And, with this chapter, I am officially back from my month-long winter hiatus. Once again, more apologies on my part for taking so long on this chapter. It's been…god…two months…and I swear I'm not forgetting about this story, really. It's just…college. And holidays. And…well, if anybody has any suggestions on how I can do better, I'll take them. I hate feeling like I'm talking to myself…when I'm talking to the internet, that is…

Thanks to Pinky for beta'ing…gamma'ing…looking over this chapter in Syaoran-san's absence. My online circle of friends is made up of the coolest people.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything to do with Digimon or Kingdom Hearts. The original manga version of Sailor Moon is the exclusive property of Naoko Takeuchi-sensei and, therefore, not mine either.

Kingdom of the Elemental Hearts

Chapter 24: Crystal Tokyo Part 5

"Minamoto-kun? Minamoto-kun, where are you?"

Juno tried to keep her voice low and under control, projecting the whisper to bounce down the abandoned sewer tunnel, but it was a difficult struggle against the panic rising from her stomach. The way had been mostly clear, for a decent while, until a swarm of Heartless had cut across their path from a perpendicular tunnel. It wasn't a large swarm, by any matter of means, and just one of her Thunder Barrage attacks had taken out almost all of them, but by the time the dust had cleared, Minamoto-kun was nowhere in sight.

It wasn't like Juno was panicking or anything. No, she was perfectly calm, controlled, or at least she would be once she got her breathing under control. What had Minamoto-kun said? Deep breaths, stay calm, slow your heart…

She wondered for a split moment if it was possible to meditate while one was walking, before something caught her foot in the dark and she fell, rolling at the last minute to avoid the rather disgusting water flowing down the path. Juno twisted onto her side, lifting one hand to knock her attacker's block off, and stopped when she realized that there was no block to knock off.

Instead, she found herself looking at a young man, older than her but younger than Jupiter and the other Senshi, sprawled over the ground, most of his form hidden by a heavy black robe. Her foot had caught on his weapon, a tall black staff, that was held to the ground only by the figure's limp hand resting atop it. As she watched, the formerly-unmoving fingers tensed, curling around the weapon just slightly as its owner groaned.

"Hey…" she crawled forward on her hands and knees to kneel next to him, shaking his shoulder as gently as she could. She didn't want to hurt him any more than he already might be. "You okay? Hey."

The boy groaned and lifted his head just enough that the hood fell off, revealing a mop messy of blue-black hair. He kept his head down, the hair falling around his face to cover it, bracing one hand against his forehead with a pained little groan. "What…?"

"Dude, you okay?" Juno leaned a bit closer, dropping her head in an attempt to get glimpse of his face, but the hair was too thick. "You don't look so good. You hurt?"

"I don't…no," the boy shook his head and lowered his hand. "Just a little shell-shocked…"

He looked up, revealing dark blue eyes and Juno jerked backwards with a little gasp. Those eyes, the nose and forehead, it was all the same. His face was identical to Minamoto-kun's, right down to the shape of his chin and cheekbones, with only the lack of bruises and scruff marks as the only indicator that there was any difference at all.

For a moment, Juno just stared at him, slack-jawed, and then her brain managed catch up. "Mina…Minamoto-kun?"

The boy looked at her, his eyes narrowed into something…dark, something almost frightening…before they closed again. He gave his head a few little shakes, as though clearing water from his ears, and opened them again. "No, I…you…you know…Kouji?"

His voice was softer than Minamoto-kun's, gentler. Not exactly 'feminine', per say, but…softer. His movements, what little she could see as he shifted beneath his robe, were less controlled, more subtle and refined. He looked at her with an open expression, his eyes wide with confusion, but no fear, simply trying to figure out who she was and how she knew…what she knew.

"I, uh…yes." Juno nodded, and made sure that her face was serious. "He's, uh… here somewhere. Or…he was." She shook herself, the jeweled bobs of her hair bouncing around like jingle bells. "He's around. We'll catch up with him eventually…I'm Juno."

The boy blinked at her, then let a smile cross over his features. Something about the expression made Juno's stomach flip-flop, and not in the way that Minamoto-kun made it happen. Something about it just didn't seem entirely right, like his face muscles were being pulled in ways they weren't meant to be.

"It's nice to meet you, Juno. I'm Kouichi."

( - ) ( - ) ( - )

"Hey, guys?"

Agumon glanced up at his partner, leaning one shoulder down just far enough that his claws were leaving scratch marks in the soft black crystal floor. "What is it, Tai?"

"Did you ever get one of those really bad feelings?" the formerly goggle-wearing teen frowned, looking around him cautiously. "Like, one of those feelings like you just know something is really, really wrong, but you can't quite put your finger on what it is?"

Now Ceres and Goofy were turning back to join their conversation, the girl looking over her shoulder adorably and the knight turning to walk backwards in a somewhat clumsily manner. Takuya, at the head of their little group, didn't turn. He just kept moving straight down the hall.

"Gawrsh, can't say that I have," Goofy hyuck'ed, rubbing the back of his head awkwardly and stumbling a little in his steps.

"I don't think anything's wrong, really…" Ceres looked up at Taichi with big, red-pink eyes that reminded him just the slightest bit of his sister. "But it is awfully strange. You'd think there'd be a lot more Heartless around than just this."

Taichi sighed with relief. "So I'm not imagining it. At the risk of sounding like an old cliché, this is all just…too easy."

Ceres frowned, the expression looking more like a pout with her big eyes and childishly-round face. "But easy is a good thing, isn't it?"

"Not if it's leading us into a trap…"

Takuya stopped so suddenly that Goofy ran into him, toppling to the side with a pained yelp. Ceres shrieked a little, barely making it over him with a bit of a hop, skip and a jump maneuver that let her clear him by mere centimeters. "Don't do that!"

The boy didn't react to either the shriek or the yelp, instead bringing the Ball into his gloved hands and igniting it with a twitch of his wrist. Taichi jumped back, pulling his Digivice into a tight fist against his side, and tensed all over. "Takuya, what is it?"

Takuya didn't say anything, at least, anything comprehensible, as he mumbled something wordless and twisted back to face them again. Taichi got a five-second look at the way Takuya's brown eyes had grown blank and foggy, before he suddenly punted the Ball at him with an unexpected amount of force and Agumon had to tackle his partner out of the way of the flaming sphere.

Taichi rolled with the blow, ducking under the Sphere as it bounced off the wall and came hurtling back at them with an elastic ricochet. He was up on his knees a moment later, tossing Agumon back to his feet. "What the hell, man?"

"Taichi-san!" Ceres gasped, already on her feet, and darted forward. "Bind, Golden Grains!"

On the last word of her invocation, gleaming whips of gold shot from the nothingness just behind her, looping around her arm to shoot at Takuya as though they'd been shot from a cannon. They hit him hard, knocking him off his feet and wrapping around his upper body and binding them to his sides. Ceres broke off the attack, snatching hold of the golden whisks with both hands, yanking the suddenly-solid binds back.

Takuya curved away from the attack, turning back to the girl with an athletic bicycle kick. With her hands tangled in the attack, Ceres was unable to defend herself and was knocked back. The minute she let go of her magic, it disappeared, and Takuya twisted out of its grip to grab the Ball as it came shooting back at him.

"Takuya!" Taichi launched himself at the other boy, curling his arms in defensively to hit Takuya elbows-first. Takuya's reactions were as good as ever, but oddly slow, so Taichi swept him right off his feet and knocked the Sphere out of his hands.

The two boys hit the ground and rolled until Taichi had the smaller figure pinned under him, his elbows digging into the other's shoulders. "Takuya! What the hell is wrong with you?"

"Uh…wha?"

The younger boy blinked a few times, and the fuzziness of his eyes cleared just a little bit. Taichi could almost see the light in the depths of the pupil. "Taichi…what?"

"Tai', look out!"

Taichi snapped his head up and rolled to the side just as the Ball came back at him. He pressed his back against the ground as the flaming sphere shot over his head, charring the edges of his hair, and bounced again off the wall to his right directly over the same path.

Takuya was suddenly on his feet again, catching the ball in his hand, and the sight vanished from his eyes again. The dark, muddy orbs scanned around the group again, and his expression slipped into the cold murderousness again.

Something clicked together in Taichi's mind. "It's the Ball! Something's wrong with the Ball! Get it away from him!"

Takuya twisted at Taichi's voice and hurled the ball at him with another powerful kick, missing only because the older boy rolled out of the way at the last possible second. It ricocheted off the floor and shot to the ceiling, angling off to come at Ceres again.

The little Sailor Scout braced herself, digging her feet into the ground, and crossed her arms in front of her at the wrist. The Ball collided with her and pushed her back several feet until she had her back pressed against the wall, and still the fireball pushed at her and spun. The protective material of the white gloves began to wear away, burning into a brittle black and smoking with the fury of the flame.

Ceres held it as long as she could, biting her lip against the heat, then hooked her arms around and bumped it with both wrists like a volley ball serve. "Goofy!"

The dog guard turned with a bright hyuck, understanding the girl's plan in seconds. Just as the ball came at him, he raised his shield and angled its ricochet further down the hall. "Here yeh go, Agumon!"

Takuya turned as the ball shot past him in a way he - or whatever it was that had him - obviously hadn't been planning, but before he could stop it, Agumon leapt up and snatched the Sphere out of the air. Carrying it, still spinning, in the tips of his claws, the little orange dinosaur ran as far down the hall as he could stand it before tossing the burning weapon into the air. "Taichi!"

"It's mine!"

The older boy kicked off the wall and, with all the skill he'd garnered through years of soccer practice, nailed the Ball with the hardest kick he could. His sneaker started to smoke with the heat of the flame, and the smell of burnt rubber filled the air, but the Ball went flying as clean as a goal kick, shooting down the hall like a canon ball and disappearing into the darkness until it was nothing but a spark.

Takuya groaned, putting a hand to his head, and wobbled down to kneel on one knee. Goofy and Ceres were there in a second, still tense from the battle. "Gwarsh, you okay?"

"Are you all right, Takuya-kun?" Ceres asked gently, resting one nearly glove-less hand on his shoulder.

The boy groaned again, rubbing his temples, and glanced up at them with brown eyes that were now completely clear. He glanced between them all in confusion, wrinkling his nose at the sudden smells. "What happened? And…Christ, Ceres, what happened to your hands?"

The girl smiled just a little bit and pulled her hands away to check them. "Don't worry. I'm tougher than I look. This'll be fine."

"At least something is," Taichi muttered, crossing his hands over his chest. He glared down in the direction that the Ball had disappeared in, his eyes narrowed as though he expected it to come back full-force and try to take them all out. "There's something rotten here, guys. Something about this place is really, really wrong…"

( - ) ( - ) ( - )

"Hey. Hey, buddy. Wake up. Hey!"

SLAP!

"Ow!"

Riku sat straight up, one hand snapping to his sore left cheek and the other reaching for the Soul Stealer. He barely realized that he'd nearly knocked heads with someone white and feathered - Donald? The King's Donald? - before a little red haired girl in a ridiculously cute sailor uniform dove at him and covered his mouth with both of her hands.

"Keep quiet, would you?" She snapped, her voice stalling at a rough, reedy whisper. Riku attempted to protest, but she pushed her hands at him a bit harder. "Shush!"

Riku frowned behind the hands, but fell silent. The girl and the familiar duck-mage that was with her held their position for a few minutes longer, and seemed to be holding their breath along with it. When nothing disturbed the silence of the room for long enough that Riku was almost tempted to bite at the fingers to get rid of them, they both let out their breaths in a collective sigh and the hands were quickly removed.

"Oh-kay…" Riku sat up with a frown, glancing between them suspiciously, but keeping his voice down cautiously. "What the hell was that about?"

The girl rolled her eyes, and Riku got a flash of garnet from their irises. Huh. Eyes were not usually red in that manner. "Is he always this noisy?"

"Oh, putta sock in it," Donald muttered, scrambling around to Riku's other side. He pointed over the boy with one wing, motioning out of their little hiding-crouch into the center of the room. "Lookit that."

Riku looked, and the mild frown became even further ingrained onto his face.

The room was vast and dark, lit only by the strange way that the ten cases on the edge of the circle seemed to glow unnaturally, their colors refracting out into the pale, white light of the chalk itself like the shards of a shattered stain-glass window. Riku couldn't see the cases or their contents quite clearly enough, but the shield still attached to his arm seemed to understand more than he did, shimmering in the shadows of their hiding place and vibrating in time with the other items. There was a woman there in the middle of it all, tall and pale with a violent mane of blood-red hair, staring up at a point in the ceiling as though she'd been hypnotized.

When Riku traced his eyes up to follow her trail of sight, he found that said point in the ceiling really was quite fascinating. It was though all of the lights in the circle, as well as most of the shadows in the surrounding room, were being absorbed into a black hole the size of a quarter. The colors and the blackness swirled around the point in a slowly-expanding spiral, moving with agonizing slowness, like not-quite-dry paint slowly pushing down a half-clogged drain.

The young warrior took it all in with a few quick glances, then frowned at Donald and his 'companion.' "Okay. So what is 'that'?"

"Beats us," the girl shrugged, the red bangles on her hair bouncing around. "We were hoping you'd know. You came out of it."

Riku blinked. "I…what?"

"Well, it sure looked like you came out of it…" Donald squawked in a way that somehow managed to be both impatient and introspective at the same time.

"You nearly landed on us," the girl scowled, leaning back against the wall again. They were still hiding, crouched under a decorative outcropping at the very edge of the rounded room, but her stance was anything but cautious. If anything, she looked almost bored. "Outta nowhere, there was this couple'a big noises - BOOM, FWOOM, zap, zowie and pow - and even though witchy-lady didn't flutter an eyelash, you came tumbling in on top of us with one of those Heartless-bug-things on your arm. So we blasted the bug before it could cause any trouble, not that you were any help, and…"

"Hold it," Riku twisted around and grabbed the girl by both of her tiny little shoulders. "What did you say?"

"That you were absolutely no help," her grin spread out a bit more, and the red eyes gleamed with the delight of a trickster. "Not that I can blame yeh, really, since you were kinda out of it, but…"

Riku took a deep breath and blew it out again through his gritted teeth. "Not that. What was that about a Heartless?"

The girl watched him a moment, as though making sure that he wasn't trying to lure her into some kind of trap or joke, then shrugged. "What's there to say? The little bug was holdin' onto your hand, all bunched up in this goofy-looking little ball. The hardest part was getting it far enough away from yeh that we didn't break any fingers. Which was tougher than you'd really think it should be - you were holding on something fierce."

Riku's frowned deepened as his fingers uncurled from her shoulders, instead coming to grip into fists against each other tensely. "That can't be…It's not right…"

Donald's face slipped into something serious for once, his eyes widening at the tone in Riku's voice. "What's the matter?"

"Jeez, buddy," the girl blinked, cocking her head to one side. "What's the matter?"

"It's not right!" Riku looked up at them both, snapping his head up. "I was with the King and…!"

He was cut off in mid-sentence by the sudden jerk that grabbed him by the elbow and nearly dragged him straight off his feet. He'd slid a full two feet, held in place only by his own controlled efforts at traction and his companions jumping to hold him down, before he finally realized what was happening.

The Shield no longer seemed content to just sit humming and shimmering. Its color, shifting between an icy green and a glistening silver, had grown to an all-out electric glow no different than the cases around the circle, and bits of it were starting to join with the others in the swirling mess of the 'black hole.'

"Okay, now what?" The girl grunted, getting a better hold on Riku's waist and struggling for the smallest bit of grip on the slick surface of the crystal floor. "What the hell is going on?"

Riku grunted and grit his teeth again, pulling against the force on his arm. "You're asking me…?"

"Magic! It's magic! It's starting up fer real!" Donald squawked, scrambling in front of the boy and pushing from the other side, his feet sliding rather uselessly in place as he pointed over his shoulder. "Look!"

Beryl was talking now - no, chanting, chanting soft words in a dark language that burned at their ears and seemed to sear through the air like a hot poker. Her dark-painted eyelids fluttered a moment, the chants increasing in tempo, and the jerks became stronger and faster.

Riku grunted at the sudden jolts, and briefly debated whether the force was going to pull his arm out of its socket. Then he questioned whether losing his arm was really any worse than whatever Beryl was planning for him…for the Shield…for whatever.

And under it all, the same questions kept asking over and over: What was happening? Where was he now? Where was the King? Where was Kouichi?

( - ) ( - ) ( - )

"So, uh…you're Co-ee-chee?"

The stranger glanced at Juno with an expression that was really nothing like Minamoto-kun's, despite the similarity of their faces and eyes. There was a bit of a playful smirk on his lip, glancing down at her as though he knew exactly how stupid her question was, and the weight of that glance made Juno's cheeks darken into a deep rouge. "Well, yes, that's my name. Why do you ask, Miss Juno?"

"Don't…Don't call me miss," the girl muttered, and her face darkened a bit more even as she tried to hide behind her own hair. She nibbled her lip awkwardly as she watched Coo-ee-chee…Kouichi, Kou-ichi, she had to remind herself to think of him that way…

"And…And you said you were Minamoto-kun's…brother?"

"Twins, actually," Kouichi narrowed his eyes in the way that Minamoto-kun always did, but there was a mischievous, almost playful glint deep in the depths of the blue irises. "I'm sorry if I didn't make that quite obvious."

More color, and Juno hated it - red always clashed with her hair, and she was acting like such an idiot, around Minamoto-kun's brother of all people. "You did, you just…I just…oh…never mind…"

Kouichi chuckled and paused, leaning against his staff lazily like a walking stick and smiling at her in a manner that seemed completely open and yet not completely honest. "There's no reason to be so tense, Juno-chan. I'm not going to be telling anybody nasty things about you if you act your age," his smile widened a bit. "And I'm certainly not going to bite or anything silly like that."

"Well…Good." Juno huffed, crossing her arms over her chest. "'Cause that'd be really freaky of you."

This time, the boy laughed, a real, honest-to-goodness laugh, and her tense muscles relaxed just the slightest at the comforting sound. "Yes, I suppose it would, wouldn't it? Though, I have been told I'm not exactly…"

Kouichi stopped suddenly, raising one hand in at a sharp, flat angle that automatically brought Juno up to a sudden stop. The girl tensed all over and flexed her hands, invisible little jolts of static electricity jumping from her gloved knuckles to tickle her bare knees. "What is it?"

"Something's happening up ahead," Kouichi frowned and took a deep breath through his nose, furrowing his brow in something between curiosity and disgust. "It smells…putrid. Against the natural order."

Juno frowned at his expression, sniffing the air experimentally. "I don't smell anything…hey!"

Kouichi hadn't even waited for her to finish her sentence before he'd lifted the Staff off the ground and completely into his hand, darting down the obsidian black hall with jolting movements that seemed almost unnatural. Juno reacted as quickly as she could and shot after him - she couldn't lose him, Minamoto-kun was going to be so happy when he saw she'd found him - and caught up a second later to find him crouched behind the low railing of a balcony, his staff lying almost vertical against one knee. "Hey, whattya think you're…"

"Shhhh," Kouichi lifted one hand just enough to put a finger against his lips, then pointed out over the edge of the balcony. "Look."

Juno looked and her eyes widened. Her throat went dry so suddenly that it almost made her cough, but she held it down to an extremely soft whisper. "Holy gems. Beryl…!"

"She's starting the spell," Kouichi gripped his Staff tightly. It was glowing, Juno realized, with a strange aura that seemed to shift from black to purple and back without even thinking about it, and it was shaking violently in his grip. "They're not even all in place yet and she's already started the spell. What the hell is that witch thinking…?"

Juno glanced at her new companion with not a little bit of confusion, but said nothing. The tendrils of darkness were starting to writhe from Beryl's finger tips, stretching out into the corners of the room, and there were others moving down there…other pieces coming into their places…

( - ) ( - ) ( - )

Sora darted down the hallway, just a little ahead of ChibiUsa and Pallas, his eyes darting down each split-off hallway as he passed it at high speed. He scanned constantly, looking for any sign of Heartless or Junpei, determined to keep one step ahead of whatever was happening and keep the girls safe, but he was so focused on the two known dangers that he didn't even notice Kouji until he'd run straight into him and been bowled over flat on his back.

"Ow!" Sora rolled back, only the high pile of his hair keeping him from banging his skull against the ground. "What the…Kouji?"

ChibiUsa darted forward to check on him, despite Pallas trying to hold her back. The blue-haired girl's eyes were suddenly wide, and her voice rose a full octave in panic. "Small Lady, look out!"

Sora snapped his head up just in time to get a glance at the dark, shadowed navy eyes before he leapt at ChibiUsa, rolling them both out of the way without a second to lose. A moment later, the blazing green-silver blade of light burned through the air and scarred the black quartz floor with a nasty hiss.

ChibiMoon gasped just a bit as they uncurled from their roll, staring at their attacker in disbelief. "Minamoto-kun, no!"

Kouji turned to them sharply, his dark ponytail snapping after like a whip, and his fogged eyes narrowing dangerously. The rest of his body moved after the head, strangely limp, his arms dangling by his sides and leaving him open in a way that Sora had never seen before.

"Oh, no no no no no no!" Pallas shrieked, moving from one foot to the other frantically, he hands pressed over her face in a vague attempt to get herself under control. "He's just like him! Junpei-onii-san, he acted like this, too!"

Sora growled, staying in a low crouch and gripping his Keyblade almost too tightly. "This isn't like him…Something's screwing with him…Both of them…"

"What…What do we do?" ChibiMoon asked, her hands curling as though she wanted to reach for the magic that formed the basis of her attacks, but shaking too much to get a proper hold on it. "Sora-kun…It's Minamoto-kun, w-we can't hurt him. An-And Juno's supposed to be with him…"

Kouji tensed suddenly and lunged, bringing the Sager down on them again. Sora moved more quickly, something he'd thought to be impossible, throwing ChibiUsa out of the way and catching the blade of light on the edge of the Keyblade. The two blades battled with each other, one pushing up, the other down, forced against each other with magical sparks and electric crackles.

"No no no no!" Pallas's voice rose even higher in octave, and then it was suddenly laced with power. "Rolling Bubble Restraint!"

From her direction, a blast of bubbles shot into Sora's view, crashing into Kouji's side in a way the swordsman would never have allowed, if he'd been in control. Empowered with magic, they lifted him off his feet, carrying him a good ten feet away and freeing Sora from the gridlocked attack. The bubbles continued to push, forming a barrier around the dark-haired boy, but he was already starting to fight his way through with pure stubborn determination.

Sora swore under his breath as his teeth grit together in frustration. "Dammit, Kouji…Thought you were…more stubborn than that…"

"What do we do, what do we do?" Pallas asked again, her voice as frantic as ever.

ChibiUsa took a deep breath, obviously trying to stay claim, but the nerves that had been frayed by their current situation weren't tying themselves off anytime soon if the rattling of nervous energy about her was any indication. "That's…That's easy, Palla. We have to…Have to…"

"Run."

Both Senshi stared at the Keyblade Master as though he'd lost his mind, but he didn't give them any time to argue. Instead, he practically lifted ChibiUsa up by the bow on her back and shoved them both down the side hall. "Get moving!" He insisted, ducking under the glowing blade and only losing a single piece of hair for his trouble. "You heard me, go!"

ChibiUsa let out a little shriek of surprise as she skittered back to her feet, turning back despite Pallas's hand on her shoulder. "B-But Sora-kun…!"

"No buts!" Sora parried Kouji's next strike, holding them at another all-too-steady deadlock. He grit his teeth together at the sparks that flew from the Sager at their connecting point, backing away from the heat with a low hiss. "I can't hold him off without hurting him. We gotta get rid of the source to stop this, so get going!"

"But…"

"Sorry, buddy…" Sora grit his teeth and leaned back, kicking Kouji in the stomach hard enough to knock him a few steps away, and grinned at the girls. "Don't worry. I'll be right behind you."

ChibiUsa opened her mouth to argue again, but Pallas's tugging on her sleeve distracted her. "Small Lady, please!"

"Oh…oh, all right!"

The pink-haired princess turned on the balls of her feet and darted down the hall, with her fellow Sailor Scout directly behind. Sora grinned to himself before he twisted back to his 'opponent.'

Kouji moved with a strange jerkiness, like some kind of low-budget zombie, and he was close enough now that Sora could see a little trickle of blood running over his left ear. It took only a moment for the Keyblade Master to put it together - that Kouji had been knocked unconscious and that had given 'the witch' the opportunity she needed to get control of him again - before he was again under attack by the sluggish but accurate moves.

Kouji darted towards him, and Sora raised the Keyblade to block again, only to be surprised as the swordsman darted past him and down the thin hall. "Hey…No!"

Sora twisted and shot after him, pushing his legs as hard and as fast as they would go. He couldn't catch up like this - Kouji was faster than he was and more agile, he could maneuver the tiny passages so much easier. The hallway split and divided and took crazy turns at apparently random moments, and only the glowing beam of the Licht Sager kept him from losing his way.

A high-pitched scream suddenly echoed from ahead and Sora's stomach jumped up into his throat. "ChibiUsa!"

"Sora-kun!" The next shout was accompanied by the skittering of high-heeled boots on the floor and the electric buzz of burning dust as the laser-like sword slashed through the air. "Sora-kun, help!"

"Keep moving!" The Keyblade Master shouted ahead, barely noticing the sudden change of plane as the ground began sloping upwards. "Just hang on, I'll be right…!"

And then he came over the top of the rise and saw them. ChibiMoon and Pallas were backed into a corner, with Kouji in just the right position to block both their paths of escape - either back in Sora's direction, where they had come from, or out the other side, where a strange shifting light glowed. ChibiMoon had one of her Crystal Roses on the tips of her fingers, ready to throw without much guidance of what good it could do, especially as the boy who was supposed to be their ally loomed over them. He lifted his blade into the air, and it seemed to vibrate and shimmer from tip to base, buzzing in his hand as the light turned white, blue, white…

At the last second, a plan snapped into Sora's mind, and he shouted ahead. "Girls, get down!"

Pallas reacted to the cry first, grabbed her Princess around the waist and pulling her back, out of the way. Sora wound back as far as he could and hurled the Keyblade with all of his might, sending it flying through the air. Kouji had barely turned towards him when the Blade connected with him, or, more accurately, his hand, and the Licht Sager went flying.

Sora leapt after his weapon, snatching it out of the air just before he hit Kouji with all of his weight. The two rolled over each other, head over heels, until Sora pinned Kouji under him and raised the Keyblade to aim at his throat. "Okay, buddy, this is over!"

"I should bloody hope so!"

Sora blinked, then did it again, and realized that Kouji wasn't struggling with him. Actually, he was staring up at him with a blank, annoyed expression, the slight scowl indicating that he was in more pain than he really wanted to admit.

"…Kouji?"

"And who else would I be?" The scowl deepened and the long-haired boy shifted his pinned arms tensely. "Do you mind? I'm losing feeling in my fingers."

Sora hesitated a moment longer, but was pushed off by Kouji's annoyed glower. The swordsman sat up, rubbing his head and glancing around him like a cornered wolf. ChibiUsa and Pallas, to Sora's relief, chose to hang back behind the Keyblade Master and let him deal with this.

Kouji's eyes trailed over them all and his muscles tensed. "Where's the green one?"

"Uh…whah?"

"Juno. The green girl," Kouji climbed to his feet. "She was with me when I blacked out. What happened to her?"

Sora glanced at the girls, and ChibiUsa stepped forward. "We were hoping that you knew."

Before Kouji could answer, the soft light from behind him - which had been shifting almost peacefully through a seemingly endless spectrum of pastels - suddenly raged to life with all the fury of a firestorm. Kouji jumped away, facing the light but covering his eyes, and Sora moved forward to meet him, creating a barrier between the two girls and the 'explosion.'

"Now what's happening?" Sora shouted over the mess, feeling as though he'd had quite his fill of strange happenings for one world.

"Search me," Kouji answered, gritting his teeth and trying to force his eyes open against the light. "But why do I have the feeling that it's not going to be good?"

Their conversation was cut off as the light pulsed again, forks of darkness arching through it like cracks cutting across shattered glass. Sora glanced at Kouji and their eyes met under the shelter of their hands, communicating what he hoped was a drastic but un-suicidal plan. The swordsman didn't show any fear or hesitation - he just nodded in response and held up his cast-covered arm as a signal.

"What are you doing?" ChibiUsa shouted over the noise, but it was too late to stop the metal-bound arm from dropping like the flag at a race track.

Sora and Kouji pushed forward together, breaking through the burning light and crackling darkness, and braced themselves for whatever - or whoever - was waiting on the other side.

TBC…

If you don't know why Kouichi's acting so weird: I'm sorry, it was in the companion story to this, which, if I was really smart, I would've just woven in with this one, but it's too late to worry about this now. It's still in my profile, if you're interested (Elemental Hearts: Inside/Outside) and it's just got one chapter left until it's finished.

If you're annoyed with me because I took so long to write this: I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry…please leave a review anyway, pretty please? This story is getting to a climax pretty fast…

If you're wondering what's going to happen next: I promise I won't leave you at a cliff hanger forever! I can't really tell when I'll get the next chapter out, but I'll do everything I can to make sure it's faster than this one, I promise! Next time, we'll finally get to the end of Crystal Tokyo (the world I thought would never end) and get spiraling into the final conflict, so please, stay tuned!!