The Annals of Darkness: A Week of Troubles

by Shire Folk

Part II. With Maleficent returned and brandishing the powers of Kingdom Hearts Sora and Kairi suddenly appear in Radiant Garden in a coma in the arms of an enemy. With Sora missing an arm and unable to call the keyblade can they ever recover their hope?

21. Remembrance

Sora: (As a human once more) I don't understand it.

Kairi: (Just walking in) Don't understand what?

Sora: (Pointing at Shire Folk) This guy.

Kairi: (Looking between Sora and Shire Folk, who is standing with a sheepish grin on his face) When have we ever understood him? (Shire gets riled up at this but Kairi continues) Still, what don't you get?

Sora: That he forgot that Calypso was a Nereid when he claims to love Greek Mythology so much.

Kairi: (Gasps)

Shire: (In an attempt to defend himself) I DO love Greek Mythology! It's just been a very long time since I've read the Odyssey and I forgot that both Calypso and Circe were competing to win Odysseus' affection on his journey home to Ithica. I remembered Circe, but I forgot Calypso. Is that so much of a crime?

Riku: (Coming in) Given that we worship Calypso, Poseidon, Thetis, and recognize a bunch of other sea nymphs because we live on a world that solely consists of a group of islands, I think it is.

Shire: Whatever. Can I get someone to do the disclaimer please?

Sora: (Glancing between himself, Kairi, and Riku) Why should any of us help you with the disclaimer?

Shire: Otherwise you won't get the keyblade back this chapter and you won't learn what Therlyenë means. (Rumble of thunder in clouds. Shire Folk grimaces.) Okay fine Tylythia, he'll still get it back but it's all up to him, not me. And he still won't learn what Therlyenë means. (Another rumble of thunder.) Oh, now you're against me too Wagneir? Jeez, can't I even win against the Gods I created?

Riku: (Whispering) What's he talking about?

Kairi: I don't know, but I'm going to do the disclaimer so that I can see more of Sora as a cute lion cub. Shire Folk does not own Kingdom Hearts, Disney, or Final Fantasy. However he owns his Gods, even if it looks like he can't win arguments against them, and he owns his OCs. He's also changing the game canon a little bit to make it movie canon.

Sora: (Looking over at Kairi) You really like seeing me as a lion cub don't you?

Kairi: (Giggling with a slight blush) If there was a plushy of you as one, I'd own them all.

-A-D-

A Week of Troubles

Chapter XXI: Remembrance

The Sun had not yet risen over the horizon of the Pride Lands, but still the nearly full moon's silvery reflective light was failing as the dawning light of a soon to rise Sun pilfered through the dark sky. The stars, fewer in number than there should have been but still a sizable number, twinkled in the sky and brought some faint light to the closed eyelids of the sleeping creatures. The rain that had fallen earlier had drained the clouds that previously had moved in, and so the dark grey shapes in the pinpricked obsidian mantle above the savannah had become small wisps, distant from one another. The lower portions of those dark masses resting in the sky as east as the eye could see were already a rose-like red.

Sora snored and twitched as he lay on his back in the hollow of Rafiki's massive acacia tree. His legs hanging out in the air above him, they jolted occasionally as if he was running in some dream. Rafiki was already awake, and his back was turned to the sleeping lion cub as he examined a flat piece of the trunk in the hollow where there was a drawing of Sora, Donald, and Goofy. Also on it was one of Simba.

Rafiki was frowning as he stared intently at the drawing, or more specifically at the section that was Sora. He had never imagined that things could get so out of hand in the young boy's journey that he could stop listening to his heart. Rafiki had seen that Sora was strong of heart, and a very brave and cunning warrior. But he was also so young to be thrust into that position, and no matter how strong his heart was he was still a child who needed guidance and love.

The wind rustled through Rafiki's grizzled white mane of hair, his gourds and the leaves of the acacia tree chattering in the breeze.

"I know you are anxious to see your son like this Anne," he muttered to himself, still staring at the drawing of Sora on the tree's trunk. "And his run-in with the vengeful lioness Zira yesterday was not good-" He stopped as the wind picked up.

"What are you crazy?" He asked aloud, looking up into the sky in disbelief. "How was meeting Zira good, Mufasa?" The old mandrill waited for a few moments, listening.

"Scar has revealed himself again then?" Rafiki mused. "And he goes by the name of Xarcs now and is more powerful then ever? This news is very peculiar."

The wind blew softly now, barely sweeping Rafiki's mane to the side or causing the leaves to turn from their place in the tree. Rafiki's eyes widened in astonishment as it continued to whirl around him. "Have you gone insane Mufasa?" he asked, rather agitatedly. "It will never work and the risk is too high! Not only would we chance losing your granddaughter, but also the only hope-"

The wind blew again, and again Rafiki grumpily continued. "What does that poor cub have to do with this?" he asked. The leaves chattered loudly as the gale picked up and began to tumble all around Rafiki.

"I can't believe you're agreeing with him Anne!" Rafiki shouted. "It only means sending your son into more danger. You've both had your heads in the clouds for far too long." The strength of the gale grew until it was forcing Rafiki to push it back with hands set in defeat.

"Okay, okay," he relented, defeated. "I don't think that this is going to work," he sighed, "but I trust you Mufasa. I just hope you both know what you're doing!" Rafiki called after the wind as it swirled out of his tree.

Sora snoring suddenly jolted and his legs jerked, his back rolling over to his side. The wind returned as he mumbled something that sounded similar to 'leave me alone anti', his face scrunched up in what looked like pain. Rafiki watched as the wind softly blew around the lion cub and after a few moments his muttering ceased and his face slid back into one of peace, before his snores continued.

"She lives in you Sora," Rafiki murmured quietly, shaking his head, "you just have yet to see it yourself."

The old mandrill grabbed his walking stick with its two gourds tied to the knobby end at the top, took one last look at a sleeping Sora, and then left his tree whilst chuckling to himself. If all went according to Mufasa's plan, it was going to be an interesting day for him and three lion cubs.

Sora awoke some time later when the Sun was already two paw widths (stretched as far away from his body as possible) above the horizon. The air was still quite cool from the rain that had fallen again the previous night, but the golden mists had already been broken apart by the rising Sun's heating rays.

A very loud morning yawn escaped past his muzzle, his eyes shut closed for a good eight seconds as the yawn suppressed every other action his mind could even think of doing. Once the yawn was finished, Sora rolled onto his legs and stood, stretching his small body to the limits of his limbs for another few seconds before yawning again. Shaking his head slightly, he sat back down and began scratching his back with his hind leg. He really had had no idea just how good it felt to be able to scratch in places he'd never had the flexibility to scratch before.

Finishing that, Sora blearily looked around the hollow in the very large acacia tree, his cerulean eyes searching for the crazy monkey that would probably smack him with the stick for waking up a little late. He'd had a crazy dream, where Anti form was laughing and chasing him, big as the Groundshaker heartless composed of Scar ghosts he'd fought with Simba, Donald, and Goofy, while he had only been as small as he was now. Anti had been cackling something about killing him and taking all of his power for his own (or something of the like, Sora couldn't exactly remember). But then Anti-form became entirely enveloped in a bubble and shrunk down to the size of a tiny field mouse while his mother's voice told him to remember the words of the woman who'd saved him in that strange forest from the spiders.

Sora noticed that Rafiki wasn't here, and so decided to continue thinking while waiting for the old mandrill to show up.

Scratching his head with his front paw, being careful to avoid the spot where Jiminy Cricket was, he thought about those words he was sure he'd heard the voice of his mom speak. He'd not had a thought about that woman since after coming out of the coma, and in fact he'd mostly forgotten about her until those words had struck that spark of his memory.

He struggled to remember what it was that she had said. Something about listening to his heart instead of his head or he'd… he'd what? He shook his head, trying to remember what it was she had said. If anything else he remembered he could only recall the parting word she gave him, Therlyenë.

What was it? A name? If it was a name he'd never heard it before. Or could it have been in that language (Quincekence or whatever it was called) Kairi had been speaking? If that was the case then he knew he'd have no idea what it meant, and asking Kairi would be useless because she didn't understand the language herself, she just spoke it sporadically. King Mickey would be his best bet to ask, he'd just have to try and remember to ask him the next time he saw the monarch.

But it was the voice of his mother that had spoken to him. Wasn't… wasn't his mom gone? Hadn't Cossex personally seen to that?

He was distracted from his thoughts when his stomach gave a particularly loud growl and Sora looked down at it in frustration.

"Man, can't you ever give me a break?" he asked it fruitlessly, as it only growled again at his comment. Groaning, Sora rolled his head on its neck and took a step forward, peering down the trunk of the giant acacia tree at the ground far beneath him.

He remembered Rafiki telling him the previous night that he had to stay close to the tree at all times today, but he hadn't seen the cranky monkey since waking up, and Rafiki also hadn't made a move to rap him with that stick of his. His stomach was rumbling in protest and his mouth was salivating in thirst. In these circumstances, and also the fact that he knew he'd jumped and fallen greater distances without being hurt much at all, the distance between himself and the ground did not give Sora much pause as he leapt from the top of the tree.

It took him a whole two and a half seconds to hit the ground, and when he did Sora landed crouched on all four of his paws, the force buckling his knees but otherwise leaving him unharmed while he skidded about a foot.

Sora raised his head and looked off through the wet grasslands in the direction of the water hole he frequented, wondering why it was only when he was a lion that he was so thirsty when he woke up. He quickly looked around.

"Rafiki's not back yet," he said to himself, "and it's just the water hole after all…" Quickly making up his mind, Sora began to trot quite swiftly towards the water hole. And if Rafiki objected? Oh well, he wasn't here to tell him no.

Sora knew he really shouldn't be behaving like this. He had been told to stay put, essentially grounded and with good reason. But he knew he would not willingly go near the Outlands again, unless he wanted a quick death in the jaws of a rather powerful, gangly, and downright scary lioness.

And he was thirsty, where was he supposed to get water from if not the water hole? He hadn't seen any- well there were quite a few puddles on the ground from the last couple nights of heavy rainfall, but that was beside the point.

He hurried along to the water hole, remembering the last time he had ventured there after sleeping at Rafiki's tree and the elephants almost turning him into squishy lion cub goo in the water. He couldn't feel the ground trembling underneath his paws yet, so he knew that if the elephants were coming, they were a long ways off.

He crested the hill he had climbed last time and saw the water hole off in the distance, the tiny shadowed figures showing the animals already there. Sora sneezed as he made his way down the hill towards the lowlands where the water hole was. It was a little chilly this morning, and his fur had already gotten quite damp from the grasses that were thick with moisture from the night's rainfall. The ground itself was also a little muddy, having soaked up rain from two consecutive nights of rain, and by the time Sora had reached the water hole, his ashen fur and automail was slick with the dark brown of the mud.

The first thing he did when he reached the swelled pool was whisper to Jiminy that the cricket might want to leave the top of his head, as he'd be going in to clean himself of the mud. Jiminy, surprisingly, told him that he'd still be fine within Sora's spiked locks of chestnut. Shrugging, Sora waded into the water until it was at his neck level when he strained his head to face the sky, realizing uncomfortably that the water wasn't as blue as it had been the day previous. A minute later he was cleaned of the wet dirt that plagued his body, and he had moved off to another side of the water hole away from the mud he'd just deposited into it to drink his fill.

"Have trouble staying clean kitty?" Swara asked, drinking next to him once again. Sora shook himself in all directions to shed the water that still dripped from his fur. Swara shrieked and backed away slightly to get away from the drying feline, who laughed when his fur was adequately dry (though that still didn't stop the chill that the blowing wind gave him).

"That hill was slippery," Sora protested, about to lean his head down to drink again. "And my leg doesn't have as much grip on the ground as my other three."

"You still never said how you got that thing," said Swara, coming back to drink next to him. Sora glanced sideways at the gazelle.

"Freak accident," he explained, telling the truth. "I don't really want to talk about it." Swara nodded and didn't press him further. They stood, drinking for a few seconds in silence before Sora broke it again. "So how did the game of tag go after I left?"

Swara lifted her head after he spoke and looked at him accusingly. "Pretty soon after you left, I got tagged!"

Sora barely suppressed a chuckle, his crest and pendant lightly tapping against his white-furred chest. "Sucks to be you," he said. Swara snorted and dipped her neck to drink again.

"Sucks to be me too," Sora sighed, raising his head from the water and frowning at the liquid as if it had insulted him.

"Huh?" Swara asked, looking at him.

Sora shook his head. "I've only got one day left to do what I came to the Pride Lands to do, and I've managed to get myself grounded at Rafiki's tree."

"What?" Swara asked, surprised. "Grounded? How?"

Sora grimaced and shook his head again, this time only slightly. "I told you before that I never even knew what or where the Outlands were right? Well, I found out yesterday, and almost got eaten by that lioness Zira."

"Oh my," Swara said slowly, her mouth gaping open. She quickly shook her head to break herself from her trance at her friend's words. "You're okay though right? You aren't missing your tail or anything?"

Sora wafted his tail in front of her, its dark brown tuft of fur on the end just tickling her nose. "Nope," he said, smiling once more. "Tail's still here, same with every other part of me."

Except your courage, tiny tabby cat, Anti cackled in his mind. Sora put the comment his darkness made out of his mind.

"Well that's good," Swara said. "I wouldn't have liked it if the only lion friend I had had managed to get himself eaten by an Outsider."

"I don't like Outsiders," Sora quickly said. He was unsure why he said it, but he knew as soon as the words had left his lips that they were true. Maybe he was judging too quickly, but from just that first experience with Zira he was already confident that nearly all Outsiders were like that. Fanatically devoted to Scar's memory, and willing to kill both him and Simba and Simba's entire pride just for revenge.

No, not just Simba's pride. His pride. His family. Simba had named him a brother to him, member of his pride. That made him family to these lions, that these lions were family to him.

"So if you're grounded," Swara went on, "why are you here?"

Sora looked blankly at her as if it was obvious. "Uh, I'm thirsty." Swara rolled her eyes and continued to drink.

"You know," Sora said at length, smiling, "something good happened yesterday too."

"Really?" Swara asked. "You mean apart from- DAMN I LOST THE GAME!"

"Damn you Swara, I lost the game!" Sora growled. At the same time he spoke this, he could hear the voices of at least three of the gazelles he had played tag with yesterday saying the exact same thing. Swara looked guiltily at Sora, and even with a little bit of fright in her eyes as she saw the look of loathing within them.

It was gone in a second as soon as Sora recognized the look within the female gazelle's eyes. He laughed. "Swara, you have a lot to learn about the game," he chuckled. "People will absolutely HATE you for a few seconds to a few minutes every single time they lose the game because you lost the game first."

"Okay so it's normal," she said, her breathing returning to normal.

"Yeah it's completely normal," Sora said, moving out of the way as a rhino plodded towards the spot where he was so that he could drink.

"So what was the good thing that happened yesterday?" Swara asked again.

"Oh nothing much," Sora whispered, shrugging while smiling. "Just that Simba named me his foster brother and a member of his pride is all." Swara froze and looked at him in astonishment. Then to Sora's own bewilderment, she bowed to him.

"What the heck are you doing?" he asked.

"Bowing," she replied with her face low and her nose dipping slightly into the water of the water hole.

"Well I can see that," Sora said, rolling his eyes. "But why?"

Swara straightened from her bow and looked Sora square in the eyes. "Because-"

"Swara!" both the lion cub and the young gazelle turned their heads as Swara's father called to her. He jerked his head to show that the herd was moving out and Swara turned back to Sora.

"Sorry but I've got to go," she said apologetically, bowing once more to Sora's confusion. "I'll see you around." Sora wasn't sure if she heard his goodbye, as Swara had bolted off very quickly to join her mother and father, and it looked like she was whispering very hurriedly to them. Both adult gazelles twitched their heads in Sora's direction, and only added to the spinning feeling in Sora's head as they respectfully inclined their heads towards him.

Sora shook his head and dipped it back down to drink more water. By Poseidon he was thirsty! "What do you think of that Jiminy?" he asked.

"I'm not sure Sora," the cricket replied truthfully from within Sora's spiked head of hair.

-A-D-

Kiara sighed as she sat on Pride Rock, looking out into the Sun as it rose higher into the sky. She had been sitting here all morning, stuck with nothing to do. Her father was out in the Pride Lands, overseeing his realm, Timon and Pumbaa were off somewhere else, probably pigging out on bugs, and her mother was on a hunt with the other lionesses.

This left her alone with the other cubs and the two lionesses that had stayed behind to watch over them. Normally she wouldn't have minded this, but things had been unusual, exciting, and interesting ever since Sora had shown up again. She would deny to any that she had been scared yesterday when she secretly followed her mother, father, the pride, and Zazu, Timon, and Pumbaa to the Outlands and saw Zira, and she had run back to Pride Rock as quickly as she could when her father had started to turn back to the Pride Lands so that he wouldn't see that she had tagged along.

She couldn't help but be more curious about what was happening out in the Pride Lands right now. Maybe it was the royal blood within her that wanted to oversee the land she would one day be queen of rising to the surface of her brain, or maybe it was simply the innate curiosity of a young lion cub.

She sighed again and rolled over onto her back, feeling the warm rock on her skin underneath the fur that covered her body.

"Sooo bored!" she said in frustration, lolling her paws up into the air in front of her.

"You should be out and away from Pride Rock." Kiara gasped and rolled back onto her feet in surprise at the sudden voice. She hung her head and sighed again as she saw the mandrill Rafiki crouched in front of her, clutching his staff. "Hi."

"Good morning Rafiki," Kiara said, looking down glumly.

"Aw," Rafiki said, moving his head closer to look intently at her, "why de long face?"

"I'm so bored," Kiara moaned again. "I wish something exciting could happen."

"Ah, but there is excitement all around you," Rafiki said excitedly. "Why, even things that appeared dead are very much alive, if only waiting to be discovered."

"Really?" Kiara asked, her face beaming with interest. Rafiki chuckled to himself.

"You know of that dried up creek?" he asked. Kiara nodded, her smile very wide. "Maybe you should go and see it for yourself," Rafiki finished. Kiara's eyes beamed with excitement and she hastily dashed off of Pride Rock and out into the Pride Lands.

-A-D-

A small male lion cub with fur of reddish-brown and jet black hair lay down on the hard grey ground of the Outlands. His green eyes were downcast as he lay within the shadow of the massive termite mound the Outsiders had taken as their home. Like the young cub on Pride Rock, this one (whose name was Kovu) was also incredibly bored.

"Why Kovu?" the voice of his mother, Zira cooed. "Why such a long face?" The young cub looked up in confusion at his mother. She was normally never so tender, her demeanor usually that of bitterness and anger.

"Well there's nothing really to do mother," Kovu answered, unsure of what he should say while Zira was acting so unusually.

"Ah but you're wrong," Zira said, chuckling to herself in a way that sounded as if she was highly pleased. Kovu was confused. He'd never heard his mother sound this happy before.

"I-I am?"

"Go into the Pride Lands today my son," said Zira, prodding him with her snout; and a gleam in her eyes that he couldn't quite classify.

"The Pride Lands?" Kovu asked. He was astounded at what his mother was telling him to do. She'd told him in the past that he was never to go to the Pride Lands, and now she was ordering him to go to that forbidden place!

Zira chuckled once more to herself and prodded Kovu a little harder. "Yes Kovu, go to the Pride Lands."

Unsure of why his mother was pushing him to go to the place he had been forbidden to go, Kovu got onto his feet and began to scamper off away from the termite mounds that had been his home for as long as he could remember.

Soon though, his questioning of his mother had worn away to the curiosity of what lay within the Pride Lands. His mother had previously forbidden it, so there had to be something good in there that she obviously didn't want him to find or else he'd never leave.

Zira watched Kovu begin to run away instead of merely walking with fitful bursts of speed. "Now what shall I do, my King?" she asked as Xarcs appeared beside her from behind a rock.

"Just wait Zira," Xarcs commanded. "Wait until little Kovu comes back or until I return with news. If I do not return by sunrise tomorrow, be patient, for I shall have merely been delayed, and will eventually return to lead our kind back into the Pride Lands."

"And Kovu?" Zira asked.

"When he returns, question him about his day, and then you will know what to do with him until my return," Xarcs said. He then leapt high onto a cliff and began to survey Kovu and the young cub's progress towards the Pride Lands.

-A-D-

Sora made it back to Rafiki's tree as quickly as he was able to after having finished his long and well deserved draught of water (and the arrival of the elephants), only sliding on the mud twice without managing to fall into it as he had on his way down to the water hole. He quickly glanced up into the boughs of the tree when he reached to base of it. Rafiki wasn't there. Good, he wasn't busted.

Sora heaved a sigh of relief and walked a few paces beyond the trunk of the tree before plopping down onto the ground. His sigh quickly turned into a frustrated groan as he realized that he was still stuck here, grounded. He was forcibly reminded of the last time he'd been grounded, right when he was eating supper with his mother, Riku, Kairi, Donald, Goofy, and King Mickey. He chuckled a little bit, thinking that with the way his mother had looked at him back then that she wouldn't have wanted him going on anymore adventures.

His chuckle was short lived as he glanced at his automail limb. He understood completely where his mother had probably been coming from not wanting him going on more adventures. He'd turned himself into a heartless to save Kairi, nearly been killed at least a dozen times by various heartless and nobodies (especially when he had just been starting out with Donald and Goofy and presented with the steepest learning curve of anything in his life!), was confident that he'd broken a few ribs while he had fought against Maleficent when she was a dragon (and somehow he'd still managed to beat Riku!) and now he'd gone and gotten himself mutilated to save Kairi again. Funny, every time he got horribly hurt it was to protect Kairi.

Sora smiled slightly as he thought of her. By the Gods, what had he ever done to deserve a girl like her? Surely saving the worlds twice wasn't enough? Heck, in his mind there was no deed he could do that would be heroic enough to earn Kairi's love.

Sora laughed and placed his head on his outstretched paws as the Sun's rays soaked into his ash coloured fur. Why was he thinking he needed to earn Kairi's love? He already knew that she loved him more than anyone else in the universe, and that there was no other girl that would be able to make him smile the way she did. He had her love, her heart, because the fair princess was willing to give them to him out of her own love for him. And she had his heart and love, because there was no other girl that he loved like he did Kairi. He'd be willing to throw himself headfirst into the colossal powers of Kingdom Hearts if it meant saving her or making her smile again.

But, was Kairi that important to him? Would it mean sacrificing everything to just make her happy or see her smile? Leaving his friends or innocents behind to die while he stayed with her to make Kairi happy?

Sora shook his head in confusion before he suddenly felt a piece of wood strike his side and send him sprawling and rolling several feet to his left.

"And just where have you been?" Rafiki asked sternly, crouching down and staring intently at him. Sora cringed.

Busted!

Shut up Anti! Man, you're worse than Roxas was.

I'll take that as a compliment.

Sora growled to himself, Anti was becoming rather closer to a pest than a sadistic and perverted creature.

"Well?" Rafiki asked, striking Sora's rump with his staff. Sora allowed himself to give a gasp of sudden discomfort. He'd momentarily forgotten Rafiki in Anti-form's sudden comment.

"I had been drinking from the water hole," Sora explained. "I was thirsty so I-"

"Went without me taking you!" said Rafiki sternly, shaking his staff. The rattling of the gourds tied to the top of it caused Sora to shiver, as the inanimate objects themselves seemed to sound angry with him.

"If you are to be in my care," he went on, grounding his staff's bottom end into the soft soil with a quick thrust, "then before you do anything you must ask for my permission and permit me to follow should I so choose."

"Great!" Sora exclaimed. "I really am grounded!"

Rafiki chuckled to himself. "Come on young cub, there is a healthy number of beetles for you to eat by this tree over here." Sora sighed and got onto his feet and followed Rafiki, his stomach commanding him more than his mind. The mandrill led him for a few minutes towards a bright tree. A large assortment of different grubs and beetles were crawling all over the left side of the tree's trunk and roots.

Rafiki deftly reached out and picked a crawling black beetle off of the trunk with his left hand and quickly placed it into his mouth and bit down in a crunching noise. The sound of the mandrill eating was too much for Sora's stomach and before he knew what he was doing he had already unwittingly swallowed two slugs that happened to be the first creatures in front of him.

Their slime was just as disgusting as it had been the day before. However, he seemed better able to handle the taste and his stomach was not protesting quite as much as before. Maybe that just had to do with that he'd only had two slugs instead of seven snails. Still, Sora quickly searched for a bug with red and yellow stripes like the one Timon and Pumbaa had given him the day before that had soothed his stomach, found it, and ate it. Soon, as he continued to eat bugs alongside the monkey, his stomach's flighty attitude had vanished.

But Sora's thoughts were no longer centred round that which he was eating. He had always done everything he could to protect Kairi before, but when he had been at Hollow Bastion and the heartless were attacking it in force he had forsaken the search for both Riku and Kairi in determination to help save the world and his friends.

But both in his search and in defending the worlds against the enemies that had tried to either destroy or conquer them, he had always been with the keyblade. Now though…

"Who am I?" Sora asked quietly to himself. "What am I?"

Never had Kairi's questioning words rang truer to himself than now. Just who was Sora, the keyblade master without a keyblade? Was he still the same person who had not so long ago defended the worlds with all the strength and mettle of his noble heart against the great threat posed by Xemnas? Or was he some other person he had not known for a long time: a boy with a carefree life who had never even heard of heartless or nobodies and darkness had never touched his home.

No, Sora decided. He was definitely not the latter. He knew deep in his heart that even after all he had seen and experienced, there was no way he'd be able to go back completely to the way he had been.

Sora shook his head again, having never even imagined that he would ever lose his identity. He was still being called the keyblade master even though it would no longer listen to his call for it to come to him. But… he didn't quite know what he was supposed to feel about himself, who he was, just what he was.

It was into this confused lion cub's thoughts that another distraction presented itself in the bounding form of Kiara as the young female cub pranced into his field of vision.

"Hi Uncle Sora," she said, giggling slightly to herself at calling him 'uncle'. Sora frowned.

"When did you find out?" he asked.

"Daddy told me last night," Kiara answered, looking left and right. "So what are you doing?"

"Well right now I'm eating," Sora answered, looking down from Kiara's excited face. He didn't think that he needed to include that he was also thinking pretty depressing and confusing thoughts.

"Oh," Kiara said. "Hey, do you remember that dried up creek we passed by the other day?"

Sora nodded slowly, vaguely remembering it. The dried up creek hadn't been a very exciting part of the quick tour Timon and Pumbaa had given him, but for some reason it had to be interesting to Kiara at this very moment for her to bring it up.

"Well, because it's rained so much, I thought I'd see if anything has changed about it," explained Kiara. She cocked her head to its side and smiled inquiringly. "Would you like to come with me?"

Sora shook his head slightly and looked back down to the feast of grubs at his paws. He didn't see how a dried up creek that could now be possibly flowing again could be so interesting. "Not today Kiara. Besides, I've been grounded." He glanced at Rafiki, who merely chuckled slightly to himself.

"Oh, okay," Kiara said, not really seeming disturbed by this news though a slight note of disappointment had crept into her tone. She took two tentative steps forward past Sora. "Well, I guess I'll see you later then uncle."

"Bye Kiara. Have fun and be careful," Sora called after her as she left in prancing leaps. He shook his head with a slightly bemused expression on his face. It was a little startling for him to suddenly be addressed as 'uncle', but what was even more surprising was that he was beginning to feel more than just a little protective of Kiara.

A few more minutes went by and Sora thought about how coincidental it was that same protective feeling he had whenever danger was near both himself and Kairi was beginning to burgeon within his chest at the thought of Kiara out in the Pride Lands alone. He hadn't been able to sense Timon or Pumbaa in either sight, sound, or smell, and he didn't catch sight of Zazu (having been introduced to him after learning that it was the small hornbill that had truly been the one to save his life the previous day) slowly following above in the blue sky.

Another ten minutes went by for Sora to realize how odd it also was that if you simply switched the vowels in either name you got 'Kairi' from 'Kiara', but he attributed this to simple coincidence, even if it did make him think.

He looked out into the lush grasslands of the savannah from underneath Rafiki's grand acacia tree, the mandrill standing guard over him from in the dell and watching him intensely.

For Rafiki, all was going surprisingly well, considering the audacity of the plan Mufasa's spirit had presented him with. The keyblade master was pacing back and forth restlessly in front of the trunk of the tree.

Simba had done well and made old Mufasa proud in making this young one his foster brother, but he could not have foreseen the consequences of the actions of his heart. In doing so and making Sora brother and uncle to Kiara, Rafiki could see the stirrings of restlessness he'd seen in Simba when unsure of Kiara's current condition. The subtle but persistent tugs of concern within his heart, not for his own well being but that of others, were beginning to cause the young keyblade master to listen to what his strongest asset had been silently whispering throughout his short life. For Sora it appeared to be the same anxiety he felt for Kairi when she was in danger, but Rafiki could tell that it was that which he felt for all who needed to be defended against the forces of evil.

For some time Rafiki watched as Sora paced in front of his tree, the sounds of his automail leg clicking softly every time he moved it or pawed the ground in anxiety. There was already a small rut worn into the soft soil from where the keyblade master had been meandering.

Rafiki felt the wind stir near him and smiled a little, now watching Sora more intently. The cub froze in place as the wind whirled around him, but almost immediately afterwards he lost his rigidity and his muscles seemed to both relax and grow taught in the wind, preparing for something.

Sora looked up at Rafiki, and the mandrill chuckled slightly to himself for a few seconds before nodding very slowly. "Asante sana, squash banana! We we nugu, mi mi apana!" he sniggered under his breath as the lion cub instantly sprang to life to race into the savannah after Kiara.

-A-D-

Before Kiara had even reached the creek she knew it was running again, having heard the water rushing over its previously forsaken bed. When she actually made it to the creek she found that the water level was still pretty low, but that it was fierce. The beginnings of some more grass were already shooting up at the banks of the creek, and some creatures smaller than her (such as lizards and mice) were already here and carefully drinking a little water from the flowing stream.

Kiara sighed. It wasn't as interesting as Rafiki had made it out to be. Water flowing where there had not been water before simply wasn't interesting. In fact, this whole creek seemed to be just as boring as Pri-

Oh look, a butterfly!

Kiara leapt after the brightly coloured flying insect, trying to catch it in her paws as it fluttered just past her nose. Laughing to herself, she chased after the butterfly.

"Come back here," she giggled after an eleventh missed attempt at grabbing the flying creature she stalked, "I just want to play." The butterfly seemed not to care that she wanted to play or not, and was perfectly content with fluttering just out of the young lioness' reach. Eventually though, the beautiful insect felt its wings getting heavy and tired. It landed on a rock to rest its aching appendages for a few seconds.

Kiara stopped and crouched low in the grass, a devious look taking over her face. "The mighty hunter has cornered her prey," she whispered to herself, twitching her shoulder muscles as she prepared to spring and finally grab the butterfly. For four tense seconds Kiara waited, watching the slowly folding and unfolding wings of the butterfly in front of her, listening and feeling the wind blowing around her, gripping the soft earth beneath her paws…

She leapt for the butterfly at the same moment it took flight again and her scraping paws missed the insect. Kiara misjudged the amount of force she'd attacked with, and felt her belly sliding over and off the rock before she tumbled down a small hill that the rock had been on.

"Oof," she groaned once finally stopped rolling down the hill, her eyes and head spinning for several seconds as she got back up. The young princess of Pride Rock jammed her eyes shut as she felt the world spinning around her. Her legs swayed in a clockwise rotation as her body struggled to retain its balance.

After a minute, Kiara allowed her eyes to open again, and a smile grew onto her face when she saw what she saw.

The Outlands.

Without further thought, Kiara immediately began to make for them. Yes, she had tagged along without being seen yesterday. Yes, she had seen Sora almost being eaten by Zira. However, she would be more careful and only stray to the edge of the Outlands. Sora was simply an unlucky fool. Nothing bad would happen to her, she was too good to get caught by an Outsider. She was the mighty hunter Kiara, daughter of Simba, King of Pride Rock. There was nothing that she was unable to do, no Outsider could scare her!

Kiara reached the same river bank she had hidden by yesterday and climbed onto the log Sora had used to cross over the river. She reached the end, but tripped over her back feet and tumbled down from the log. The first thing she realized when she landed however was that she landed on something that was soft like fur rather than the soft earth.

Kiara looked up and backed away quickly as she noticed that she had fallen directly onto a lion cub with reddish brown fur and green eyes, a tuft of a hair that would later grow into a jet black mane on the top of the cub's head.

An Outsider. Curse her luck.

-A-D-

Sora struggled as he tried to follow Kiara's tracks through the savannah. She had meandered quite a lot on the way towards the creek, and the tracks were not always clear to follow amongst the growing buffalo grass. Sora would often have to search for a few minutes before he'd be able to pick up the trail again, and even then he was only tentatively aware of the trail and had found himself backtracking for a minute or two before realizing that he was going the wrong way. Occasionally the trail led him through groups of grazing animals, and where the gazelles and antelope he'd passed through had been completely content with letting him pass, the wildebeest had raised somewhat of a fuss.

But now Kiara's trail had led him to a large rock she had evidently leapt on top of and then jumped off of in another direction, and Sora was completely stumped in trying to locate her tracks again. He'd circled the whole rock in ever-increasing radii to try and pick her trail up again, always stopping and checking from the spot she had jumped onto the rock in the first place.

Dead end Sora, Anti said within his mind. Looks like you can't help out your little foster-niece.

Be quiet Anti, Sora replied. I am not in the mood right now.

"What are you doing Sora?"

The young lion cub started and turned at the sound of Swara's voice, coming from behind him. What the heck was she doing here?

He voiced his question aloud, except without the 'heck' thrown into it, and Swara simply look back at him unquestioningly. "You passed through our herd, and didn't answer me when I called you, so I followed you here." She paused and took a step closer to him. "So, what are you doing anyway?"

"I'm trying to track Kiara," Sora replied, looking back down at the ground in the hopes that the tracks he had sought for the past ten minutes would suddenly appear in front of his snout even after he'd just checked this particular section for them five seconds ago.

"Why?" Swara asked, not without a little concern in her voice.

"I think she may be in trouble," Sora answered, taking another few steps around the ring and scanning for pawprints that were different from his own. "Dammit Kiara, where are you?"

"Can you show me where her last tracks were?" Swara asked quickly. Sora glanced at her and noticed the determined look in Swara's eyes. Maybe she could help. He remembered how they had worked together playing tag yesterday. She was more in tune with her physical senses than he was. Maybe Swara could smell a path?

Sora nodded quickly and backpedaled to where his last known set of Kiara's pawprints was. Swara bent down and took a few moments smelling it, getting the scent engrained within her brain. It wasn't too difficult as she took in the smell of lion; it was just fixating the smell of this particular lion within her mind that took time.

Sora watched as Swara lifted her head back up and began sniffing the air with closed eyes, wandering about the rock and area as she inhaled in the different scents Sora could also smell, but was not practiced enough to place. For an agonizing thirty seconds Sora watched Swara go about this until she froze in place and her head swiveled towards a certain direction.

Instantly Sora bolted towards the spot her head indicated and he found Kiara's tracks seconds later. He turned back to look at Swara and nodded his head. "Come on!"

-A-D-

"Who are you Pridelander?" the cub asked Kiara, growling at her as he got up to face her. Kiara didn't answer him, but instead refused to back down and meet him face to face. She wouldn't deny even to herself now that she was a little afraid (especially at the menacing way he was baring his teeth), but the one thing her father had always stressed was that you can't turn your back on an Outsider.

The lion cub moved to try and get around to her side, and instead Kiara leapt off to continue facing his front rather than letting him cut around her. The Outsider tried again, and again Kiara forced him to look at her face. His expression was now no longer hostile, having slipped into one of curiosity.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"My father says to never turn your back on an Outsider!" Kiara answered, trying to sound and look as brave as possible in a hope to get him to back down.

"You always do what Daddy says?" the Outsider asked mockingly. Kiara flushed in resentment.

"No!" she retorted. The defensive tone her voice had taken made it incredibly easy for the Outsider to continue to taunt her. At the same time though, there was something about him that intrigued her. Kiara had never met a cub like this one before.

"Bet you do," he insisted. "Bet you're Daddy's little girl." He laughed and hopped down onto a log that led back across the river down near the water's surface. "An Outsider like me doesn't need anybody," he flaunted. "I take care of myself!"

"Really?" Kiara asked, following him. "Cool." The Outsider looked back at Kiara and his eyes went wide as a distressed yell erupted from his lungs. Kiara looked back behind her and saw the massive jaws of a crocodile opened wide and preparing to snap down on her!

She screamed and yelled, "Run!" Kiara quickly jumped, a surge of adrenaline taking her off towards a nearby rock away from the crocodile. "This way!" The Outsider followed alongside her, jumping from rock to rock as more crocodiles emerged from the water, their powerful snapping jaws only missing the two lion cubs' tails by the width of said appendage.

Panting, Kiara paused on a bumpy rock, the Outsider on one just next to her. They did nothing but breathe heavily for a few seconds before Kiara began to giggle slightly. "That was a close one," said the Outsider.

"Yeah," Kiara added. Their elated looks vanished suddenly as both felt the rocks they were standing on start to shift and move upwards.

They weren't standing on rocks. They were standing on the heads of two more giant crocodiles!

Kiara jumped from her snapping crocodile towards a high hanging branch in the water, while the Outsider jumped instead onto another crocodile.

"Hey what about me?" Kiara asked, watching him from the relative safety of her branch.

"I'll distract them," he answered, moving further down the river as he leapt from croc to croc, barely ahead of the beasts and their frighteningly sharp and powerful teeth. "Run!"

Kiara found herself unable to run as he ordered, a crocodile slinking up towards the branch after her. She clung desperately onto her branch with her now outstretched claws, one paw off and ready to swipe at the crocodile if it came close enough to her.

The young lioness took pause when she heard a splash and quickly looked towards where the sound came from. The other cub had slipped from the last crocodile he had jumped from and fallen into the water. There had to be at least five different crocodiles coming after him now, each one of them wanting to have the Outsider for dinner.

"Look out!" she called, hoping to attract his attention. Out of the corner of her eye she saw him turn, but now she had to look to her front instead as the crocodile that insisted on cornering her was far too close for comfort. Terrified, she took a swing at it with her claws, just scratching the top of its jaw. The crocodile turned its head away for a second and Kiara looked back to the cub to find him frozen in terror as a giant mouth opened and prepared to snap down on his head. There was a nearby tree branch that led back up to the cliff bank and safety, but the cub was too petrified to get to it.

Mustering herself, Kiara leapt from her perch on the branch to land directly on top of the prepped crocodile. Her sudden weight on top of the snout caused the jaw to snap down and shut just in front of the Outsider. "Move it!" she said.

His green eyes flickered with life as they picked up her red ones. Quickly he was able to sprawl out of the water and onto the branch. Kiara clambered up after him just as a crocodile piled over the head of the one she had just been standing on. Jaws snapped up after them, breaking parts of the branch apart, but always just behind until both cubs were too far out of reach.

Kiara stood now next to the Outsider cub, staring down with almost disbelief at the gathering of crocodiles around the bottom of the river's cliff-bank as the creatures glared at the two of them with hatred for escaping back into the Pride Lands.

"I did it," she whispered to herself. Her face suddenly gained a huge smile of victory. "I did it!" she exclaimed, feeling so invincible that she blew the fuming crocodiles a raspberry. The cub next to her laughed victoriously, happily joining in taunting them.

-A-D-

Thanks to Swara's continued assistance, Sora was able to consistently find and keep on Kiara's tracks, and the two of them were quite quick in moving through the grasses of the Pride Lands before they reached the creek. Sora looked around anxiously for Kiara, but he was unable to find her at all.

"Damn," he breathed, looking left and right quickly, his eyes scanning hurriedly for any sign of her.

"She was here Sora," Swara said, her head moving left and right. "I can smell that she was here."

"I know that," Sora answered, "but for how long? And then where did she go?" His eyes spotted tracks again, and he quickly dismissed them, thinking them to be the same tracks he'd followed.

Sora did a double take. The tracks he'd just spotted were not the ones he and Swara had followed here. Swara's head flickered towards them as soon as he had bolted at them. She came up behind him in a flurry of hooves and bent down, smelling the trail.

"It's her," she said, raising her head and inhaling the scent. "She went this way, and not long ago either."

"Then let's go," Sora said, already dashing off to follow the trail. Swara was right behind him, her hooves beating and pounding into the grass.

"You know I wonder," Sora shouted back at Swara, "how is it that you can smell and track Kiara so well?"

"Do you think we'd survive long if we couldn't tell when lions were close or where they were, or how long ago they'd passed by?" Swara asked rhetorically. "So why is it that you can't track as well? You're a hunter."

Sora put on a further burst of speed and pretended as if he hadn't heard her. A rock loomed ahead of him and he skidded to a stop, spraying dirt and torn grass in front of him. Swara couldn't slow down as effectively on her legs and cantered for a few seconds in a circle before coming to a stop.

"What is it?" she asked. Sora took a few tentative steps forward, scanning the ground.

"She had been jumping and pouncing on her way to this point," he said, "she crouched low here… and it looks like she leapt at that rock." He stopped and got onto the rock and found himself looking over a hill. He could see the buffalo grass ruffled as if something about Kiara's size had rolled down it. He drew his gaze upwards and gasped.

"What is it?" Swara asked anxiously, coming to stand next to him. She gasped as well when her black-hair covered eyes saw what he was looking at.

The Outlands.

"We have to hurry," Sora said, jumping off the rock and racing down along the path through the grass caused by the rolling lioness. Swara ran just behind him, her fur glistening like his with the sweat caused by so much continued exertion. Neither minded the toll it was causing on their bodies, so long as Kiara came out of it safe it didn't matter.

Both of their ears picked up a scream, and instead of following the path they mutually wheeled off to follow the direction of the sound, but it was still some ways away.

"I can smell her," Swara said quickly. "Her scent is strong. She is here."

She is fine.

Sora slowed down as the wind whistled in his ears. He flicked his head left and right. He thought for sure he heard some voice telling him that he was alright. Swara slowed and walked next to him, both of them breathing heavily. The sharp sound of snapping wood broke through their ears, but the wind continued to blow around them and Sora found his anxieties about Kiara being eased as he noticed he was walking close by the cliff-bank of the river that separated the Pride Lands from the Outlands. He stopped when he heard voices and crouched down into the grass. Swara looked at him, puzzled for a moment, but then followed his example.

Kiara was standing with her back turned to him, facing the bank of the river. "I did it," he heard her whisper. "I did it!" Sora smiled as he heard her laugh and blow a raspberry at what was probably a massive throng of pissed-off crocodiles. But then he heard the laugh of a lion cub next to her, and Sora's eyes immediately hardened when he realized he hadn't seen this cub before.

An Outsider.

Zira's image and her razor-like teeth and claws flashed through his mind as he looked at the back of this cub with reddish-brown fur and black hair. Both cubs turned around and Sora's eyes flashed when he noticed the green of the cub's eyes. The green of them made him look remarkably like what Scar might have looked like when he was a cub, except that this one held no scar.

A throaty growl was about to escape from Sora's throat when he felt the wind again.

Wait Sora, he won't hurt her.

Shaking his head, Sora turned his eyes back to the two cubs again to find that Kiara was speaking.

"-you see the size of those teeth?" she asked excitedly. "They were goin' 'Rrarrarrarrarr'." She stopped and rolled onto her back, laughing at the adventure she and the other cub had evidently had. "He was just totally eatin' you up right there, and I jumped on his head, and I bopped him so good. We make such a good team!"

Kiara paused, allowing herself to breathe for a second as she got back onto her feet and faced the cub. Sora could even see from this distance that there was a small twinkle in her red eyes and a look of sincere admiration on her face. "And you… you were really brave…"

"Yeah," the other cub said, looked slightly down in embarrassment. "You were pretty brave too." There was a very short moment of silence between them before the male cub decided to break it. "My name's Kovu."

Kiara giggled slightly and took a flirtatious step towards Kovu. Sora felt his face grow intensely hot and his mouth opened wide as he saw her bat her eyelashes at him while she spoke with the succulence of sweet honey. "I'm Kiara."

She was flirting with the guy and she'd barely met him!

Kovu backed away slightly, uncomfortable with the lack of distance between him and Kiara. Sora's open mouth formed into a slight smirk as he shook his head at himself. Perhaps he'd judged all Outsiders a little too quickly and harshly based on his lone experience with Zira.

"They look like they're having fun," Swara whispered to him as Kiara tried to initiate a game of tag with Kovu.

"Doesn't look like they're in trouble either," Sora replied.

He immediately regretted his words as he heard the all-too familiar sound of opening swirls of darkness from which heartless appeared. Also present was the slinking sound of silvery nobodies as they arrived alongside the heartless.

Sora took two frightened paces backwards while he crouched low in the grass. This was something he definitely did not want to have to deal with. If heartless saw him and attacked, he had nothing, nothing to defend himself with. Swara was right next to him, looking at the creatures in absolute, uncomprehending terror. The heartless were much like dogs and about the size of wolves, still bigger than Sora by all accounts. Their fur (if it could even be called that) was as black as the night, scattered blood red-patches of scarlet staining their coats. The insignia of the heartless was branded just inside the neck. Their maws were open, showcasing their constantly bared teeth that were polished to an ivory white. The bright yellow eyes of theirs that were characteristic of all heartless seemed to Sora even more menacing than normal. The nobodies, however, were the full size of lionesses and in that shape even, their silver coats gleaming in the Sun's light. Sharp silver claws were extended and raking into the soft ground and the symbol of the nobodies could be seen stretching across the top of their backs.

Both Sora and Swara were lucky, as the two score of heartless and nobodies seemed perfectly content with forming a ring around a trapped Kovu and Kiara. Sora paused in backing up, realizing that both Kiara and Kovu had nowhere to go, surrounded as they were.

A pained expression came onto his face. He was terrified at this moment, but surprised that he was not scared for his own life, but scared for Kiara, and Swara next to him, and even the Outsider Kovu. He wanted to help them, but he felt so helpless, so feeble. He had no keyblade, no method of fighting off these heartless or nobodies.

He opened his eyes and looked at a frightened Kiara as his body shook in sadness. What could he do now to help his foster-niece? What could any of them do to fight against the heartless? He and Swara were free to run, run all the way clear to Pride Rock, leaving Kiara and Kovu to the forty heartless and nobodies that surrounded them.

But there was no way Sora could even take one step in that direction, to leave the cubs to their fate would make him as bad as Sade was when Sade left Riku when they encountered those fiends.

Sora had been furious with Sade for leaving his friend.

But now what could he do? His fear that he could do nothing to help protect Kiara and Kovu and Swara, that he could do nothing to protect his friends or his family again was causing him to freeze. He was failing Simba, he was failing himself.

Just as he'd failed his mother and Kairi.

"What do you think they are Kiara?" Kovu's voice rang out, forcing Sora to look up to listen and watch them. Both lion cubs had their backs turned to the other, and were crouched down in defensive stances as the much larger heartless and nobodies growled and circled around them.

"I don't know," Kiara said, like Kovu unable to keep the fear out of her trembling voice. "But I think I'd rather go back after the crocodiles." Both of them gave weak and feeble laughs, but they were laughs nonetheless.

A Wild Dog heartless growled a little louder before giving a loud bark and rushing at Kovu, its jaws snapping angrily. Kovu backed a pace up quickly and reared in an instinctive counter, his right paw coming across with sharp obsidian claws leading. The wild dog's head twitched as the clawed paw batted it away, tendrils of darkness leaking out from where its face had been scratched.

Sora felt as if he'd just been simultaneously punched in the gut and slapped in the face as the wild dog heartless returned into the ring, yowling angrily. Here was this little lion cub, his back against that of a friend's and surrounded by unknown enemies that made his blood run cold, fighting against them with what he had. It painfully reminded Sora of when this whole new chapter of his life had begun, fighting against heartless with naught but a wooden sword.

If Kovu could and would fight against heartless and nobodies without even knowing what they were, then who was he to stand aside and let both of them get their hearts taken?

Sora looked down at his paws with a sudden jerk and his tongue subconsciously ran over his teeth. He retracted his claws and for the first time realized just how great they and his teeth were as weapons; realized just how easily he could rip through heartless and nobodies with them.

Still crouching, Sora nudged his head ever so slightly towards Swara and whispered, "Stay out of sight."

He didn't even hear the question Swara asked as Sora turned his attention towards the ring of heartless and nobodies. One of the Lioness nobodies was advancing on Kiara, who was closest to Sora with the nobody on the cub's left, nearly directly in front of Sora.

He no longer cared that all forty enemies were larger than him. He no longer cared that he didn't have the keyblade, or that he'd probably die in this battle. He was afraid of death, for sure, but he was going to take as many of these damn creatures down with him so long as the three around him got out safely.

Snarling, Sora pounced from his hiding place in the grasses just as the lioness nobody made a lunge for Kiara. She noticed it at the last moment and hopped to the side and out of the way. At the same moment as her hop, Sora's flying lion body slid onto the back of the sleek nobody. He dug his claws in, making sure he ripped and slashed as much as possible with his far stronger and sharper automail. The nobody howled in pain and Sora slid off her back and his forward momentum slung him past the shoulders. His claws were still ripping into the lioness nobody as he slid, and when he went past the shoulder on the left side he found himself clinging to the creature's underside, presenting its neck directly in front of his head. Sora needed no prompting and dug his carnivorous teeth right into the jugular. The nobody thrashed wildly for several seconds, spinning and flailing, even ripping two of the wild dog heartless to shreds in its madness, but Sora kept his jaws clenched tightly, his teeth biting into the neck and his claws raking against the underbelly and shoulders of the nobody. Finally, the creature slowed and Sora released himself to roll onto the ground next to Kiara and Kovu. The lioness nobody gave a low moan and collapsed onto the ground before vanishing in an explosion of silver sparkles.

Sora stared defiantly into the ring of enemies he had now placed himself within. All of them now seemed to be eyeing him rather than Kiara or Kovu, the two cubs looking at him with astonishment.

A throaty growl escaped from Sora's throat. "Kiara," he said, "you and your friend have to get out of here. Find Simba."

"But," Kovu said, seeming more frightened at the prospect of meeting Simba rather than fighting these nobodies and heartless.

"Kovu, I don't give a damn!" Sora retorted, not caring that the young cub was now incredibly surprised that he knew his name. "Tell Simba I sent you. And whatever you do keep Kiara safe! Swara, help them out!"

"But what about you?" Kiara asked, looking nervously at all of the enemies that were leering at Sora.

"I'll be fine," Sora assured her in a comforting tone. "Just go while I hold them off!" Before anyone else could get a word in against him, Sora dove straight for the nearest wild dog heartless and landed on its back. His claws were already tearing into it and drawing seeping tendrils of darkness from the wounds he was causing.

The next few seconds were utter chaos.

All thirty-six of the remaining heartless and nobodies (not counting the one whose back he was on) lunged for Sora, the wild dogs braying and snarling while the lionesses growled and roared. Each one of them was either bearing its teeth at him or brandishing claws sharp enough to tear through his skin like there was no tomorrow. Kiara and Kovu simultaneously ducked low to the ground as the beings flew over them and Swara rose and bolted towards the two cubs, her horns driving through the side of an errant wild dog.

"You heard him let's go!" Swara cried, flinging the wounded heartless off of her and stomping her hooves in front of the two lion cubs.

"But," Kovu muttered, looking at Sora.

"Go now!" the ashen-furred lion cub commanded, swiping his automail paw at the face of an oncoming wild dog while he desperately tried to keep his balance on the wounded and bucking one he was standing on. He glanced behind him and dove to the ground as three lioness nobodies and a wild dog heartless pounced on the back of the wild dog he had first attacked. That one vanished from underneath them in a puff of darkness.

Sora didn't see if they did what he asked, the bodies of thirty-some enemies in a massive pile and ring around him obscuring his vision quite a lot. He ripped a claw at the underside of a nobody he was standing underneath and bit into a foreleg. The nobody roared and flung Sora off of it and into the air. The gaping jaws of no less than four wild dogs jumped up to follow him. Sora twisted in the air and batted two of them away with his claws. One missed its mark and fell short. The third overstretched and Sora dug his claws into its shoulders and bit the heartless in the side. The stench and taste of the heartless' dark flesh was far worse than any amount of slime from slugs or snails. But still Sora ripped his mouth away, tearing off flesh from the heartless' side as it brought him back down to the ground in the gaggle of enemies.

He hit the ground hard as the heartless blew apart into darkness upon its own landing, and instinctively rolled to his right as a razor-sharp paw and a set of white teeth impaled the ground not a moment after he'd left. The lion cub swiped with his automail paw across the neck of a lioness nobody and it vanished into darkness. Sudden pain assailed him as snapping jaws grazed his right side. Sora turned and bit back at the heartless, ignoring the dreadful feeling of darkness in his mouth as his teeth connected with the larger creature's lower jaw.

He felt it being ripped out of his mouth as he was batted in the right side be a swiping paw, and his backbone felt the pain of crashing through six different sets of legs and causing those assorted nobodies and heartless to crash down, the sixth (a lioness) landing square on top of him. Winded, Sora mauled the face and side of the nobody with all four of his legs, not caring about the blood pouring down from the bite he'd received from that wild dog or the scratches on his back that the lioness gave him from her weakening paws.

The lioness, despite the pain it was evidently in, roared at him and prepared to clamp its jaws shut around him no matter what damage his claws had already caused to her face. At the last instant Sora stuck his automail limb into the maw of the entangled nobody and felt the teeth grinding against the metal, but doing nothing to it. Sora returned by biting it in the side of the neck and raking his right forepaw across the top of the head. He felt the weight vanish from him as the doomed being returned to the darkness.

Sora returned to his feet, his cerulean eyes blazing and adrenaline pumping through his veins. He tensed his leg muscles as a wild dog plowed into him and immediately began wrestling with the larger and physically more powerful heartless. But Sora was faster and able to twitch away every time the jaws came too close to a vital part of his body. And while the wild dog's claws nicked away at Sora's back and hind legs, Sora's cut deep into the beast's chest while he bit away at the joints of the forelegs.

He let out a pained gasp as his back crashed into a tree's trunk, the heartless pinning him there with its massive weight.

End of the line bucko, Anti chortled as the wild dog barked at him and prepared to deliver a final blow to Sora with its mighty canines. Sora's eyes hardened at Anti-Form's comment and he immediately disagreed, plunging his automail claw right through the heartless' throat. It gurgled for half a second before vanishing in a puff of dark smoke.

Limping, Sora got onto his feet, finding that there was blood on the back of the tree and staining his fur while dripping onto the ground around him, a trail of the scarlet liquid leading through the grass and dirt over the path through which he and the wild dog had wrestled. Thirty-one now remained standing against him, a few of the heartless and nobodies wounded from his claws or his teeth. The one that Swara impaled with her horns was still standing and snarling at him, and it charged forward at Sora, a loud howl preceding it.

Sora dropped onto the ground and rolled, throwing his automail leg out to trip the wild dog up. It worked and the heartless broke into the tree's trunk. It fell limply to the ground in a daze and Sora scratched his way onto the top of the shoulder and bit down into the neck. The heartless vanished in a puff of darkness a moment later.

His chest heaving, Sora turned and found that the now thirty remaining heartless and nobodies (seventeen nobodies and thirteen heartless) had encircled him in a ring again, much like they had done to Kovu and Kiara.

He didn't have time to think about them right now. All he had to think about was that he was fighting to defend them. He was fighting to buy them time to get away. He was fighting so that his friends could live in peace.

He would not stand by and let heartless and nobodies hurt those people and places he loved and cherished anymore! His mother may be gone and his home may have been destroyed, but there were still a hundred others he would give his life to protect from harm.

The heartless and nobodies growled, roared, and snarled at him as he glowered at them, his chest heaving while blood dripped down from his chest that was slowly being stained from white to red. His body ached and his wounds felt like they were on fire. But nothing could compare to the fire burning within Sora's heart right now.

He would not let these infernal creatures destroy all that was good and green in the worlds!

Sora felt a rumbling in his chest as the thirty foes surrounding him continued to pace around the tree he stood next to. He closed his eyes, the feeling familiar and yet unknown.

The heartless began to charge as the world seemed to slow for Sora. His mind stretched outwards on its own, and in the darkness he felt a thousands pricks of life lighting everything up.

The wild dogs snarled as they came closer, their shining teeth ready to feast on his heart and make him one of their own.

So much life… So much light…

Sora's eyes snapped open and he glared daggers at the heartless directly in front of them.

He would not let them smother it!

A volcano erupted within Sora's heart as his muzzle burst open, the brightest silver light he'd ever seen shining from his chest. He nearly split his own eardrums apart as he gave the roar of a proud and mighty lion, a roar fueled by the courageous heart that pounded in his chest and the brilliantly shining Crest of Valour that hung from around his neck. So monumental was his roar that even though it could not be heard from Pride Rock, four special people on the far-away world of Radiant Garden heard it and it brought smiles to their faces and his name to their lips.

The heartless were all flung backwards from the power of his roar, and vanished in puffs of dark smoke as they were defeated by it majesty. The lioness nobodies that remained tightened the circle around him, more cautious than they were before. They still snarled and prowled, but they did not attack.

Sora waited.

For a tense twenty seconds all the lionesses did was pace within their ring, circling the lion cub as his challenge went unanswered. Then three of the seventeen glanced at one for a split second and that lioness roared. It leapt at Sora, claws and teeth bared.

Sora jerked his head at the last instant and dug his paws into the ground.

His entire world was blinded by a flash of bright light for three long seconds as he felt his feet being pressed further into the ground, his right hind leg forcibly driven up against the wood of the tree's roots.

But he didn't feel the lioness nobody's weight smothering him. Instead he felt something metal grasped between his teeth with a noticeable weight on it.

The blinding light cleared, and Sora found himself holding a sparkling and breathtakingly real Kingdom Key in his jaws, the lioness nobody's limp body impaled upon it as it hung in midair for another second before vanishing into silver. Sora held the Kingdom Key in his mouth, feeling the power that returned into his body as his crest glowed with great intensity.

The Kingdom Key turned hot against his tongue and Sora yelped, letting it go. The blade fell onto the ground and began to glow with a magical golden light. It became obscured from Sora's vision as it glowed, but the sixteen nobodies that still circled him retreated back a few steps in caution.

Sora jerked his eyes closed as the light flared suddenly, and he slowly opened them a moment later to find his keyblade no longer glowing. But it was no longer the Kingdom Key either. Instead of that iconic keyblade there rested on the brown earth a blade silver as the moon. Its grip was the colour of oak and the guard was the most conventional of any keyblade Sora had yet held. Unlike the wooden sword Sora had used in his youth there was merely a bar crossguard and the blade, or the guards of every other keyblade he'd held where the guard circled entirely around his hands in some fashion, this keyblade that lay in front of Sora had an elaborate basket hilt guard of stunning bronze. There was a small pommel at the hilt's base, a blue tourmaline gemstone composing it. If Sora had the time, he could gaze into that gem for hours. The keyblade's blade itself was curved only slightly in the fashion of a scimitar, but was nice and slender unlike the scimitar he'd seen the palace guards in Agrabah using. Forming the tip was a small and silver seven-pointed star.

Three thin golden lines weaved their way from the pommel to the guard before splitting into six and running straight down the blade with three on each side before joining together into the centre of the star, the very centre of which was golden. Sora looked down at the keychain that hung from the blade's tourmaline pommel, and nearly jumped out of his skin when he saw that it was in the shape of his very own silver crown pendant.

A throaty growl from his front reminded him that there was still a battle to be fought as sixteen lioness nobodies still surrounded him. He summoned his new keyblade into his tail's tight grasp as the new guard would not do well to bite on.

"Come on," he growled at the nobodies, feeling the power flowing within him. "Come and try me!" He roared again, feeling the rumble of his heart as a lion's roar burst out of his throat once more.

The lioness nobodies roared at his challenge and rushed straight for him.

Sora countercharged the lead one, the pain of his injuries gone. He ducked and spun around, cleaving his keyblade through the head of the nobody as if it were nothing. It vanished into a shimmering mist of silver a second after Sora had already moved on to the next one, keeping its claws at bay with his automail leg while arching his keyblade into its side. The lioness howled in pain before Sora took his sword from its side and ran it through half of the underbelly in an upwards slash.

Sora turned with his blade held high to watch as three more of the nobodies dashed towards him from his left. He leveled out his keyblade towards them and let loose some of the power that he'd felt himself imbued with. Three jets of roaring, silver fire blazed out of the star of his keyblade. They traversed towards the nobodies in three swinging crescents, and struck home into raging infernos that died seconds after impact, revealing that there was nothing remaining of the nobodies.

Sora was surprised for the duration the silver fire had illuminated his face. He'd never produced fire of that colour before…

"Thundaga!" he yelled, turning suddenly and pointing his keyblade at another two that were rushing towards him. Familiar electricity crackled and barreled out of the blade in twisting torrents that struck the two lionesses. They both stopped, stunned by the impact. Sora rushed at both of them and jumped, stretching his claws out wide and raking through the back of one while slicing his keyblade through the other.

Sora landed again as both of them vanished into the darkness from which they were formed and spun around, roaring again in challenge to the remaining nine.

Instead of the nobodies roaring back, they were all destroyed as another powerful roar echoed back against him. This roar was not like the noble roar that he had produced from his heart, daring his enemies to face him so that he may keep them off of Kiara and Kovu for as long as was possible. This roar was savage and filled with anger, and held some power over the land that Sora had not seen before except when he and Simba had enacted their unique Limit. The roar had caused great rocks from the bones of the world to break free from the ground and pierce through each nobody that faced against Sora. The keyblade master looked around in confusion for the source of the roar, and his eyes located a sight that caused him to quake in frustration.

He saw a male lion lying atop a cliff, his dark reddish-brown fur and black mane swaying in a wind. A scar ran vertically over his left eye, the green of which was gazing at him in amusement.

"So," Scar purred. "The little kitty does have bite after all."

"What are you doing here Scar?" Sora yelled.

Scar appeared to pay him little interest from his perch on the cliff-side, definitely not the reaction Sora had anticipated given the roar he had let out against him. There appeared to be something more intriguing in the lion's nails than the lion cub who was glaring at him, wholly confident that he should be dead.

"Someone's not keeping up on the times," Scar said, looking back down at Sora. "Otherwise you might know that my name is now Xarcs."

"Xarcs huh?" Sora said, allowing his keyblade to vanish from his tail's grip. "So you're a Nobody now? Guess I should have expected that stunt from you."

"Oh it's hardly a stunt Sora," Xarcs replied. "After all, if it wasn't for you and my dear nephew, I wouldn't have become this way." He paused and chuckled a little bit to himself, and Sora felt the ground tremble slightly beneath his paws. "So in a way I should really be thanking you keyblade master. For if Simba didn't defeat me, I would never have turned into a heartless, and if I had never turned into a heartless, you and your friends would never have joined with Simba to defeat my heartless. Since you did though, apart from my desire to find my heart you have also given me a burning desire for… revenge!"

Sora felt the trees shake and the wind blow fiercely as Xarcs proclaimed this, and he shook his head.

"Well," he muttered, "at least you haven't met up with Nixion yet then."

But his words were blown up to Xarcs by the wind and the lion nobody raised an eyebrow in interest. "Nixion hm?"

Crap!

"Well if this 'Nixion' bears a vendetta against you, perhaps I should meet this person," Xarcs said, a portal of darkness opening behind him. "It seems that while I have grown far stronger, so have you."

Xarcs stretched as he got up from his position on the cliff and yawned quite loudly. "Give my regards to my nephew will you?" Without another word, he turned into the portal before it closed behind him.

Sora shook his head and turned towards the nearest spire of rock that Xarcs had produced from his roars. Calling his keyblade into his tail, already very pleased of the feel of the grip of the familiar weapon in his grasp, he slashed at the rock. His sword broke upon it with a violent crash and there was a silver flash as the blade pierced right through. The spire crumbled and fell around Sora.

Why did Scar have to be back for a third time? Couldn't he just stay dead?

"Sora!"

He turned his head at the voice, incredulous at whose it was. He would have expected Simba to be the one to call his name, or Nala, or Timon or Pumbaa.

Never would he have thought that it would be Swara returning solely with Kiara and Kovu, without the King of Pride Rock in sight.

"What are you three doing here?" Sora asked, bewildered that they hadn't returned with Simba.

"Never mind that," Swara said, looking in shock at the keyblade grasped within Sora's tail, "what is that?"

Sora realized what it was that Swara was looking at, and he gained a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach as Swara looked back and forth between his automail leg and keyblade in rapid succession.

"I can explain," he said. He knew it was futile the moment he said it.

"How did you-?" Swara began to ask, shaking her head as it all went beyond her comprehension. "There's no way you should have been able to survive…"

"Swara…" Sora began slowly, taking a step towards her.

The young gazelle jerked her head quickly and took three back in exchange. "Who are you?" she asked. Sora could only open his mouth and wordlessly shake it while it hung limply on his neck. He couldn't immediately think of a time he'd felt as ashamed as now when his ears picked up the sound of Swara's hooves galloping away.

Painfully, he looked up at Kovu and Kiara. Kovu was looking at him in disbelief, and even with a little fright, while Kiara's eyes held pride and admiration.

"That's my uncle," she whispered to Kovu. Sora shook his head as he heard her whisper.

"Kovu!" he said sharply. The green-eyed lion cub looked up at him quickly and sat erect, trying his best not to look intimidated or afraid. Sora almost smiled, but the corners of his mouth still twitched while he nodded repeatedly at the Outsider. "Thank you."

Kovu blinked suddenly and took a tentative step forward. "Huh?"

"You'd best go back to the Outlands," Sora went on, looking at the wastes. "We don't want Simba to have found out that you came here do we?"

"No sir!" Kovu said in a worried tone, his paws already beginning to carry him back to his home. "Bye Kiara!"

"Bye Kovu!" Kiara returned, watching him go.

"Now as for you," Sora began sternly. Kiara shrunk down from him in shame.

"Go back to Pride Rock," Sora said, his tone lightening. Kiara nodded and without further delay began to make her way back to her own home as the Sun began to set.

She paused a little ways out and looked back at Sora. "Are you coming?"

"In my own time," Sora answered. "Now hurry on home!" Kiara nodded and continued running back through the Pride Lands.

Sora sighed and limped a few paces as the pain from his wounds returned to him, forgotten in the feeling that his glowing crest and the keyblade's return had given him. He directed the keyblade that was still being clutched by his tail towards his body and briefly muttered a cure spell. He felt relief as the magic green tendrils washed over him, closing his shallow wounds and easing the deeper ones. But the pain in his heart seeing the look of betrayal on his friend's face could not be eased by the cure spell.

Sora slowly made his way back through the Pride Lands as the Sun's light slowly slipped back beneath the horizon and the twinkling stars came out along with the nearly full moon for the first night since Sora had arrived. This marked the end of his last day in the Pride Lands before King Mickey would pick him up tomorrow, the twenty-seventh of September. He had done what he had come here to do. He had recalled the keyblade to himself.

So why did he not feel as good as he thought he should feel?

"Ow!"

Sora brought his paw up to his head after he felt a rock strike it. Looking up in annoyance, he saw Rafiki swinging up in a tree, singing in a tongue Sora did not understand.

"Asante sana;
Squash banana!
We we nugu;
Mi mi apana!"

Turning aside, Sora began grumbling to himself. He did not want to have to deal with the monkey right now. Not at all.

"Will you cut that out Rafiki?" Sora asked agitatedly, as the persistent mandrill continued to follow him as the lion cub made his way towards a distant forest, chanting to himself.

"Can't cut it out," Rafiki laughed, "it come right back."

"Well will you stop following me," said Sora, getting thoroughly agitated at Rafiki's insistence on keeping him company as the monkey was now striding on his feet next to him. "Who do you think you are to do this to me anyway?"

Rafiki came right in front of Sora and stopped him by placing his finger directly on Sora's nose. "Ah, but the question is: Who are you?"

Sora stopped and looked down at the ground. He'd been getting that question a lot lately, and even after calling the keyblade back to himself, he still hadn't found an answer.

"I used to know," he mumbled. "But now, I don't think I do."

"Come closer," said Rafiki in a secretive tone, "because I know." He drew Sora closer to himself, but once Sora's ear was right against his mouth the lion cub was disappointed. All that Rafiki said was that ridiculous chant of his again. "Asante sana, squash banana! We we nugu, mi mi apana!"

"What does that mean anyway?" asked Sora in frustration, taking a few paces away from Rafiki.

"It means you are a baboon, and I am not," Rafiki answered, chuckling and holding onto his staff for support.

"I think age has made you confused," Sora replied, trying his best not to smile at the silliness of the translation.

"I am not the one who is confused," Rafiki countered, "you do not even know who you are!"

Sora scoffed sarcastically. "Oh, and I suppose you do?"

"Sure do," Rafiki answered. "You're Anne's son."

Sora froze in his tracks and whipped around, staring at the old mandrill with disbelief as he uttered the word 'bye' and dashed through the rolling grasses. "Hey, wait!" Sora chased after Rafiki, the buffalo grass tickling his nose and the sound of the automail clicking in his ears.

This was impossible! There was no way Rafiki should be able to know his mother's name. No conceivable probability that she had ever met Rafiki before.

He reached the monkey, calmly sitting on the ground in a meditative lotus position with his eyes closed. He had to ask. "You knew my mother?"

"Correction," Rafiki answered slowly and wisely. "I know your mother."

Sora dipped his head. "I hate to tell you this, but she died about a month ago."

"Nope!" Rafiki said suddenly, grabbing his staff. "Wrong again!" He got up faster than Sora's eyes could see and laughed. "She's alive!" he proclaimed, "And I show her to you. You follow old Rafiki, he knows the way!"

Sora chased after Rafiki as the mandrill laughed and led him into the forest they had been going towards. The brambles and vines snatched and clawed at Sora as he struggled to make his way through after Rafiki. Why, oh why were things still surprising him? He thought he'd seen it all, done it all, and now here comes Rafiki claiming that his mom was still alive? This was impossible; this was insane!

"Stop!" Rafiki suddenly said, abruptly appearing in front of Sora and holding out his hand. Sora skidded to a stop, his nose barely in front of the monkey's stopping hand. Rafiki turned away from Sora and used his staff to part a large curtain of vines.

"Down there," Rafiki instructed ominously, revealing a pool at the edge of the forest.

Anxiously, Sora began to approach the pool, unsure of if he wanted to see this, if he wanted to know that his mother was still alive. What would she say?

Shuddering at the huge number of horrendous things she could say to him, especially at having lost his leg, Sora decided that he would rather be scolded than not hear his mother's voice at all. Slowly, he bent down and looked into the pool, only to see a grey lion cub with chocolate hair wearing a silver crown pendant and a silver crest that now had only the faintest traces of light in it staring back up at him.

Sora sighed and retracted his gaze from the pool. "That's not her," he said painfully, "it's just my reflection."

"No," said Rafiki, gently placing his hand on Sora to draw his attention before turning a long finger towards the pool and tapping it. "Look harder."

Sora looked back as the water rippled, and his eyes widened. He was no longer looking upon a lion cub, but upon himself as a human! He strained his eyes in disbelief as it then melded away from his own image and that into a woman with a kind face, shoulder-length chocolate hair, and eyes that had retained the colour from the image of himself.

"You see," said Rafiki as Sora looked in awe upon the image of his mother, "she lives in you."

"Sora."

Sora looked up from the pool as he heard his mother's voice in the wind above him. "Mom?" he asked, the very same anxious quiver in his trembling voice that had been present when he'd first returned after defeating Xemnas.

The wind rushed around him and Sora turned, watching it swirl and turn in a central spot near the forest's edge. Sora felt his eyes began to tear as he saw an apparition of Anne fading into existence in front of him. He hadn't seen something like it since Roxas left him, but right now, his thoughts were as far away from his twin as could be.

"Sora," Anne's spectre said warmly, opening her arms slightly.

The next thing he knew he was running straight for his mother's arms, not noticing or caring that his body was changing back into that of a human's, not wanting or caring for anything more than for the feel of his mother's comforting arms around him.

His two legs carried him right to Anne, and his mind dimly registered that even though she appeared transparent it felt as if she was really there. Sora wrapped his arms around his mother's midriff in a loving hug, to which he was glad was emphatically returned in full.

"I've missed you Mom," Sora whispered, his voice nearly breaking. "I've missed you so much."

"I've missed you too sweetie," Anne replied. She hugged her son close, her voice hushing and calming him.

Sora nestled his head in his mother's transparent hair, feeling how soft it was. "I never said it Mom," he uttered quietly. "I never said it and I never showed it as much as I should have."

"What is it Sora?" Anne asked knowingly, softly stroking the back of his head and rubbing his back.

"I love you Mom," Sora replied, clutching onto her as if for dear life. She gently bent her neck down slightly and tenderly kissed her son's forehead, tears starting to come from her own eyes.

"I love you too Sora," she replied. "I have always loved you. And I also forgive you."

Sora struggled slightly, fidgeting. "What do you mean?"

"It was my time Sora," Anne replied, her voice nearly cracking as she tried to convey this to her son. "If you were there, nothing you would have done could have stopped Cossex from doing what she did."

Sora shuddered in her arms and wept silently. "I know."

"Then why have you insisted that you could have saved me if you were there?" Anne asked curiously.

Sora could barely shrug his shoulders. "I-I don't know," he replied shakily. "I think because-"

"Because you had stopped listening to what your heart was telling you?" Anne supplied with a sad and somber smile on her face.

Sora was silent for several seconds before finding no way around the undeniable truth. "Yes," he answered.

"Sora," began his mother in a soft voice. "You have forgotten who you are."

"I can no longer see," Sora mumbled. "Who am I Mom? Am I the Keyblade Master? Am I a boy from Destiny Islands? Am I a Hero or a Washout? Am I-"

Anne shushed him with a finger placed against his lips. "You are Sora. You are my and your father's son."

"Mac," Sora whispered to himself, "Dad." Anne smiled and bent down a bit so that she could look her son in the eyes.

"No matter what title you bear," she went on, "no matter what weapon you wield, what you may do, who you date, who you befriend, who you love, who you may come to marry, who you may lose or kill or even who you may save, know this:

"I am proud of you Sora."

The fifteen year old youth's eyes widened slightly as the apparition of his mother smiled teary-eyed but happy at him in the starlight.

"I am proud of you son," Anne said again. "And I will always be proud of you." She held out her hands and Sora backed a step away. Into her ghostly hands the keyblade that the Kingdom Key had morphed into appeared, balanced perfectly in his mother's slender hands.

"I have learned much since I died," his mother said sadly, but her voice gained strength as she went on. "But this keyblade was forged over a hundred years ago for you Sora." Her son looked at the blade in awe as she continued. "Like the Oblivion keyblade that you have normally held, this keyblade is yours, bearing your crown pendant. It is the Oblivion keyblade that you could not call when you could not hear the words of your heart, and it was this one that came to you when you remembered how to listen."

She turned the hilt towards Sora, resting the pommel just shy of his trembling hands. "This keyblade's name is Remembrance."

"Remembrance," Sora echoed, taking the keyblade in his hands before letting it vanish. His mother hugged him again, and Sora fell into her embrace and wept once more, for he knew this would be the last one.

"I don't want to lose you," Sora whispered.

"But you never will," Anne comforted him with a smile. "Wherever you go, I'm always with you."

"Kairi said the same thing once," Sora blurted out.

"Did she now?" Anne asked with interest. "And was she right?"

Sora smiled and nestled himself a little closer into his mother's embrace. "She was. I can feel her with me even now." Anne kissed her son's forehead again and rubbed his back.

"Feel what you want to feel Sora," she said. "Not what you think you should feel." She tapped a finger on his forehead to reiterate the point before poking him in the heart.

"Who do you take me for?" Sora asked in a laugh with a grin. Anne giggled slightly.

"Your father's son," she whispered. "You are only who you want to be. Remember that Sora."

"I will," Sora answered slowly, breathing in long, calming draughts. He could feel his mother slipping away from his embrace as she faded back to where she had come from.

"Therlyenë," Anne's soft voice said.

"Wait!" Sora asked quickly. "What does that mean?"

"What does your heart tell you?" his mother's voice came back in an almost teasing tone. Sora paused and closed his eyes.

"It means 'I love you'," he answered quietly, almost too quietly for himself to hear.

He felt himself shrinking again as fur grew onto his body and he collapsed onto all fours, once more a lion cub. Sora felt the soft ground underneath his paws, but his eyes were up at the stars. Rafiki was no longer here, but Sora didn't mind, enjoying the peace of the night that was bathed in starlight and moonlight.

"Sora?"

The young keyblade master turned at the soft sound of Simba's voice and footsteps. Simba's eyes were also up on the stars, calmly surveying them. "They live in us Sora," Simba said quietly.

"Yeah," Sora replied. "Your father, and my mother. And even Kairi's and Riku's parents too. I don't know why I couldn't see it before."

"They're always with us," Simba said knowingly. "They're watching over everything we see. In every creature, and in every star." Simba snorted slightly. "In your reflection even."

"How did you figure it out?" Sora asked. "You left us for a little while after you saw Mufasa in the clouds."

Simba laughed. "There used to be a little bump on my head, courtesy of Rafiki."

"Just be glad you're so thick-headed."

"Why you little!"

Sora laughed at Simba's outburst and flung himself at the much larger lion, sending Simba sprawling to the ground as the keyblade master tackled him. Sora quickly got off of Simba and started running.

"Bet you can't beat me back to Pride Rock!" Sora yelled.

"Hey come back here!" Simba retorted, giving chase. "There's something I need you to do for me tomorrow before you go." Sora paused and Simba whispered something into his ear.

Sora stopped dead and stared at Simba. "Could you say that again?" Simba only smiled and repeated it to Sora as the moon shone down on the two foster brothers.

Sora didn't move for another second, but then a smile so large his face should have broken just from a logistical standpoint exploded into existence over his muzzle and he tackled Simba, laughing in delirious bliss. His smile even remained the whole night as he slept in the den of Pride Rock.

What Simba had told Sora made him the happiest person in all existence in that moment.

-A-D-

Yeah, it was long. But we're down to the last three chapters; they HAVE to be long.

I credit DarthKingdom for the Wild Dog heartless. Thanks Darth, they're great to use.

I don't really feel the need to beg for reviews anymore, seeing as I have so many people who regularly review and such. I just like seeing faces both new and old giving me comments and feedback.

May the Grace of the Valar Protect You

Shire Folk