Chapter 13

"Well, that was a big waste of time," Sora sighed as he and Riku walked back to the field where the Door was. "They haven't even started setting up for the ceremony yet."

Riku stood a few feet away, staring at the Door. "Sora, where do you think Lya went?"

"Hopefully somewhere far, far away," Sora pouted. He still couldn't believe she had ran away like that.

"Seriously, where could she have gone? We haven't seen her, and everyone we've asked hasn't seen her either." Riku turned to look at Sora. "Maybe she went back."

"Does that mean-"

"We need to go back and see if she's in trouble. If she was trying to go back, for whatever reason, Donald's guards might have caught her."

Sora groaned, then looked at the Door again. "Fine, let's go see what she's up to."

Several minutes later, all of the guards by the Door had been knocked unconscious. Sora and Riku were heading through the hallways towards the dungeon, when Riku stopped suddenly, and cried out in pain. Sora spun around and saw that Riku was fading away.

"Riku!" Sora reached out to him, but his hand passed right through, and Riku continued to disappear. In a few seconds he was completely gone.

Sora stood in shock for a few minutes, then spun around and ran as fast as he could to the dungeon. When he got there the guards tried to stop him, but he knocked them out. He stood facing Lya through the bars of her cell.

"What's going on?" he yelled at her. She looked up at him, her expression full of regret. "What happened to Riku?"

"Time, it's ... been affected to the point that the events have finally spread to other worlds. If you hadn't come back, Riku would've been fine, but now he's been pulled into this chain of events." She stood up and placed her hands on the cell door. "Sora, you have to let me out of here. We have to go back to Timeless River before you and I share the same fate as Riku! If that happens then nothing will ever be set straight!"

Sora looked doubtful, then he opened the cell door. "Fine. But don't try to double-cross me."

"I wouldn't dare," she said as she took off running for the Door, with Sora close behind her.