"Everyone's safe, thank goodness," Jane reports, surrounded by gorillas that seem relieved to be out of danger, talking amongst themselves. "From what I can tell, anyway."

Tarzan is engaged at the moment in a conversation with his mother and Kerchak, and if Sora's not mistaken, the silverback doesn't look as angry with Tarzan as he did before.

"Even if we didn't find Riku, or Kairi, or your king," he says to his companions, grinning, "at least we were able to help these guys out."

"That seems to be a bit of a theme with us," Azlyn points out tiredly, scowling a bit at the seeming lack of progress in any real goals so far.

"That Gummi proves the king was here, though," Telary says, resting on a fallen log. Unbeknownst to him, the gorilla Clayton had attempted to shoot earlier, Terk, is standing only a few feet behind him, eyeing the mage fascinatedly. "So we know we're at least on the right… AH!"

While Telary had been talking, Terk has moved closer to him, and begins busily searching his ginger hair for any signs of dirt or bugs. Maybe the worst part of the whole process is that she's finding some!

"Communal grooming!" Jane exclaims with scientific fascination, rushing forward to get a better look at the process.

After a few moments of checking things out and realizing that the thing Terk is busily picking over isn't going to strike back, a few more eager young apes move over to start their own examinations.

One of them unwisely moves towards Azlyn.

"Don't even think about it!" the knight warns, slapping away a hairy hand. Cowed, the gorilla slinks back over to Telary.

After finishing conversing with Kerchak and his mother, making sure that everyone in the family is alright, Tarzan knuckles over to Sora, looking pleased.

"Sora see friends," the wild man grunts, eyes bright as he looks upon his friend. Sora's eyes go wide and interested, even as Tarzan repeats the mysterious gorilla word that has vexed the Keyblade wielder for hours now.

"Riku and Kairi?" he exclaims, unable to contain his excitement. "You know where they are. Tarzan find Sora's friends?"

"Tarzan Sora go!" Tarzan confirms, gesturing for the boy to follow him.

"Guys, come on!" Sora yells to his companions, gesturing wildly over to the grooming hoopla centered on Telary, who's trying to work out the least impolite way to turn down the six-legged snack one of the gorillas is offering him.

With Tarzan leading, Sora, Azlyn, Telary, and Jane all begin a short hike through the jungle, the moonlight shining from the gaps in the trees above providing illumination.

"I can't believe it!" Sora says enthusiastically after a few minutes. "After Tarzan couldn't find them in the gorilla place, I thought for sure he'd been wrong about Riku and Kairi. But now…"

"Hang on a second, Sora," Telary says gently, holding up a hand and looking around the jungle. "Does anyone else hear that?"

Indeed, a continuous dull roar can be heard echoing through the night air.

"Yeah," Azlyn agrees, eyes narrowing a bit, just in case.

After a moment, Jane suddenly perks up. "Oh, I think I've got it!" she enthuses, waving an excited hand in the air. "We're heading towards a… a waterfall…"

As they breach the cover of the trees to stand upon a grassy cliff, everyone pauses and gapes in wonder at the natural beauty on display before them. A huge lagoon, surrounded by green grass and various flowers in every color of the rainbow and then some, lays about a hundred feet below them, moonlight glinting off the water's edge. Near the closest shore, the dark outlines of schools of fish can be seen swimming just below the surface.

On the northern shore of the lake stands a stone cliff that towers high above the group's own vantage point, a mighty deluge of water roaring down it, the lunar light reflecting off the gathered foam.

Tarzan points enthusiastically at the waterfall and grunts out the gorilla word, moving then to the cliff and indicating a sturdy vine the group can use to climb down.

The group descends with little issue, though Telary snags his foot on a loose rock about two-thirds of the way down and falls the final, mercifully short distance to the ground. After it's assured that he's alright, they move on.

The sound of the falls increases to an almost deafening volume, halting communication for several minutes. After following the water's edge to the cliff, the group finds the entrance to a cave hidden in the cliff face.

Telary ignites a magical fire at the end of his wand, providing light as the group continues into the cavern. The sound of beating water surrounds them now, muffled by several feet of thick rock, growing even fainter as they descend deeper into the cave.

"I guess Riku and Kairi must have hidden down here," Sora says, mostly to himself, his voice shaking on every word. Azlyn puts a supportive hand on his shoulder.

"Before we find them," she says, looking away for a quick second before once again meeting the Keyblade wielder's eyes, "I just want to say that I'm really sorry about what I've been saying. Not just earlier in the jungle, but ever since we started traveling together. I knew finding your friends is important to you, and I didn't even care. That was wrong, and I hope that you'll forgive me."

Sora is silent for a few moments, staring resolutely at the ground. After a few seconds, though, he returns his gaze to Azlyn's eyes.

"I forgive you, Azlyn," the boy says with a grin, eyes bright. "I get that you're homesick, and scared about completing your first big mission. We're both in the same boat, actually. I got so focused on my problems that I forgot about your feelings too. So, I'm sorry for that."

"Let's just call it all forgiven, okay?"

"Sure thing Azlyn."

Finally, the group reaches their destination, a large cavern of dark rock, so deep in the cliff side that the roar of the waterfall is but a dull grumble in the background. Set against the back wall is the root of a large tree, covered in moss and white flowers. Moonlight streams over the root from holes high above.

Riku and Kairi are nowhere to be found.

"Tarzan," Sora whimpers, stepping up to the ape man with a bewildered expression. "What's going on, I thought that you said…"

Tarzan grunts the unknown word, gesturing with his head to the root of the tree. "Friends there," he says, expression serious. "See friends there." Once more, the unknown word, followed by a bump of his chest.

"Oh!" Jane exclaims, drawing everyone's attention. "I think I understand now. That word Tarzan has been saying, I think that it means 'heart'. He's saying that friends are in our hearts."

"Oh," Sora says simply, tears welling up in his eyes. "That's what he meant, huh?" Azlyn and Telary step forward and each place a comforting hand on the crestfallen boy, Telary on his right shoulder and Azlyn against his back. He sags, leaning back onto both of them.

"Friends same heart," Tarzan continues, focused now on the stump glowing softly in the moonlight. "Clayton lose heart. No heart, no see friends."

"I'm really sorry, Sora," Telary says, moving forward and putting his whole arm around his companion's shoulders. "I wish we'd been able to find your friends here."

"Yeah," Azlyn agrees, stepping to Sora's other side and adding her own arm. "But we'll see them eventually. You can count on it."

Sora is silent for a full minute, several tears escaping down his cheeks. "Thanks you guys," he says finally. "You know something though? I did find friends here, I think. You guys. I know we've been travelling together for a little while now, but I think it took until now to actually see that we're more than just sharing a ride. We're friends now, the three of us. I may have lost my best friends, but I think I got some pretty good ones out of it in the end." He turns to Jane and Tarzan then, still grinning. "And you guys too, of course."

Jane is openly crying now, and Tarzan rests his head on her stomach to comfort her. "This really has been the trip of a lifetime, you know," she says through the tears. "I just wish my father were here to see it."

Sora gives the scientist a sympathetic grin, then turns back to the tree root. It really is beautiful, with the moonlight giving it a silvery glow. But there's something else about it, too, something the moonlight's glint reveals.

The boy steps forward, brushing Azlyn and Telary off of him. Suddenly, the Keyblade appears in his hand, though whether Sora consciously summoned it or not he can't say. When the moonlight hits the metal of the blade it begins to glow as well, especially on the tip, where the light seems to actually be gathering together…

Suddenly a beam shoots straight from the Keyblade to the root, mirroring exactly what happened with the Doorknob in Wonderland. The wood's glow seems its own now, no longer relying on the moon's reflection. The beam meets the root, and after a moment it disappears, a strong, unmistakable click echoing in the cavern.

The root loses its glow almost immediately, once again becoming a regular stump of wood. In front of it rests an odd, multi-colored object.

"It's a Gummi block," Telary says, stepping forward to retrieve it, holding it up to the light of the moon.

"Not the king's though," Azlyn sighs, frowning deeply. "I guess neither of us were right about what we'd find here."

"Does that mean you'll be moving on?" Jane asks.

"Afraid so," Telary replies as he puts the Gummi block away in a pouch on his pants. "It seems to me that we've still got a lot of ground to cover if we're going to find who we're looking for."

"Well, I wish you the best of luck," Jane says with a bright smile. "And if you ever get the chance to come back and visit, well…" She gives Tarzan a look of pure affection. "We'll be here. I plan on sticking around for as long as I can."

"Good to know." The energy of the cavern seems to shift then, as Telary looks at Azlyn with a gaze that speaks volumes.

"Hey, Jane," the knight says to the scientist, casting a nervous glance at Sora before turning to her, "why don't you go back to camp, huh? With Tarzan. We'll stop by before we leave but, uh, right now, me and Telary need to talk to Sora. Alone."

"Uh, certainly," Jane agrees, detecting the change in the air a bit nervously. "We'll see you then." She moves to exit, then realizes that Tarzan isn't following her. "Come along Tarzan. I sense we're not needed here at the moment."

The ape man gives Azlyn and Telary a quizzical look before turning and following Jane out of the cave.

They leave and the air goes silent, excepting the dull sound of the waterfall. Sora looks at his friends, confused as to what is so important they needed to shoo Tarzan and Jane.

"What's going on, guys?" the boy asks after a few silent, tense seconds. "Is there something wrong?"

"Well, Sora," Telary answers nervously, losing his voice for a moment before Azlyn grips his wrist and helps him recover it. "Now that we're officially friends, I mean, we had the big moment and everything, and I guess friends uh, well…"

"What he's trying to say," Azlyn steps in, looking directly at Sora's absolutely bewildered face, "is that friends don't keep secrets from each other. Not good friends, at least. And, uh, boy do we have a whopper to tell you…"

KH-KH-KH

There's something so awkward about the scene playing out in the green fire projection that even the nefarious feel discomfort watching the pair from Disney Castle stammer through the exposure of their deception.

"So this entire time, it's been nothing but hapless children foiling our schemes!" the woman with eight limbs rages, one of her more exotic appendages slamming to the ground angrily. "They're not even real knights!"

"It is a rather poor reflection upon the Heartless we've been sending out so far, I must admit," the man in the turban agrees much more calmly. "It seems that luck, not skill, has been the order of the day for these would-be heroes."

"Luck certainly wasn't on the side of that bilge rat hunter!" the man with a hook instead of a hand sneers. "He called up those Heartless, and it swoggled him in the end, it did!"

"A powerful and timely reminder, I should think," the group's jade-skinned leader adds, seated on her throne. "Unless one keeps one's heart guarded against the darkness of the Heartless, they are little more than fodder for them. I'd be sure to keep that in mind, were I you."

"Regardless of his companion's lack of experience, the boy is surely becoming a problem," the man in the turban says, changing the subject. "That's two Keyholes he has been able to seal. A drop in the ocean compared to what we have accomplished, but nonetheless, if even one world remains immune to the darkness…"

"I wouldn't worry yourself overmuch, Jafar," Maleficent says dismissively. "By the time he manages to find the rest, our other plan will be long completed. I understand the Heartless just successfully captured another princess. That brings our total to four of seven. It shan't be long before we locate the others as well, I should think."

"Well I still think we oughta step up our game against this key-brat," the wet witch growls. "Trust me when I say that unexpected loopholes always cause trouble."

"Yes, Ursula, perhaps it is time to make a more concerted move against the boy and his companions," Maleficent agrees. Eyes narrowing in intense thought, she rises and takes a few steps around the stone table showing the would-be heroes. "With their ship so damaged from their crash into the jungle, I'd imagine they'll need to make use of a repair facility. I can think of only one such place they could go for that kind of work."

"The castle?" the man in the red coat says incredulously. "If that's the case, then we may be in serious trouble. I thought you said the Heartless couldn't operate there because…"

"The Heartless cannot set foot on the king's world, true enough," the jade-skinned witch agrees, something smug in her voice, "But I have… other agents in place. All they require is the word from me, and they will make their move."

"And they are powerful enough to complete the task?" Jafar asks, wiping some dust from his staff's head.

"Oh, yes," Maleficent replies, a wicked grin coming over her face. "Quite powerful indeed…"