SORA

"Here, Sora," Ariel called after her as the trio made to leave the grotto for the final time. "I wanted you to have this."

Sora turned to see Ariel had followed her out with her arm extended, and something clutched in her hand. The Ansem Report.

The trio were initially tempted to just take the Ansem Report—or, at least Donald was—but after a vote decided against it. It wasn't terribly long, Sora considered to herself, she and the others could probably recite the gist of it to Jiminy when they got back. But now it seemed they wouldn't have to.

"What? But," Sora looked down at the paper and back up again. "But it's yours. You said so yourself, you don't come by much of humans' books or paper stuff, or even paintings. It doesn't last long in the water. This is priceless to you, isn't it?"

"It is," Ariel relented, "But it's priceless to you too. You use these to try and fix what the heartless and people like Ursula mess up, right? I want to help."

She held out the paper towards Sora, who hesitated before she took it.

"Thank you."

Ariel smiled. "Think of me when you read it. And visit me again one day, okay?"

At this, Sora smiled back.

"I will."

She flopped onto the gummi ship floor unceremoniously and gave a strangled groan at the herculean effort of raising her hand towards Jiminy, the soaking wet Ansem Report clutched within it. Sora didn't bother to lift her face as she could hear his tiny footsteps approach her hand. Beside her, Donald and Goofy were in similar states of exhaustion from the nigh-endless swimming.

"My goodness, what's this?" Jiminy inquired. Sora could feel the edges of her fingers brush against the paper as it was taken away and hear the wet peeling noise as it was carefully unfolded. Jiminy gave an excited gasp. "Wow!"

"'s it salvageable?" Donald asked, his already hard to understand voice now nearly unintelligible as he spoke into the floor where he laid face-down. "You can read it?"

"I sure can," Jiminy replied, "Why, it's amazing it wasn't affected much at all by the water. The ink hasn't run one drop."

The trio all gave muffled vaguely enthusiastic cheers.

"I'm gonna go dry this off before recording it, but should I tell the autopilot to take us somewhere else while you guys, uh, take a breather for a bit?" He asked as he stepped out of reach of the growing puddle around them. "Maybe get some towels?"

"Towels. Yes. 'Nother world. No," Sora was too tired to say anything with more syllables than absolutely necessary. "Tired."

"'Nother world yes," Donald insisted.

"No."

"Yes."

"No!"

"Choose whatever world ya like, Jiminy," Goofy finally spoke up, his voice equally as stifled. "Towels would be nice."

"You got it. I saw the next one on the list was someplace nearby called 'Neverland', I'll set it to that. I'll be back with those towels in a jiffy."


KAIRI

Riku's back was to her and Captain Hook as he watched the rippling waves stream behind The Jolly Roger through the windows of the captain's cabin of the ship, completely unconcerned with Captain Hook's currently ongoing tirade on what had happened during the day's mission.

Kairi had seen Riku taking in the room as he disinterestedly glanced around when they had first arrived, his eyes skimming over its glossy wood construction with the red-and-gold carpet that nearly spanned from wall to wall. The upright piano in the corner with its velvet cushioned seat. The desk in the middle of the room with a map of Neverland unfurled atop it and a copy of the Ansem's Report Maleficent had left with Captain Hook. The desk's chair, so carefully gilded and carved it looked out of place next to the comparatively spartan desk. The row of swords and daggers on a rack in the other corner.

Captain Hook hadn't liked it one bit when Riku declared on arrival that he and Kairi would be staying in this room. But he didn't allow himself much room to argue—Riku could control the heartless and Captain Hook was far too reluctant to try, having chosen to scorn the creatures instead. Perhaps it was more accurate to merely call him 'Hook' now, as he didn't have much say in what went on aboard the ship when Riku was there with the heartless to back up his demands.

"I'm sure Maleficent will not be pleased to hear of your behavior today," Hook finished.

"I'm sure Maleficent won't care," Riku replied disinterestedly, as he meandered over to the piano in the corner and pressed down on one of the keys. The noisy push of the waves against the hull was interrupted by a plink!

Hook spluttered angrily. The ends of his moustache shook as his mouth bent into an ugly line.

"You refused to help complete the mission. Not even my own men would be so obstinate," His hook had risen over the course of his tirade to the point where it was brandished towards Riku. The silver polish had taken on a multicolored sheen as the hook reflected the room's candlelight and the dispersing cloud of colorful dust that had glittered just outside the window. "Not to mention those contemptible beasts you flaunt just—"

Hook burst forth with an angry yell and his hook still brandished menacingly, having lost his temper before he could even finish his sentence. Until he stopped short.

A Dark portal was suspended on the window beside Riku, who hadn't even bothered turning around or giving any indication he had heard Hook aside from his raised hand teasing along the edge of the portal. A heartless peered out of the portal just slightly, its glowing yellow eyes fixed on Hook.

The threat was unspoken, but Hook heard it just fine.

Hook's face purpled with barely restrained rage at the sight of the heartless, and he stomped towards the door and threw it open.

"Scurvy brat."

And with that, Hook slammed the door shut. They could hear his steps click in a rapid beat down the hall.

Riku wordlessly sent the heartless away and shut the portal, before walking back to Kairi's bed as he dragged the piano stool behind him. He sank down onto it. Outside she could see a glittering multicolored dust envelop the ship once more and it slowly began to take flight, the rocking of waves against the hull growing fainter until it stopped. The visage of London was now nothing more than some distant black shapes against the horizon.

"Whatever happened, it doesn't matter," Riku said. Kairi couldn't tell this time if he were speaking to her or himself. It could be both. "This whole thing is pointless anyway. Maleficent's just trying to distract me."

She was a little confused at this. The task itself, from what Kairi had heard of it entailing so far, was almost identical to the others she knew Riku had been on. Capture some girl. Well, she knew this mission required that at least. Usually they had to taint the world's Heart, but Kairi hadn't heard any mention of that from either Riku or Hook. What Riku was saying now must have had to do with what he told her as they were climbing aboard.

As if hearing her unasked question, Riku responded.

"Right, I was going to tell you why I had to take you with me this time," He sighed. "Got off track there for a while, didn't I?"

He pursed his lips.

"I found out where Alice and Jasmine went."

In the wake of such a statement, the silence was deafening. Riku's face tightened as he stared up at the ceiling. If Kairi had any means of control over her body, her pulse would have thundered. His voice wavered slightly as he spoke.

"Maleficent…Maleficent kept them and the others she'd imprisoned in these little glass caskets. That's really the only way I can describe them—they were in these grooves in the walls specially carved out for them under glass, with all this weird black stone growing around their legs keeping them there. Not that that was really necessary, since she'd put them to sleep too. Some sort of magical sleep."

Is that where I'll go?

He then angled his head down. "Maybe I should be thankful that at least they looked peaceful, like she had some scrap of mercy on them. I don't know. Mostly I was just freaked out by it. I'm still mad at myself for not wondering much about where they went earlier than that; I seriously had thought…I don't really know what I thought happened to them."

Riku's expression soured into a grimace.

"I can't believe I actually had the gall to not even consider where they'd gone. I never really forgot about it, but I never bothered to think very much about it either. It's so obvious in retrospect."

He went on, "But anyway, Maleficent must have noticed I was there or something, since she came over not long after I'd walked in. I demanded to know what the whole setup was, what she'd done with them, and—Kairi, you wouldn't believe it. She tried pulling that 'balance' excuse again. She thought I'd fall for it one more time. Even after I called her on it, Maleficent still claimed it was about balance for her."

"I asked her what she had talked about with Jafar. Remember? The stuff about the Door and the Princesses of Heart."

Of course Kairi had thought about it. She could barely think about anything else but that, regardless of whether or not she wanted to.

"Apparently the Princesses of Heart were meant to act as part of the key to the Door, and Hook and all of Maleficent's other cronies are supposed to be the other part. Including me. To make the key requires Hearts of Light and Dark, so you can see why the Princesses of Heart were necessary for the Light part."

"As for the Door, that in itself isn't as important as what's beyond it," Riku said. "Somewhere in the worst of a Darkness nobody's ever seen is the Door to something called Kingdom Hearts. Maleficent said there were a bunch of names for it, but that was the most common one. And from what I could understand Kingdom Hearts is basically nothing but Light."

Wait, wait, wait. This was beginning to sound a little familiar.

The memory of her grandmother's story flashed in Kairi's mind.

"Well, not just Light. She said there was all sorts of wisdom in there as well, and power. I really don't want to think of what Maleficent would do with it if she ever opened the Door—I won't let her. I'll make sure of it," His gaze flickered to Kairi guiltily. "I'll find a way to open the Door myself, without hurting anyone like she did. There's gotta be some sort of information in there on how to save you. Something on how to fix this mess between the Light and Dark, too. I'll get to it before Maleficent does."

He didn't speak after that, choosing instead to leave the room shortly thereafter. And as Riku closed the door behind him as he left the room, Kairi's head spun once more with an influx of information and what it could mean.

Her grandmother's story…it was more than just a reminder of hope. It was real.

Kairi agreed with Riku on one thing: Neither of them wanted Maleficent to reach Kingdom Hearts. But they disagreed on something else, she thought to herself as she remembered that worrying lone star of Light in the middle of all the Dark in his Heart.

Kairi didn't want Riku to reach Kingdom Hearts either.


RIKU

After he left the captain's quarters of The Jolly Roger, his quarters now, Riku sauntered down the quarter deck and gun deck. He couldn't deny his endless amusement at being the de facto captain of the ship. A pirate ship at that—Sora would be so jealous.

Oh. Right.

Sora.

Riku ducked his head so none of the crew could see his cheeks burn. At least nobody knew of the way his Heart gave a pained twinge at the thought of her.

And he made sure nobody knew of his continued spars with the heartless Soras, either.

After that time where he…Riku wasn't sure what that was, but he refused to call it a kiss, Riku had made absolutely sure it never happened again. He reminded himself at several points during each spar to remember this was a heartless Sora, not real, even as he'd gotten better and better with making them imitate her image. The yellow heartless eyes were now a much more human blue, and the black shades that made up their forms were now the same color palette of her clothes. Sometimes Riku forgot—The belt, for example, was yellow one day until he remembered correctly—but he always fixed it quickly enough. But he would make sure he never mistook the heartless as anything other than heartless ever again, even if they looked perfectly human.

Thankfully it was easier now to remember that fact, whenever Riku found himself beginning to slip again: No matter how warm their gazes seemed, their hands were always cold.

In the middle of a bout, a brush here and a swipe there, the chill brought him back to reality. Down from the images of waves and sandy shores in his head and back towards the half-light of the dying sun in Hollow Bastion.

Riku ducked down a hallway and climbed up the ladder he saw at the end. He wanted to see the night sky. It had been while since he had seen any time of day other than sunset, with the last time he had seen stars being the reunion with Sora in Traverse Town.

Ordinarily the fact that The Jolly Roger was in outer space would have posed a problem, what with the lack of breathable air. But pixie dust had some interesting properties—apart from allowing the ship to be capable of flight, it also provided enough of an atmosphere on and immediately around the ship for them to breathe and not be swept away by the vacuum of space. When Maleficent inquired to Hook as to how he was planning to get to London from Neverland—for the two were actually smaller separate worlds that orbited each other rather than one larger one, and Hook insisted on bringing his whole crew and ship along on the mission for some undoubtedly egocentric reason—he laughed.

"Not to worry," Hook had said, "I've got something special from a friend that'll help me out."

It had turned out to be an enormous vat of the stuff, glowing a whole spectrum of hues, that was soon overturned and sprinkled from bowsprit to rudder while Riku was in the captain's quarters visiting Kairi as they made to begin the short journey out of London. Hook never mentioned who the friend was that gave him such a present, if it was a present at all. Riku wouldn't be surprised if it turned out to be illicitly gained, Hook seemed just as unsavory as the rest of Maleficent's cohorts.

Riku's eyes widened as he climbed up the last ladder and opened the hatch to reveal endless stars above.

Out along the deck heartless and pirates alike scurried about, though Riku noticed there were more of the former than the latter wandering around at this point compared to when he first boarded, and far up over the deck he could hear a badly played accordion accompany a warbled sea shanty from one of the crow's nests. Riku couldn't help his grin at the noise, as much of a nuisance as it was. Everything was so real. He really was on a pirate ship, even if over half of the crew were heartless.

He walked over to the railing and felt the divots and grooves under his fingertips, listened to the clinking rustle of the sails. The din of conversation and footsteps all around.

And the best part of it all…the night sky that was everywhere you looked. No borders around, or below, or above. Just the comforting constancy of the stars' light and the knowledge that even the heartless were under his command on the ship. It was the first time on his journey that Riku truly felt free.

Then Riku remembered—Kairi. She'd love to see the sky.

That is, if she could see it at all. Riku liked to think that maybe she could, even if she gave no indication of being capable, but a small part of him hoped anyways. He summoned the Dark portal without even a blink and stepped through into the captain's quarters.

Everything was exactly as he'd left it, down to the stool that still sat beside Kairi in her bed.

"I've got something to show you," was all Riku said as he scooped her up and summoned another portal. They stepped through back onto the main deck, and Riku laid her down gently so that she was partially seated upright—albeit somewhat leaning over awkwardly—and he sat down next to her against the railing.

"There's so many more stars out here than there are on the islands," Riku said quietly. He looked up, trying to trace some sort of pattern out of the stars, but eventually shook his head. "Even though we pretended to be pirates so much when we were little, I've never been any good at recognizing most of the more complex constellations. Too many stars start to blend together," Riku chuckled. "I always preferred the usual map and compass."

There was no response, and eventually his smile slowly died. Riku picked at a loose chip of wood in one of the floorboards. And then he remembered what he had told her earlier. Or to be more accurate, didn't tell her.

"Right. I forgot to tell you why I had to take you with me earlier, didn't I? And why I thought Maleficent was just trying to distract me with this task," He cleared his throat as he glanced around to make sure nobody was close enough to overhear. Riku wasn't sure where to begin.

"So in the hall where the Princesses of Heart are, with Alice and Jasmine, there's an empty space."

He picked at the loose chip hard enough to pry it loose and started working on the frayed edges of the floorboard around it. "I've been wondering who would go there. At the same time, I don't really want to know, you get what I mean? But," Riku sighed. "It's important. I want to stop her from getting to them, whoever they are. And I'm pretty sure Maleficent knows that."

"So I think that's why she gave me the ability to control the heartless and sent me here. To distract me. Of course, the official reason is that she thinks this Wendy girl might have your Heart and that we're supposed to capture her, but I'm done doing her dirty work. And it's so obviously fake—she's leaving for a task of her own at the exact same time and didn't give me any conclusive answer as to what she'd be doing when I asked later. Suspicious, right? So I told her I'm taking you with me, and I'll get to why in a second, but I knew I made the right choice when she made this sort of face."

Riku tried to imitate Maleficent's momentary grimace, but felt more like he was doing an impression of a cat that had smelled something particularly foul. He stopped.

"Anyways, I had to take you with me because I'm pretty sure she's planning something with you. Like I said when I first brought you aboard. Because a while back when I first started working with her, I mentioned this one guy that helped me out a lot at the start of this whole journey and Maleficent warned me that 'nothing is free'. Which is," He waved his hand uselessly, "Sure, okay. It makes sense. But then she went on to help me out way more than she initially promised: Not just with giving me the ability to control the heartless, but by helping you get your Heart back. Maleficent doesn't seem like the kind of person to just do nice things for no reason, so hopefully you have an idea of why I'm suspicious."

The conversation, as one-sided as it was, died at that point and he leaned back to look at the stars again. Kairi hadn't given any indication that she'd heard anything he said. But that was okay.

It was nice to see the similarities between this world and the islands—Wonderland was a topsy-turvy place that made less sense the more you looked, and the only thing Agrabah had in common with the islands was the sand. Traverse Town was the closest he'd seen yet, but even that was more like some place out of a fairy tale. But it was the stars here, the ocean, that reminded him of Destiny Islands.

Riku almost, almost missed the place. But then he banished the idea from his mind without a second thought. Home was not a home at all, but a prison. It was best to leave the place in the past where it belonged.

"And it is Darkness that will help you gain the strength and freedom that you seek."

How right he was.

Before Riku could think on the matter anymore, however, a darting gleam amongst the stars caught his eye. He thought for a moment that it was a shooting star, perhaps, but it didn't fizzle out after a couple of seconds as it should have. It kept going and seemed like it was getting closer. It looked like…a rocket?

"So you're coming with us, right? We've got this awesome rocket, wait 'til you see it!"

Riku's Heart skipped a beat and he stood so quickly he nearly knocked Kairi over. "S-Sorry, sorry," He bent down quickly to steady her and looked around. Up on the forecastle the helmsman manning the ship's wheel hadn't noticed a thing. He ran to him.

"Hey," Riku called out, and tried again. "Hey!"

The helmsman turned and flinched almost too quickly for Riku to notice. "Aye, sir?"

Sir. Sir. It was one thing to be regarded with authority by creatures like the heartless, and another thing entirely to have it come from other people. Riku felt a pleased rush at the title. He could get used to this.

"See that trailing star up there?" Riku said as he pointed towards the rocket, and the helmsman followed his hand. "It's a rocket. I need you to get us to it."

"Um…What's a rocket, sir?"

"Never mind that, just steer the ship so we can intercept its path."

"Alright then," The helmsman followed the order hurriedly, and Riku could feel the ship start to change direction. The helmsman peeked at him with some nervous curiosity. "What'll we be do when we get close, sir?"

Hook would probably come out in a little while to demand an answer as to why they were changing course, but Riku couldn't really care about that. Not when Sora could potentially be right there, right in front of him, in such a short time. The real Sora.

"We're going to capture it."


SORA

The trip to Neverland was supposed to only take about a day, but somehow the time had passed both in a pained eternity and the blink of an eye.

Sora woke slowly, and while the exhaustion wasn't as bad as when the trio initially flopped onto the gummi ship, every part of herself still felt like lead. It hurt to move even a finger. The next thing she noticed was that the puddle was gone, her clothes dry—as per the Fairy Godmother's enchantment—and Donald and Goofy had gotten up and went elsewhere in the gummi ship at some point when they had woken up. At some point, Goofy had replaced the towels Jiminy had draped over the three of them with a blanket. A pillow had been pushed under her head.

She gritted her teeth at the struggle to sit upright. Donald and Goofy must have taken potions or something to be able to move any more than a crawl, Sora figured. She decided to pull an ether from her pocket and do the same. The results were instantaneous, and she made her way to the cockpit after stashing the pillow and blanket back in the closet.

"Hey!" Goofy greeted her as she made her way into the room, and Sora could see Donald was already busy with the controls. Jiminy was probably still trying to transcribe the report after finishing drying it. "Did ya have a good sleep?"

"Yeah," She answered as she buckled herself in. "Needed some help getting up, though. I guess you guys did the same. Are we there yet?"

"Obviously not," Donald snorted. "It's coming right up, we'll be there in about an hour."

"Fine," Was all Sora said as she turned to watch the stars pass by slowly in the window.

It felt like another eternity passed by before she lost her patience. "How about now?"

"No," Donald said. Yet another eternity passed, within the span of two minutes at the most.

"…Now?"

"Don't make me turn this gummi ship around."

Now that was just silly. "Turn it around to where? We gotta get to Neverland anyway."

Donald made a short series of broken off noises like he was trying to formulate some sort of a response, before deciding on a put-upon sigh. Goofy looked as though he were going to step in, before his eyes flickered to the windshield and did a doubletake.

"Hey, uh, guys?" Goofy pointed. "I think there's a big ship catchin' up to us."

"Like a gummi ship?" Donald asked, but his question was answered in the next instant as an enormous, sparkling seafaring ship circled around them. They spied the skull as the figurehead with its crossbones 'X' on its crest.

"Is that a pirate ship?" Sora exclaimed, and would have unbuckled her seatbelt to get a closer look before Donald gave her the fiercest glare she'd seen from him yet.

"Quit gawking," Was all he said. She settled for leaning as far out of her chair as she could go. Donald swung the controls as he tried to steer away from its trajectory. But, as they soon noticed, the ship followed.

"I think it's going to ram us!" Sora remarked excitedly.

"It's trying," Donald grated as he forcefully yanked the controls far in the opposite direction to try and get away. But still the ship pursued them.

"We're about to get in a fight with some real-life pirates! In space!"

"I'm trying to avoid that!"

"I don't think ya can, Donald," Goofy supposed.

Donald turned his glare onto him next.

"Don't tell me what I can't do," He said, before flicking several switches beside him in short sequence. And with that, the gummi ship burst forth in a speed Sora had never experienced before as the trio all were thrown backwards in their seats. Her fingers gripped tightly at the armrests, and Sora swore she could even feel her face get squished slightly by the blinding speed they were going.

But then, the trio saw as they hurdled closer to Neverland—or what looked like the ocean of it—the pirate ship reached a new speed as a glittering cloud poured out over its exterior. And slowly it began to catch up to them.

But funnily enough, contrary to Sora's initial guess that the ship would ram theirs, it did nothing of the sort. Instead, the group saw it come closer, and closer, until it was near enough for Sora to begin to see the individual wooden planks that made the floorboards of its deck and the patches covering holes in the sail. And with that, the gummi ship had halfway fallen the rest of the way onto its deck. Sora could see the metal helm of Highwind had left gashes in the ship's construction, and came close to leaving a hole in the walls of its forecastle.

"Well that was a bust."

None of them disagreed with Donald.

"Maybe they're gonna be peaceful?" Goofy hoped aloud. Sora gave him a disbelieving look.

"A peaceful pirate?"

But before he could respond, another voice could be heard even through the windshield into the gummi ship. It turned out to be coming from a tall man enrobed in a scarlet knee-length coat trimmed with gold, with a matching plumed hat skewed just slightly on his head. A sword glittered at his side, matched by the silver hook that replaced his left hand.

"Come out," He crowed. "I'm Captain Hook, and you're all now prisoners of The Jolly Roger."


KAIRI

Kairi had been so excited with the prospect of the story she remembered so fondly being something more than a story, being history, that she had barely been able to pay attention to what Riku had said when he brought her out on the deck to see the stars.

An empty space in the hall where the Princesses of Heart resided. One that Maleficent sought to fill.

Was it a Kairi-shaped space, perhaps?

The grim humor made the corner of her lip quirk up as she slouched against the wall in the white room. It was a sad smile, but it was the first smile Kairi had at all in a while.

She figured that maybe she should treat the situation with a little more gravity—Maleficent would attempt to take another girl today, and if she succeeded then her plans would get that much closer to fruition. After all, Maleficent admittedly had a rather good track record so far: Whatever she sought, she got.

That is, except for Kairi's Heart.

It had evaded Maleficent for the better part of…however long it had been now since Kairi's body was found. The matter of keeping track of how many days had passed in a place like Hollow Bastion was easier said than done, with its perpetual sunset. As if Maleficent herself had lassoed it and kept it right where it was for some undiscernible reason. But if she was capable of such a thing, to poison an entire world and repurpose it for her own methods simply because she could, how was it still taking her this long to find Kairi's Heart and forge the key to Kingdom Hearts once and for all?

Then again, it wasn't as if Maleficent was impatient. According to the man in the hood she had been at this for a decade. And for someone like her, a fairy whose age could be beyond counting, that time may have passed without her even noticing. She had all the time in the world, and the next world, and the next after that. And so on.

But, Kairi reminded herself, there was still hope. Even in the deepest of that Darkness that encircled the worlds, there was still pinpricks of Light that saved everything. Even as the first great Light—Kingdom Hearts, she knew now—slept, and continued to sleep. And there was still that one star of Light in Riku's Heart, as miniscule as it was.

There was a Light in every Darkness.

Stop Riku and Maleficent, Kairi had told Sora. Save Jasmine. Her attempts to interfere didn't exactly pan out that time. But Maleficent wasn't here. And she couldn't stop Kairi from learning of her agenda for today. And, like with Agrabah, there wasn't much she could do to stop Kairi from telling Sora to get to whoever Maleficent was planning to take before she could get there. Sure, Kairi had no idea who it was exactly, or what world she was on. But Kairi and the trio just might be able to figure it out if they worked together.

The odds were long.

But there were odds.

Kairi smiled again, this time less sad than before. Maleficent could get there and find the girl already gone and the keyhole locked. Now there was another reason to hope.

She flicked through perspectives to her body, momentarily seeing herself back in the captain's quarters bed and Riku and Hook arguing about something else—something about heartless and Hook calling himself captain again?—and to Sora's. Before Kairi could reach further, to project herself in Sora's sight, she noticed something.

Sora, along with Donald and Goofy, were busy fighting heartless on the deck of a ship under the stars. The deck of a ship Kairi could swear she saw just minutes before. That she was seated at just minutes before.

Kairi checked the details more closely when she could: Amidst the swipes of a keyblade and alternating bursts of magic from both Sora and Donald, Kairi noticed the distinctive shapes of the railing beams of the deck. The carved pediments of the doors on the forecastle. The gas lantern swinging back and forth on its cast-iron mount. The patched white sails. The carpet of stars above, with an ocean supporting the ship now instead of twinkling light.

Sora was here. She was here on this ship, on The Jolly Roger. Right now.

Kairi's mind kicked into overdrive with possibilities: She could appear in Sora's perspective and warn her about everything. Even better, she could tell her exactly where Kairi's body was and to take it with her please Sora please take me with you. Then they could have a little more time to work against Maleficent's plans. And that man in the hood! They could avoid them both with hopping from world to world, Maleficent hadn't cast any magic on Kairi's body anyways, there'd be no need to worry about a tracking charm or whatever she called it, they could make a plan—

While thinking of the possibilities of this situation, Kairi had switched back to her own body suddenly. This time without her actively doing so.

Well, then. That was new.

Nothing she could see had changed, apart from the captain's quarters being devoid of both Riku and Hook. Kairi was still carefully laid out on the bed, the piano stool still beside her.

But there was one thing, Kairi realized, that she could feel had changed.

Her pulse. It had quickened in response to her excitement.

Her body had not changed one bit since this whole thing began. Not even when she first tried to move and realized she was trapped in her own body did it deign to respond, her pulse then just a slow plodding pace that did the basics and nothing more. There had been no quick and shallow breaths from her lungs, no raising of the downy hairs on her arms or any goosebumps, when Kairi had panicked at being trapped in the white room, the fake play island, forever. Where Kairi's mind was a whirl, her body was practically frozen in time. But that wasn't true anymore.

Now her body had begun to respond.


RIKU

He had to admit—it was a little worrying how it was taking so long for Sora to resurface from below deck.

Riku had wanted to see how she would fare without those 'friends' by her side, the duck and the dog. Hook's dwindling crew was not much help in the fight, as the last of them disappeared the minute Riku's heartless were unleashed. They must have bowed out. The crew had been unsettled by the creatures, it was obvious by the way they gave them a wide berth whenever they walked past, and the way they threw the heartless darting fearful glances. The prospect of having their glowing yellow eyes and gnarled claws turned onto them must have been the last straw.

Cowards. It wasn't as if the heartless were going to hurt their own comrades, Riku would have made sure of that. He already had made sure of they wouldn't harm Wendy. Didn't the crew know they were harmless so long as he was around?

And then Riku realized something: they had looked at him the same way they looked at the heartless. The fearful glances, the slight pitch in their voices whenever he addressed them. 'Sir'. The Dark part of his Heart had swelled with pride at their fear and resultant respect.

But another tiny part of him felt…ashamed. Sad.

Riku had looked at someone exactly like that once.

He held his arms and felt his fingers drift up and down his skin. He remembered where silvered scars had once lingered, and the ghosts of bruises resided beneath the sinew, deeper than bone. Memories engraved with pain that he still reminded himself of whenever he had to summon the Dark. Memories of his father.

But Riku was not him. He couldn't be him. He was doing all of this for a just cause, he had even taken Kairi along to make sure nothing would happen to her at the hands of Maleficent. He was trying to stopMaleficent, even. He was trying to end the tyranny of Light.

He glanced over at the heartless still wandering the deck, their antennae twitching at random. They were harmless and wouldn't do anything unless he commanded them to. He knew the heartless were capable of being agents of pain and terror. Riku had seen it in Agrabah. But that didn't mean he was the same as them, just because he commanded them. Right?

Right?

Riku glanced down at Kairi, where she was slumped over on the forecastle floor. It had been easier to position her upright this time compared to earlier when he had tried to show her the stars.

"I need your help in giving Sora a reminder of what's truly important," Riku had told Kairi as he scooped her up from the bed before stepping through the Dark portal. "Us. Her real friends. Not some…some replacements."

Riku knew Sora was strong enough to make it through the heartless he'd sent after the trio. He'd seen how she wielded (his) keyblade. So to do the same without that stupid duck and dog by her side should be nothing.

("Come on, Sora. I thought you were stronger than that.")

Besides, it wasn't as if the heartless killed the duck and the dog. Riku had given them strict instructions to separate the three and take them prisoner. So the other two were just locked up in one of the now-abandoned crew's quarters, and Sora would be walking out onto the deck any minute now hopefully.

And finally, she did.

Riku heard her before he ever saw her, as her footsteps made dulled thuds across the floor of the deck. The same shuffling walk with the slight bounce that hadn't changed one bit across her journey, and the second he recognized it Riku felt as if every corner of himself came to life. He wasn't aware that he had straightened his posture and nervously ran a hand through his hair until he felt it running through his gloved fingers.

The rest of her came into view and Sora paused when she noticed the heartless skulking around.

It was an interesting experience—and not unpleasant, if he had to be honest—to watch the real Sora walk and look around after his time with the countless fake Soras. To watch her walk and turn her head and search the deck without Riku having to order a heartless version to pretend.

Until Riku figured out that she was searching the deck for the stupid duck and dog, and not her real friends. Did Sora even realize he was on the ship too?

"I didn't think you'd come, Sora," Riku spoke up.

She turned and saw him at last. He could hear her small gasp across the deck, over the sounds of the ocean's waves and the rustling of the sails in the wind. Like every cell of himself and corner of his senses were attuned to Sora.

"Good to see you again," Riku said, and it was the truth. He took a step towards the railing. She looked around again.

"Where are Donald and Goofy?" Sora asked. "Where did you take them?"

He gnawed on the inside of his cheek. Here Riku was, so desperate to see her even after she'd cast him away for misconceptions. He who had made replicas to fill the void shaped like her in his Heart. And those were the first words out of her mouth upon seeing him again.

"Are they that important to you," He walked closer, and pressed into the railing. His fingers clenched onto it tightly, and Riku knew that under the gloves his fingertips were turning pink, then white as his grip clenched more. "More important than old friends? Instead of worrying about them, you should be asking…"

Riku moved aside so Sora could get a better view of the girl she'd left behind. The girl who needed their help most of all.

"…About her."

Sora turned around entirely at the sight of Kairi slouched over on the deck.

"Kairi!" She called out.

Finally. Took her long enough to show even a shred of concern.

"That's right," He gestured, and Sora looked bewildered at Kairi's lack of any signs of life. "While you were off goofing around, she's been stuck like this. Comatose. Maybe if her friends were by her side, we'd be able to find a way to fix whatever's wrong."

Sora tried to run to Kairi. But before she could make any significant headway, Hook appeared out of a Dark portal with his namesake held out to block her path. Riku saw the nearly imperceptible shiver run up his spine: Clearly Hook didn't have much experience yet with the chilling feeling of the Dark portals. No wonder he had insisted on taking The Jolly Roger for such a simple task, then.

"Not so fast," Hook jeered, "No shenanigans aboard my vessel, girl."

Riku squinted at his choice of words but didn't bother saying anything. He decided it was best to leave Hook to his own ego for now and deal with him later. Out of the corner of his eye Riku could see the heartless begin to gather around, and Sora shifted from foot to foot. (His) keyblade appeared in her hand.

Riku could tell the heartless were reacting to it slightly with their antennae twitching more, their claws flexing. Even he was reacting to the sight of (his) keyblade in her hand, with his grip on the railing tightening until he could feel splinters start to poke through his gloves.

"Riku, why are you siding with the heartless?" Sora asked. Her tone was laced with a desperate sort of anger, more sadness than fury. There was a twisting in his gut, then, and Riku couldn't tell if it was guilt or anger. It could be both.

"The heartless obey me, Sora," He replied. "Now I have nothing to fear."

And that was a lie. He had plenty to fear—Riku feared the prospects of never finding Kairi's Heart, never seeing the man in the hood again, never getting back (his) keyblade, never defeating Maleficent. He feared that he would never fulfill his mission to fix the balance between Light and Dark.

And now he was afraid (though really, it was one of his oldest fears) of ever becoming his father too. Or his mother, for that matter.

Riku was afraid of being anyone else other than Riku. And he was afraid of being anything else other than good. Such were the two things he was afraid of most of all.

"You're stupid!" Sora exclaimed, "Sooner or later they're going to swallow your Heart!"

Riku could feel himself redden with anger at that. He was the stupid one? Him, the one who knew better than to follow Light, and the only one of the two of them making any effort towards helping Kairi.

Stupid. Really?

"My Heart's a little too strong for that," He said, with a little more bluster than necessary. She slowly shook her head at him in disbelief. Riku gritted his teeth.

Fine. If hearing isn't believing, he thought to himself, then perhaps seeing is. Riku would just have to show her how strong his Heart was now.

"You're not the only one who's learned some fancy new tricks. I'll show you a few I've picked up along the way myself," Riku continued. "Like this, for instance."

With a wave of his hand, her shadow came to life. Riku couldn't deny the way his ire shifted to a Dark satisfaction when Sora fearfully gaped at the sight—A mirror image all in black, without even the characteristic yellow eyes that heartless usually had. It was the easiest one he'd made yet, given that all he had to do was transform the heartless to look exactly like the gaping chasm Sora had left in his life.

She stepped back from it, and Riku saw her feet settle onto one of the trapdoors the crew had used for traversing between their quarters and the main deck. How convenient.

"You can see your friends now," He quipped as the heartless shadow kicked open the trapdoor and Sora fell with a shriek down to the crew's quarters, now the prisoner cells. If she were lucky, maybe that stupid duck and dog would be there to catch her.

Riku jutted his chin towards Hook and ordered, "Let's get under way, already."

Hook scowled in response, but Riku didn't see it as he summoned a Dark portal and kneeled down to pick Kairi up to take her back to the captain's quarters. Riku didn't care what Hook thought, anyway. And then a thought came to him—Now that Sora saw Kairi, and was nearby, she might try to take her. If that were to happen, Kairi would be really out of luck at that point, as she'd be stuck with people that didn't care if she got her Heart back and wouldn't know how to help.

"And keep Sora away from Kairi," Riku added, before he and Kairi went through the Dark portal.


SORA

"Whoa-a-a-Oof!"

Her first thought was that it was dark. Her next thought was that at least she'd landed on a pile of cushions, it seemed.

Until said cushions began to move.

"Sora? Is that you?"

"Goofy!" Sora cheered, and figured out the cushions she thought she had landed on were instead Donald and Goofy. She quickly rolled off.

"Finally," Donald huffed as he brushed off his clothes and smoothed his feathers back into place. Beside him, Goofy picked his shield back up. It was hard to see them in the low light of the room.

But thankfully that made it hard for them to see her too. Sora could feel the momentary cheer at finding her friends again quickly shift to sadness from, well, finding her friends again. From finally seeing what Riku was talking about when he mentioned Kairi's condition back in Monstro. And from seeing the Dark depths Riku had sunken to.

"He is pretty unusual, I'll give you that—Not many puppets have Hearts." Riku shrugged. "I'm not sure, but maybe he could help someone who's lost theirs."

Kairi had lost her Heart somewhere along their journey. And if Riku wasn't careful, he'd lose his soon too. To the heartless.

"My Heart's a little too strong for that."

Sora's mind flashed to a faraway memory at the thought, a memory from the time before that fateful day when they'd discovered Kairi on the islands' shore. From a time when Riku wore the necklace that was around Sora's neck now. When a strange woman with a strange name warned Sora that Riku might one day wander the Darkness alone.

Sora hadn't really believed her back then.

How she regretted that now.

If Sora had followed her advice, would all of this have been different? Would Riku have been on the other side of that railing standing beside Sora? Would he be with her now, and they'd be saving the worlds together, and trying to get back Kairi's Heart? And at Monstro—

"Where did you go?" Goofy asked, inadvertently interrupting Sora's train of thought. "Me and Donald have been stuck in here this whole time, those heartless sure got us good."

"The heartless out there are ruthless! They split us up in the fight to pick us off and tossed us in here when they were done," Donald added angrily, "We weren't sure where you'd gone."

"I was tossed in a cell too, but I guess they didn't realize the keyblade can do more than take care of heartless and lock worlds' keyholes," Sora gave them a sly grin, "Turns out, it can unlock any door I want, too."

"No way!"

"Yeah way," She went on, trying her best to feign excitement. "I fought past the couple that were in the corridor and found my way back to the upper deck cuz I was trying to find you, but get this: My friend Kairi, she's right here on the ship with us!"

"Ya don't say?" Goofy replied.

"Yeah, it was definitely Kairi. I finally found her!"

"All right!" Goofy beamed, and then gave a cheerful laugh. "Then let's go up and talk to her!"

Sora's grin slid off her face at the words for just a fraction of a second before she had to plaster it back on again. The real Kairi, not the one she'd seen in quick glances and quicker conversations, didn't look to be in any shape for talking at all. But Sora couldn't let them know how distraught she was at the info, not when they were excited about meeting her too—Highwind ran on happy faces, and they'd need cheer if they were going to be able to make their way though this ship to get back onto theirs. Not to mention trying to take Kairi with them when she was in the grasp of Riku and all his heartless.

His heartless. That he could command now. That didn't bode well for anyone, least of all Kairi.

And Riku.

"That's your job, Sora, and I'm counting on you to do it," The woman said as she ruffled Sora's hair with an affectionate smile. "Okay?"

Even her fake grin threatened to fall off now. She hid it by turning towards the door and making a show of looking out the peephole to see whether the hallway outside was clear.

It, decidedly, was not.

"There's heartless everywhere," Sora groaned as she eyed the Dark shapes skulking up and down the corridor. There was far more of them patrolling now than earlier, and she knew for a fact that the heartless here were more vicious than any the group had encountered yet—which admittedly was a sentiment each of them had echoed at one point or another in nearly every world they'd visited thus far, but it was especially true here. Sora was beginning to run low on potions, and the taste of pancakes had rarely left her mouth since they fought their way through the deck and had gotten imprisoned. But before she could ponder their options someone behind the group cleared their throat.

"How ya doin' there? Looking for a way out?"

All three of them turned to see a boy floating—floating—his way out from behind a stack of crates and barrels in the corner of the room. He did a forward roll through the air and neatly landed on the floor in front of them with a flourish.

If it weren't for his entirely green outfit, he would have strongly reminded Sora of a fox, with his pointed features and wily demeanor. The pointed ears and red hair only increased the similarity.

"Who are you?" Goofy asked.

"I'm the answer to your prayers," He grinned as he extended his hand for a handshake, "But call me Peter Pan."

"It'd be nice to find a way out that wasn't through the hallway," Sora replied as she reached back, "But how would you be able to help? You were caught and thrown in here too, right?"

Just before they could shake hands, Peter Pan yanked his hand back with a bark of laughter. "Me? Hah! Only dummies let themselves get caught. No, I'm just waiting for someone."

She pouted both at the perceived insult and at being left hanging on the handshake, before the second half of what he'd said came to mind. Were there others held prisoner on this ship, too? Had they already gotten out?

"Who are y—" Sora began to ask, before a small ball of light flew into the room and darted right in front of her nose.

"Tinker Bell!" Peter exclaimed as the ball of light sped over to him, "What took you so long?"

As it approached, the light faded just enough to reveal it was actually a glowing miniscule girl with fairylike wings, who then began to communicate with Peter in a language of physical gestures and tinkling chimes. Tinker Bell was impossible to understand for the trio, but not for Peter, and as she talked his eyes lit up.

"Great job on finding her, Tink!" He commended, before turning confused when Tinker Bell went on. "Another girl, huh? We can just get her out of there at the same time…What? No! Tink, I'm not gonna leave Wendy behind."

Donald snickered. "Sounds like she might be jealous."

At this, Tinker Bell rounded on him with a scowl and darted over to give him a swift kick in the bill. Donald yelped indignantly as he held his face in his hand. The second part of what Peter said came to mind: Another girl?

"Tink, come on, wait up," Peter called after her as she made to glide out of the room. She slowly turned back towards him with a tiny raised brow. "Did you at least find another exit?"

Tinker Bell didn't make a sound as she responded, but from the heaving of her shoulders it appeared she gave a sigh. And then, she pointed upward towards the far corner of the room. All four of them looked to see she was referring to the grate along the ceiling.

"Maybe that way we can avoid those heartless guys or whatever it was you called them," Peter mentioned to the trio, before turning back to Tinker Bell with a grin. "Good going, Tink!"

Tinker Bell beamed, both literally and figuratively, in response to the praise. The two floated towards the grate and reached to pry it off, before Sora spoke up.

"Wait, how can we get out that way?" She said as she gestured to the grate, "We can't fly like you guys."

"Speak for yourself," Donald gloated. Sora remembered the vines in Deep Jungle that Donald managed to avoid entirely with the aid of magic, and how he had softened his falls the same way in Traverse Town. She rolled her eyes.

"You could also just teach me that spell," She remarked. Donald scoffed.

"You'd probably accidentally throw yourself into outer space with it."

"Anyone can fly, you don't need any spells to do it," Peter insisted as he reached to grab Tinker Bell, who had seen his hand coming and began to try and fly away before getting caught. She crossed her arms irately when Peter's hand closed around her wings and gave a warning chime. "Just a little bit, Tink."

"Uh, a little bit of what?" Goofy asked. Peter flew over towards them with Tinker Bell still clutched in his fingers.

"To fly, all you need's a little bit of faith," Peter began as he shook Tinker Bell slightly as he dangled her over Sora. Golden sparkles began to rain down and he moved onto Donald, "Trust," He continued as he floated towards Goofy next, with a shower of the golden glitter now covering the trio. "And pixie dust!"

As he finished, Peter leaned back on the air with his hands proudly on his hips. "Now all you have to do is believe, and you can do it."

Sora looked down at her now-glittering shoes and bit her lip. Her misadventures in Halloween Town came to mind, and Sora wasn't keen on reenacting the incident there where she had nearly broken a wrist bone after falling down the spiraling hill the last time she'd tried to fly. And even then she at least had wings on her costume. Here in Neverland, all Sora had were sparkling clothes and far too few potions and elixirs in her pockets to justify risking needing one on a lark. Not with how those heartless had been outside.

Beside her, Donald and Goofy looked similarly doubtful. "Just belief?" Donald asked skeptically. "No magic?"

"Sure," Peter replied cheerfully. "Come on, just try it."

"If ya say so!" Goofy shrugged, and then leapt off the floor as he flapped his arms as fast as he could. "I can fly—ah-yipe!"

His spectacular jump ended with him sprawled out on the floor, and his shield clattered against the floor with a gonging noise. Sora could see the soles of his shoes sparkling as much as the rest of his outfit. Goofy stumbled back to his feet.

"Alright, I, uh," Peter Pan scratched his head with a look of consternation, and he searched around the room. Tinker Bell lit up shined a little brighter to help him see better by as she followed him. He soon came back out from behind a couple of crates with a length of rope and handed Goofy one end of it. "Just hold onto this and I'll pull you guys up the rest of the way."

"Now he gives us the rope," Donald muttered under his breath. And once Peter yanked off the grate and went through with Tinker Bell, they began the climb into the next room.


KAIRI

Wendy was pleasant enough to be around, Kairi supposed, even in the midst of such an unpleasant situation.

It wasn't long after the discovery of Sora's proximity that Kairi found herself stuck in her own body, the pulse of which was now quickening further with her glee of discovering it responded to her—that was technically not a good thing at all, she knew, as going back to her own body meant Maleficent could right now theoretically take her Heart properly. But even with this in mind Kairi didn't bother trying to subdue her own joy at even something as small as her heartbeat speeding up. She hadn't had much to be happy for in a while, anyway.

And even if she was stuck in her own body, it was far better than only being able to see through the eyes of someone else's. And it was infinitely better than being able to walk and talk, yet imprisoned on a simulacrum of childhood memory with only a sleeping stranger for company.

That is, until Sora must have strayed far enough away on the ship or something, for the next thing Kairi saw was the white room that fake play island again.

"No," She breathed as her nails dug into her palms, "No, please, take me back."

Kairi squeezed her eyes shut and concentrated, and saw that Sora was in one of the lower decks somewhere being forcefully shoved into a cell by heartless. Her arms and legs were littered with gashes as she rifled through her pockets the second the door closed and the room was bathed in darkness. But her ability to see through Sora's eyes, Kairi noticed, was a little unfocused. Sora's sight was overlaid by the visage of the white room's walls and the boy on the pale throne, like a television with a faulty signal.

The view within her own body, however, was perfectly clear. But Kairi then noticed that her pulse had begun to slow down to its previously lethargic pace with the lack of proximity to Sora.

If she could, she would have sighed. But before she could think more on the matter Kairi heard footsteps approach the door to the captain's quarters of the ship.

It was Riku. He traced his hand through the air in a vaguely circular motion, and Dark smoke trailed out the tips of his fingers before settling into a Dark portal. And then he reached to scoop her up once more, saying, "I need your help in giving Sora a reminder of what's truly important."

"Us," He clarified as he made to step through with her. "Her real friends. Not some," Riku's voice faltered. "Some replacements."

The next thing Kairi saw was that they were on the forecastle of the upper deck, which was now nearly empty save for a couple of heartless on patrol.

Real friends? 'Replacements'? Perhaps Riku would have been better off with a reminder himself that the Dark was not to be trusted, that Sora's Heart was big enough for more than just them. But Kairi wasn't able to say anything at all, and so they both stayed silent as they watched the bobbing of waves along the ship's hull. Kairi thought she might have seen the back of a dolphin crest above the waves for a second, but it vanished as soon as it appeared.

And when Sora finally resurfaced, Kairi caught sight of her expression before she turned her head away in search of something. She looked…sad. Scared. Desperate.

It was then that Kairi starkly remembered her and Sora and Riku were just kids, though the three of them had liked to think otherwise. The fearful yearning on Sora's face made Kairi realize they were all three just kids shuddering under the weight of worlds.

And later on after the end of the reunion, after Sora had fallen down the trapdoor and Kairi was left behind once again on the bed of the captain's quarters, Riku came back for her. This time, he said nothing as he summoned another portal and picked her back up.

Inexplicably, he put her down her on the floor of one of the prison cells. Sitting in front the adjacent wall was another girl slightly younger than Kairi, wearing a pale blue nightgown with her hair done up neatly in a matching bow. After that, Riku sat down on the floor himself with his legs crossed and stared at Kairi intently. Like he was waiting for something to happen.

The girl glanced at the two of them with some confusion. "Hello?" She ventured cautiously.

Riku didn't bother looking over. "Hey," He replied distractedly. "Don't mind us, I'm just testing a theory."

"Theory? Of what sort?"

Riku gave no response but a noncommittal hum and continued staring at Kairi. She wasn't sure what he was looking for. In quick flashes she could see Sora having met back up with Donald and Goofy and by now she'd also met another boy that was on the ship as well. They were fighting their way through the underbelly of the ship with their path lit by a glowing thing that darted around, but then after another glimpse Kairi could see no more. Her pulse raced again, unnoticed by Riku.

"Nothing, huh?" He sighed as he stood back up. His hand danced along the first vestiges of another Dark portal. "Maybe it just needs more time. I'll be back."

"Goodness," The girl remarked, blinking in surprise at the sight of the Dark portal curling up and away from existence. She glanced back towards Kairi. "I don't suppose you know what that was about, do you?"

Long story short—she hadn't. And Riku hadn't come back yet from whatever they were doing. Which left for a somewhat awkward silence as Wendy (she had introduced herself shortly after Riku left, but further attempts at conversation tapered off when she realized Kairi was unable to reply) sat on one side of the room and Kairi on the other.

Kairi knew Sora had to be getting closer. There were more and more small signs of life from her body, signs that would be completely imperceptible to onlookers: Her pulse began to race, and sped up faster when she realized it happened. Kairi was able to take slightly faster or slower breaths. And she was almost, almost able to twitch her eyelids. Almost.

A rustling noise made them both look over towards the netting in the floor by Kairi, and the next thing she heard were multiple sets of footsteps. Her pulse raced again, and now began to flutter like wingbeats. That had to be Sora and her friends.

A tinkling chime came next, and then a boy's voice asking, "What is it, Tink?"

Wendy sat up straighter at that. "Peter?" She rose to her feet and walked towards the netting. "Peter Pan?"

"Wendy!" He replied. Kairi could see a bright light get closer to the netting out of the corner of her eye, still making that chiming noise in a cluster of tones as if in communication. She desperately wished she could turn her head to look, but all she could do was feel her pulse start to pound and her hands itch with the desire to move.

Wendy's face nearly split in two with her relieved grin, and she bashfully covered her mouth with one hand as she kneeled down at the edge of the netting in the floor. At that moment, there was a scuffling noise from somewhere outside the door. Wendy's smile left as quickly as it arrived. She looked back and forth between the door and Peter.

"That must be the pirates," Wendy supposed with another fearful glance. "Please hurry with whatever you're planning, Peter. I don't know what they're going to do with us."

"I'll be right up there, just hold on!" Peter then took out a short dagger and started sawing through the ropes in the net. There was another scuffling noise, then, both from outside the door and from somewhere in the rest of the group below the net.

"Wendy?" That was Sora that said that. Sora. Kairi was able to twitch her eyelids more now, and nearly blinked. Her heart was going a mile a minute.

"Yes?"

"Is there another girl in there with you?"

At this, Wendy looked up at Kairi. "Why, yes," She replied, "But she seems to be asleep. She hasn't budged an inch."

She could hear what sounded like several crates being moved around at the reply, and then Sora's voice was much closer.

"Kairi? Kairi!"

Wendy got up to check on the chest of drawers she had managed to blockade the door with once she heard the shuffling noise outside again, but Kairi could barely hear it. Her pulse was now thundering in her ears and she could feel it down to her fingertips and toes. Sora was so close. She was right there, and Kairi struggled to try and speak beyond pushing air out her nose a little more forcefully. Her fingertips just barely began to twitch.

Just trying to move her hand was like trying to lift a mountain, or hold up the sky, and Kairi could feel the muscles in her arms start to writhe with the effort of finally trying to follow what she wanted so badly for so long. She could move. She could move. Just barely, but it was vastly better than all the nothing she had before. It was like her joints were rusted, and silently creaking with the effort. Kairi's lungs began to shudder with the excitement.

Kairi did not think then about how having her real body back, even the tiniest bit, was not a good thing at all. She did not think about how if Maleficent were there that she could steal her Heart and all the worlds would end. And she did not think about the danger they were all in on this awful ship. All she thought was sora Sora SORA I'm right here right here right here I'M RIGHT HERE I'M RIGHT HERE PLEASE REACH BACK PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE—

Her hand moved. Her hand moved. And for one earth-shattering instant, both Kairi and Sora held their breath.

Kairi stared after her jostled hand and nobody spoke. She could feel the coarse rope of the net scrape against the back of her hand, and it was so much more marvelous than anything else she'd ever felt: Better than the weight of a present against your palms, or the feeling of finally going to bed after the longest days of your life.

For the dull scrape of the rope against her skin translated into the feeling that maybe things could turn out okay in the end. And then she felt the small uptick of hope in her Heart, the first stirring of anything from there in an eternity.

The next thing she felt was a small drop of something wet on her face, and Kairi realized it was a tear.

Kairi could cry. She could move again, and she could cry again. She felt the whisper-soft close of her eyelids in relief. The tear slid down her cheek and Kairi wondered if this was what a miracle was supposed to feel like.

She didn't hear the rush of a Dark portal open. She didn't hear Wendy's yelp as the heartless grabbed her and took her through. She didn't hear Sora cry out in anger when the heartless reached for Kairi, too.

But she felt the sharp grip of the heartless pulling her through the Dark portal, and Kairi realized the feeling of once-singing nerves now going silent again was not the feeling of a miracle at all.

It was the feeling of being cursed.


RIKU

"What?!" Hook howled, and Riku could see Wendy flinch at the racket from where she sat on the far side of the room on the bench. "What do you mean, 'it was pointless'?"

"I mean that Maleficent's theory didn't pan out," Riku sighed, more at Hook's aggravation than any sort of disappointment at the lack of results. He had expected this sort of thing, after all. "Wendy doesn't have Kairi's Heart, so there's no reason to keep her here. Send her home."

"I—Wha—But all that work!"

He rolled his eyes. It only made Hook angrier.

"Now listen, you pilfering mongrel," Hook raised his namesake threateningly once more as he stomped forth. Riku's fingers teased along the edges of another Dark portal, ready to call on another heartless for something a little more severe than a threat this time, but Hook used his hook hand to neatly catch his wrist and pull it down. Riku's eyes narrowed dangerously. "It was one thing when you took my quarters and brought those vermin with you, it was another when you tried to take my ship and title—" What do you mean, 'tried'? Riku thought to himself, "—But you've done nothing but think lowly of me and my men and reap the rewards of our efforts! A pirate's work is his whole reason for being, you brat, and I will not tolerate you disrespecting that!"

"I've done nothing but think lowly of you? Why do you think? And there's nothing to take credit for but the fact that all you've done so far was capture some innocent girl for a half-baked scheme that Maleficent assigned us for a distraction! Your 'men' have done nothing at all!" Riku spat and whipped his hand out of Hook's metallic grasp.

"They helped you catch up to the infernal machine the keyblade brat and her lackeys run around in!"

"Wow, so they helped steer a ship and make it go a little faster, big whoop. They didn't do a single thing afterwards!"

"Because your heartless ate them!" Hook roared, and Wendy did not flinch this time. She now sat perfectly still as she watched them both with wide eyes. "They made them into more of your little pets!"

Instead, it was Riku that flinched at his words.

How could the heartless have eaten them? Riku never remembered seeing anything—then again, he wasn't looking for any people being forced to turn into heartless specifically—and he'd ordered them to not touch Wendy. He hadn't explicitly said not to touch anyone else, but Riku thought that was implied well enough. The heartless certainly took implied directions perfectly well, the heartless Sora did back at Hollow Bastion—

Riku could feel the flush rising in his face at the thought of the incident, and he bit his tongue to distract himself. The point was, the heartless were supposed to listen to him. And they had. Right?

So why did they stop now?

Riku looked over at the nighttime ocean, at the almost overly bright moon far beyond the window that left silvery smears on the tops of the waves. He swallowed hard against the taste of bile at the edge of his mouth. Maybe…maybe the heartless had ceased to listen to him before today. Maybe even the little heartless ceased to listen to him on watching over Kairi whenever he was gone, and…

Riku hurried over towards Kairi, completely ignoring Hook's resumed ranting. She seemed perfectly fine. Untouched. But Maleficent was good at hiding things, after all, maybe she had hidden more than just the entrance to the chamber where the Princesses of Heart had gone.

But he inspected Kairi's face further and stopped.

There was a teardrop just under her eye. Somehow Riku had missed it in his initial assessment after recovering her from Wendy's cell. He brushed it away as gently as he could and raised the small droplet on his hand up to the light, to look at it with equal parts disbelief and awe.

Kairi was able to use her body again. Even just a little bit.

If she was able to cry, was she capable of anything else? How did this happen?

And then Riku remembered—Wendy. She was there in the cell with her.

Could Maleficent have been right?

"You," Riku addressed Wendy, and she looked over from Hook towards him. "Tell me exactly what happened while Kairi was in the cell with you again."

"I, um, it was just the same as what I said earlier," Wendy stammered, "She didn't move at all, and didn't respond to anything I said. Not long after that those creatures got us back out."

"Boy, you're wasting your time," Hook warned.

"I don't care," Riku barely spared him a glance before approaching Wendy. "That's not everything that happened. I know it isn't. What are you not telling me?"

"There's nothing—I—" She spluttered, and whatever protests she would have made seemed to die in her throat as they only stared at one another in thunderous silence. Eventually, Wendy looked away. "…Peter Pan and Tinker Bell showed up before we were taken here. With some friends."

Hook's eyes glinted dangerously. "Peter Pan?!"

'With some friends.' Riku glanced at the tear again, still held carefully on the tip of his finger. It had begun to dissipate.

"Who else was with him." It wasn't a question, but a demand.

"A girl and two others," Wendy answered, "She looked just like any one of us, but the other two were quite strange. One was a duck, I'm sure, but the other looked something like a…dog? He carried a shield."

Sora and the other two she was always around. Her fake friends. Lackeys.

Replacements for him and Kairi.

"Blast it! That scoundrel Peter Pan, I'll find him and wring his neck with my last good hand," Hook cursed, and stomped towards the door to begin his search. Once the door slammed shut, Riku walked over to Kairi and inspected her again.

Her gaze was still half-lidded and unfocused, her expression slackened. That teardrop had been the first sign of life Riku had seen from her since the islands. If it appeared when Sora showed up…

And then Riku figured it out: Seeing the one who abandoned her, who abandoned both of them, must have tormented Kairi to the extent of even her body showing signs of life. Small, easy to miss, but there nonetheless. Riku could only imagine what the pain must be like on the inside.

He had to get them out of here. Kairi couldn't stay for obvious reasons—He'd figure out how to get her Heart back on his own later, it didn't sit right with Riku to leave Kairi in any sort of proximity to someone that agonized her. He knew personally how awful that sort of thing could be. Riku wouldn't wish that hell on others.

Riku decided he would take her back to Hollow Bastion. He would return with her. Neither of them were safe in a place where he couldn't quite control the heartless as perfectly as he thought. Of course, such a line of thinking could come off as nonsensical, to find sanctuary in the homeof the heartless. But at least there his control had seemed effective compared to here. And if nothing else, Maleficent seemed to have a vested interest in keeping Kairi in good health, even if for her own agenda. She would be safe, and more importantly, away from Sora.

Riku walked over to the wall and formed a Dark portal, and then promptly walked over to pick up Kairi yet again.

"Hey, we're gonna go back, okay? Back to Hollow Bastion," He told Kairi as he walked past Wendy, who was now watching the Dark portal with a look of surprise. "It's not good for you to be here anyways."

From the other side of the room, Riku could hear the trapdoor in the floor swing open and multiple sets of footsteps bustle out. Well, well, speak of the devil.

"Wendy!" Peter Pan cried, and Wendy wrenched her head over and stood up immediately once she saw him. "C'mon, let's get you outta here!"

"Yes, please!" She replied as both her and Peter Pan raced towards the door and out of the room. "Oh, Peter, you wouldn't believe what happened—"

Her voice trailed off, and Riku stepped closer towards the portal. He ignored the sound of Sora's footsteps.

"Riku, wait!" She begged, and with Kairi still in his arms he turned to fix Sora with a cold look.

He could just step through the portal right now and be done with it. And really, he should, there was no sense in wasting time on frivolities. But the Dark part of his mind insisted on giving Sora something, just teach her a little lesson, that's all. You know how Sora is, it spoke. Just give her a taste of her own medicine. Let her learn the hard way about the pain she's wrought on you and Kairi.

The heartless Sora that appeared between them was quicker than any others he'd summoned before, and this time it had a Dark keyblade of its own in its hand. Interesting. Perhaps Riku had subconsciously included his own lingering will to reclaim (his) keyblade that was in Sora's hand even now.

His keyblade, Riku was sure of it now. Riku's, and nobody else's.

But there was no time to deal with that particular matter right now. And so, consoling himself with that thought in mind, Riku stepped through the portal with Kairi.


SORA

"No!" She called out as she watched them leave.

Sora had finally, finally reunited with Riku and Kairi, had gotten so close…and they were gone. But before she could think any more on the matter, a harsh strike came to her shoulder. It was the heartless copy of her with its own keyblade.

The heartless outside the room, the ones that traversed the deck and patrolled their cells during their imprisonment, those were awful enough to deal with. Their much stronger blows that didn't let up, even when the heartless were halfway disappearing into Dark smoke already, they would still claw and claw and claw. Like they were fighting to the death and wanted to take her and her friends with them. And at several points, they nearly had.

This one was no different, Sora decided as it managed to parry another strike and did a quick thrust towards her leg. If anything, this one was worse. For one very specific reason.

"Am I going crazy," She grunted as it managed to predict her attack and successfully guarded in the exact same way she did, with the same arm raised and the same inclined angle to her head. Even down to the one leg pushed back a little too far that Riku would tease her for sometimes on the islands in their spars. "Or is this thing fighting just like me?!"

"It's not just you," Donald answered as he managed to land a fire spell on the heartless' back. "I thought it would fight more like a normal heartless even with that keyblade!"

"Me too!"

Goofy was the next to attack, as he spun around with his shield's edge held out. He managed to catch the heartless on the back of the head with a dull clang! Sora yanked herself back at the last possible second to dodge the shield, and saw that the heartless had been disoriented slightly by the blow.

Now was her chance. Sora landed three strikes in quick succession on the heartless' head, noting how it began to emit several wafting curls of Dark smoke that joined the others the trio had managed to make earlier in the fight. She leapt back when the heartless began to stumble back to its feet, and would have made to dash towards Sora with its keyblade reared back with promised pain if it weren't for Goofy blocking it with his shield. Sora angled herself out halfway from behind Goofy's shield and fired off fire spell after fire spell, soon joined again by Donald.

They both continued to cast magic until both of their already-low reserves were completely out, and they couldn't tell whether the smoke that ensconced the heartless was Dark smoke from the heartless itself or their fire spells. They stopped when there was nothing left, of neither their magic reserves nor the heartless, and only a badly singed smear on the floor remained.

Sora dismissed her keyblade and felt desperately around in her pockets for an ether, or an elixir, or anything at all. She gave a short victorious cry when she fished out a tiny bottle in the characteristic blue tone of elixirs. The cry quickly died before she drank it when she realized this was her very last one of any sort of help, and judging by the disappointed noise Donald made he was already out of everything entirely.

"Here ya go, Donald," Goofy reached into his pocket and gave an ether to Donald, who took it without preamble. "But I'm running low too, myself. Gawrsh, we gotta be careful."

"Running low's better than running empty," Donald reasoned, and said, "We'll have to get out of here soon, though."

"Guys, we have to see where Riku and Kairi went," Sora begged, "We have to go after them!"

Donald have her a stern glance that was sympathetic around the edges. "If they went off-world, we can't follow them in the gummi ship. We'd be lucky to get back to Traverse Town with the condition it must be in now."

"And if they're still on the ship?" Sora wondered. It was desperate to think it, she knew, but maybe there was a chance.

Without waiting for an answer, she threw open the door and raced out, with Donald and Goofy scampering close behind. Sora darted down the hall and outright shoved away the few heartless she encountered and thought that maybe new ones hadn't appeared after they'd defeated them in this world. Maybe that was because Riku wasn't there to summon any more. She didn't want to think about it.

The trio ran faster. Sora kicked open the last door before getting back onto the main deck, and finally stopped at the sight of the gummi ship still halfway crashed into the forecastle, the open sky above. She searched desperately for Riku and Kairi.

They weren't there. They were gone.

"Riku, don't go," Sora scrubbed a hand down her face, and tried desperately to distract herself from the prickling feeling in her eyes. First at Traverse Town. Then at Monstro. Now here. "Why do you always have to disappear like that?"

"Sora," Goofy said from somewhere behind, and she could hear his footsteps approach. But before he could do anything, they heard Captain Hook speak from the other end of the deck. Sora looked up to see he was surrounded by the remaining heartless on all sides, and, she realized with a start, so were they.

"Quite a codfish, that Riku," Captain Hook gloated. Around him, the heartless began to shift from foot to foot, their clawed fingertips flexing at their sides as they wandered out of the shadows into sight. "To have run off with that girl without even saying goodbye, don't you think?"

As he stepped closer, the trio could see one other crewmember that had stayed with the captain, a short squat elderly man wearing a striped shirt and red hat with a gash on his hand. Clutched in his grip was a glass lantern that glowed brightly—but not from any flame, they realized. The lantern's glow was from a pixie trapped within it.

"Tinker Bell?" Donald asked, and tightened his grip on his staff. Captain Hook laughed.

"My own supply of pixie dust was running quite low. That Riku boy squandered most of it in the rush to capture your ship," He gave a sneer at this, and stepped down to give Highwind's slightly battered metal hull a knock with his hooked hand. That was Riku? Why would Riku want to capture the gummi ship? Sora thought with confusion. She'd thought it was Captain Hook who ordered the chase. He continued, "I thought I'd do well to restock the reserves."

"Where did Riku and Kairi go?" Sora demanded, and the keyblade flared into existence in her hand. She stomped toward Captain Hook and ignored the heartless stepping forward at the action. "Tell me where they went now!"

"I'll stake my other hand that he went crawling back to Hollow Bastion, no doubt seeking Maleficent," he replied, and Sora's knuckles went white as bone. "But you probably won't be getting there anytime soon."

"Why?" She asked through gritted teeth.

"Because you're willing to put up a fight," Captain Hook gestured grandly to the heartless all around them, and Sora noticed they were barely restraining themselves. "Once the boy Riku scampered off, I finally tried commanding the heartless I abhorred so much once they tried setting their sights on Smee here. They took the rest of my men, true, but I've realized they make for a far fiercer crew. I know you must have struggled to break out of the prison cell. Would you be willing to face them again?"

Sora lowered the keyblade slightly as she traded uneasy glances with both Donald and Goofy. Only Goofy had any potions left, and only Donald had enough magic left in him to cast any healing spells. She glanced around the deck at all the heartless assembled. There was fewer now than their arrival, but still far too many.

"My thoughts exactly," Captain Hook spoke. He went over to the remaining crewmember and took the lantern with Tinker Bell trapped within it. And as he turned back towards them, Captain Hook dragged the pointed tip of his hook down one of the lantern's glass panes, and it made for a horrible screeching sound. The trio could see Tinker Bell's glow dim slightly as she shuddered away from both the racket and the hook.

And then, oddly enough, Captain Hook extended the lantern towards them.

"But I am merciful, unlike the heartless. I'll offer you a deal."

"A deal?" Sora asked disbelievingly. "How can we trust you?"

"You have no choice," Captain Hook grinned. "Your only alternative would be for my crew to attack."

The heartless started to twitch at this, their claws flexing and unflexing, antennae dancing madly. One even stepped forward haltingly, as if fighting against something. Sora was not in the mood to deal with them in the trio's current condition, especially with the heartless clearly being strengthened by the night.

"What's the deal?" She asked, and both Donald and Goofy's heads swerved towards her.

Captain Hook's grin widened. "I'll let you three leave safely on your piddling ship, and I'll even let Tinker Bell go."

Sora furrowed her brow at that. "Didn't you say you need her?"

"Ah, but you haven't heard the other half of my proposal yet. You see, in exchange I want that keyblade: Surely beyond the Door there's another way to have a flying ship, and a great deal of other riches and power to be gained instead. Compared to that, what's a little bit of pixie dust?"

Sora went quiet, and she could tell it worried Donald and Goofy from how they were shuffling from foot to foot.

"Sora, don't even consider it," Donald whispered as he tiptoed closer.

"I am," She replied quietly. "I have an idea."

There was a pause.

"You can't be serious," Donald hissed finally, "Giving up the key?"

"We can't let Tinker Bell be grinded into pixie dust or however he gets it!" The thought churned her stomach. She looked up at Captain Hook. "Alright. You have a deal."

His grin widened even more, until it threatened to split his face.

"Excellent."

Nobody spoke as they both walked towards each other slowly, waiting for the other to do anything that would arouse suspicion and call off the tenuous agreement. The only sounds around were the tip-tapping of the heartless' feet on the floorboards of the ship, and the cresting of the waves in the waters all around. Sora could see even Tinker Bell was giving her a look of incredulity, and let out an excited tinkling chime as her wings flapped.

Once he got close enough, Captain Hook reached for the keyblade. Sora yanked it out of reach, saying "Nope, Tinker Bell first."

"Hmm. Fine."

He repositioned the lantern so the handle was held in the metal bend of his hooked hand, and then used his remaining hand to undo the lock on the little door as Tinker Bell pressed up against it and watched him undo the latch. She pushed the door open and spun all around with the loudest chime Sora had heard from her yet as Tinker Bell danced in the air and came down to kiss her on the cheek, before speeding off into the sky at a blinding speed.

That's when Sora realized—Where had Peter Pan and Wendy gone?

"Now the keyblade," Captain Hook reminded her with his hand held out.

Sora took a second to squeeze the keyblade's handle to reassure herself. Back in Traverse Town Yuffie and Leon had taken it from her hand, but they couldn't keep it for long. Only a few minutes after Sora had woken up did it return to her with a blaze of Light. And surely, she thought, it would be the same now. Only after Tinker Bell was safe and the trio had gotten away would Captain Hook realize what happened as the keyblade would disappear from his hand. She held it out, and he took it.

"Good, good," He excitedly looked at it in his grip as the remaining crewmember came up to take the lantern away. "Now make them walk the plank."

All three of them gave angry shouts as the heartless burst forth and shoved them towards the side of the ship, and continued shoving them towards the small gap in the railing where the plank lay waiting outstretched over the ocean. It began to loom in her vision, and she angrily looked over towards Hook as he watched the heartless work with glee.

"Hey, we had a deal!"

"I said I would let you leave safely, do you see me helping shove you brats?" Captain Hook laughed, "I didn't say anything about the heartless letting you leave safely."

"I told you not to even consider it!" Donald fumed at her from where he stood trying to beat off heartless with his staff. To their other side, Goofy tried pushing them away with his shield. All three of them continued to be shoved closer to the plank inch by inch. "You should've known someone like him would pull this stunt!"

"Yeah, well you know what?" Sora raised her arm towards the sky as she could feel the hard edge of the plank press into her back, and the heartless were beginning to pick her up and push her onto it. The keyblade flashed out of Captain Hook's hand and back into her own with a spiraling gleam of Light. "I was just kidding too!"

"You miscreant mackerel!" Captain Hook shouted indignantly as he looked back and forth between his now-empty hand and the keyblade clutched in hers. "I'll finish you off myself!"

You'd have to reach me first, Sora thought with a sinking feeling as the heartless pushed her onto the plank. Hook pointed his cutlass at her over the heads of the heartless as Donald and Goofy were beginning to be shoved onto the plank as well.

She swung the keyblade in an arc as large as she could, but had to restrict her maneuverability both with having to maintain balance so she wouldn't fall of the plank and not accidentally hit Donald and Goofy either. It resulted in a move that was slightly stilted, awkward, and not at all effective. Sora glanced down.

Below the trio was the ocean, once a happy sight for Sora, turned into a view that was less than assuring. She knew they'd be able to swim just fine, but with no land in sight on the horizon they'd be swimming for who knows how long. And at once she heard two noises: One was a yelp from in front of her, coming from Goofy as his shield rang with a tinny noise that sounded like rain on a metal roof as the heartless threw their claws at the shield repeatedly. The other noise was coming from below, sounding like a…ticking clock?

The trio looked back down and spied a reptilian shape cresting over the waves and settling itself under the plank. Two eyes peered back at them from a distinctively crocodilian head. And then, Captain Hook screamed.

It was no scream of anger that he'd made, or a bellow of fighting rage. Captain Hook's scream was more along the lines of a high trilling shriek that, if Sora had to be perfectly honest, was a little pathetic sounding. He pointed at the crocodile, which Sora realized was the source of the ticking noise.

"S-S-S-Smee!" He called out, and at the crewmember's 'Aye, cap'n?' Captain Hook said, "It's him! It's the crocodile that took me hand!"

She noticed that Captain Hook had slipped into a bit of an accent when he was deathly afraid.

"Oh, Smee! He's after me other hand! I can't stay here!" He sobbed, and took flinching steps towards the barrier as if it would take his remaining hand too. His face wrenched with fear as he caught sight of the crocodile. "Go away! Oh, I can't stand the sight of him!" He yelled at it, his voice turning warbly. Captain Hook then raced towards the remaining crewmember and shoved his cutlass into his arms and continued running, making for the door that led to the captain's quarters of the ship as he yelled over his shoulder, "Smee, you take care of them!"

"Aw, c'mon cap'n," Smee replied, but Captain Hook had already slammed the door behind him. He sighed and turned towards where the trio were still fighting to stay on the plank as the heartless continued battering Goofy's shield, and had now taken to outright throwing themselves at it, with several of them landing sloppily into the ocean. The crocodile didn't mind them as they slowly drowned with their Hearts spiraling towards the sky as they expired, and only had eyes for the trio.

The heartless had pushed against Goofy's shield enough to make the trio back up another step, and Sora found they were at the end of the plank. She could feel her Heart clench uneasily at the crocodile's mouth beginning to open wide. The heel of her shoe stuck out into the open air, and Sora noticed her clothes were still glittering. If anything, they were glittering more.

She looked up in confusion and saw a ball of light doing figure eights over the trio. "Tinkerbell!" Sora cheered, and the rest of the trio looked up as well with similar applause.

"Fly, Sora!" At the sound of the shout, she looked across the ship's sails to see Peter Pan having returned and soaring towards them. "Just believe!"

She tried stepping another inch back as the heartless continued to push, and barely regained her balance in time as her foot met only air. Sora glanced at the heartless, whose claws were now constantly scraping against Goofy's shield, their antennae nearly blurring from their moving so fast. In the dark of the night, even with the moon bearing down, she saw that the heartless didn't reflect any of its meager light. Nor did they reflect much light off the ship's lanterns. The whole effect came together to make the heartless look like one writhing mass of a beast, with constellations of yellow eyes glowing in the Dark.

And Captain Hook was more scared of a crocodile?

Sora shook her head at the thought. And with that, she closed her eyes and tipped backwards. Time began to pass in slow motion, and she could hear the crocodile ticking off the seconds to her demise if she failed.

She thought to herself, I can fly, and it did nothing. She next thought of the first time she flew in the gummi ship, the feeling in her Heart as it lifted off the ground. I can fly. It still didn't work, but she could feel her limbs grow slightly lighter. Sora thought of the time when the gummi ship crashed in Deep Jungle and she sailed through the air towards the treehouse. All of her felt a little lighter, now. I can fly.

Sora remembered that weightless feeling when she fell, like she was a question suspended in the void. Fly or don't fly. Fall and crash…or fall and miss the ground. The fractions of a second ticked by.

She thought of Riku, grinning at her as they stood side by side on the shores of Destiny Island. Not the boy who Darkly smiled down at her on the forecastle above just earlier as he brought her shadow to life. Her now weightless Heart gave a flutter, and then a flex she had never felt before came from the center of herself.

"I can fly," Sora murmured, and it was the truth.

She opened her eyes when she realized she never felt the crocodile's bite, nor the ocean's waves. And that's because she wasn't close to either. Small sparkles of light danced all around her from the pixie dust, and Sora let out a whoop.

"I can fly!" She hollered, and swooped around over Donald's and Goofy's heads, where they both stared at her with bare surprise. "Come on, guys, you can do it!"

"Yeah!" Peter joined in as he and Tinker Bell joined her in circling over them, with gales of pixie dust raining down. Goofy looked as though he was pondering something for a moment, and screwed his eyes shut as the heartless continued pushing against his shield.

He leaped. "I can fly," He cried almost questioningly, and blinked his eyes open when he realized he never landed in the water. "I can fly!" Goofy said much more assuredly and paddled slowly into the air above the crowd of heartless, that now set their sights on Donald.

Donald looked back and forth between the heartless stumbling towards him and the crocodile down below, that now hungrily stared at him. He took a shaky step backward and raised his staff.

"I'm not risking it," Sora could hear him say before muttering a spell, and Donald floated up into the middle of the circle that Sora, Goofy, Peter Pan, and Tinker Bell all were now gliding in together.

"That's cheating," Sora joked, and Donald gave her a deadpan look. She looked to Peter Pan, and asked, "Where did you guys go? And where's Wendy?"

"Wendy's perfectly fine, you'll see," He grinned, "I just had to get her away from ol' Captain Crook. I wasn't gonna leave you guys behind when you helped out Tink!" Tinker Bell gave a tinkling chime at his words.

"So uh, guys?" Goofy spoke up. When they turned to him, he pointed down at the heartless. The group saw that the mass of the creatures was writhing worse now, and Smee had abandoned the sword and empty lantern in favor of running to the captain's quarters himself. "What'll we do about them?"

"Not sure if I want to fight them again," Sora shuddered. They were bad enough earlier, and ready to riot now. Even with the ability to fly away from their blows, the heartless' vicious clawing stood out in her memory.

"Just chuck 'em in the water!" Peter Pan suggested.

"Hey, you're right," She replied, thinking of the way they drowned just a minute ago. How the Light of their Hearts matched the stars in the sky.

Everyone in the group shared a grin at this.

And then they dove as one.


KAIRI

Another tear leaked out of her eye as Riku stepped through the Dark portal with Kairi, but this time he didn't notice.

He was too busy closely studying the little heartless that had come into the room shortly after their return, almost immediately so. It stared back at him with cheerfully twinkling eyes, its antennae doing a slow back-and-forth motion.

Kairi knew exactly why Riku was studying it: Kairi was looking at the heartless now with suspicion herself. It was hard to imagine this creature was the exact same as the ones who turned monstrous and devoured Hook's original crew. But, regardless of whether or not she believed it, it was.

Finally, Riku shook his head and straightened back up. The little heartless scurried over to stand beside him and looked up at Riku almost plaintively. He looked towards it with some lingering distrust, and finally spoke.

"Do a cartwheel."

It blinked and widened its stance slightly, before leaning over to one side and completing a cartwheel.

"Now jump up once." It did. "Twice." It did.

Riku watched it just as it watched him, and finally held out his arm.

"Attack me."

This time, the little heartless was slow to follow the order, almost as if it were hesitant. But then, with slow shuffling steps that got faster, the little heartless began to lunge at him with its claws brandished.

"Stop."

Mid-leap, and the little heartless crumpled to the ground in a clumsy pose with its limbs tucked in to keep from hurting him. It had followed his orders to the letter and no more, unlike how the others reportedly did on The Jolly Roger. The little heartless shakily got back to its feet and looked up at Riku with curiosity.

And in turn, he looked at it the same way. After several tense minutes, Riku finally told it, "Just like before. Watch over Kairi here, and if anyone or anything comes into this room, find me immediately and let me know. Okay?"

It nodded. At that, Riku got up and left the room.

Kairi watched it for a little while after he left. She wondered what he could be doing—Perhaps he'd left to get some answers out of Maleficent as to exactly what happened for the heartless on the ship to behave that way, or maybe he'd gone to test and make sure the other heartless weren't threats lying in wait the same way. Well, technically all heartless were potential threats, she knew that well enough. She had experience with that, even, from Traverse Town and watching Sora on her travels.

Just thinking of her again gave a pained squeeze to Kairi's Heart. Sora had been so close. She had been right there, almost close enough to touch.

She felt her lingering teardrop finally fall out of her eye and down her cheek lazily, this time pushed out by nothing except its own weight. Kairi withdrew back to the white room.

She walked out the doorway, and through the stone cave down the corridor. Kairi's gaze did not glide over the details of this place this time, but instead examined everything with a new perspective. The drawings on the walls, with tree roots here and there like the parentheses to a child's imagination. The sand kicked up by her stride. The harsh grind of the stone against her finger when she held out a hand as she walked. Kairi ducked under the overgrown flora at the entrance and walked outside.

It hadn't changed one bit since she was last out here. The perfect gleam of the deep teal waves as they gently broke ashore, the ivory uniform tone of the sand. Far above stretched an endless blue sky with the sun at high noon, unchanged from when she'd arrived. Exactly like Hollow Bastion's unchanged sun, funnily enough. But where the latter was almost uneasily bearing down upon the world, like a constant threat, the sun here was nothing but an endless dream.

And that's because it sort of was, Kairi realized now. Not literally a dream, but something approaching it. Something that was real once, and polished to unrealistic perfection by memory. Something preserved by memory.

Kairi kneeled down and grabbed a handful of sand. She watched as even a small trickle escaped her tight grip and fell out entirely as she let go. She dusted off the stray granules on the fabric of the overskirt to her shorts as she stood back up and looked around. Every tree and shrub and blade of grass that was on the play island before Destiny Islands fell was accounted for here. Even the rickety wooden walkways and pebbles. Even the door. But the room that lay beyond it was entirely misplaced, as if it were from someone else's memory and haphazardly attached to this one. Kairi made her way back to the boy on the ivory throne, back to the white room where he slept.

Kairi hovered in the doorway and watched him. His Heart still glowed with that unnatural Light, a Light she'd seen before in one of her friends. In Sora.

Whenever Kairi was puzzling something out, in the beginning it was usually a mess; An unorganized collage of all the bits and pieces of information she had, that would otherwise look unrelated to each other if it weren't for that little nagging feeling in her head saying There's something there. Look for it.

It was sort of the mental equivalent of when a word was at the tip of your tongue and you couldn't quite reach it, yet you knew it was there. An idea just floating under the surface of your thoughts, vaguely known by the shape of it but not the substance.

Over time, the mess would slowly organize itself—A stray moment here connects to a known fact there, connects to a conjecture here that is in turn backed up by this other fact. And somewhere along the way, little pieces connecting to each other helped to make up larger chunks, which connected to other larger chunks. Like completing one of those thousand-piece puzzles in sections.

And now the last couple of pieces slid into place.

Kairi looked down at her hands and flexed them, exactly as she had managed to do in her real body. When Sora was near.

Sora, and nobody else.

Sora, the girl with two Hearts. One of which was right in front of Kairi, inside the sleeping boy.

"'The Light within you will lead you to the Light of another,'" She echoed aloud the words she heard that night. "'Someone to keep you safe.'"

Sora.

Kairi was inside Sora's Heart.


SORA

It was rare that Sora ever had trouble sleeping. In fact, she wasn't sure if she'd ever had trouble falling asleep before, but she certainly did now.

With the last heartless dropped into the water, they were alone on the ship.

Hook was gone, having ran off in one of the emergency escape boats before they could realize where he was going, with Smee rowing them away as fast as he could from the ticking crocodile that chased them both.

But Riku was gone too. And with him, Kairi.

Sora was relieved beyond belief to know Kairi was okay. Or, that at least she'd made it off the islands in one piece like Sora and Riku. And that gave Sora hope. Because if Kairi made it, maybe her mom did too, and everyone else on the islands. Classmates, teachers, neighbors.

Kairi had never been into the idea of sparring like her and Riku were. While Selphie, Wakka, and Tidus were trading blitz balls and jump ropes, Kairi would usually be off tagging along with her and Riku on a scheme or doing another crafting project. And the couple of times Sora and Riku would ask her about it, Kairi would laugh.

'You two knuckleheads can clash swords all you want, I'm fine,' She'd say, 'I'll just keep score or find something better to do.'

So if Kairi could survive off the island in worlds festering with the heartless, maybe everyone else could too. Destiny Islands may have crumbled, but that didn't mean the people did. They could reunite and rebuild.

"Gawrsh," Sora heard Goofy say from behind her. "Kairi couldn't wake up, so maybe she's really lost her—"

Donald hushed him harshly before he could finish his sentence. Sora could feel their eyes on her back, watching her for any signs of distress at what had transpired. She could hear Peter Pan speak next.

"Sora…"

Goofy was right. Kairi may have shown a small sign of life, with her fingers twitching, but there was still that unnerving comatose state she was in. No walking or talking, hardly able to sit upright on her own unless she was propped up like a doll. Something was wrong; Kairi's Heart was indeed gone.

And Riku…Something was wrong with him, too. He acted like Sora didn't care about saving Kairi, like she completely ditched him, and he was too blind to see it wasn't true. And more than that, he was losing himself to the Dark, just like that strange woman warned her that he might do one day. Riku was working with the people who were responsible for the worlds becoming infested with heartless and falling to the Darkness, and even trusting them when they said they'd help get Kairi's Heart back. For all anyone knew, they were the ones responsible for her losing it in the first place.

How could he be so stupid?

Then again, Sora thought with a chuckle, Kairi was supposed to be the smart one of them, not Riku. She was the one always trying to keep them from being reckless and bring them back down to earth. Riku, she knew, fulfilled the role of being the strongest. He'd rarely lose a fight, and when he did it was only ever to Sora. And Sora…

'The gummi ship runs on happy faces,' Donald had said.

Maybe Sora wasn't the strongest, or the smartest. But she was always the one with cheer. The one that brought the smiles, the laughter. The one that tried to bring the spark of Light in Darker times. And these were certainly Dark times right now.

So right now, Sora had to keep doing what she did best. Keep up the laughter and the antics and make everyone else able to breathe a little easier. Highwind—really, the group as a whole—ran on happy faces, and Sora had taken that to Heart.

Maybe one day Sora could find a way to keep the cheer and be the strongest and smartest. Become a perfect leader. But that day wasn't today.

So, she decided right now she'd do what she did best: Keep up the cheer.

"I still can't believe it," Sora exclaimed, trying to muster up a bit of real excitement, not feigned. She spun around to the rest of the group. "I really flew! Wait 'till I tell Kairi, though she might not believe me."

"You can bring her here one day, Tink'll help you fly!" Peter Pan encouraged.

Slowly, Sora smiled.

"Yeah," She replied. "One day."

The gummi ship gave another rumble underneath, its engine struggling to keep them on the route back to Traverse Town.

After they'd sealed the keyhole to Neverland—or London, as Wendy had called it. Apparently it was sort of like two worlds in one according to what Peter Pan said, who had visited London before by flying from Neverland (Two stars to the right, he told them before they left, and straight on until morning)—and returned to the crashed Highwind, Sora had begged the rest of the group to go after Riku and Kairi. To the extent that she even revealed some of what she knew—that Riku was working alongside Maleficent, that back at Monstro Riku was really offering for her to join him in the Dark, too. They didn't ask how she'd found out about the first part, but in the wake of the revelations they were too surprised to think of it.

"Please, Riku's working with Maleficent and the heartless, who knows what'll happen to her?" Sora pleaded. "We have to go to Hollow Bastion now. Before it's too late."

"I'm sorry, Sora, but we can't," Replied Donald, unusually forlorn. He pulled back the lever and looked relieved when the gummi ship rumbled to life, albeit with several noises that weren't there before. "The gummi ship desperately needs to be fixed, and we're out of everything."

"That's true," Jiminy agreed. He had been hiding in the temperature regulation ducts of the gummi ship with the Ansem Reports and his journal while Captain Hook and the heartless were still around, and was now transcribing the newest Ansem Report the trio had found on the desk in the captain's quarters during a last look to check just in case Sora's friends had returned. "And if someone like Maleficent resides there, I'm sure it wouldn't be an easy trip at all. We'd need to prepare."

Sora looked down and picked at the seams of the armrests. Her vision went blurry and hot.

She didn't look up when Goofy laid a hand on her shoulder, as she was too afraid of her tears showing. But she raised her head just enough to let him know she was listening.

"In Monstro he was tryin' to get your help to save Kairi, remember?" He said, and she nodded. "So he seemed pretty dedicated to helping her already, to ask and go as far as trying to kidnap Pinocchio. Riku may be using the Darkness, but I'm sure his Heart belongs to the Light. So ya gotta believe in him, Sora. He'll keep Kairi safe until we can get there and figure out how to help, alright?"

Goofy was right. He had to be.

Sora wiped at her eyes and finally looked up at him with a smile. The first real one she'd made since before they got captured, even if her eyes were red. Sora would believe in Riku. She would believe in the Light still in his Heart, even with all the Dark around it. And she would believe that there would be a way for her friends to make it through safely.

"Okay."

Sora could always sense when someone was staring at her. Even when she was asleep, but certainly when she was awake. And Sora could sense someone staring at her right now.

She rolled over in bed to flip on the light switch, and was not surprised to see Kairi sitting on her bed.

"Yeah?" Sora asked.

Kairi looked as though she was trying to work up the nerve to speak. "I need you to promise me something."

"Anything."

"Promise me you won't go to Hollow Bastion," Kairi said.

Sora could see the small spark of hope in her expression fade as Sora's shoulders fell. The sight of it wrenched her Heart.

"Kairi—"

"Promise me," Kairi insisted. When Sora didn't respond she balled her hands. "Promise me!"

The silence was unbearable.

And finally, Sora shook her head, stuttering, "…I-I can't."

"Sora—!"

"I can't!" She nearly yelled, and snuck a glance towards the door. Sora wasn't sure how much the gummi ship's construction muffled noise, but she wasn't in the mood to find out. "Somebody has to stop Maleficent! Somebody's gotta make sure our home comes back! And somebody has to stop the heartless so nobody else loses theirs!"

"Damn it, Sora, listen to me!"

Sora recoiled slightly with surprise. It wasn't often that Kairi cursed.

Kairi closed her eyes and took another deep breath before she spoke. "You have no idea of what Maleficent's capable of. I barely have any idea, and I've seen her off and on since this whole mess started. But I have enough of an idea to know you're going to get slaughtered," She still looked angry, but her chin started trembling. "Don't…don't go. Don't get yourself killed. Please."

Sora cast her eyes downward.

"I can't. I'm sorry. Someone has to save you and Riku."

Kairi gave a bitter laugh at that. "I realize now I'm not supposed to be saved. And the only person who can save Riku at this point is himself, but I'm pretty sure he doesn't want to."

"I promised someone long ago that I wouldn't let him fall to the Darkness. I never knew what she meant until now, but I feel like she may have seen this coming all along," After Sora spoke, confusion clouded her expression. "What do you mean, you're not supposed to be saved?"

Kairi shook her head. "If you save me at this point, all you'll be doing is playing right into Maleficent's plans."

"I already told you, I'm going to stop her."

"And I already told you, you can't. You'll get killed."

Sora did not speak for a long while once more. She bit her lip hard enough to start tasting pennies in her mouth.

And finally, Sora said, "Maybe that's the whole point."

Kairi had no response to that but stunned silence. She looked horrorstruck as Sora summoned her keyblade to her hand and absently gazed at it. "Maybe that's why the keybade chose me."

Sora watched as the keychain dangled from the hilt. "Maybe I'm not supposed to see the happy ending, I'm just supposed to make it happen."

"No," Kairi's voice had gone constricted and she shook her head once more, fiercely. "No. I can't believe I'm hearing this."

"Think of how many people lost everything to her and the heartless, Kairi," Sora replied. "Leon, Yuffie, Cid, and Aerith…They lost their home. And who knows how many people were lost when that happened? What about the other worlds that have already fallen to the Darkness?"

Kairi did not reply, and Sora went on. "When I saw Geppetto after he'd lost Pinocchio…I thought about my mom. I still haven't found her, Kai. I've been to all these worlds and I still haven't found my mom. And it made me think, how many others lost their parents? How many parents lost their kids? What if entire families were wiped out?" Sora shuddered. "My first day in Traverse Town after I'd woken up, I watched a guy get turned into a heartless right in front of me. I still think about his look of total terror sometimes. Before I knew you and Riku were okay, I thought about you guys with that look of terror. I put on a happy face for Donald and Goofy and everybody else…but I can't help but think about it."

Sora looked back at her again. "That's why I can't promise you that I won't go. I'm sorry, Kairi. I really am. But it has to be me."

Kairi stared with that same look of horror and didn't seem to have any words left in her. It didn't take long before she blinked out of existence, and Sora was alone in her room once more. She traced her fingertips along the cold metal teeth of the keyblade.

"It has to be me," Sora said to it sadly. "I don't know why you chose me, but it has to be me. Doesn't it?"

The room was silent after that, with no response save for the steady gleam of her keyblade in the light.


AUTHOR'S NOTE

Hey look, I finally included a hint to Aqua's meeting with tiny Sora and Riku :D I didn't forget about it! Everywhere else was either already too long of a chapter to squeeze it in or too irrelevant to shoehorn it in. But it's gonna be shown entirely in the final two chapters.

Speaking of! HOW EXCITED AM I TO FINALLY GET TO THE ENDGAME? I AM STUPID EXCITED FOR HOLLOW BASTION, YOU GUYS. IT'S GONNA BE LONG A LONG AS HELL 2-PARTER WHERE THE CHAPTERS LEGIT WILL PROBABLY BE 30K EACH AND CHOCK FULL OF CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT AND BACKSTORY AN AND ACTION AND OH MY GOD. OH AND DID I MENTION THE EPILOGUE? I'M GONNA SET UP FOR THE NEXT INSTALLMENT THERE Y'ALL, GET READY.

Oh, and the final two chapters will definitely not be posted until after KH3 comes out. Sorry bout that, but I have to confirm if literally any of Kairi's backstory will be detailed upon, and if they'll discuss the fall of Radiant Garden at all. The latter I'm willing to bet on with what we've seen in the final few trailers, but anything on Kairi? Eh, their history is working against them and she's barely shown up in the trailers as it is. I'm not optimistic, but I shall hope (´•̥̥̥ω•̥̥̥`)

(also I may or may not have a theory that Ansem SoD possessing Riku's body in KH1 will become relevant in KH3 when they're trying to assemble The Norts) (I want to see if that pans out so I can know whether to include it in what goes on next chapter and the final chapter)

Also, I'm so sorry that a fair bit of the storytelling here is more implied rather than shown! This chapter was already 20k and I figured I dragged things out long enough :( I'll include them down below.

NOTES:
1. Swimming 24/7 would be absurdly exhausting. This was one of those things I loved the manga for—the trio were exhausted at the end of the atlantica chapter!

2. Just in case you guys were confused, The Jolly Roger went from Neverland (where the ship was moored) to London, made to leave London to fly towards Hollow Bastion, landed back in London's waters when Riku ordered them to catch the gummi ship as they didn't have enough pixie dust to continue flying after that, and is en route back to Neverland as Peter Pan took control of the ship and made it fly again w/ Tinker Bell's pixie dust, just like in the movie. Yep, the crew all flew around in a giant pirate ship in the middle of London to get to the keyhole just like in the manga! Tinker Bell saw the keyhole as she was trying to follow after where Peter Pan left to drop Wendy off at Big Ben, so she's the one who told the group where it was.

3. Capt. Hook illicitly got his big-ass pixie dust supply from Zarina, a character in the Tinker Bell movies. I needed a reason as to why his ship would be capable of flight and be able to capture Highwind in space like it was in-game.

4. Yeah, I know in the game they were actually trying to capture Wendy because they thought she was a PoH, buuuuut… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

5. "And he was afraid of being anything else other than good." Yeah, uh…Riku has his head too far up his own ass right now to realize what he's doing isn't good or justified. He'll learn in the next chapter, I promise. All of this pays off spectacularly. Especially in the next installment.

6. In the game, the meeting cutscene when Peter Pan says, "Come on, Tink! Open up the door!" Sora clears his throat and the shot cuts to the trio standing there looking at Peter Pan, and Sora has his keyblade ready. It does give a handy in-universe explanation as for why the trio's able to most anywhere they please in the levels, barring the trinity entrances. I thought it was funny, on top of the scene where Riku's trying to be all hardcore and boasting about how he can control the heartless, and Sora's only response is that Riku's a dumbass.

7. In the game, Wendy legitimately did blockade the door with a chest of drawers, you can see her run to check on it in the scene w/ her and Kairi. Good job, Wendy!

8. Yes, the heartless at the end weren't killed using a keyblade, which is technically against the game's canon. However, they do it that way in the manga, and I've got an explanation in mind as to how simply drowning the heartless would still work to free the Hearts and not doom them to destruction!

See you guys later when KH3 releases and we're all in a sobbing heap _(:3」∠)_