The cold wind blew through Kairi's hair sweeping it behind her head. The bitterness sent shivers racing down her shoulders to her hands. The small cloak she wore over her pink garb was doing very little to keep her warm. Not that she was used to dressing for cold climates anyway; she suddenly yearned for her island. She much preferred the warm ocean breeze over an icy one. It was too bad Axel had twisted his ankle in the snow the night prior. He had lost his footing in the dark and unintentionally dragged her down with him off a small cliff. A foot of snow soaked their clothes and it was all she could do to help him hobble back to camp and make a fire for them to dry. He had insisted she call for backup on her gummi phone but she was determined to carry out the last part of their mission on her own. So here she was on the snowy peaks in the Land of Dragons, attempting to obtain information on a new enemy from the emperor.
The journey wasn't a long one but she felt as if she had been walking for hours through the quiet snow. Her boots were cold and clammy feeling on her feet as they trotted through the white mush. The snap of a twig caught her attention as she zoomed around to face it.
Nothing.
Stop being so paranoid she told herself, probably just a rabbit off in the distant trees. She wished someone was around, anyone really. Where were the inhabitants of this world? If she were being honest with herself she wasn't just shivering from the cold. Very few things startled Kairi, but she had been feeling as if she were being followed. Not just in the Land of Dragons, but on other missions too. She had passed the feeling off as being too on edge with things that had been going on lately, but her intuition insisted otherwise. She suddenly regretted being stubborn about going alone. The capital building loomed before her in the distance, and she sighed in relief as her boots transitioned from soft snow to solid cobblestone. The sound of her footsteps became hardened and she quickly stopped to adjust the cloak around her shoulders. That's when she heard it. Clear as day, the sound of someone stepping in the snow behind her.
Brandishing her keyblade, she quickly whirled around and collided with a weapon she did not recognize. The figure lunged backward from the unexpected force. Kairi quickly stole a glance as he took a second to right himself. A tall lanky man, silhouetted in a black robe with a hood of course; he held a long electric blue blade that sparked with fragments of lightning. He quickly dove into a sprint towards her with his weapon at his side. She back flipped, the small of her back barely missing his weapon as it swung towards her. She landed and quickly gave a strong blow to his knees. She ran at the sight of him falling, sprinting as fast as her wet boots would take her to the capital. Lightning strikes zipped around her. She worked to dodge them which slowed her pace.
If I can just get to door she thought. The sound of her frazzled breath clouded her mind, normally she wouldn't be this panicked. But she had a bad feeling about what would happen if she got caught. A barrier of thunderbolts blocked her path, bringing her feet to a stunning halt. His weapon caught her ankles, sweeping her feet out from under her. She yelped in surprise as her body fell to the ground like a ton of bricks. She landed on her hip. Pain from the impact of the stone seared through her. She wondered briefly how he caught up to her so fast. She attempted one last kick towards her attacker. He dodged it expertly as he bent to grab her arm, jerking her to a standing position. She twisted in his grasp, barely escaping the strength of his fist balled tightly around her bicep. She saw his free arm raise and a jolt of pain to the back of her head sent her vision swimming. She went limp against his body as she tried to fight it.
Then everything went black.