Fourth chap is done and ready for reading. Kingdom Hearts is the setting for this one. It's a Kairi/Sora one, but Sora doesn't get to go. Poor Sora...: ( Oh well we don't need to be distracted. Now please r+r.

Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts or any of the characters from it. Same with Rurouni Kenshin. No smart remarks here either.

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The Wandering Heroes

Chapter 5- Kingdom Hearts

The day had been a beautiful one indeed. The sun was shining brightly down on the young inhabitants of Destiny Island were having a fun time on the beaches and tropical trees of the nearly perfect island. Probably the most popular of these inhabitants was Sora, the former wielder of the keyblade. It had been put to rest after Sora had diminished the darkness. The heartless were no more than an old memory to Sora and the others that they had tormented. Riku and King Mickey had been rescued from Kingdom Hearts and it had been sealed on both doors, the light and the dark so no others would have to deal with the same things they went through. So Sora went back to the island reassured that the other worlds were safe, especially since the gummi barriers went back up. All of his companions went back to serving the honorable King Mickey, former wielder of the counterpart of the light keyblade.

The largest island was filled with laughter of children. The small structures had become much larger and more numerous on the island. Kairi sat on the dock her feet dangling over the edge, her toes lightly touching the water making ripples in the calm water as she swung her legs back and forth. She had grown a lot taller and became even more beautiful than when Sora first started his journey. She still wore the same outfit though, a bigger size, but the same style. It seemed that she really liked the clothes she wore; it reminded her of her father, before he became a puppet of the heartless, for some reason. Selphie was sitting next to her talking with her about typical girl things. The subject they were currently on was boys. Selphie had told Kairi about her crush on Tidus and was asking her if she could have her some advice.

Kairi started giving her opinion on what she should do, "Well what happened with me and Sora was after he came back for a while during his time away, well we usually just talked a lot about stuff went swimming sometimes, just hung out. Shared a few laughs and just had a good time. But that all came naturally, which is what I think you should do with Tidus." Kairi then turned around as she heard footsteps coming up the dock. It was the blonde spiky-haired boy. He had also gotten much taller than when Sora first left.

"Hey Selphie! Wanna go and hang-out for awhile, everyone else is training and stuff." Selphie pushed herself up from the edge of the dock and walked up to Tidus.

"Sure!" She said in her squeaky voice. Tidus smiled and started running back up the beach. Selphie started running up the dock and stopped for a second. She turned her head around and winked at Kairi and gave her thumbs up. She turned back around and followed Tidus back with her well known run.

Kairi turned her back to the two and faced the breezy sea. Her brown hair was much longer now. It was a wonder how she managed to take care of it in the sandy islands, how did she keep the crusty sand out of her hair anyways? No one really knew except for her. She closed her eyes and let the sea spray hit her face, welcoming it happily. Kairi's hair went flying all over the place as a big gust of wind hit her.

"Hey Kairi!" She shook her self out of the trance and turned toward the source of the voice. There stood the ever famous Sora. Same outfit, same hair, same voice. One thing had changed though. He was a lot taller.

Sora walked up to Kairi as she stood up from her seat and walked toward him as well.

"Hiya Sora! Where have you been all this time?" She said with a smile on her face.

"Riku had challenged me again, so I just beat him quick. He's gotten rusty. He ran off somewhere after. He shouldn't be such a sore loser." He said looking around to see if he was walking nearby. Sora turned his gaze back to Kairi and smiled a smile of innocence down at her. Kairi looked at him with a different look though. She had a slight frown on.

"You guys are at it again? Don't you tell me it was over me again. I thought I made it very clear to Riku that I didn't like him like that, only you, and to just give up! Stupid thick-headed..."

She was interrupted by Sora who said, "No, no, and no! It wasn't about you. He just wanted to get some training I guess. Don't worry about Riku. He can take care of himself. Come on lets go see what everyone else is up too." He said putting his arm around Kairi and walking over to the small island with the papou tree on it. They could see Wakka training with Yuffie, in the distance, who had come to visit them. It seemed Cid built a special gummi block that allowed normal ships to fly in-between worlds and through the barriers. He sure was a genus when it comes to gummi blocks.

Riku had been pacing back and forth in the secret place under the tree. He had matured too and was a lot more muscular with a large sword balanced on his shoulder. His other hand was holding his forehead as he walked back and forth.

"Stupid Sora, god I hate him sometimes. Always with Kairi, he thinks he's some kind of casanova or something. And he thinks he's the almighty warrior of the universe just because he used to have the keyblade." He said to himself, with notes of sacristy in his voice at times. He sat furiously on a boulder with small doodles on it that they had drawn as children.

Riku gazed along the walls at them. He found himself standing up and walking around the small room. He started to get happier and a lot of his anger disappeared. He smiled at a small one of Wakka throwing his blitzball at Sora's head and Sora with googly eyes. Kinda like this, @.@. But to his dismay he came across two pictures of two of the children, Kairi and Sora, both looking at each other. The one of Sora was very well done and the one of Kairi was done a lot more poorly, Then he noticed something else. There were 2 drawings of papou fruits, each of them handing one to the other. He knew automatically knew who did it and what they meant by it.

Riku's anger flared. His muscles tensed all over his body. His arms expanded stretching his shirt to the brink. He pulled his arm back into the air, his hand in a large fist. Riku slammed it hard into the dirt wall, making a big hole in it. He yanked his arm back out and did the same with the other hand. Riku continued to do this until the area above the drawing was totally decimated. He stood there sweating and panting for breathe while clenching and unclenching his hand. He let out a very loud yell, venting the rest of his anger out of him. He leaned himself against the remaining of dirt wall." Damn you Sora..."

While Riku's back was turned a man, of very tall height, stepped out of the shadows. His long black trench coat was buttoned all the way to the top of his neck. He adjusted his black shades and running his fingers through his slick jet black hair,before clearing his throat to get Riku's attention. Riku perked his eyebrows up at the sound and spun around toward the sound. Then he saw him. He looked him up and down before coming to his head and engaging into an intense glare.

"Excuse but are you Riku?" The mysterious man asked him. "Why? who wants to know?" Riku asked suspiciously.

"Well, Riku, I've come to offer you something, the opportunity to have what you always wanted. The love of Kairi, the respect you deserve, and your rival out of the way." He finished coldly.

"What! But I didn't tell I was Riku!" He said with an intense tone of surprise in his voice.

"Don't underestimate me child. Anyways do you except my offer?" He replied.

"Are you crazy? You're just like Ansem. He promised me I'd get Kairi, but he just used me as a puppet for his plans. And I'm not going to fall for it a second time" He explained to the man defiantly.

"Well I can understand why you are so protective of yourself. But my offer has a very different addition and isn't being given to you by some stupid fool who underestimated the true power of the heartless. I will give you all this and you'll never have to see me again. Never talk, never hear, and never see me again. You don't even have to give me anything in return. So what do you say?" Riku turned around and resumed his position. He was obviously contemplating the deal, so the man just stood there and waited patiently for him to finish.

Riku turned slowly around and stood totally upright and smirked at him.

"Alright I'll accept you're offer. Now how will you do all this?" The man smirked himself and lifted his hand. Riku started curiously at his hand. 'What the hell is this guy doing?!' He thought in his head. Just as suddenly as he raised his hand he let it fall to his side.

"Well I've done my part. Now go and see the power that has been instilled inside you," He said stepping back into the shadows hence he came. Riku looked down at his hands to see if anything changed. Nothing looked different.

"What kind of stunt did he pull? Guess he was just bluffing. Oh well, guess I'll go and see what the others up to." He said shrugging it off and walking out of the hole.

He let the warm sunshine flush over his face. He scanned his surroundings and saw, not far away, everyone, except Tidus and Selphie at the little island. He ran over to the small house nearby and pushed open the old squeaky door. He stepped inside the shady room and walked up the stairs. He opened the door up there and started across the bridge as the wooden boards creaked under his weight.

Sora was laughing at Wakka, who had been hit in the head with his own ball when he saw Riku walking over to them. He waved over to him and smiled at the same time. Riku waved back and ran over to them right past the two fighting and he jumped over to the papou tree that bent over the water. He sat down next to Sora and laughed some as Yuffie knocked Wakka over the head with the side of her large shuriken.

A few days later as the sun was setting, Riku was walking over to the dock to grab his boat and head home. What he didn't expect was Sora and Kairi living the drawing he had seen but a few days ago. To his dismay that was exactly what he saw. Sora and Kairi were sitting on the tree each handing the other a papou fruit, the fruit that would intertwine there destinies forever. Riku looked up at them in surprise. His jaw had dropped open, but he didn't care at the moment. Riku was overflowing with emotions. The anger, sadness, despair, a broken heart... each one surging inside him at the time. Then he ignored all of them, save the anger. He wasn't holding back. It soared to its full potential then and he started feeling a power appearing in him. An unknown power, far beyond what he had ever achieved. His emotions weren't the only thing that was changing, but his physical appearance, too. Riku's skin started to change to a metallic sort of formation appeared on him. A metallic exo-skeleton as it was revealed to be as it developed more. His eyes turned red, total red, no white at all. His hair turned into quills and his clothes melted into the formation. Long black wings sprouted from his back and he started to growl low. The transformation was complete. There stood a hulking monstrous beast, a mountain of muscle and metal exo-skeleton.

The beast/Riku let out a bellowing roar that alerted all in the islands. Kairi fell into the water as Sora reached down trying to grab her. She let a small scream before falling flat on her back into the sea. Sora looked up at the beast and turned wide-eyed. He jumped up from the tree and started running for the ladder. The huge beast lunged into the air as his wings spread to there full length. His silhouette gave a grimacing feel to any who saw him in this form. He glared intensely at a frightened Sora and dived at full speed toward him his fangs bared as he narrowed his eyes. His claws were flung out in front of him as he grasped onto Sora's head with his right hand. He flew higher into the air and tossed Sora feebly back down to the small island with little effort. As he crashed into the land a large cloud of dust and rock rose up from the ground and engulfed him in it. The beast smirked as he looked down at his beaten victim. He slowly descended to the ground and landed next to Sora's body as the dust cleared, while he started to calm down some. Riku spat on Sora's limp body, smirking evily.

Kairi watched on as the beast flew slowly down from the sky and landed next to Sora. She looked on in disbelief. She finally regained herself and ran over to the ladder. She quickly climbed it to the top of the small island. Kairi ran past the beast nudging his elbow and kneeling down next to a bruised and unconscious Sora. Riku looked down at her and thought 'What the hell have I done...' as he began to change back to normal. Kairi's face started to stream with tears. Kairi knelt down and laid her head on his chest, hoping it would wake him. Riku started toward her, but he stopped himself knowing he would only make it worse. Riku ran and hid away on a small uninhabited island of the group of isles he lived in.

Kairi stood there all night just crying over an unconscious, possibly in a coma, Sora. She finally cried herself to sleep lying on top of Sora. In her dreams she had been running, running, and running down a long corridor looking for Sora. She didn't know where he went or why, but she just ran and ran for as long as she could remember and then she started crying. She flopped onto the floor her body sprawled out. When Sora walked up to her and knelt next to her face. His soft delicate wiped away a cold tear from her cheek. Kairi looked up at Sora. Her heart had nearly exploded with joy. Kairi clutched onto his hand and hugged it, as it rubbed onto her cheek. After that she couldn't remember a thing.

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Kairi woke in a dark dim room. There was one window in the room, with a beam of sunshine coming through. She turned her head over and saw what looked like a wooden sliding door. She leaned forward and found she was lying on a bed on the floor. She slid out from under the covers and walked over to the door. She was wearing a long silk white nightgown and her shoes had been taken off. She slid the door open and peered out.

It seemed to be a courtyard of some sort. There was a small pond in the middle and large rocks and other natural assortments. She stepped out of the room and walked along the pathway staring at the pond in the middle, as the sun beamed down at her.

"Oh! You're awake." Kairi jumped a little and turned around toward the feminine voice. She saw who the voice belonged to. It was a woman; she was about normal height for a woman. She had long raven black hair that was let loose on her back. Her light blue kimono glistened some what in the sun.

"I'm sorry. Let me introduce myself. I'm Kamiya Karou, Assistant Master of the Kamiya Kasshin Ryu style. And owner of this dojo, but you can call me Karou like everyone else." She said politely.

"I'm Kairi. Not much of a title to speak of." They both giggled some after she said that.

"But may I ask where I am?" Kairi said a bit confused.

"Don't worry; there are more people that are here that are in same situation as you, I expect. You'll fit right in!" She said giving her a reassuring smile. Kairi smiled back at her hoping Sora was ok.

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Well that's it. I hope you liked it. And please REVIEW!!! Ok too much energy there. Well thanks for reading. And I'm finally done telling you guys on how they are brought to together. Now I can start the tale on there new adventure, until next time people. See ya later!