Chapter Eleven

After the first week, Queen Minnie had had to get back to her regular duties. This cut into the hours Kairi could have used learning new powers of the Light, but she wasn't selfish enough to demand more of the Queen's focus. If anything, she was grateful that Minnie had taken such a long time to give her a strong foundation.

Of course, that had been just over another two weeks ago. In that time, Kairi had been slowly developing her power. She went to bed far less exhausted now, though she couldn't escape the fatigue completely. But given the fact that she had been training for nearly eight hours a day, using slivers of her very essence as fuel, she was more than happy.

Logically, she wouldn't enter a battle that lasted eight hours. At least, she hoped not.

Thankfully, Minnie was available to give her advice in the early morning and in the evening. Most of these sessions she spent teaching theory, her practical skills (mostly in swordplay) too undeveloped to demonstrate.

In addition to 'Pearl', which had rapidly become her favorite non-magical skill, Kairi had learned the power of 'Faith'. This one had taken a lot shorter to learn, as Minnie had helped guide her through it. After several days of guided practice, Kairi had figured out how to execute the explosion of Light on her own. It was weaker than using it with Minnie, but it was still formidable.

In addition, Kairi had been experimenting to master the techniques she recalled from Sora's adventure. Minnie had allowed this on the condition that she be careful not to strain herself. In her words, "a weakened heart is a most dangerous thing".

Over the course of her personal practice, Kairi had figured out how to sheathe her Keyblade in Light. It may have only lasted for a few moments, but it was still something. And firing arrows of Light from her Keyblade was always awe-inspiring.

Kairi tried to focus on those thoughts as she prepared herself to demonstrate the fruits of her labor. Three weeks, a little more actually, had apparently been deemed long enough for her to master the basics. Yen Sid had arrived that morning and requested to see what she had learned. And so she stood, in the middle of one of Disney Castle's courtyards, with Yen Sid and Queen Minnie ready to see what she had learned.

With a flick of his wrist, Yen Sid conjured a series of six whirlwinds that sucked up dust from the ground, before hardening into humanoid golems with glowing blue eyes. Kairi summoned her Keyblade and prepared herself.

With a twitching lunge, one leapt to attack her. "Fly!" Kairi shouted, a golden Pearl lancing from her outstretched palm to strike at her assailant. The Pearl lashed through it and continued to fly, striking at its companions. Kairi spun out of the first golem's path and slashed with her Keyblade, slicing it cleanly in half at the waist.

'Oops,' she thought. She was supposed to be showing her new skills. But, at least her swordplay had become instinctive now. As a pair of golems rushed forward, Kairi sheathed her Keyblade in Light and fell into a smooth, hard-practiced sequence of slashes, leaving the pair in pieces.

The final three all leapt at her together, each from a different direction. "Light!" Kairi spun into the air, a pillar of Light exploding to knock the golems back. A quick Pearl finished off one, and a glowing strike another. For the last, she cartwheeled away to get some room and charged her Keyblade, willing Light to focus there. With a jump, she fired off the accumulated Light, a rain of glowing arrows shredding her final target.

Kairi landed with easy grace, her breathing hardly labored, and approached her Master to stand at attention.

"I must commend both of your teaching skills, Queen Minnie," Yen Sid said. "You have done well in instructing my apprentice."

"Thank you, Master Sid," she replied.

"And well done to you as well, Kairi," he added with a nod. Kairi merely nodded in return, her Keyblade resting on her shoulder. "Your instruction will continue in this area, along with furthering your physical skills and your magic. For now, gather your things. We will return to the Tower within the hour."

"Yes, Master," Kairi answered. With a brief sigh, she headed back to the castle to pack up. As she moved out of earshot, Minnie spoke up.

"I'm going to miss having Kairi around," she admitted. "I've heard so much about Sora and Riku in Mickey's letters. It was nice to meet the friend who motivates them so." She smiled. "And it was an honor to contribute to the budding of a soon-to-be great Keybearer."

"True enough," Yen Sid complied. "But don't let her catch you saying that. In my experience, apprentices have an unfortunate habit of becoming overconfident. And that only feeds their unvarying recklessness."

Minnie bit her tongue at the indirect comment on her husband, admitting to herself that the old sorcerer's comment held a large bit of truth.

True to his word, Kairi stood in the garden where she had first arrived in Disney Castle less than an hour later. After a heartfelt goodbye to Minnie, as well as eliciting a promise to give her goodbyes to Horace Horsecollar, Kairi followed Yen Sid through one of his Doors.

The pair emerged onto the small path that led to the familiar crooked stone tower, just as Kairi remembered. Kairi smiled at the imposing building. It wasn't home, per se, but it was more than just a building by now. Brushing those thoughts aside, she followed Yen Sid to the tower to begin unpacking.


Kairi resumed her more typical training the next day, with Yen Sid's promised addition of honing her skill with the Light. Beyond this, he began to give her new tasks, such as protecting a dummy from conjured enemies, locating target objects before they were found by spectral hounds, and escorting a target through obstacles without letting it come to harm. And through it all, when he wasn't verbally instructing her, he would watch her like a hawk. It was almost as if … he were waiting for something.

Two more weeks passed this way, until Kairi was summoned the Yen Sid's office. As she stood at attention, Yen Sid began to speak. "I must commend your performance these last months," Yen Sid said. "Your dedication has been admirable and your skills continue to grow. Given this, I have decided to assign you another Trial."

Kairi perked up upon hearing this. How long had it been since she had Sealed the Dwarf Woodlands Keyhole? Well over a month, at least.

"I have divined a dark force settled upon another world home to a Princess of Heart. Your task is to locate this threat, neutralize it, and Seal the world's Keyhole. And as before, you are forbidden from mentioning Sora or his friends." Yen Sid waved his hand, and a thin pillar of light formed on his desk, fading away to reveal a strange-looking silvery gem.

"This is a Star Shard, a unique object similar in origin to a gummi block. It has the power to transport the user between worlds." He snapped his fingers, and the Star Shard glowed faintly blue for a moment. "You will use this to journey to your destination and, upon completing your Trials, to return here."

Kairi picked up the Star Shard and placed it in her pocket. "So, when should I go?" she asked.

"Immediately," he replied.


After packing a bag of provisions, Kairi stood at the lip of Yen Sid's isle, staring down at the Star Shard. The artifact appeared to be made of some kind of silvery-blue crystal, elegantly shaped into four fifths of a star. The fifth point was different, colored yellow-green and in a shape reminiscent of a bolt of lightning. The interior of the shard held another star shape, its color matching the fifth point and eclipsed by a circle.

Kairi looked up into the void of Interspace and held up the Star Shard. She squeezed the gem, focusing her will into it as if she were working magic. She stood like this for several moments before relaxing with a sigh. "What? No instructions?" she asked outloud. If it had been anyone else who gave her this, she would have wondered if it were a joke. But Yen Sid didn't joke about Keybearer business.

Kairi held the gem out to space again, focusing as hard as she could. She began to tremble, her face turning red with the attempt to awaken the Shard. After another minute, she gasped and stumbled back. The blood rushed to her head and she shook off the dizziness that came with it.

Kairi sighed and decided to swallow her pride and ask Yen Sid for help. But before she could take a step, she yelped as the Shard burst into silvery-white light that seemed to envelope her. An unbelievable force jerked the Shard upward, her fingers welded shut around it. Kairi screamed as she was flung through the space between the worlds, her path disjointed and crooked.

After what felt like an instant and an eternity all at once, Kairi landed - rather forcefully - and the silvery glow around her susbsided. She groaned as she mentally checked herself for injury. Soreness, but little else. 'Thank the stars for small miracles,' she thought dryly.

Kairi shakily climbed to her feet, tucking the Star Shard into the satchel at her side. It may be uncooperative and crazy, but it was her only way back. Kairi turned in place to get her bearings - and paused at the sight before her.

A magnificent white castle, somewhat like Disney Castle, rose above her. The white walls glistened in the sun. Even as she watched, a clock in one of the towers sounded the local hour. Kairi herself stood in a large courtyard before the castle itself, between a fountain-like basin of water and a massive set of steps that led to the castle's entrance. Quickly checking for anyone around her, she quickly scaled the large steps to the entrance, only to stop in her tracks just inside the doors.

This place was beautiful! The granite flooring was scrubbed to shine like a mirror, the marble walls shining faintly pink. The ceiling soared above, covered with lovely murals. A grand staircase stretched to what she could only assume was a magnificent ballroom.

Kairi was about to begin climbing the steps … when she felt a familiar sense of unease, like a vile force squeezing her heart. Darkness was near. Acting on intuition, Kairi darted for a side corridor to follow the sense. If something was threatening this place, whether it was the threat Yen Sid had mentioned or not, it was her duty to stop it.

Kairi moved like a doe, guided through the complex hallways only by her sense for the Darkness. As she continued to move, the pressure on her heart grew slowly stronger - and so did her sense of its direction. She pushed on, refusing to let the sense of dread get to her.

Finally, the feeling spiked as she ran through the entrance of a castle garden. Men in uniforms, likely castle guards, lay spread out across the grass. Heartless, mostly Soldiers interspersed with Gargoyles surrounded a young woman in a simple dress and apron, her strawberry-blonde hair tied back in a handkerchief. And just as she had with Snow White, Kairi felt a sense of deja vu, like she had known this woman her whole life.

With a start, Kairi realized that the sense of Darkness wasn't emanating from the Heartless. It came from a shadowy figure standing before the young woman, its back to Kairi. With utter certainty, Kairi knew what to do. She summoned Destiny's Embrace and charged, her Keyblade glowing as she flew through combination after combination, leaving no Heartless in her path untouched.

As she cleared the way to the woman and leapt to reach her, the shadowy figure turned to look at her. All Kairi saw was a pair of cold light-green eyes as the figure dispersed into black mist. Kairi landed next to the woman and took her hand. Acting on her training with Queen Minnie, Kairi wove their Lights together. And in an exploding pillar of Light, the remaining Heartless were destroyed.

Kairi cast her gaze around the garden for any stragglers, adrenaline pumping. With a heavy sigh of relief, she turned to the woman. "Are you okay?" she asked.

"Yes, I am," the woman replied with a smile. And at the sight of that soft smile, Kairi remembered where she had seen this woman before. The simple clothes she now wore in place of that elaborate white ballgown had thrown her off, but it was definitely her. The second figure from her Dive to the Heart.

Oblivious to Kairi's revelation, the woman glanced at Kairi's Keyblade with an air of nostalgia. "It's been a long time since I've seen one of those," she said. It's been since-" she cut herself off and shook her head. "No, it- Hmmm, it has been a long time." The woman looked up to meet Kairi's gaze and offered her hand to shake. "Cinderella," she introduced.

Kairi smiled and shook back. "Kairi."

"Kairi?" Cinderella asked. "Oh, it's so nice to finally meet you. Officially, at least. Sor-" she paused again, fingers rising to her temple as if warding off a headache, "someone talked about you back at Hollow Bastion." Cinderella blinked again, seeming to brush away the thought. "I didn't think I'd see any of you again."

"Well, now you have," Kairi laughed, before becoming serious. "Cinderella, what was that thing? I've never seen anything like it."

Cinderella's smile fell, the joy in her eyes replaced by dread. "I'm not sure what it was," she admitted, "but it looked like my stepmother." A groan caught their attention, one of the fallen guards coming to. "Oh, dear. I almost forgot." She turned to Kairi. "Give me a moment to help these men and I'll tell you what I know." She gave another faint smile. "Knowing what a Keyblade means, I'm sure you're here for a reason."

Kairi smiled and lifted Destiny's Embrace, casting a wide Cure spell. "There. They'll be fine when they wake up. Just tell one of them to explain it to the others and we can go compare notes.


As the sun began to fall in the sky, it looked down upon Cinderella leading Kairi through the small city that hugged the castle. The pair were headed to her childhood home, where Cinderella was certain the entity from before would appear again.

As they kept moving, Kairi thought back on how they had arrived at this point.

After briefing the guards, and weathering their apologies for failing to protect Cinderella and their thanks to Kairi for protecting their princess, Cinderella led them to her private rooms to talk.

And so Cinderella told her story. Everything from her loving parents, to her mother dying and her father remarrying, to her father's death, as well. She explained, in detached detail, how she had been treated by Lady Tremaine and her two daughters for so many years. As she continued to describe her past, Kairi couldn't help a queasy feeling in her belly. What kind of monster could do this to a child?

Cinderella continued her tale up to the night she met her fiance. She smiled fondly at the memory of the ball that night, and the help she had gotten from her fairy godmother and three strangers. Before she could describe them, Kairi had a feeling she knew who they were. How many worlds had those three visited before everything went wrong?

Finally, she described the monstrous creature that had attacked her, summoned by Lady Tremaine's hatred. But the plan had backfired, resulting in the deaths of all three of her remaining family. The woman with blue hair (yep, had to be Master Aqua) defeated the creature and helped reunite her with the prince. It was about a year after that that Maleficent had led the Darkness to overtake her world.

Kairi hummed in thought as she processed Cinderella's story. "And that ... thing looked like your stepmother?" Kairi asked.

Cinderella nodded, her expression a stoic mask. "I remember the woman with blue hair saying something about 'the Darkness overtaking them'," she said. "I assumed she meant that their dark deeds had come back to haunt them." Cinderella looked away as she thought over her next words. "But … what I know about the Heartless, now I think she may have been speaking literally."

That would make a lot of sense. If Lady Tremaine had been as full of envy as Cinderella described, it would have been a perfect feeding ground for the Darkness in her heart.

"Is this the first time you've seen this thing?" Kair asked.

Cinderella shook her head. "Ever since the worlds were restored, strange things have been happening." She spoke about accidents that had been happening around her, in which she had avoided injury by a hair's breadth. Servants losing control of heavy burdens, ceramic dishes shattering for no reason, and even a piece of masonry breaking away to crash within an inch of her.

"And these 'accidents' have only gotten worse. Several servants have been hurt, and Charming had even offered a group of guards as a protective escort. She hadn't cared for the idea herself, but had agreed for his sake. These were the men that had been scattered around the castle garden when she met Kairi, flung through the air by the power of this shadow that took the shape of Lady Tremaine.

"Do you have any idea where this … ghost could be?" Kairi asked. Cinderella hadn't even hesitated before she nodded.

Kairi was brought out of her thoughts by Cinderella's hand on her shoulder. They had arrived. They stood facing the wrought-iron gate of a walled in stone manor. The chateau, as Cinderella had called it, appeared as if it had been quite lovely at its peak. But time and neglect had worn away at its beauty.

And even beyond the state of the chateau itself, there was something deeper that put her on edge. A sense of … sorrow, covered by quite hatred. The oppressing sense of Darkness emanated from this manor, like a festering wound. A quick glance at Cinderella and her pale complexion showed she felt much the same - in fact, considering this had been her childhood home and the site of so much abuse, it was probably even worse.

"Say behind me," Kairi whispered. She summoned her Keyblade and held it up to the gate. A thin beam of light flew from the end and into the gate's lock, unsealing the gate. Kairi eased the gate open, gritting her teeth at the rusty squeal, and led the way toward the manor.

As they neared the house, Kairi paused at the pressure of Cinderella's hand on her shoulder. She lifted a finger to her lips, indicating silence, and motioned for Kairi to follow. With no other ideas, Kairi fell in step behind her fellow Princess.

Cinderella led them around the interior of the manor wall, keeping as far from the chateau itself as possible. Until they arrived at what had at one point been a garden for the manor. Both Princesses stopped at the sight of the cracked fountain that acted as the centerpiece of the garden.

Where there had once been water, the fountain bubbled forth a thick purple-black ooze that poured into the basin, faint fumes rising from the miasma that resulted. Even as they watched, the tar-like sludge began to bubble more fiercely, and Kairi took a step back as a wave of cold terror washed over them. Cinderella clutched at Kairi's arm, nearly hyperventilating even as she visibly fought to remain brave.

Kairi growled as a bunch of Shadows emerged from the ground, surrounding them in a loose circle. "Cinderella, do you trust me?" she asked.

"Of course," she responded. Without a word, Kairi moved her wrist to entwine their fingers, diving deep for her inner Light. Cinderella's own Light responded in kind, just as Queen Minnie had taught her, and the duo floated of the ground as a halo of Light surrounded them.

"Come on!" Kairi shouted, and the halo exploded to vaporize the Shadows. Kairi landed on the balls of her feet and stabilized Cinderella. Though, it didn't seem as if she needed it. The act of casting Faith seemed to have revitalized her, banished the alien wave of fear.

"Impudent child!" The words emanated from the fountain, the substance inside bubbling even more fiercely than before. Kairi nudged Cinderella behind her, leveling Destiny's Embrace in a fighting stance. "Why won't you just die?!"

And from the fountain emerged the ghost, just as Cinderella had described. Its colors were muted, tainted by the black-purple of Darkness, but it was clearly Lady Tremaine. The burning hatred in her light-green eyes was unmistakable.

"If my pets cannot destroy you," the ghost said, "I'll just have to do it myself!" And at her words, the fountain exploded. The miasma washed over the ghost and began to swell, like a blackened sore. In a matter of moments, the welt ruptured to reveal a towering Heartless.

The Heartless resembled a massive rat, a vile crown of obsidian twisted around its temples. Two pairs of sinuous forelegs tore at the ground, scraping at the dirt with scythe-like black claws. A pair of back legs were tensed and ready to charge, and its serpentine black tail was capped with two more smaller heads that shrieked and spat at them. And to top it off, a pair of small wings extended from its back. The Heartless gazed at them with hate-filled eyes, the sludge from the fountain dripping from its jagged fangs.

Without preamble, the Heartless hissed and leapt at them. But Kairi's spellcasting was quicker, and she erected a Barrier than sent the Heartless flying away. As the Heartless shook its head, Kairi followed up with Fira, Blizzara, and Thundra. Each spell drew a pained hiss from the creature, and it sprung into the air on its feathered wings.

Kairi cast a series of Thundra spells to knock the Heartless out of the air, growling to herself when they all missed their mark. How could something with wings so small fly with such agility? Then again, she recalled an entry in her Bestiary about "Invisibles", who could fly with similarly small wings. Maybe Heartless just weren't as subject to physics as other things.

Kairi brushed aside her thoughts as the Heartless once again drew nearer, spinning in a barrel roll. Kairi braced herself as glowing orange spheres flew from it, raining down upon the garden with frightening accuracy. Kairi grabbed Cinderella and drew her closer before erecting another Barrier. As the spheres fell upon the ground or her shield, they exploded with violent force.

As the explosions tapered off, Kairi lowered her Barrier and began to think. There was no way she could win this thing if the Heartless kept its wings. It would just wear them down before it came in to finish the job. None of her traditional spells could bring it down, which only left her Light. Kairi prepared to conjure a Pearl, or three, when she turned to face a feminine voice shouting at top volume.

"Tremaine!" Cinderella shouted, waving her arms. When had she moved away from Kairi to cross the garden?! "You wanted me, I'm right here! Do your worst!"

Kairi stared for a solid three seconds before darting to cover her. She had to admit, Cinderella had guts to challenge a unique (and therefore more powerful) Heartless straight to its face. Kairi barely had time to grab Cinderella's wrist and haul her out of the way before the Heartless came crashing down to destroy her.

"Thunder!" Kairi shouted, pouring all the magic she could into her spell to stun the Heartless. Without pause, she harnessed her light and charged her Keyblade with its power. With a cry of exultation, she fired off a vortex of shining arrows to shred the Heartless's wings.

One problem solved.

Her relief was short lived as the Heartless hissed and lashed out with its tail, knocking Kairi across the garden. She groaned as she lunged to her feet, Yen Sid's words on being knocked down in a fight ringing in her ears along with the more simple ringing of violence.

Kairi yelped and cartwheel to the side to avoid the Heartless's follow-up, which smashed a hole into the chateau's wall. Kairi capitalized on the impact stunning the creature and dove into an Ars Arcanum, feeling her blazing Keyblade burn away at its dark essence.

But rather than be intimidated by her attack, the creature seemed only angrier. With lightning speed, it knocked her to the ground. Before she could get up, the Heartless crashed back down, its claws digging into her shoulders and ripping a cry of pain from her throat.

The Heartless rose again to its back legs, growling in fury. Kairi lifted her Keyblade, acting on survival instinct, and waited for the inevitable. But before she felt the pain of its attack, Kairi was jerked away with a yelp of surprise. She rolled across the dirt and to a stop, barely catching the leafy vine that released her ankle and retreated to a barren vegetable garden.

Kairi could spare it no more thought as Cinderella appeared and jerker her to her feet to drag her back toward the chateau. "What are you doing?" Kairi shouted.

"Just trust me!" Cinderella shouted back. She didn't stop until they were long past the chateau's entrance gate, the castle visible in the distance. But rather than continue running toward it, Cinderella stopped in her tracks and turned to face the direction they had come from. She turned to regard Kairi, her eyes steely with determination. "Can you make that burst of Light again?" She asked.

"What?" Kairi asked, utterly baffled.

"The burst?! Can you do that again?" Cinderella said, surprisingly calm.

The sounds of the Heartless crashing into the yard interrupted them, the vile beast shaking itself off before charging at them. But before it could make contact, the Heartless crashed into an invisible force to stop in its tracks. It snarled at them and tried again, but the force pushed it back a few steps.

Kairi stared at Cinderella with awe. The Princess held her arms before her, palms out to face the Heartless. Her body shone with faint white Light, even as sweat beaded her forehead. Yen Sid had mentioned that the Princesses had held back a wave of Darkness before Sora had Sealed the Final Keyhole, but actually seeing it happen was something else.

But Cinderella couldn't keep this up forever. Kairi armed her Keyblade and fired off a series of Pearls to knock the Heartless off-balance and enrage it further. "Get ready," she warned.

As the Heartless roared and gave one final lunge, Cinderella dropped her focus and clasped hands with Kairi. "Light!" they shouted together, and a wave of white power exploded from them. The Heartless was knocked bodily into the air, its physical form dissolving like ink in water. It landed with a thud and bounced a few times.

The creature dug its claws into the ground to halt its momentum, mindlessly focused on destroying Cinderella and the Keybearer. Its ear twitched at a terrifying sound and it looked up to see Kairi coming down, her Keyblade shining as she sung a fearsome battlecry. With a final stroke of the Keyblade, the Heartless wailed in defeat and it body dissolved away to release a shining heart. The heart rose into the air and disappeared without a trace.

Kairi waited a moment, nerves still taut, for anything else to happen. When nothing did, she collapsed to her knees. Panting with leftover adrenaline, she cast Cure over herself and tried to rise to her feet. Kairi blanched as Cinderella appeared and took her by the elbow to help her up.

"It's over," Cinderella said. And Kairi couldn't help but think she was right. The malevolent presence that seemed to hover over the chateau was gone.

"What I don't understand is what that thing was before it was a Heartless," Kairi said.

"Perhaps I can help with that," a new voice proclaimed. Blue flecks of magic appeared across the clearing, moving to congregate before them. With a final blaze of blue light, a familiar figure appeared before them.

"Fairy Godmother!" Cinderella greeted, diving into the fairy's arms.

"Oh, it's so good to see you, dear," the Godmother said. "And you performed so admirably against that Heartless. I couldn't be more proud." She glanced at Kairi, her smile not wavering at all. "And it's good to see you, too, Miss Kairi."

Kairi smiled as she recalled her first meeting with the fairy before her. After Sora had departed for Hollow Bastion, Kairi had decided to explore Traverse Town. Naturally, she had stumbled upon Merlin's house at some point. The wizard himself had been gone, but the Fairy Godmother had appeared to help sooth her nerves. "It's nice to see you, Mrs. Godmother," Kairi replied.


The setting sun found Kairi and Cinderella back in the castle, the Fairy Godmother explaining what she could. This "ghost" of Lady Tremaine had been a manifestation of her lingering Darkness. According to the Godmother, while Lady Tremaine's daughters had indeed been killed by the Cursed Carriage, which Cinderella had explained in her own story, Tremaine herself had not. The wicked stepmother had succumbed to her Darkness and become a Heartless. The Carriage's bomb had merely dispersed her essence, just as all weapons did if they were not a Keyblade.

With the world being overtaken by Darkness by Maleficent, Tremaine's Darkness had been put into a unique state of limbo. The world being plunged into the Dark Realm had allowed her to remain strong, to even retain some sense of her intellect. But without Cinderella as a focus of her hatred, that intellect had been left groundless, aimless.

Of course, with the return of the world from the Realm of Darkness after Ansem's defeat, Tremaine had reclaimed the focus of her hate. The "accidents' that had been plaguing Cinderella and those around her had been caused by Tremaine's ghost, her scattered form only allowing her the weakest meddling with events.

It was only recently that Tremaine had finally begun to reclaim any measure of her full power. The attack with Heartless had been Tremaine's first direct assault, and of course had been thwarted by Kairi's timely arrival.

"What would have happened if we hadn't taken the fight to her?' Kairi asked.

"She would have simply gathered her power again and kept trying to hurt dear Cinderella," the Fairy Godmother replied. "You of all people know how driven the Heartless can be, young Kairi." Kairi nodded at the point - she did know. The Fairy Godmother chuckled matronly and waved the topic off. "But that's no longer important. The Lady Tremaine is gone, for good this time. And, if I haven't missed my guess, you have one more task ahead of you in this place."

Kairi stood up as she remembered her final mission - the Keyhole. "Do you-?"

"Yes, Kairi, I know where it is." The Fairy Godmother stood up and looked to Cinderella. "Would you care to join us, Cinderella? The Sealing of a Keyhole is, I hear, quite the unique experience."

Less than ten minutes later, the Fairy godmother had led the pair to the grand ballroom of the castle. Before Kairi could ask why, Destiny's Embrace appeared in her grasp. The Keyblade shimmered, silently searching for the nearby Keyhole. The servants and denizens of the castle in the ballroom gasped and moved away from its center as the Keyhole appeared, a great outline on the ballroom floor.

Thinking quickly, Kairi lifted her Keyblade up to point at the great chandelier hanging from the vaulted ceiling. Motes of Light gathered and came together in a familiar thin beam that struck the chandelier and scattered, falling to enter the outline of the Keyhole. The tell-tale click of the Sealing resounded through the ballroom, and it faded away. Only a neat etching in its shape showed it had ever been there at all.

"You know," Kairi said, "that never gets old."

Kairi grunted as Cinderella wrapped her in a sudden hug before returning the embrace. "Thank you, Kairi," she whispered. "For everything." Cinderella pulled away with a warm smile. "You're always welcome here."

"Thanks, Cinderella," Kairi replied. Before she could say more, all three of them jumped at a sudden flare of light from Kairi's bag. Without time for goodbyes, the light grew and Kairi was whisked off by the power of the Star Shard.

Another chapter, another Princess, another adventure. What'd y'all think? Leave a review - they help me keep going.

*Lady Tremaine's "ghost" was inspired by Scar in KH2, with a few changes for originality.

*The Castle of Dreams Keyhole was partly inspired by that of Halloween Town. I always liked that one, and the ballroom for location just made sense to me.

*The idea that Kairi had previously met the Fairy godmother in Traverse Town came to me while writing this chapter. We know little to nothing about what she experienced while Sora was off sealing the Final Keyhole and battling Ansem-the-Seeker. Personally, I think it is a heartwarming thought.