Reviews are appreciated and...

What was it?

Ah yes!

All credit to respective owners!

Oh and small note, Niji's battle stance is Eraqus' and no it's not because they share some sort of nebulous connection (Kh is convoluted enough WITHOUT trying to work that in), it simply seems to be a stance that Niji would use.

Also, note at the bottom if your a bit confused about the end of this chapter.

-YARN

P.S. Edited (slightly)

Arriving in the room that was the ceiling of the room of the doorknob wasn't really as jarring as it probably should've been. The tea party room had already been surreal, and - much to my exasperated dismay - I was getting used to this place, unwilling as it was. Sitting in the chairs either summoned heartless or showered us in potion and ethers depending on what seats we sat in. The heartless spawned what looked like red lanterns that spat out fireballs. Luckily, Donald had told us that all heartless of a certain element were weak against their opposing nature; he demonstrated the point by instantly destroying three of them with a single blizzard spell. With that in mind I decided to gulp down an ether, figuring that 1: I could splurge since we had a bit of a surplus on our hands (not to mention when we stopped by traverse town, I was going to stock up on better equipment and get some accessories to help my attributes [thank god these things dropped munny]), 2: I couldn't afford to be low on magic if we had magic specific enemies to fight, and 3: I wasn't regaining my magic nearly fast enough naturally.

We barely got into the room when we heard a familiar voice, "They're hiding somewhere. And the momeraths outgrabe. Want to find the shadows? Try turning on the lights."

And with that the cat once again faded into nonexistence.

"And the momeraths outgrabe? What the heck does that even mean?" I mumbled.

We rounded the corner where he was standing only to see soldier heartless and shadows waiting for us.

We immediately began to fight out way through the wave as the heartless converged on us. I ran up one of the slope heading up (or what it down? all of the regular laws of physics seemed to have no meaning in this place...) and jumped off the edge to the side, aiming my keyblade behind me.

"Fire!" I roared.

A gout of flame erupted from my keyblade and caught the shadows chasing me in the ensuing explosion. I landed in a crouch and ducked away as I saw a ball of fire racing towards me. As I deflected a blast of fire back at its caster, I noticed Sora and Donald currently focusing on the large body that was swinging its meaty fists at them. Goofy was focusing on blocking their flank from the red nocturne's attacks. I ran at the red heartless - a icy blue light forming at the tip of my keyblade and already steaming from contact with the air - and swung my keyblade with a shout. As the heartless weren't expecting the attack they weren't able to move out of the way and five evaporated as the ice bolts struck them. Unfortunately, the remaining heartless realized I was there and began to fire balls of flame at me as I reset my stance. I batted away the flames and back-stepped away, trying to give myself more room to move.

Suddenly Sora was at them, hacking at the heartless and knocking them to the floor with quick swipes of his keyblade while Donald blasted them back. Soon, the heartless were all defeated and we stood alone.

"Okay..." I muttered, cracking my neck, "So he said we needed to turn on the lights, right?"

Goofy looked around, "How do we do that?"

Donald and Sora both looked around the room before Donald pointed at the raised structures, "Hey, aren't these chandeliers off at the moment?"

I looked up and hopped up onto the the upside-down chandeliers; after I inspected it, they looked to me like ornate candlesticks. I saw that there was a blackened strand of string that probably would light and I nodded to myself. I lightly tapped the glass with my keyblade, seeing if there were any traps (because I figured if this was the first world and things were already this weird, I'd best be prepared). I stumbled back as the candle burst into flame, casting a faint glow.

We hear the sound of a slight chuckle, and the Cheshire Cat was laying leisurely on the next unlit chandelier light, "It's too dim, make it brighter."

"What next?" Donald queried.

"One more lamp you need to light." The Cheshire Cat replied.

With that the cat once again faded.

Sora hopped onto the other chandelier and tapped it with his keyblade. The fire lit and for a moment it gleamed brighter than a normal fire before fading into a more natural glow.

There was sound of the Chesire Cat who was suddenly laying down in front of me, "All the lights are lit, you'll see the shadows soon. They'll arise in this room, but somewhere else. They might go after the doorknob too!"

He vanished.

I looked up (or rather down?) and turned to Sora, "We need to get back to the doorknob's floor."

We hopped off the chandeliers and more heartless spawned, we cut them into oblivion before we made our way through the forest, cleaving our way through the waves of heartless that tried to stop us. We carefully skirted the queen's court as we didn't want to deal with her and took a moment to down a potion and ether each to ready ourselves. If the cat was telling the truth (and while he technically hadn't lied to us, he was constantly misleading us and generally giving us the run around) we probably would need to be prepared to fight some heartless, and probably of a tougher variety. We made our way to the doorknob's floor only to hear the sound of the cat's materialization; he was perched on the edge of the table and looking down at us.

"You'll have a better view from higher up." He called out to us.

We quickly hopped onto the table top and approached him.

"The shadows will be her soon." He warned, grinning and pointing up, "Are you prepared for the worst? If not, too bad!"

We all looked up to see some multi-colored thing drop to the floor from the ceiling and we all leapt back, falling into our stances as it sprung from where it landed over the the table and onto its legs. Black, paper-like arms unfolded as the it straightened, heads - cylindrical and stacked one on top of the others - connected to a tiny torso. It reminded me of a spider with the it's four long and spindly legs connected to what seemed yellow feet that curved like crescents. It conjured two feather dusters - of all the weapons it could have formed - and began to juggle them around as it began to rock on it's feet.

We wasted no time in seizing the initiative and ran at it. Sora lunged straight at its midsection, his keyblade stabbing into it with a loud crack. As it bent slightly over the force of his blow, I leapt onto the armrest of the chair next to the table and launched myself off of it to hit it over the head with Starlight; the heartless wobbled and fell to its knees, momentarily stunned. Goofy and Donald moved in tandem, Donald fired a blizzard spell that exploded into bursts of icy light and Goofy ducked lower before smashing his shield up into the heartless' many faces. It staggered back but quickly recovered and began to swipe at us with the feather dusters, knocking us back and sending us tumbling back.

I let out a pained grunt as I hit the floor, rolling to the side just as a massive feather duster slammed down where I had been. Donald and Goofy both scrambled at its feet, distracting it as they attacked. Its lower body and the parts we could easily hit like the legs and knees were too heavily armored and deflected our weapons like hitting rocks against a wall, they simply bounced off. Sora jumped against the chair's back and pushed himself off to land a heavy blow to the heartless' torso. I spun my keyblade in my hand and pointed it at the heartless, pulling more of my magic from my core.

"Fire! Fire! FIRE!" I roared.

Three balls of fire homed in on the torso and exploded in quick succession. The heartless slumped to its knees, twitching. We all ran in on the heartless to attack and only got a few blows in before it twitched and swung its feather dusters out in a wide swipe, knocking us all away. Me and Sora clambered to our feet and both began to dart around as the giant heartless tired to flatten us with its weapons. Donald used a fire spell but to my utter dismay, it blocked the spell with its feather duster.

Which promptly burst into flame.

"Maybe I'm wrong," I yelled in dismay as I ducked away from another swipe, "But aren't feather dusters soft and not supposed to be used to crush people or light them on fire?"

"Not if they are the size of a bus and are being used by a heartless that is trying to kill us!" Sora yelled back, "Fire!"

A ball of fire rocketed from his keyblade and slammed into the heartless' chest, making it flinch. I ran forward and leapt onto the chair and then leapt into the air and pointed my keyblade in its face while in mid-air.

"Deep freeze!" I shouted.

A explosion of frost threw me onto the tabletop on my back and made the heartless stumble back again. It seemed to bristle in irritation and stalked over to the table, raising both feather dusters. I scrambled away and jumped off the tabletop to the floor below. I meant to use the table as a sort of barrier between the heartless and me, but it literally smashed the table back into the floor. I blinked and saw it swipe at me as it moved towards the brick chimney, its flaming duster now extinguished and trailing smoke. I rolled out of the way of one and raised my keyblade to block another. It was only mildly effective as I was still sent sliding away before I stabbed my keyblade into the ground to slow my momentum to a stop. It suddenly faced away from us and placed its feather dusters on the brick countertop, which exploded into flame.

It was now wielding flaming batons again.

I groaned, "As if those didn't seem like enough of a problem with just one on fire."

Suddenly the table burst out of the ground again in a poof of smoke and I jumped away in shock. Just as well as a huge ball of fire crashed down where I was standing. Sora flung his keyblade at the heartless and caught its attention, only for the creature to be hit from behind by Donald and Goofy. It wailed in fury and spun its flaming batons, launching waves of fire at us. Eyes wide we began to scrmable about to dodge he rain of literal fire. Goofy hunkered down under his shield and Donald scrambled while firing stronger ice spells to counter the flames. I ran around the table, rolling behind its leg to avoid another fireball. A moment later, Sora, Donald, and Goofy were pressed against chair's legs, trying to wait out the storm. Sora winced as the a blast hit the other side of the chair he was behind, he held his hand open and in a flash of light his keyblade materialized in his hand.

"We have to get in close!" I called, "If we stay here it'll just smash the table and chair back into the floor when it gets tired of us hiding!"

"How to we do that?" Sora yelled back.

That was a good question, I didn't want to try to chance my ability to bat the flames away. These blasts were much, much stronger than the red nocturnes' fireballs we had faced so far, if I wasn't strong enough to knock it back, the flames would engulf me. We had only just begun to use ice spells, they weren't strong enough to cancel out the flames like Donald could.

I blinked.

Maybe they didn't have to be...

I closed my eyes and took a moment to feel out my reserves of magic.

Still good.

"Watch me!" I yelled, "I have an idea!"

I took a deep breath and ran out from behind the table and directly at the heartless. It saw me and focused on my and fire a gout of flame. I narrowed my eyes and brought my keyblade up as though I was going to stab at the air, aiming for the center of the approaching sphere fire.

I stabbed my keyblade through the air right at the approaching fireball it and yelled, "Deep freeze!"

The ball of fire came into contact with the tip of my keyblade just as I fired my spell. The frost bolts were almost completely overpowered by the stronger flame, but I didn't intend to cancel it out or overpower it with magic. The fire washed around me as the frost weakened and spread the attack around me so that rather than hit me head on, the fire and sparkles of fading frost dispersed and washed around my keyblade in a circle which left me unharmed except for the wave of heat that washed over me. I nearly fell back but pushed forward, managing to keep my footing and smirked at the heartless.

"Use ice magic to weaken the fire!" I shouted as I spun to the side away from another blast, "If you time it right you can charge through his fireballs!"

Sora nodded, Goody raised his shield, and Donald readied his staff as they all ran out from their positions. I rolled back from another blast fo fire and jabbed my keyblade to shoot off another blizzard at an oncoming fireball. I growled as the blast scored a glancing scorch along my side. I shifted back and away and gingerly felt my side. I raised my keyblade as the heartless advanced on me and began trying to crush me.

"Ow..." I grumbled, twisting out of the way of a flaming baton, "I'm getting cocky. I did it once and got carless."

I bit down on a scream of pain as I blocked a flaming baton with my keyblade. As if the heat wasn't enough of a punishment, the force of the attack was strong enough to press my keyblade against the arm curled around my midsection, thus pressing on the burn. Donald saw me gripping my side as I clumsily darted around the heartless and waved his wand at me, healing my burn and allowing me more mobility. I nodded my thanks at him while Sora moved in and fired several balls of fire in quick succession, stunning the heartless. I rushed in and brought my keyblade down on the heartless' bent head with a roar of 'fire!'

My keyblade smashed into it with enough force to knock a large body on its front and was further powered by the fire spell that detonated on impact. I pushed against the force of the explosion and kept bashing the heartless. Donald raised his staff and called down thunder while Goofy and Sora both began to beat the heartless with punishing blows. In the middle of our combined assault, It stood abruptly and staggered backwards before collapsing back into its stunned position, it shivered and twitched as it struggled to rise. It suddenly stood straight up and collapsed onto its back and began to dissolve.

We all let out a collective sigh of relief, if all the strongest heartless were going to be like this...

Suddenly there was a loud yawn, and we all turned to see the doorknob complaining, "What a racket. How's a doorknob supposed to get any sleep?"

It let out another colossal yawn, and suddenly light began to pour out of a hole shaped like a stereotypical keyhole. We all stared at the hole when suddenly Sora keyblade trembled in his grasp and light gathered around its tip. It wrenched Sora's hand to hold it out to ward the light and fired a beam of light straight into it; there was a loud locking sound and the light vanished.

"What was that?" Donald squawked.

"It sounded like something locking." I noted.

To my surprise, a gummi piece fell out of the doorknob's mouth and onto the floor.

"This gummi ain't like the others. No sir." Goofy said as he crouched down to look at the gummi.

"I'll hold onto it then." Donald replied, picking up the piece and putting it in his pocket.

There was a sound of materialization and we saw the cat standing on the tabletop.

"Splendid," He complimented, "You're quite the heroes. If you're looking for Alice, she's not here."

We all felt a foreboding feeling rise in the room.

"She's gone! Off with the shadows, into darkness." He said somberly before vanishing.

"No..." Sora groaned in undisguised anguish.

"Damn it!" I growled, flinging my keyblade to the floor to try to vent some of my self-directed anger, "We couldn't protect her!"

Donald quickly spoke to try to console us, "Let's get back to our gummi ship, we might find her in another world."

Sora and I perked up at that, we had a chance to set things right, and that was what was important. With that in mind we began to walk towards the door when I noticed a object glinting where the heartless had fallen. It was a small brown horn that was a part of a necklace. I picked it up and held it up, feeling a strange sort of energy pulsing from it.

"What's this?" I wondered aloud.

"I may be able to help you with that question." Jiminy Cricket called form Sora's pocket, "I don't exactly know what that item itself is, but I do think I have a good idea. Some stronger heartless and even some stronger beings in the worlds leave behind small trinkets when they are beaten. They may not seem like much at first glance, but they actually help make people stronger by improving their defenses or attacks and such. In fact, I heard that Traverse Town has a group of Moogles working there, and that they are master crafters, making trinkets just like this. Why I heard they even made a keychain compatible with keyblades to make it stronger with the correct materials and can strengthen existing keychains if given the right stuff!"

Sora and I both immediately traded glances, a stronger keyblade? Sign us up!

"Could we talk to them?" I asked eagerly.

Jiminy sighed, "You could if they were working, but currently, their shop is being repaired. Back when you were in Traverse Town, they got hit pretty hard from the heartless despite being in the first district, so they had to close shop to fix up their shop before they could make anything at the moment."

Sora and I both frowned at that.

"Don't worry!" Goofy said, "If Jiminy is right, they should be fixed up in no time! Then we can see what they can make for us."

Sora and I smiled at him.

"Yeah!" I said, clenching a fist, "You're right! Besides, I know we can still get way stronger, we only just got started."

Sora nodded, "Right we'll swing by and see what we can get and if they aren't open yet, we can come by another time."

"In any case, we should get moving." Donald cut in.

"Right." I agreed, "We can worry about stronger keyblades after we save the worlds."

We all climbed into the gummy ship and I decided I wanted to take some time to meditate and maybe get some sleep before anything else. With that in mind I went down to the training room and summoned my keyblade, looking it over before placing it on my lap before I crossed my legs and closing my eyes. I without any warning suddenly felt as though I was plummeting and I yelled only to find myself landing on a invisible platform. I got up to my feet and looked around at the dark abyss, I had only felt this once before...

The floor lit up with stained glass, but instead of the picture of Sora, Donald, and Goofy in front of the castle, it was a stained glass image of my standing straight with my eyes closed and holding Starlight plunged into the ground at my feet like I had seen in carving of knights. Streaks light were erupting from behind me. Three pillars of light crashed into the platform around me and shielded my eyes from the bright glow.

"Your power is awakened..." The same ancient voice echoed, "You've shown your potential, but now you must determine your path..."

Been waiting a while to get to here! I actually mentioned that Niji's 'Dive to the Heart' was different, and this was why. Much like how in Kingdom Hearts, Sora went through mutliple stations of awakening (I believe that is what they are called) Niji has to as well. In this AU, he was granted his keyblade, but he had never made any decisions that would influence his progress. It actually wasn't an oversight, I wanted Niji to get a feel for Starlight before he finished his dive and got a new keyblade for his own. His choices are actually going to be a bit different, so I hope you don't mind.