Daughter of Darkness 3: Memory's Echo Chapter 11, a kingdom hearts fanfic

Wings of Avalon: I'm so glad that you're enjoying the story, particularly Meli and the bandits! I will say that...some of that happens, not exactly like you put it, but similar in some ways!

Jake Hallows: haha yes, that would be a difficult one to explain away!

coolmegan123: I can't believe you've never seen the animated Robin Hood! It's such a good movie. Definitely in my top 10 Disney movies, if not top 5. I had a fun time writing Robin, he's got such a kind side but at the same time is suave and a little full of himself.

Yay, I remembered to post this week!

TRIGGER WARNING FOR THIS CHAPTER!

Discussion of past child abuse.

Censored version available below the double lines.

Chapter 11

Perspective – Riku

Since we had run out of Keyblade wielders to visit, our itinerary became something along the lines of, 'visit every world that Sora has been to but Meli has not'. If we exhausted those options with no results, I supposed we would have to move on to worlds that she had been to, too – after all, no one had said that it had to be an unfamiliar world, only that it had been for some people. Our only other option was trying to find brand new worlds that none of us had visited, and that would be difficult without a new navigation gummi.

Sora decided the best course of action was to take us to the westernmost world he knew, then work our way back from there. When I pointed out that there were only four days of spring break left, and would only be two by the time we got to the first world, I was waved off by both Sora and Kairi.

"I've already accepted at this point that I'm gonna be behind in school for the rest of my life. What's a few more missed weeks?"

I frowned at him. "Maybe you've accepted it, but what about your parents? You realized that you should actually get permission from them this time around before disappearing."

He had the grace to look at least a little embarrassed. "Yeah. Right."

A phone call later, he had explained the whole situation to his mom and received slightly reluctant permission. Kairi's phone call went into much less detail. She wasn't eager to bring up the idea of finding Meli's Nobody to her parents, and I couldn't blame her. But somehow, despite only telling them something along the lines of, "We have to look for something very important, but don't worry, nobody is in danger this time," they gave their even more reluctant permission.

For my part, I sent my mom a text, more informing her that I was going to be longer than expected than asking anything. Eventually I got a reply, telling me to be safe and that she'd see me soon.

So that was that, and we were off on a two day trip in the Gummiship. Sora taught us some games that he, Donald, and Goofy had played on their travels, which passed a good bit of time. When we weren't playing games, we often got caught up in rehashing childhood memories and laughing at old jokes. I felt a little bad for Kaj, being the odd man out. He didn't seem eager to participate much in our conversations, though, no matter what the subject was, so it was proving difficult to get to know him. Not that I blamed him at all. I was an introvert, and it was easy to discern that he was, too.

It wasn't until the two of us ended up the only ones awake on the second night that we finally got around to having our first real conversation. We started out silent until I began showing him a little more about piloting the ship, and from there we managed to segue into asking questions back and forth about each other's universes, mainly focusing on travel and how the worlds – or countries, as he called them – were set up.

"Guess it is pretty weird for you here, huh."

"I guess. Some of it is, anyway. I mean, overall my life so far here is completely different tan what I'm used to, that's for sure."

"Do you miss it?"

Kaj rotated his face toward me, the quirk of his eyebrow barely visible in the dim light. "What, the other universe?" He shrugged. "Nah. Not really. Nothing really there to miss."

My mouth twisted to the side. "You had friends there, right? I mean, from what Meli said, I thought..."

He huffed a humorless laugh. "I had...colleagues. Some of them liked to pretend that we were friends, but when it came down to what was actually important in their life, I wasn't even on the list."

"Yeah, I've uh...I've been there before." I chewed on my bottom lip, wanting to ask the question that was burning at my throat, but unsure whether or not I should. "What about...what about your mom?"

The room went impossibly still. Even Sora's gentle snoring had paused, as if waiting for the answer. Finally, Kaj crossed his arms and burrowed further back into the seat. "What about her?"

"Well, um...I still live with my mom, so I just..." Just what? I didn't know how that sentence was supposed to end.

Regardless, Kaj hummed in what seemed to be understanding. "No, I moved out ages ago. Haven't spoken to her since." We fell silent again, both lost in our own thoughts. I knew my mom and I didn't have the greatest of relationships, but thinking about moving out and never speaking to her again seemed harsh, at best.

When he spoke again, he sounded as hesitant as I had felt when asking about his mom. "You, um...you said you live with...your mom. It's...it's just you and your mom?"

I caught his meaning immediately, and rolled my shoulders to relieve some of the tension there. "Oh...yeah. Um...he...left when I was a kid. Like, six or seven, I think?" A sudden realization struck me. "Wait, did yours...?"

"As far as I know they're still together." The answer was clipped, and I didn't blame him one bit.

"He's the reason you left." It wasn't even a question, really. If his dad was anything like mine, then it was obvious. In fact, many other things about him were starting to make sense now.

"Yeah."

I found myself wondering what my own life would have been like, if Dad had never left, and barely repressed a shudder. "Guess I'm luckier than I realized."

He laughed again, with only slightly more humor than before. "Wonder if there's a universe out there where our dad isn't a drunken monster."

I sighed. "Probably. Who knows how we would turn out in that universe." A memory surfaced, and I couldn't hold back a chuckle. "Maybe not as good as you might think. There was this time when I was four years old...he had been on a rampage all morning, so I ended up hiding in a corner at preschool, not talking to anybody. Except there was this one kid –"

"Who just wouldn't leave you alone," Kaj finished. "Determined to cheer you up and make you his friend, no matter what it took." He turned his head in my direction. "Let me guess...Sora?"

"Yeah," I answered softly. "And...Zephyr?"

He swallowed and nodded. "It worked. We were best friends from that day on. I mean, until we got older, anyway, and I ended up pushing him away. Unfortunately, our friendship didn't fare as well as yours and Sora's."

"We've had our moments, when I wasn't sure if we could bounce back. He never gives up on me, though." I shifted in my seat to look back into the darkness were the bunks were and where they boy in question's snoring had started up again.

"I guess Zeph didn't, either, not really. He and Meli were trying to reconnect with me, I just...didn't give them much of a chance. Didn't realize that it was the last chance I would get." He paused for a moment before rushing to add, "Well, maybe I'll get another chance with Meli. Hopefully."

He sounded as hesitant to be hopeful about this trip as I still was.

Silence reigned again for what must have been a couple of minutes before I spoke. "You know, the two of them never really did find out the extent of what went on at home. I...never wanted to tell them."

"Yeah. Zeph and Meli, either. Despite all of my lame excuses."

"Like when my wrist got broken, and I told Sora that I fell off my bike?"

Kaj smirked. "Yeah, except a few years later when it was brought up I forgot and said I fell out of a tree, instead. And of course he remembered what the original story had been."

I snorted. "But he still didn't figure it out?"

"Nope."

"Well, we didn't become friends with them for their deductive reasoning skills," I smiled. "And whether they knew all the details or not, they've always been the best at being there for me."

He nodded. "Yeah. I can tell."

Conversation fizzled out after that, each of us lost in the swirl of our own thoughts. But from then on, it seemed there was some kind of better understanding between us, like when I looked at him it was just a bit less odd. I felt less like I was looking at a stranger wearing my body, and more like I was looking at someone who, given a chance, could really get me more than anybody else could.

Late morning of the next day, we arrived in a place that Sora called Corona. Of the worlds I had been to so far, I had to say it reminded me the most of Twilight Town, though it was much more beautiful. We landed the Gummiship on the edge of what looked like a massive forest, then crossed a long bridge to a town that rose up out of the ocean in a perfect point, topped with a castle. Sora was ecstatic, talking ninety miles an hour about everything we saw along the way, telling stories that I only caught bits and pieces of about horses and Marluxia and thieves and dancing. Kairi hung on his every word, laughing and prompting in all the appropriate places. Kaj raised an eyebrow at me, and I just shrugged.

I shouldn't have even been momentarily surprised when Sora led us right up to the castle and practically walked right in like he owned the place. I certainly wasn't surprised when the 'Rapunzel' that he had been going on and on about turned out to be a princess. He seemed to have some kind of knack for finding those everywhere he went. My first impression of her was that she was a lot like a female version of Sora – lanky, brunette, and completely enthusiastic about anything and everything. She and Kairi hit it off right away, too, and soon Kaj and I were trying to keep up with lively stories from all three of them as we traipsed through the castle in search of either 'Flynn' or 'Eugene' – I kept getting mixed signals as to which it was.

Turns out it was both. Rapunzel introduced him – enthusiastically, of course – as Eugene, but he quickly asked to be called Flynn. As Rapunzel continued the impromptu tour of the castle, he fell back to stroll quietly next to Kaj and me.

"Are they...?" Kaj began after a few minutes.

"Always like this?" Flynn finished. "Yeah. Pretty much. I've gotten used to it when it's just one, but add two more in..." He shook his head in what I was pretty sure was mock defeat.

"Hey, I've got two of them all the time," I joked. "One is nothing."

"Though, in Kairi's defense, she's only doing like, a quarter of the talking," Kaj pointed out.

"True." Flynn nodded and stroked his goatee. "I'm pretty sure Rapunzel and Sora could each carry on a conversation with anything you put in front of them. I mean, don't even get me started on the two of them and the horse..."

I huffed a laugh. "We heard a bit of that already."

"So, uh...is there anything in particular that brings you four into town? Or just a social visit?"

"Yeah, actually, there is." I started to pull my phone out of my pocket, hesitated as I considered the lack of technology in this world, then decided it was my best option, regardless, and took it out anyway. "We're looking for a friend of ours. Her name's Meli." And every time I said that name, it still sent a pang of grief through my chest. I had saved her photo from the file that Jiminy created for ease of access, and tapped on it to show him.

"Hmm." He leaned in close to the photo. "No, pretty sure I would remember seeing a girl like that."

"Eugene..."

We looked up to see that the other three had tuned into the conversation, and Rapunzel was tapping one foot with her hands on her hips. Flailing his hands at the phone, Flynn sputtered and turned a bit red in the face.

"What? I just...I just meant that she's...unique! Look! She's got purple hair!"

Perking up at this, Rapunzel skipped over and peered at the photo, one hand coming up to tuck her own hair behind her ear. "Oh! Is it magic?"

"Magic?" Kairi echoed. "You mean her hair?" She laughed. "No, not magic, just...a unique color."

"Well, I've certainly never seen her before. You said she's missing?"

Sora nodded. "Yeah, and we're real worried about her, so if you happen to see her..." He glanced at me and shrugged. "Tell her we're looking for her, I guess."

"Tell her that Grim is looking for her," I added. "We have a lot of other places to check, but if we haven't found her after a while we'll come back by here. Hopefully, though, if you tell her that, she'll just meet us at home."

"Of course!" Rapunzel nodded, her wide green eyes earnest. "Perhaps I can make a drawing to give to the fellows at the Snuggly Duckling as well, so they can keep an eye out for her."

"As long as you're doing the drawing, and not the other guy," Flynn mumbled. "He was terrible at it."

It didn't take much for them to convince us to spend the night at the castle. We were all already sick of being in the Gummiship, and our journey had barely begun. True to her word, Rapunzel curled up in an armchair next to the fireplace that evening with my phone and a sketchpad, and created a pleasingly realistic rendering of Meli's face that Flynn promised to take out to the pub known as the Snuggly Duckling the next day.

That night, I lay in an oversized, feather filled bed and stared up at the dancing shadows from a dying fire on the ceiling. Five worlds down, who knows how many to go. I hadn't had any real confidence that we would find her in any of these first worlds we had been to, but at least we were getting the word out there. Maybe, somehow, it would help.

CENSORED VERSION