All credit to respective owners!

-YARN

P.S. Edited (slightly)

I honestly didn't expect to wake up ever again, so opening my eyes to find me up against the wall was a surprise.

My head lolled down and I found myself looking down at my hand and at the brick alley I was in, trying to see if I knew where I was. Crates were scattered around, but aside from that, it didn't look too remarkable aside from the fact that this wasn't my home. Apparently I landed on one which shattered under the force of my landing.

Well I seemed to be fine… although kinda half-asleep…

I needed to focus.

I tried to shake my head to clear it and immediately regretted the motion as my body SCREAMED bloody protest. I almost passed out from the pain again. I closed my eyes and groaned miserably as sensations began to return to my body. I kinda wished I hadn't woken up so I could have recovered more rather than wake up to a symphony of pain. Then again, the jackhammer going to town on my grey matter and the various aches and pains plaguing my body may have had more to do with the fact that I was wishing I didn't wake at all. I felt like I crash landed here and that didn't do anything to help me figure things out.

After some time just laying on the floor and recuperating, I forced my battered body to it's feet, hissing at pain wracking my body. I saw a crate and staggered over to it, placing a hand on it to try to brace myself with it. I panted heavily and summoned my keyblade - thanking whatever it was that allowed me to still call it to me- before my knees began to buckle. I flipped the weapon into a reverse grip and began to use it as a crutch to walk, lifting myself up. I looked to the right and left, trying to decide where to go. In front of me, there was a door and I limped towards it, pushing aside the pain in my legs.

I almost collapsed with each painful step, almost tumbling when I passed the steps that seemed to lead to a plaza of sorts. I rested against the door to gather my strength and pushed.

It didn't budge and I growled, "Typical…"

With a pained sigh, I limped to the left and down the steps, and I squeezed my eyes shut to try to block out the pain. When I finally got through that crucible, I opened my eyes to see people I had never met milling around the plaza. Some of them gave me odd looks that seemed to border somewhere on pitying and sympathetic.

"Where the heck am I?" I mumbled.

Maybe Sora, Riku, or Kiari were around here. Hell, I wouldn't even mind seeing Tidus or Wakka…

"Sora?!" I yelled, "Riku?! Kairi?! Tidus?! Wakka?! Selphie?! Anyone?! Where are you guys?!"

"Niji?" I heard Sora's voice yell, "Niji, is that you?"

I turned and saw a familiar mop of brown spiky hair; I blinked and rubbed my eyes, "Sora?"

He ran at me and grabbed me by the shoulders, obviously relieved.

My hypersensitive shoulders didn't like that and made that known… viciously.

I yelled in pain and almost fell to my knees before he propped me up, "Niji?!"

I tried to stay conscious but I think my body decided that I was done, and I slipped back into the darkness of sleep as my keyblade slipped from my hand.

I awoke to something cool, wet, and refreshing being tipped down my mouth. I swallowed the liquid that was filling my mouth and the exhaustion and pain began to fade as I opened my eyes. I was in an unfamiliar room that had a rafter door that was currently shut with a ladder that was pulled up against the ceiling. A grizzled, older-looking guy with blonde hair was leaning against a counter while Sora gently propped my head up and was trickling the red drink from a glass bottle into my mouth.

Sora grinned when he saw me open my eyes, "You're awake!"

I smiled weakly, "Yeah… Hey Sora."

He nodded at the old man, who tilted his head at me, "Well give him the rest of it, it's not like he totally better yet."

Sora nodded and tipped the bottle to my mouth, "Drink this, it's a potion that'll heal you."

I gripped the bottle and pulled it out of his grasp, "I think I can handle that."

I gently tipped the bottle and drank the rest of the liquid. Each swallow soothed more of the pain away and soon I had drained the entire bottle to the drop. Noticing I was on a bench of sorts, I sat up slowly and swung my legs over the edge and got up.

"Thank you Sora." I said, rolling my shoulders to see if I had any kinks.

He shook his head, gesturing at the man behind the counter, "Thank Cid, he was the one who gave me the potion."

I turned to him and rubbed the back of my head, "Thank you, Sir."

He leaned back against the counter with a chuckle, "Not 'Sir', the name's Cid."

I nodded, and began to look around, "Alright… So… How did you find Sora?"

He snorted, "The kid came in dragging you and pleaded for me to help you the moment he saw me. I figured he must've been desperate, so I gave him a potion which he gave to you."

I nodded and began patting my pockets, looking for my wallet so I could find some munny to pay him back with, "I'll pay you back, really!"

I yanked out my wallet and deflated when I realized that I had emptied what was in it into my saving jar yesterday and promptly collapsed to my knees as I realized I had just lost a month's worth of saved allowances.

'All that time wasted…' I moaned in my head.

Seeing my expression, Cid laughed, "It's okay, I hardly need the potions, I can take care of myself well enough."

I nodded uncertainly, remembering that I didn't exactly have anything on me, I had pretty much thrown on the previous clothes I was wearing when I followed Sora, I hadn't even gotten a bag of sorts to hold anything.

Oh well, at least my clothes were comfortable and I grabbed my hoodie.

Though in all honesty, I hadn't expected to be whisked off to what seemed an entirely different world along with Sora that night.

I frown and turned to Sora, "Did you see Riku or Kiari?"

Sora looked down despondently, "No… I don't know where they are…"

That wasn't a good sign, we were both alive but considering that…

I wasn't sure what to do, but Cid spoke up, "They may be around here."

We turned to face him, "What do you mean?"

He pushed off the wall he was leaning against to begin rummaging under his shelf before bringing out a wrapped package.

"This world is known as Traverse Town." He began, "Whenever a world is swallowed by darkness, the surviving inhabitants do usually end up here and keep going. First District's pretty much the only place where we can stay in peace as heartless don't show up here."

"Heartless?" Me and Sora inquired in unison.

He blinked and rolled his eyes before he massaged his forehead, "You don't know what heartless are? Gods boy, I thought you were mauled by them!"

I frowned but the proverbial lightbulb flashed on and I shouted, "Do they look like little black imp-things with two yellow eyes?"

He rolled his eyes but nodded, "Yeah, those are heartless, however Shadows are probably the weakest of the lot."

I gaped, "The weakest? They destroyed an entire world! How in the heck are they weak?"

I mean I assumed the gigantic thing with tangled black hair was the strongest but Sora said he beat it on his own.

He snorted, "Kid, do you honestly think that whatever you fought was all there was to a world going out? You're lucky you survived at all and got here. Anyway, as I was saying, if they do get to this district, my friends and I can usually take care of them."

He patted his wrapped bundle.

I blinked and tilted my head, "What is that?"

With a smirk he pulled off the wrapping to show what seemed to be a sci-fi sort of gun. Just then a loud banging and scratching noises that were coming from the door . Cid grunted and hefted his cannon to hold it at waist-height, stomping towards the door.

He kicked the door open and several of the shadows stumbled back and he roared, "STOP DISRUPTING MY BUSINESS!"

The cannon roared and let out a stream of power that blew the shadows away.

And continued on to scorch the street.

We blinked at the flames that were now burning on the street and the pedestrians screaming to put them out.

"Uh… not to be well… obvious," I began, I probably looked confused, "But shouldn't we do something about that… like maybe put out the fires?"

He swiped at his nose and shut the door, "That'll sort itself out. The heartless usually stay away from the First District unless something really tasty is wandering about here…"

Me and Sora sweatdropped at his casual disregard for what I assumed to be public property damage.

"Well… you guys gonna find your friends?" Cid inquired.

We both shared a look and nodded, and Cid nodded before walking back to his counter, "You got a way to protect yourself?"

Sora and I shared a conspiratorial look and both summoned our keyblades and took our stances.

He blinked and chuckled, "Well then, you better hop to it. I suggest you be careful though, the Second and Third Districts aren't like the first. You'd better safe rather than sorry or you'll lose your heart and become a heartless yourself."

I nodded seriously before pointing at Sora, "I'll keep it in mind, someone has to keep an eye on this guy here."

Sora swatted may shoulder with an affronted look, "HEY!"

We both left Cid's shop with 3 potions a piece - and my mental note to find a way to pay him back for helping us so much - and ready to take on the second district and whatever heartless we may face. We pushed open the heavy doors and looked around. Suddenly a man ran out from the right only to collapse as a armored heartless chased him. It thrust a hand into his chest and ripped out a crystalized but rounded heart. We both immediately summoned our keyblades, but it crushed the heart and turned to us before leaping up and disappearing in a puff of smoke. Immediately shadows began rising out of the ground and crawling towards us.

"Sora, you ready?" I asked.

"Yeah! Let do this!" He replied.

We dashed forward and began to cleave through the shadows as they leapt out to attack. After slicing through one and stabbing another, I swung at one but it flattened as though it was stamped on the ground; causing me to miss. It squirmed under my feet and was crawling toward's Sora, who was dealing with another shadow.

"Sora, behind you!" I yelled.

He half-turned and saw the shadow but began to stop to deal with one that was trying to tackle him.

I ran at him and flung my keyblade, screaming, "GO!"

The keyblade sliced into the shadow about to tackle Sora, sending it tumbling down before evaporating. Sora followed through on his turn and slammed his keyblade into the shadow's back just as it began to rise from its two-dimensional form. The last shadow lunged at me and I rolled under it before calling my keyblade back to my hand and slicing through it. We both straightened and looked around when I noticed there was a bunch of square-like objects glinting on the floor and scattered around us.

"Hey…." I said as I picked one up, "Is this…?"

"Munny…" Sora said, scratching his head.

I blinked more than a little confused, "We can earn munny by killing these things? That's… oddly convenient."

We began to gather the munny before we both looked around to scan the surrounding area.

"We need to agree on a starting point." I said, "Wandering aimlessly like this is only going to slow us down."

Sora rubbed his chin, "How about… we check the plaza, then the clocktower, and then the alleyways?"

I nodded, "Okay, but if anyone here, they might not be able to defend themselves…"

Sora nodded a grim expression on his face, he understood exactly what I meant. We got lucky by having keyblades, but if someone didn't have an effective weapon against the heartless they probably weren't going to make it. They didn't have delusions about fighters like Tidus or Wakka, who even we could defeat rather handily. Riku was definitely stronger and even we managed to occasionally get the edge over him and win.

We didn't even want to think about Kairi or Selphie.

We couldn't take our time.

Okay, we had to stop.

At least for a minute.

We both panted as we slumped against the fountain with an image with two dogs on it. I sat on the edge and splashed my face with some water, trying to get my breath back. We didn't want to use up our potions in case there was an emergency, and getting ourselves killed wasn't going to help anyone. We had run into the plaza but only ran into a veritable of the shadows that kept coming no matter how many we cut down. When we finally cleared the plaza, we made out way up to the clock tower, and if anything that place was even worse, we both were nearly buried under than massive amount of heartless that spawned. Then we scoured the first alley next to the clocktower and - you guessed it - more heartless. When we finally got to the Third District, we were more than a bit peeved and definitely beyond tired. We barely beat down the remaining heartless before we stopped to catch our breath.

"God…" I growled, wiping at my face with the sleeve of my hoodie, "If I never see a stupid heartless again, it'll be way too soon."

"Agreed." Sora sighed, he looked around before sighing desolately, "Well, that's all three districts… no sign of them…"

I pushed myself back to my feet with a sharp exhale and tied my hoodie around my waist, "Let's see if Cid can point us in a new direction. If we have enough munny, we can also buy some more supplies and pay him back for the potions."

It was needless to say that I gathered all the currency, making sure to grab it all. With all the slain heartless' munny, we should be able to definitely get some better supplies than just potions.

"Cid's shop is an accessory shop." Sora said, "We can ask him for the directions to the item shop right after we pay him back."

"Sounds good." I said, "Lets go."

"Actually," Sora said, "I wanted to ask you something."

I turned to him, "Yeah?"

"So I saw you throw the keyblade and then catch it, do you just call out out to it to return to your hand when you hit what you wanted?" He asked.

I nodded, "Yeah. It actually happened the first time in my dream, my voice told me how to call my keyblade back. I just made that work when I threw my keyblade and came up with it off the top of my head."

Sora grinned, "That's awesome! I can't believe I haven't thought of that!"

I smirked before walking off, "You know if you actually use that thing in your head called a brain a bit more, you might have thought of it before I used it in real life!"

Sora gaped before scowling and yelling, "Hey, you got instructions! I'm learning off the top of my head!"

We both were careful despite the fact that we had only recently cleared out the Second District, there was no telling when the heartless would return, so we kept our eyes open and made sure to hurry back to the First District. When we got there however, shadows immediately began erupting out of the ground. We both conjured our keyblades and began to fight.

"I thought the First District was safe!" I growled as I stomped down on a shadow's head before impaling it.

"Cid said that was most of the time!" Sora responded as he swung his keyblade in a wide arc through two shadows.

We managed to make our way to Cid's shop, only to find it locked.

"Damn!" I hissed as I pulled on the handle which remained closed.

"They'll come at you out of nowhere." A voice said quietly.

Sora and I both whipped our heads to the side and drew away, holding our keyblades at the ready.

"Who are you?" Sora demanded.

"And they'll keep on coming at you." The owner of the voice continued on heedlessly, pointing at Sora and my weapons, "As long as you both continue to wield a keyblade."

He was guy probably about twenty-something, he wore a short leather jacket over a white shirt with a lion-head necklace handing from his neck. He had on black jeans and black gloves that had two belts looped around his left hand. His eyes were a concrete grey and he had long brown hair that came down in spikes down his back and around his face, which had a scar that ran diagonally across his face over the bridge of his nose.

"But why?" He inquired quietly, putting a hand to his forehead, "Why would it choose kids like you?"

"Hey," Sora said indignantly, "what's that supposed to mean?!"

Personally, I took offense to be called a kid, but I was more worried about how he snuck up on us without us noticing.

"Never mind." He said as he walked towards us, right hand reaching out to us, "Now, let's see those Keyblades."

"Like hell!" I growled, holding my keyblade in my stance.

Almost in sync, Sora dropped into his stance and replied, "What? There is no way you're getting this!"

We both blinked as he drew a massive sword that seemed to be coming out of a barrel of a revolver and hilt.

"All right," he said, slashing the sword down before gripping it with both hands, "then have it your way."

You're probably wondering why Niji had such a bad wake up? Well, I imagine it as him and Sora dropping out of the sky, and Niji landed in a crate.

Sucks to be him.

Also Niji thinks a bit more like I do back when I was his age, and I always wondered why Sora never called the keyblade and always relied on magic to do long range damage when he could always call it back to him. I always though Sora didn't really need magic for that attack and well, it just seemed like he had a much better long-range option.

Then again, I never considered the graphics weren't up to par.

Ah well.

ALSO! ALL CREDIT TO RESPECTIVE OWNERS!

-Y.A.R.N.