehow got into my house. They completely overran the place. I could hear dad telling me to get out, so I went out the window, down the fire escape. But I didn't really know where to go. So I just went to the first place I could think of…"
"Takuya's." Kouji said simply, and she nodded before continuing.
"I don't think I really got there." Izumi sigh, adjusting her blue headband restlessly. "Actually…to tell the truth, I don't really remember what happened. One minute, I'm running down the road from those Heartless bugs, and the next thing I know…I was waking up on the beach. It was night out, this gorgeous meteor shower and all, and I was just lying out on the sand. I didn't even realize I had this," she indicated the ring, "until Kairi found me the next morning."
Kouji examined the strange piece of jewelry. It was a simple band of silver metal, about two inches thick, liberally swirled with some sort of polished, pale purple gem. It didn't slip down on top of her shoe like one would suspect, rather, it hovered over the navy blue sock as though held up by unseen strings.
The young swordsman narrowed his eyes. Could it really be…?
"Do you know what it is?" He asked.
"Not exactly, but…" Izumi grinned with an almost frighteningly little glint in her blue eyes. "Wait'll you see what it can do."
Kouji opened his mouth to ask, but before he could get the words past his lips, Sora and the others leaned back again with a collective sigh. Seems they'd finally finished off their conversation about Riku and the King and how it was in the 'old days' before the Heartless appeared, and for the most part, they seemed a bit more relaxed.
As it was, Kairi turned to Kouji rather suddenly, her blue eyes sparkling cutely as her hands tucked in by her sides. "Hey, Kouji?" She said in a sort of airy voice. "Can I ask you something?"
The dark-haired boy raised an eyebrow, but shrugged. "Shoot."
"Do you know somebody named Kouichi?"
Kouji stiffened sharply at his brother's name, while Sora's eyebrows shot to his hairline in surprise. Goofy promptly toppled over backwards, while Donald nearly leapt onto the table.
Izumi, on the other hand, simply cocked her head to one side in a curious manner. "Of course he does." She said, blinking. "I'm sure I've told you that, Kairi. Kouichi is Kouji's identical twin."
"His twin?" Kairi said carefully.
"Yeah, sure." Izumi reached into her back pocket and pulled out a small piece of paper, handing it to the other girl. "Take a look."
Kairi took it, holding it out flat so that the boys could see too. Kouji recognized it immediately: it was a group shot they had all taken together just after returning from the Digital World. The six of them were gathered at the Shibuya station, the place where they had 'met' so-to-speak, right next to the statue of Hachiko in a sort of bunch. Tomoki was grinning at the camera from the very front, while Kouichi, Izumi and Junpei made up a line behind them. Kouji and Takuya were standing on a bench, the latter giving a confident thumbs-up sign, the former with his arms around his brother's shoulders. They were all smiling.
The picture was, to Kouji, very important. He kept it taped to the mirror in his room, right where he could see it every day. The only picture he cared about more than that one was closed in the frame he carried in his pocket…
"See? That's Kouichi, right there." Izumi pointed to the boy in question, who was reaching up to hold his brother's arms in an affectionate manner.
"Oh…" Kairi whispered softly, with a sort of understanding breath. "So that's him."
"Why do you ask, Kairi?" Sora asked, frowning a bit. Seemed he wasn't too happy about Kairi knowing another boy. "How did you even know his name?"
Kairi flushed just a bit and folded her hands into her lap. The rest of the group turned their eyes to her in a curious manner, and she obviously wished she hadn't said anything at all.
"It's just that…you see…" She sighed and composed her thoughts. "About a month ago, right before Izumi showed up, I had this…dream…"
( - )
"Who's there?"
Her voice echoed out through the mist. That was all she could see anywhere around her, nothing but mist. Though not too far beyond the edge of the wispy white haze, she could make out a strange shadow. It was a familiar shape. It looked human.
"Who's there?" She repeated, moving towards the dark outline. "Who are you?"
"Who're you?" Asked a soft, male voice. She could see his face now, somewhat clearly. Dark hair, dark eyes, a gentle expression. He seemed just as nervous and hesitant as she was, wandering lost here in the fog.
She smiled, trying to be friendly. "Kairi. My name's Kairi."
"Kairi." The strange tried it out and seemed to like it. "It's a pretty name."
"Thank you." Kairi's grin widened just a bit, flattered by the compliment. "Can you tell me yours?"
The boy blinked at her, then smiled. He took a deep breath of moist, misty air before the soft whisper echoed out once again.
"I'm Kouichi."
TBC…
- If you don't know the original Kingdom Hearts, Sora lives in a group of islets known as Destiny Islands. The larger isles have cities on them, with schools and such, But the island Sora claims as 'his' is actually a play-place for the children. They row out there in boats and play together on this one small island, like an isolated kiddie park.
(snicker snick) BWAHAHAHA! In case you can't tell, Takuya and Taichi stumbled into the City of F, home of Excel Excel and all the other wacky characters of Excel Saga. That show is absolutely hilarious, with basically no plot and lots of humor. They parody a different kind of Japanese TV program every episode! (Romance, youth dramas, detective shows, color-coded 'action rangers', you name it). I'll try to explain the jokes I use as best I can for those who haven't seen it.
First of all, death in this show never means anything. The Great Will of the Macrocosm can always bring them back by resetting the storyline, and Excel's partner Hyatt just revives on her own. That's like her whole point of being there, except for teasing Watanabe and making Excel look incompetent.
The main character, Excel Excel, is utterly obsessed with the leader of the Secret Ideological Organization ACROSS, Lord Il palazzo, and will do anything for him, including, but not limited to, murder, bombing and kamikaze attacks. She's also regularly dropped into a bottomless pit in the ACROSS home base.
- This new item makes the fourth one we've seen: Izumi's Areoga Ring, also known as the Wind Anklet. Six to go, remember? I'll show you what it does in the next chapter.
"…the statue of Hachiko…" - This is a very famous statue of a Japanese Akita dog, which sits outside Shibuya station. It is to commemorate a dog named Hachiko, who belonged to a professor at Tokyo University. Every day, Hachiko would walk his master to Shibuya Station to see him off and come back to greet him when he got back every day. After many years of this, the professor suffered a fatal heart attack at work, and no one could explain to Hachiko that he was gone. The dog continued to come back to the same spot every day until he died ten years later. Touched by the dog's loyalty, an artist sculpted a bronze statue of Hachiko, which sits outside of Shibuya Station where the dog would wait for its master. The statue is now one of the most famous meeting sites in the Tokyo area.