I made my way back down as Sora continued on. I watched proudly from the sidelines as he cleared another two rounds, but something told me that the next battle wasn't going to be easy. While Sora was celebrating, Hades and Cloud were off in a corner conspiring.

Sora ran up to me excitedly, "Did you see how well we did out there?" I laughed at him and patted him on the back.

"You're doing great Sora. I think Phil is in shock." I looked over to the goat man, who seemed to be a little more enthusiastic than when we had first arrived. "You better get back to the field, you're almost done. I looked at him proudly and he was off again.

This round seemed to be a little more difficult for Sora, but he and his friends managed. Cloud stepped in. The uneasy feeling returned to me and the battle started. I grimaced as Sora was getting thrown around quite a bit, but it was his fight and that's the only thing that kept me in my place. The fight seemed to take forever but Sora eventually learned to evade Cloud's attacks and not long after that, defeat him

I began to get up to congratulate Sora and his friends, but I began to feel dizzy. I placed a hand on my head, my world began to spin. Images flickered in my vision. Riku was chained to a wall, beat and broken. My heart began to race. Did I not just see him, feel his arms around me? How did this happen?

"His fate is in your hands." A voice, it sounded like the dragon witch. Was this real?

"Earth to Arkari!" Sora was waving a hand in front of my face. I batted it away.

"I'm fine, sorry I was spacing out." the feeling of dread was building in me.

I heard a loud roar and looked from Sora to the arena. "What the hell is that?!" I panicked, seeing a black three headed dog. "What the hell did you do while I was out? Adopt the meanest dog in the pound? I knew you were kind hearted, but this is crossing the line." Sora smiled but it faded quickly.

"Cerberus. Phil didn't want us to come back out here. But I had to save you, and Hercules and Cloud." He said. Donald helped me to her feet.

"Are you sure you're ok? He said. I smiled at Donald.

"Yes thank you, now shouldn't we do something about that slobber bag?"

"Hyuck, let's go get him!" Goofy charged down the stairs. I followed after and Sora was on my heels. I could feel his eyes on my back. He needed to forget about me and focus on this battle.

"Do you think we can handle this thing?" Sora said as we stopped at the bottom of the stairs. I sighed deeply. I did not want to let my friends down.

"We're going to have too." I said. I tried my best to push the image of Riku to the back of my thoughts. I was a hypocrite. I did not want Sora to worry about me during a fight and here I was trying to erase Riku from my mind for the time being. Sora nodded to me and i nodded back. Time to go.

I had learned earlier that I could use my glaive for more than swinging around. Sora ran into the thick of battle with this keyblade at the ready. I gave my legs a good shake out, and started out at a run, praying that this tactic would work as well as the one before.

I summoned my glaive and used it as a pole. I stuck it into the ground and vaulted myself into the air. I was now above Cerberus and I summoned my glaive back to me. It appeared in my hands as I came down and landed a blow to one of the dogs three heads. I braced myself as I landed on my feet in the dirt, sliding across it and sending clouds flying around me as I came to a halt. My glaive vibrated in my hand.

I smiled at it. Somehow it seemed alive, and we were becoming good friends, now that I had worked out some of the kinks of fighting. My arms were heavy from being pushed to the extreme these last few days, but there were more important matters at hand here. LIke the fact that Sora had pushed one dog head out of the way, but the other was about to spew fire balls at him. "Sora watch out!" I screamed, running at him.

I saw the boy drop to the ground and heard the groan escape from him as the fire made an impact. I skidded to a stop and fell to my knees beside him. "Please tell me you are alive," my voice came out strained.

"Ya, that hurt," Sora said. I could see angry scorch marks on his arms. He sat up and I stood, holding out my hand. He took it in his and I helped him to his feet. This is a nice change for once. I thought, before being knocked to the ground by Sora.

"Um, that was counterproductive-" I said before I rolled out of the way of a giant paw. Sora had knocked us out of the way before we had gotten smashed. We got back up and he grabbed my hand, pulling me along behind him as we ran for cover.

"How on earth are we going to beat him?" He said, trying to catch his breath. We had ended up in a corner behind the dog. I watched as Goofy and Donald charged the dog straight on and were immediately knocked back. "Some days I wonder about them." I said to myself as they retreated back.

"We have to stay back right?" I said

"Yeah, everytime we get near to Cerberus he just knocks us back... or tries to burn us alive." Sora said absently rubbing is arms.

"Well, you guys can use magic right? That might be the only way." Donald and Goofy had managed to join us

"Akari has a point." Goofy said with a hand on his chin. "Donald and Sora are probably our best bet on winning this fight.

"Seeing as Goofy and I are not so great with magic, you two should try to at least stun him, then-" I didn't finish my sentence. Cerberus had gotten impatient and came at us snapping. We scrambled in different directions. I head Sora summon thunder and Cerberus shook its head, like it was trying to get something out of its eyes.

"Nice one!" Donald said beside me. He cast an ice spell that hit one of the heads square in the nose. The dog roared in anger and collapsed to the ground.

"This is our chance!" Donald's voice was strained and he charged the beast. Every one followed suit, beating on Cerberus until he regained his energy.

"Move!" my voice was barely audible over the roar, but we all managed to move out of the way. Cerberus paused and we watched. A dark matter formed in his mouth and he started spewing darkness on the ground. "That can't be good." Sora's face paled. My eyes widened as a puddle formed just inches in front of me. "We better keep moving!" Sora rolled out of the way.

"Great observation, the best one by far." I grumbled, narrowly avoiding the darkness

"You guys! Focus!" Donald said angrily, sending waves of thunder at the three headed dog. The dark puddles had stopped forming. I looked over to Sora, who was in the process of trying to catch his breath.

"Let's do this" I walked over to him. I looked Sora in the eye and he nodded at me. " I have an idea, when I tell you, cast your thunder spell. Hopefully this works." I said. Everything else I had needed to work that day seemed to. " Ready? NOW!" I threw my glaive and it sailed through the air. I was thankful Sora had the same thought pattern as I did. He sent a powerful wave of thunder through his keyblade at my glaive. It connected with it and electricity hummed from it as it sailed through the air. I smirked, knowing that it would hit its mark, right in the middle of Cerberus' chest. The monster gave a giant shudder as the thunder from my glaive dispersed through its body. He gave a groan and collapsed to the ground, this time not getting back up.

"Araki, you are a genius!" Sora said giving me a high five.

"Not really, I am just a quick thinker." I blushed at his compliment.

"You have really good aim."

"Well, that was a giant dog." I grinned. "But, I love throwing knives. It might be one of my best talents."

"See, you are totally a ninja." He said. I slapped my hand to my forehead and groaned.

"I really wish people would stop calling me that." I frowned. "There are no ninja where I come from."

"Well, Yuffie is a ninja."

My grin widened as a thought struck me." You don't say."

"Let's get back to Phil. I am positive he will make us heroes!" Sora said, and we made our way back into the colosseum lobby. Phil and Hercules were waiting for us.

"I hereby dub you three junior heroes" Phil said, before he could go on Donald yelled at him

"Junior heroes? What do you mean junior heroes." I laughed at him

"You four still don't know what it takes to be a true hero."

"Whoa, I never said I wanted to be a hero." I interjected. And it was true, all I really wanted was friends. And now that I had them, to protect them all costs. That didn't make me a hero at all. three pairs of eyes found me, then looked back at Phil.

"I'll show you I have what it takes in the games!" Sora said.

"There won't be any games for awhile; I have to clean up after the last battle."

"Fine we'll be back." Sora answered as we walked out of the lobby.

The sun was still shining outside and I stretched out my hands over my head, taking in the rays. Sora noticed Cloud sitting by the exit. "Hey are you ok?" He asked Cloud

"Yeah." He replied

"So why did you go along with him anyways?" Sora asked. I was confused, but I assumed that he meant Hades.

"I'm looking for someone. Hades promised to help. I tried to exploit the power of darkness, but backfired." Cloud stood "I fell into darkness, and couldn't find the light."

"Keep searching." Sora said." I'm looking too!" I smiled. In that moment I couldn't help but realize how much light Sora gave to others, including me.

"For your light? Don't lose sight of it." Cloud turned towards me. "Don't let the darkness take hold of you." He said to me. I was a little surprised that he knew about me and my struggle.

"You got it." I said and he turned away. He seemed so sad. All I could do is hope that he found his light.

"How about a rematch next time, fair and square, no dark powers." Sora tried But Cloud declined and left

"We should probably go too." I suggested. "Off to the next world?" I said. Everyone agreed and we left.

Gummi ship

I pulled out the first aid kit. "You have some nasty burns there." I said. I had put a light sweater on, hiding the burns on my wrist, the ones that Maleficent was so kind to give me.

If it wasn't for how much they hurt, I probably could have thought of them as something beautiful. They looked like thorny roses, cuffed around my wrists, with petals falling around the stems. I had tried a potion on them when we had first gotten back, but It did not work. Nothing worked to heal them, or even soothe them. So I covered them up. They were obviously not normal burns.

I handed Sora a potion and he took it. His wounds almost healed. I heard a low growl and chuckled "Are you seriously hungry again? I laughed as Sora blushed.

"m-maybe. We worked hard today you know" Sora scratched the back of his head and giggled.

"Give me your arm." I held out my hand. Sora's cheeks turned scarlet and I took his hand in mine. "Those burns are almost healed. This should make them better in no time." I applied the cream to his forearm. "You know, I need to work on defending you better, I can't having the keyblade master blushing so brilliantly every time he gets a scrape."

"HEY!" Sora said "What's that supposed to mean?" Sora yanked his arm back but lost his balance and slipped backward. I tried to grab his hand and pull him back up and ended up landing on top of him. We were a pile on the floor.

"I'm sorry! Let me up." I stammered. I tried to get up off Sora but he was trying to get up at the same time. I fell back into him. "Ouch!" I hissed. My the cuffs of my sweater had rubbed against my arms.

"S-sorry! Hold on let me help you!" Sora tried again to get up off the floor.

"Teenagers." Donald rolled his eyes. Goofy chuckled. When Sora finally got up I was gasping for air in between laughing. Sora sat down next to me and picked up the cream. I had a decent road rash on my leg from sliding in the dirt.

"You're a really good friend Akari. I can't imagine going on this journy without you" He said to me when he finished applying the cream to my leg.

"Thanks Sora." I was still breathless. He locked eyes with in his eyes was the sunshine, the hope of tomorrow. There was so much light radiating from them. The love he had for his friends was astounding, selfless.

"Just wait until you meet Riku! You two are so much alike." Sora said happily. I broke eye contact with him at the mention of Riku's name, and my face flushed. The image of my dream caught up with me and Riku came smack to the front of my memories, beaten and broken. It didn't take long for Sora to notice this. "Hey, you in there?" He asked slowly. I snapped back into reality.

"Yeah, I'm fine." I tried to say convincingly. Sora sighed and put the medical stuff away. I laid down on the floor and Sora joined me.

"Do you think we will ever find them?"

"I'm sure we will Sora, It's just a matter of time before we meet up with both of them and they will be perfectly fine." I tried to convince myself. I was almost sure that I had been dreaming when I met Maleficent, but the burns on my arms proved otherwise. It didn't take long before we both drifted off to sleep. Only waking when Donald and Goofy were making a fuss over whether or not to land in the next world.

MEANWHILE

The clouds in the sky were fairly low to the ground, thunder could be heard rolling in the distance and a cold breeze swept through the castle that housed Maleficent and her crew.

"She is very interesting indeed, I want her power on our side." She spoke softly to her colleagues.

"But what makes her so special?" It was Oogie Boogie that spoke. "She's on the Key brats side anyways."

"Yes, she does harness the power of light, but her power of darkness is even greater, if she was just to release it, who knows what kind of potential she would have? There is a story, one of a young warrior with great dark power. One that will turn the light into ruin. We need her."

"How are you so sure that she is that warrior?" Oogie boogie said skeptical.

"She has the brands, and the seals keeping the darkness at bay, just like the stories say." Maleficent said matter of factly. "I aided in making them appear just moments ago. It's just a matter of time before those seals break."

"And how do you plan on capturing her? I don't think she will come willingly" it was Captain Hook's turn to speak. A vision of Riku flashed across the table that they were surrounding. He looked as healthy as could be.

"This boy, he seems to have made a bond with her. It isn't quite visible to him yet, but I know she knows, it's just a matter of time." She said