Heart of Akasha

A/N: Thank you for your reviews, merendinoemiliano.

Just warning you guys, before they reach their destination they've got two full days on the ship. So if it's kinda fillery, please don't mind it. If I just jump over the travel, some things wouldn't make sense later on.

Chapter 7: Tournament

{You have slept for eight hours in a comfortable bed.
Your HP and MP have been fully restored.}

So the bed had been comfortable enough for his ability to give him the full bonus. He hadn't been so sure about that when he had decided to sleep in the captain's quarters the day before. Still, he had to try it out. After all, if they were going to travel, it would be bad for him to sleep so far away from the bridge just because he wanted to have the luxurious feeling of the guest rooms. After all, even if they had autopilot, that didn't mean nothing could happen on their journey.

So it was better to get used to sleeping next to the bridge in case he had to wake up and quickly get there because of space pirates or something. And in his opinion, it didn't feel that much different from the guest room. The biggest difference was really that the room had no own shower.

Ji-Han waved the message away and instantly activated "[Hidden Key]" to use up his first MP of the day. He then stood up and changed his clothes. Then he went to the showers, where he decided that he had used up enough MP for now and deactivated the ability. After coming back out within seconds thanks to the magical instant-cleaning, he decided to go the canteen to wait for the others and get some studying done while he was at it. He did buy the physics book to raise his INT, after all.

Speaking of the stat grinding, Ji-Han also equipped the weights he had gotten from Seikuu. Even if he would be sitting around for the most part, there wasn't really any reason not to.

That was how he was found by Shua two INT-Increases later. Just like him, the Pokémon was already dutifully wearing his heavy armor for STR-grinding. Yet also like him, Ji-Han had him focus on studying for now. Not much, considering Naofumi was sure to show up soon but he let him draw some numbers. Though with a pen on paper instead of his tail like the Smeargle originally tried to. The brush just wasn't made for small writing and using it would use up too much paper too fast.

Meanwhile Ji-Han went to the training room to see if Naofumi was already up and about, which he was.

"Come to the canteen once you're finished", he told the Hero of the Shield. "Then we can start our journey."

"Do you even need me there… no, wait, I'll come. [Training Cancel]."

As soon as Naofumi spoke the last words, the simulation stopped.

"You didn't need to stop", Ji-Han told him surprised, but the Hero of the Shield shook his head.

"I can do another simulation any time", he explained. "But now that you are awake, we should start to travel already. And I want to be there in case you break something."

"Oh, okay", Ji-Han acknowledged, even if he was a bit miffed at Naofumi's comment. But he did his best to ignore it and instead called out over the voice chat to meet at the bridge. Right after he did, clattering noises like from a Soldier-Heartless could be heard and Shua came happily running out from the canteen, the math book and paper under his arm.

From there it took just a bit more time until they all reached the bridge.

"Have you even bothered to figure out how it works yet?" Naofumi suddenly inquired, making Ji-Han flinch.

"I-I forgot about that", he admitted. "B-But I do know that you need to do it from the lower level!"

Having said that, he quickly went down and pulled out the manual. From the looks of it, travel and maneuvering was controlled normally from the seat directly in front of the captain's one. Using the manual as a guide, he first tried moving with the controls, turning the FO Vimana around. For that, he had not only a look out of the window, but also a diagram replacing one of the windows, showing a blue triangle-like object that turned with the spaceship and a small transparent orb of yellow color which stayed stationary.

Playing around with the controls, suddenly next to the orb appeared a label saying {212-00-8432-zei-lwgvr}. That looked like a world's name. Was that Traverse Town?

Some more playing around later and they zoomed into the yellow orb and showed the picture that Ji-Han had taken the day before of Traverse Town when he had been scanning it. Having confirmed it was indeed Traverse Town, he quickly looked to where he could rename the world.

Soon he had opened a list of worlds, similar to the list of Teleporters he had when he first tried them out.

{
X → 212-00-8432-zei-lwgvr
X - 135-32-1412-qlj-hjykk
0 - Back
}

One renaming later and it showed:

{
X → Traverse Town (212-00-8432-zei-lwgvr)
X - 135-32-1412-qlj-hjykk
0 - Back
}

So it wouldn't replace the ID completely like with the teleporter locations. Good to know. He moved the curser down.

{
X - Traverse Town [212-00-8432-zei-lwgvr]
X → 135-32-1412-qlj-hjykk
0 - Back
}

Then he pressed their equivalent of "ENTER" and another diagram showed up, with a two yellow orbs, one with the label {Traverse Town}, the other with the label {135-32-1412-qlj-hjykk}, both connected by a blue curve. In front of Ji-Han also opened another window saying:

{Course plotted.
Estimated Travel Time: 002:11:46:00
Do you wish to engage autopilot to
location [135-32-1412-qlj-hjykk]?}
{YES} {NO}

"Anyone still having second thoughts?" Ji-Han asked into the round and Naofumi rolled his eyes.

"Get on with it!"

"Smeargle."

"Right, right." With that he started the autopilot and the spaceship moved, while the window's message changed to {Estimated Time of Arrival: 002:11:45:59} and counting down.

Now their adventure had officially started. Not that he actually felt any different from before…

"With that done, I'll go back to training", Naofumi decided. "If you guys study, try to do it on the bridge. I don't think anything will happen but just in case. And note down the time if any of you gets hungry. Speaking of, do you have some food outside your inventory?"

"Not so far, why?"

"I don't want to get you every time I get hungry or thirsty so put some stuff into the fridge already. It uses magic to prevent the food from going bad so you don't need your inventory for that. I don't care if you keep some on hand but put some of it where we can get it!"

"Right, right, sorry. Shua, are you going to keep studying?"

"Smear!"

"Then look out of the windows from time to time to see if anything appears. I'll be right back."

"Smear!"

With that he and Naofumi left the room, both to go do what they said they would. Seeing the less than stellar illumination of the corridors, the Hero of the Shield gave Ji-Han the advice to grind his skill Night Eye in case the other world also had only nighttime, or they arrived at nighttime there.

Which he did. And while Night Eye cost quite a bit of MP, it was also fast in leveling up. In fact, by the time they reached the canteen, it was already leveled once more from before they went to the spaceship, being now at level 3. Unfortunately that just meant it stayed activated for longer, not that it cost less MP, which would have been better for grinding. But there wasn't anything he could do to change that. Only making sure to not miss when his MP recharged enough for another Night Eye.

So he just put the food in the refrigerator and went back to Shua. Nothing happened so far in the small time he was away, but as he sat down to do some more studying, he got a message.

PING!

{Continued training of your body causes
your STR to go up by 1.}

Alright! Getting those weights had been the right decision! And now he had two and a half days until he had to fight again, making it the best time to increase his low stats. He was still a bit peeved that it was so difficult to raise his INT. He actually had raised it up to 11 thanks to his studies already, but thanks to his perk [Muscle-Headed Keyblade-Fighter], his effective level of INT was still stuck at 9. Honestly, he currently would have preferred to lose that Perk. The Increase of STR didn't seem to be worth the decrease in INT.

Yet once again, there was nothing he could do about that. Except studying even more, which he did.

Though after around half an hour and another INT increase, he got fed up with it and instead decided to run around the ship a bit, grinding VIT and STR until he was ready to go back to Physics. That repeated for some time until he came back from his running at some point and Shua was pointing towards his armor and mimicking eating something.

"Are you hungry?" Ji-Han guessed, earning him an affirmative "Smear!"

"Alright." Ji-Han took a look at the travel time.

{Estimated Time of Arrival: 002:07:37:51}

That was, around four hours? So Shua got hungry after around four hours after leaving Traverse Town. What about Naofumi?

When he asked the question over the voice-chat, Naofumi proclaimed that he was still good.

"So", Ji-Han asked Shua. "Do you want your centipede raw or cooked or fried?"

"Smeargle", the Pokémon responded and just shrugged.

"Alright. Then how about one of everything?"

"Smear!"

"Alright."

Having arrived at the kitchen, Ji-Han gave Shua a piece of Oumukade meat and the Pokémon took it in both of his hands and took a bite out of it. Meanwhile Ji-Han took a pot with salted water and a frying pan and put some olive oil into it.

The olive oil started sizzling and he put a piece of Oumukade meat into it. He then put just some salt onto it, wanting to keep it simple for now. Then, once it started burning, he turned it around. Soon the water also started to boil and Ji-Han put another piece of centipede meat in it.

"Smeargle?" The Pokémon got Ji-Han's attention, holding out his now empty hands. So he wasn't satisfied with waiting until Ji-Han got the others ready. Seeing that, the Gamer quickly got one from his inventory to give it to Shua. Even if the Smeargle ate enough raw meat to be satisfied before Ji-Han finished, the advantage of the inventory was, that it wouldn't get to waste as he could just keep it there until needed.

Unfortunately he seemed to hit the bad 50% as he was grilling the meat, as it turned out burned, even as he got the new recipe:

{Registered Recipe: [Salted and Fried Oumukade Meat]
Variant: 1; Rank: Normal
Ingredients: Oumukade meat, salt, olive oil
Tools: frying pan, spatula
Preparations: [Details]}

And when he then used [Observe] on the Fried Oumukade Meat…

{[Salted and Fried Oumukade Meat, Version 1 – Rank: Inferior]
Type: Food
A piece of Oumukade Meat that has been salted and fried in a pan.
Thanks to mistakes in the creation process it was burned too much.}

So, even though the original rank of the dish was [Normal], thanks to messing up it turned to [Inferior]. That made him wonder if there were actual dishes that were [Inferior] from the get go and if these would always turn out well, regardless of what he did. Though if there was, it wasn't [Cooked Oumukade Block, Version 1]. That one also had a rank of [Normal]:

{[Cooked Oumukade Block, Version 1 – Rank: Normal]
Type: Food
A piece of Oumukade Meat in the shape of a square
block that has cooked in salted water.
Restores 1 HP}

Wait. Cooked food can restore HP?! That was new! Was it because it was made from monster meat or did he just never notice?!

"What are you doing?" Naofumi who had suddenly appeared inquired.

"I am cooking", he answered. "And I just figured out that a successful cooked part of Oumukade meat can restore HP! It's just 1 but considering our only other healing items are three potions and whatever is in the first-aid kids, that is quite an improvement!"

"Then we got quite lucky that you decided to cook suddenly", the Hero of the Shield noted as he took out a bottle of water from the fridge and opened it.

"You can't expect me to eat the meat of a centipede raw", reminded him. "So I tried cooking and grilling. Though the grilling was unfortunately a failure so I don't know if a success would also restore HP…"

"Do you even need to eat in the first place?" Asked Naofumi. "Didn't you have the body of a Gamer that made that unnecessary? Really, why did we bother buying so much food…"

That was actually a good point. Why did they buy so much? Naofumi could survive entirely on water, he was the Gamer and Shua practically an animal…

"Oh, right, it was for Akari", he remembered. "She's human so we needed some real food. Speaking of her, have you already seen her today?"

"No, I haven't", denied Naofumi. "Is she still sleeping? Shouldn't she have already woken up by now?"

Confused, Ji-Han and Naofumi opened their [Party Options] at the same time.

{
Han Ji-Han LV: 9 Ẅ
HP: 500/500
MP: 42/250

Iwatani, Naofumi LV: 22
HP: 3950/3950
MP: 957/1631

Shua LV: 5
HP: 600/600
MP: 150/150

Akaza, Akari LV: 13 Ꚛ
-Out of Range-

Hitoyoshi, Zenkichi LV: 174 Ꚛ
-Out of Range-

Revchi LV: 81 Ꚛ
-Out of Range-

}

Huh, so he had forgotten to kick Zenkichi and Revchi out of his party? But if they were {-Out of Range-} just as Akari was, did that mean…

"…have we forgotten Akari-Yang in Traverse Town", he asked his companion, who nodded.

"That seems to be the most logical explanation", he answered and Ji-Han sighed.

"Looks like we are heading back to Traverse Town", he spoke as he headed towards the bridge. "Hopefully Akari isn't too angry at us for forgetting her…"

The way back was just as non-exiting as the way there. Shua ate both the cooked centipede, as well as another fried one that Ji-Han had managed to create, this time without messing up. Which also earned him a level-up. As Shua was then full, Ji-Han put the burned Fried Oumukade into the inventory. They couldn't waste food just because it didn't turn out perfect and Ji-Han only had made an exception this time to see what Shua liked better. Raw, cooked or grilled. It was cooked in this case.

Afterwards Shua and Ji-Han went back to studying, interrupted by bouts of running in the latter's case. Until they finally reached their previous destination.

"Let's get this over with", Naofumi declared, annoyed at the waste of time. And to a degree, Ji-Han had to agree. The trip took two and a half days and now they had already traveled eight hours without getting one step closer to their goal. But it wasn't Akari's fault. Both he and Naofumi had forgotten to take her with them and thus even the Hero of the Shield didn't voice actual complaints as they teleported down in front of Chie's Apartment Building.

"Hey, Akari", Ji-Han addressed through the voice chat, "we are back. Sorry for leaving you behind like that. Where are you now?"

Ji-Han waited for an answer but none came.

"Great", Naofumi voiced in annoyance, directing Ji-Han's attention towards him. "Eight hours on her own and she already got herself killed."

WHAT?!

"What do you mean, she got herself killed?" Ji-Han demanded to know. "Just because she isn't responding right now, doesn't mean she's dead!"

"{Out of Range}", Naofumi quoted from the panel in front of him. "Even though Hitoyoshi-san and Revchi are back in our party, there is still no change with Akaza. She is still {Out of Range}. Why do you think that is?"

"That still doesn't mean she is dead!" Ji-Han refuted. "Maybe the party system doesn't work over the whole Traverse Town. Or maybe she didn't think we would come back and asked someone else to take her there. That could be possible, right?"

"Possible, sure", Naofumi conceded. "But you don't even believe it yourself, do you? Why don't you go around asking if anyone has seen her then?"

"I will", Ji-Han declared firmly. "I'm sorry to stall the saving of worlds, but I can't leave Traverse Town without finding out where Akari-Yang is!"

"I've feared you would say that", came the response, but not from Naofumi. "What a drag."

"Shikamaru-Ssi!" Ji-Han addressed the newcomer who was tiredly leaning against the railing of the second floor of the apartment building. The Nara just groaned.

"Tone down the volume, already", he demanded. "Man, you guys are loud. Couldn't you have come ten minutes earlier? I was just starting to drift off."

"Sorry", responded Ji-Han sheepishly. "But we came as soon as we noticed we forgot to bring one of our party members with us."

"Akarin", Shikamaru interjected. "Of course you forgot her. Everybody forgets her. That's her most defining feature, after all. A condition that reduces her presence and makes it difficult for people to acknowledge her. She isn't the only person in Traverse Town with a similar condition, but hers is the most prominent. It is no surprise you forgot to wait for her."

"As interesting as that is", interrupted Naofumi, "does that help us tell us where she is now? Or are you saying that even Ji-Han's ability forgot she exist?"

Shikamaru sighed.

"What a drag… she turned into a Heartless."

Ji-Han froze at the blunt statement. That… that couldn't be right, could it? People didn't turn into Heartless in Traverse Town anymore. Yato said so!

But Shikamaru wasn't finished.

"She actually showed up right after you left", he continued. "Running towards the place you had stood before in a hurry, completely ignoring Koyuki-san. Then she fell on her knees and, before we could reach out to her, turned into a Heartless."

"On her own?" Naofumi exclaimed. "Not that I am calling you a liar, but if what you say is true, shouldn't she already be used to be forgotten all the time? Why would that be the one that sends her into despair? Sounds oddly convenient. Or inconvenient."

But Ji-Han's face became ashen as he heard Naofumi's comment.

"It was my fault", he breathed out horrified. Just like Raiga and Seikuu had said, hope easily turns into despair. "I have given her hope and then took it away, turning it into despair. It's all my fault."

"Oh, give it a rest", Naofumi told him without any sympathy. "It's her own fault for having any hope in the first place."

"What the- are you fucking serious right now?!" Ji-Han shouted angrily. "Akari died and all you say is 'it's her own fault'?!"

"Oi, drop that self-righteous attitude", the Hero of the Shield retorted, also starting to sound agitated. "She knew of her condition. Yet she still joined us. She should have known that we would forget her at some point. Thinking that it would have been different, is just stupid. And I will not have you break down because of someone else's stupidity! I've joined you because you are so far my only hope in restoring Raphtalia so shut up and get on with it!"

"At last that guy can still be restored!" Ji-Han bit back. "But Akari wasn't lost with her world. She turned into a Heartless! There is no bringing her back! All because I forgot her!"

"And I am telling you that doesn't matter! If she really wanted to prevent herself from being forgotten than she should have told you and stuck with you all the time. That she never spoke up about this when we split up is her fault not yours!"

"That's enough", interrupted Shikamaru muttering something that suspiciously sounded like "what a drag".

"This is getting nowhere, so listen", he said aloud. "Akari's loss is a tragedy. No matter how you look at it. But Naofumi has a point when he says that she should have told you about her condition. Only those that ask for help, can also receive it. The problem is that people with depressions often pretend that everything is fine. And Akari's condition made it hard to notice her and thus even harder to notice her troubles. Add to that the fact that the presence of Heartless lowers the threshold for death out of depression and takes away the chance to think one last time before you act, and Akari's death seems like it had been inevitable. At the very least, giving you alone the blame is faulty when it happened through the interplay of so many factors. And it certainly won't help anyone.

"However", he added. "It doesn't change the fact that Akari was a member of your party when she died. As such it falls upon you as the commanding officer to take responsibility nonetheless."

"Responsibility?" Naofumi repeated. "What's that supposed to mean? Didn't you just agree that it's not his fault?"

"That's not what I meant", denied Shikamaru. "I am telling him that now that a person under his command died, he's the one who'll have to go and inform the next of kin."

Ji-Han's face, which had taken on the more red color of anger with Naofumi's tactless comments and had turned back to a normal color with Shikamaru's logical explanations, was now, once again, white as ash.

No way… how was he supposed to explain that to Akari's family?! Damn it, this wasn't what he signed up for! They were supposed to be traveling around and saving worlds. Not die before they even started!

For a small moment, Ji-Han was actually angry at Akari for dying. The he realized what he was doing and that anger was instantly drowned by guilt. It wasn't like Akari had actually wanted to die. Sure, there was the whole "death by depression"-thing. But that was because of the Heartless. Akari was so pure-hearted she couldn't bear the sign of a monster bug in pain. Under normal circumstances she would most likely have refused to die just because it might hurt others. And she had been in Traverse Town for who knows how long, refusing to let the death of her world bring her down and still went to do her best. But the Heartless used her moment of weakness and took her heart, taking away her chance to rise again after falling. It was all the Heartless' fault! Why couldn't they just attack physically like normal monsters? He was a gamer, not a psychologist! He had no experience with depressed people! Was he expected to suddenly be all therapeutic just because he had a Keyblade?! Wasn't that just unreasonable?!

"Oi, Ji-Han, you still there?" Naofumi suddenly spoke up, interrupting his train of thoughts.

Right, he had gotten of track. But at last he was now calm.

"I'm sorry", he responded. "It's just… it's just a lot to take in. From one day to the next Akari is suddenly dead even though she had been so lively before and she was still a child. And she didn't even die in battle. She died when she was away from us. In some kind of bizarre mixture between suicide and murder. And the culprits are some kind of alien creatures right out of a video game who don't even need to be near people to kill them. Just what kind of bullshit is that?!"

Ah, he got angry again.

"Yes", agreed Shikamaru, "the Heartless are one of the worst enemies to face. That is why the Keyblade is so important. Something that can finally destroy the Heartless for real."

"Not that it helped Akari at all", noted Ji-Han bitterly. "Unless I can find the origin of all Heartless and destroy it, even my Keyblade won't be able to deal with all of them. Do you think something like that exist?"

"Maybe, but finding it won't help you much", exclaimed Shikamaru. "Even if they had originally come from one specific place, now they have already traveled to enough places that they can increase their numbers there even if you were to seal away the origin. And the multiverse is too large for you to find all of their current central hives."

"Damn it", cursed Ji-Han. There went that plan.

"Deal with what you can deal", Naofumi told him. "You can't save everyone in the whole multiverse. Even without Heartless, people die all the time. Save those that you can save and don't beat yourself up about those you couldn't."

Ji-Han gave him a funny look.

"You mean like Akari?"

"Yes, like Akari."

Ji-Han sighed.

"Right, I get it, I get it", he conceded. "But I will still have to take responsibility. Does anyone know who Akari's next of kin are?"

"I don't think she had any living relatives after her world got devoured by the Heartless", Shikamaru commented. "But she should have had some people who were close to her."

Close to her …like the lesbian cloth designers?!

Ji-Han was once again filled with dread. These two had expressed their hesitation of letting Akari venture out and now he would have to tell them that she died under his watch, or rather, because she hadn't been under his watch?! But that was the Heartless' fault! He was… he was going in circles. He had to live with the consequences.

"Let's go", he told Naofumi and Shua, who had for the whole duration of the conversation just stood quietly next to them, unsure what to do. "I know where we have to go."

He held out his hand to let the others join him in his teleport back to the spaceship. That was fastest and he still had to gather all of Akari's stuff. Since they had been made by the Akechi's and they had been close to her, this seemed like the right course of action.


"I am terrible sorry!" Ji-Han spoke, his hands firmly at his side, his upper body and with it his head lowered enough that he couldn't even see the two Akechi woman. But if he could have, he would have seen both of them staring at him with wide eyes of a completely shocked and disbelieving expression.

"Akari, Akari has died", he continued. "Not in battle, but because her depression turned her into a Heartless. I…" Ji-Han wanted to say more, but the words failed him. He wanted to say something so badly, but what should he say? Could he say? There were no words he could think of that would be enough. Thus, he stayed silent, frozen in that position, not wanting to look up and meet either of their eyes.

"W-what?" Mitsuyo finally managed to get out, still trying to comprehend what Ji-Han was telling them. "Why… How?"

"I-I forgot her. When we went to the spaceship, I forgot to include her. To wait for her. I've been told that she arrived right afterwards and broke down then and there. Enough to turn into a Heartless."

"You… how could you!" Mitsuyo had grabbed onto his shoulders in anger and forcefully pulled him up. Ji-Han flinched when his eyes met her rage-filled one and he instinctively looked away.

"How could you?" She repeated. "Because of you, because of you… look at me!"

"Mitsuyo!" The one who interrupted her was Michiru who had shouted the name of her lover and hugged her from behind.

"It's enough", the one-horned demi-human spoke. "It's not his fault."

Mitsuyo trembled.

"But Akari… Akari is…"

"Yes", agreed Michiru. "But you know about her condition. It's not his fault."

Mitsuyo let go of Ji-Han and fell down onto her knees, a sobbing mess in the arms of her lover.

"Thank you for telling us", Michiru told Ji-Han calmly. But he could see that it was a forced calm, as traces of tears made their way into her eyes. "But for now it would be better if you left us alone."

Ji-Han just nodded and turned around, walking out of the house without looking back. He would call Yato and give him the items instead… oh, wait, there was a lot, he wouldn't be able to carry them all… maybe he should ask at the Leon Shop if they could store it and give it to them later?

As it turned out, they could. And after hearing the reason why, he wouldn't even need to pay a fee. Even if that made him a bit dissatisfied, though he couldn't tell why.

Nevertheless, he was now in the back with the [Resigned Demon Lord] Fino and loaded out all of Akari's belongings. Her t-shirts and her skirts, her underwear and socks, her jackets and her pajamas. Her toothbrush with a cup and her toothpaste. Her tissues and even the pack of chopsticks that Ji-Han had no idea why she had those. One after another, he put them down into cardboard boxes. And with each one of those his inventory got one space smaller. One after another.

Taking them all out took a lot longer than putting them in. But in the end all of her belongings had been pulled out and given away. Ji-Han took a look through the inventory, to make sure he missed nothing, when his gaze fell upon his smartphone. Like in a trance he pulled out the electronic device and switched it on. He wondered if it had always taking this long to start up. It felt agonizingly slow… second after second after second after second after second after second after, oh, there was the password screen.

Ji-Han quickly put the code in and went to his "Images"-folder. There it was, the picture of Akari and Shua, snuggling together after a long day. Now the only thing left of her.

"[Beam me up!]"

Before anyone could even do so much as shout out in surprise, Ji-Han had vanished from the Leon Shop and reappeared in the dimly lit teleporter room. The smartphone fell from his hand as he sank on his knees. Tears started to fill his eyes as he took one deep breath.

And then he screamed. All of his anger, his sadness, his frustration, his powerlessness, he screamed it all out, filling the empty room with his despair. Despair, over the sheer unfairness of the situation. The loss of a young life and his own powerlessness to save it.


Ji-Han didn't know how long he had stayed like this but at some point he had to tears left. Shakingly he stood up. He picked up the smartphone and put it back in his inventory. Then he beamed down, hoping the others hadn't needed to wait too long for him.

"Finally got it out of your system?" Naofumi greeted the Gamer after he had gone back to the storage area of the Leon Shop, apparently having waited this whole time for him. As well as Shua who came running over to him as fast as he could in his armor and hugged his right leg.

"I'm sorry for leaving so suddenly", Ji-Han apologized. "But I… had to be alone for a moment."

"Not that I can't understand that", exclaimed Naofumi. "But going to the spaceship means that we'll lose our connection to your party and thus we can't see whether or not you became a Heartless afterwards."

Fear gripped Ji-Han's heart. Could that happen? Could he meet with so much despair on the journey that he himself turned into a Heartless?!

"Don't second-guess yourself now", interjected Naofumi, apparently guessing his thoughts. "You are the only one able to pay the Heartless back for what they did and the only one who can save the worlds. I would think that you wouldn't want them to win like that."

Ji-Han's expression turned grim, but full of determination.

"You are right", he conceded. "Our quest got off to a bad start, but that was just the first round. I will make the Heartless regret giving me such motivation!"

"Points for the attitude", Naofumi noted. "Ready to go?"

"Yes", responded Ji-Han and gave the Hero of the Shield a hand-shake. Shua was still clinging to him and so he didn't need to worry about losing him as he went [Beam me up!] and set course for the first world, he would save from the Heartless.

Definitively.


A/N:

Hi, guys and gals.

I know how this chapter is incredibly shorter than the other ones, but I found it better to end the story there. Even though I have already the next part written, it doesn't really fit the current mood. And what a mood that is. Traverse Town had already dropped hints of its darkness, but this is the first time it had shown up so strikingly. Poor Akari. I really like her and her concept of a character but unfortunately this story is supposed to be realistic. Thus her current problem. Of course, you could call me cruel for including her in the first place, but I am an author and while I like her, there was no one else who could take her place in the story.

Gashadokuro Amanojaku