Kairi: Destiny Place

Over the next two weeks, the seal continued to grow. It remained red, but never stopped burning. Sora was falling asleep all the time, thanks to the fact that the seal kept him up at night. Kairi stayed with him 24/7, in case the seal activated. They were so painful that at times, he would pass out completely. The attacks (as he had started to call the activation of the seal) were also increasing in length, sometimes lasting as long as ten minutes.

Sora was laying in his bed, still trying to recover from the last attack. It didn't matter. He still was in agony all the time. All of his day revolved around the anxiousness for the next bought of pain. Kairi hated seeing him like this, but wouldn't dare try to lift the seal again, for fear of making it worse. She placed a wet cloth on his forehead. He sighed in relief, and closed his eyes. Kairi cast a cure spell, and soon Sora was sleeping, for a little while. Whenever he slept, it was deeply, so Kairi took the opportunity to remove his shirt and examine the progress of the seal.

When she pulled off his top, she gasped. The knots had already completely covering his right arm, that much she had already known, but it looked like it was progressing even faster now. It had gone across the top of his chest, going up his neck, and was starting to go down his left arm and ribcage. Kairi wiped a tear away, and opened up her mind to the magical flow around her.

She felt the normal flow of energy from outside, but coming from Sora she could feel darkness. Not specifically from him, but from the seal. As far as she could figure, the seal wasn't physically burning him. Instead, it was creating the illusion of burning. So while he wouldn't die of burns, he was experiencing great trauma, and could die from the shock.

"Sora, please, I already lost you once," Kairi said, fighting back tears. "I can't lose you again."

"You won't," Sora mumbled. "I promise."

Kairi took his hand, and the pressure became to much. Tears ran down her face. "There has to be something I can do! Something that won't just make it worse!"

Sora turned his head, and looked up at the ceiling. "I'd say that Aerith might be able to heal me, but that's only if we could get to Radiant Garden, and we can't."

"Aerith? I've heard that name before."

"She's a natural mage. A healer. That's why she was able to grow plants, even down in the slums," Sora said. He took a deep breath. "Maybe it was just the church. Maybe Kingdom Hearts let the flowers grow." He closed his eyes. "I'm going to try and sleep a little more. G'night."

While it wasn't what she intended, Kairi's eyelids fell, and she drifted off to sleep.

Outside the door, Reeve Tuesti had been listening to them. Becoming friends, for lack of a better word, with Riku had unseen advantages. Riku had told him a lot about what was happening with the higher-ups that he wouldn't have found out about otherwise, only being third-rank. Reeve took a deep breath. He grabbed his key from his pocket, and gripped it tightly. "I've got a lot of work to do," he said, and headed off to his personal workroom.

A knock came at the door. Kairi sat up suddenly, and checked her watch. She jumped when she saw the time. It was four in the morning, which meant that she had fallen asleep for nearly six hours. She looked over at Sora, who was covered in sweat. She realized with a shock that she had been right. It was speeding up. Already the Celtic knot had advanced another two inches down his left arm, a half an inch up his neck, and an inch along his chest.

Another knock came to the door. Kairi walked over, and opened it up. "Down here, lass!" She looked down, and saw a bipedal cat of some sort. "Oi! You are Kairi Hikari?" She nodded. "Dun worry! Ye haven't lost yer marbles!" To make his point, he pinched her wrist.

"That makes me feel better," Kairi said honestly. "Who are you? What are you?"

He put a finger-claw-to his lips. "Quiet! There are some around that wouldn't take too kindly to me bein round! I am Cait Sith. A friend, who wishes to help ye and yer boy."

"You mean, get him to some help?" Kairi asked. Cait Sith nodded. "Can you get us to Radiant Garden? There's a woman there. If I can find her, and convince her to do it, then she might be able to help him."

"That's a lot o' ifs, if you don't mind me saying," Cait Sith said. "But, I suppose we have little other choice. Come now, we must hurry!"

Kairi nodded, and got Sora so she was half carrying, half dragging him. But only his feet were on the floor, with his arms slung around her neck. She had her keyblade still strapped to her waist, but she hoped that they wouldn't run into any heartless in Radiant Garden. It would be impossible for her to swordfight while carrying Sora, and she didn't want to leave him alone. "Let's go."

The plates in Radiant Garden were designed nearly perfectly. In order to keep the ground level, but prevent possible water damage, all rainwater flows through the upper plates, down to fall like normal rain onto the slums. Unfortunately for Kairi, Sora, and Cait Sith, it was pouring down in buckets.

They ducked under an awning, to get out of the rain for a moment. Cait Sith sighed. "Look, lass. Only way we're going to find this church is by askin' Sora himself where it is. Even what sector!"

Kairi swallowed, and nodded. She set Sora down carefully, with his head leaning against the wall. "Sora?" she said quietly. "Sora, can you wake up for a second?"

His eyes came open a crack. "Mm?"

"Sora? Can you tell me where the church is? Aerith's Church?"

"Sector 6," he said quietly. "9th street."

Kairi smiled. "We're in sector 6, we're on 11th street."

Sora nodded slightly. "Glad you got to sleep a little while, Kai." Even when he was in pain like this, first thing he thought of was other people. His eyes scanned around. "That's Cait Sith? Imagined a guy in a kilt." He looked around some more, and he froze, his eyes wide. "Heartless," he managed to choke out.

Kairi spun around. There were heartless. At least twenty of them. Cait Sith let out a low whistle. "Oi, this ain't gonna be fun." He shook his head. Kairi swallowed, reached into her pocket, and pulled out a fire materia. "Can you use materia?"

"Aye, that I can," Cait Sith said, taking the materia gratefully. He must have been a good black mage, because he started using it in ways Kairi hadn't seen before, creating giant orbs of flames and shields around the three of them.

She bent down, and started to lift Sora again, but he held up his hand. "No. Fight. I'll be alright."

Kairi tried to argue, but Sora was immovable in his stance. So Kairi stood in front of him, destroying any heartless that tried to come near. For a moment, it looked like they would win.

Suddenly, a heartless claw ripped through Cait Sith. He stumbled. "Dun worry bout me! Nice thing about having a stuffed body, ye don't have to worry about losin yer heart! Dun got one!"

It immediately became more difficult for Kairi, trying to fight the heartless off without Cait Sith. "I can't do this," she muttered. "I'm not good enough." She blinked. In that time, a heartless scooted past her, heading straight for Sora. Her eyes widened. Her heart skipped a beat. Her heart, stronger than any other Princess of Heart at that moment in her need to protect the person she loved.

Light flew around Kairi's hand, and she dove at the heartless, destroying it with a single stroke. She looked down at the blade she now held. Flowers decorated the teeth and handle, with a yellow star of some sort making the keychain. "Destiny Place," Kairi said quietly. She turned back to the heartless. Light magic flew around her and her keyblade, and with the slightest thought, the aura flew at the heartless, destroying each and every one.

"I can't believe it," Kairi said, examining her keyblade. She dismissed it with a gesture, and went back over to Sora. He was smiling, having seen her keyblade.

Sora twitched. The curse mark burned again, stronger than ever before. For the first time since he had gotten it, he cried out in pain. Kairi took his hand. "Please, Sora, hang on." She looked over at Cait Sith, who was repairing himself. He stood up, and nodded that he was good to keep moving. Kairi picked Sora up, same as before. "Sora, don't worry."

"I'm not worried," he breathed. "I'm with you."

Just as Sora said, there was the church. Kairi knocked on the door twice. The woman who opened it was quite a few years older than her. She wore a long pink dress, and had her brown hair tied up with a ribbon. "Are you Aerith Gainsborough?"

Aerith nodded. "Who are you? And who is-" She stopped in mid-sentence when she realized it was Sora that Kairi was carrying. The Warder who infiltrated TSUNAMI.

"Please. You have to help him," Kairi said. "Master Leo, the keyblade master at the Alpha Station, put some sort of curse mark on him. I tried to remove it, but my light just made it worse. It's expanding by the minute." When she saw Aerith's hesitation, she sighed. "He told me everything that happened to him. When he started out here, he was planning on doing what he was supposed to, spying on you guys. Over time, he deviated from that mission. Then, he saw a little kid lose their heart to a heartless. A Warder had been standing right nearby when it happened, and he didn't care a bit. Sora wants to be good, I want to be good, but don't you realize how hard it is when you live in a world like we do!"

Aerith was stunned. Both from the fact that a girl like Kairi had made an outburst like that, and nobody had ever made an outburst like that towards her. "Alright. Bring him inside, out of the rain." She pulled the door open wider, to allow them in.

The Flower Girl had Kairi lay down Sora on a bed of flowers, exactly as Sora had described them. Aerith removed his shirt, and gasped at the curse mark. "I've seen this once before. It was my mother who healed it. It acts like a living being. Even if I chase it out of one part with magic, it will strengthen in another. It will take a while. But I think I can do it." Magic traced along Aerith's fingertips, and she closed her eyes. The magic leapt from her fingertips to Sora.

Curious about what was happening, Kairi kneeled down and reached out with her magical sixth sense. She could almost feel the curse's effect, and how it was fighting against Aerith. It would come at her like a spear against her consciousness, but Aerith would slip through the cracks, and keep on going towards the core. Whenever it tried to harden itself to prevent her from getting through, she created her own spear with her mind, and stabbed through it.

At long last, Aerith stopped her advancement, and spread out her magic, just enough to catch the curse's power, and pulled it all out. Kairi opened her eyes, and saw that the curse mark was shrinking, further and further back, until it was back to what it had been originally, then that vanished as well. Aerith was breathing heavily.

Kairi cast a spell of energy-restoration on Aerith, who smiled gratefully, then Kairi turned to Sora. She realized that the sun was now high in the sky. It was almost noon. Time must have passed faster when Aerith was healing than they realized.

"Sora?"

"Uh-huh?" he said with a yawn. He smiled.

"How do you feel?"

"Better than ever," Sora said. He turned to Aerith. "Thank you. It's more than I deserve, for you to have gotten rid of that thing."

"What are you planning to do now?" Aerith asked uncertainly.

"I'm not going back to the Warders, that's for sure," Sora said with a nod. "Though I'm not sure what's going to happen if Leon ever sees me again. Probably kill me, then resurrect me, then kill me again."

Aerith swallowed. "Sora. The fact that you helped so much, but turned out to be a Warder, has wrecked TSUNAMI. It still exists, certainly, but there's a lot of tension. There was a vote just yesterday, as to whether TSUNAMI should be dissolved. It was one vote from being destroyed."

Sora thought about this. He carefully got up, to avoid damaging the flowers, and pulled his shirt back on. It wasn't his Warder Uniform, thank Kingdom Hearts, but his plain-old street clothes. Even with what anybody said, he had stuck with these clothes, and Kairi went into a back room to change into her pink dress, stuffed into a bottomless pocket. "We're headed to Seventh Heaven, Aerith."

"What? You can't! Leon will kill you! Or Cid, or Barret!" Aerith protested.

Sora shrugged. "I'm prepared."

"You don't even have any magic charms," Aerith argued.

"Don't need 'em," Sora said. "The Lifestream left something in me I didn't have before." He raised his hand, and a flame was produced, hovering just a little over his palm. "I know what I'm doing, okay?"

A/N: Sora gains the power of natural magic, and aims to re-join TSUNAMI. What fate awaits our heroes? But first, what has happened in the Alpha Space Station in their absence?

I should tell you guys, next week's chapter is going to be a little late, up on Saturday or Sunday instead of Friday.