Crowned Hearts Chapter Thirteen

By Blue Dragon

Riku was a mess, his nice suit soaked. Of course they might as well have been soaked with his tears. Even so, it was his time to change into his usual outfit, the shirt, black jeans, and blue waders. He needed to find Sora, too. After that they could make their journey, he would do whatever was necessary to get her back.

A chill went down his spine thinking about her again. It was hard to keep the tears from coming, with only the thoughts of the possibility of seeing her again wandering about his mind.

Eventually the sand turned into the unlined concrete road that led to Sora's house. He and the others were worried about him, no doubt. Fortunately, as heard from old man, moving into whatever crazy dimension he was talking about and outside of the world he was in would keep too much time from passing in between. No one would worry about a sudden disappearance of he or Sora. He just hoped that he didn't waste too much time explaining that.

He branched at his house first, telling his parents he had fallen into the ocean by mistake and would be out about twenty minutes-that would probably be the amount that their quest would take-at Sora's house for a little break. He couldn't mention Lisa.

After Riku had changed and made sure his keyblade was nicely secured, he knocked on Sora's door. Immediately his friend was there with a worried look on his face.

"Riku! Where have you been? Are you okay? You were going crazy! We were worried!"

"Listen, Sora, come with me and bring your keyblade. Tell your parents you'll be out for twenty minutes. I'll explain on the way"

"Riku? What are you talking about?"

"I'll explain. You're already dressed," Riku said looking at Sora's normal red attire and gigantic yellow shoes. "So just grab your keyblade."

"Its right here" he pulled it from behind him.

"Then come on!"

"Where exactly are we going for twenty minutes?" Sora asked as he stepped outside of the doorway.

"We have to make a short swim across the ocean, that's where I'll tell you everything"

"Okay. I hope you know what you're doing"

Sora followed Riku to the beach, and the two dove into the water and began swimming outwards.

"Sora? Have you ever noticed how often we keep our blades around?"

"I know what you mean. I feel like every second of the night some heartless is going to come out. Paranoia."

"I guess I'd better explain things. I don't think you'll believe me immediately about one thing, so I'll tell you what we're going to do up to point. A guy is looking for locations of a hole in time that may lead to this other world. I can't tell you why yet, but we need two keyblades. If we're off in other worlds, not much time will pass"

"Which guy? Other worlds?"

"Just what I said. I think it will be less complicated once we're out there and you see what I'm talking about."

"If you say so"

Sora and Riku swam steadily, but they didn't get there as fast as Riku did because they were moving at a comfortable pace. It took them a good thirteen minutes of swimming to find the opposite beach of the smaller southern portion of Destiny Islands.

Sora felt as if he needed to ask Riku something important, and then quickly remembered.

"Riku, have you ever felt left out?"

"What do you mean?" Riku pretended as if he didn't know.

"Between me, you, and Kairi. Kairi and I are kinda close but you're our friend too, one of our best between the three of us. And I thought that you might have felt that you didn't have anywhere or anyone to go to."

"Really? I'm glad you care so much. But I'm just glad knowing that you guys are.my.friends" It hurt Riku to have to lie to his friend, but he didn't want Sora to feel too bad, knowing that he actually felt horribly left out. When the two reached the shore, Sora was surprised to see the simple straw house and a gummi ship in front of it, complete with an old man.

"So you brought him? Good. We can get going. Those keyblades actually will help direct us to hearts in different worlds. Did you tell him that?"

"Who's that?" Sora asked Riku.

"That's old man. Which is actually what he likes to be called."

"Nice gummi ship, eh?" Old man bragged. The ship was of red and black, a Full-Life G as the cockpit, sleek black engines of maximum power, and a big black X split down the middle on the back made of more black gummis. It was at least four times bigger than the Excalibur/Highwind Sora had been used to flying.

Sora and Riku stared for a second, and then their jaws hit the sand.

"Great heavens! Its-it's a friggin' monster!" Riku said through his extended jaw.

Sora's pupils shrunk and he felt like if he had been up against THIS in a heartless gummi ship dogfight, he would have lost.

"Who built that?" he finally asked.

"This guy with a blue glow in his eyes gave it to me. He called it the Akujiki."

Riku turned to Sora.

"I don't think we have to worry about safety"

"Me neither"

"You two just make sure you have your keyblades, and we'll be on our way."

Riku didn't hesitate for a second to jump into the cockpit and pull Sora along for the ride by his collar.

"Oookay. I'll just be following you."

Old man jumped into the cockpit, and found that he was next to Sora in one of the two passenger seats. Riku took the pilots seat.

"This thing have warp drive?" he asked.

"Yeah. Just let me and Sora-"

Riku didn't hesitate to smash the knob sending them hurtling into the sky, away from the barrier of Destiny Islands, and into the blue nothingness that was the space between the worlds. Riku had a big smile on his face, thinking that he had made a big leap into getting to where he wanted to go.

He looked behind him, worried when he heard nothing from Sora or the old man.

Both of them shared the back of the black wall of the Akujiki's cockpit, plastered on by the sudden acceleration, and as Riku stopped they flew into the front of the cockpit due to the inertia.

"Christ boy! You almost turned us into dang pancakes! Let us strap on our belts next time!"

"Yeah Riku! You coulda killed us!"

Riku rubbed the back of his head sheepishly.

"Sorry about that. But now what? I thought that the worlds were no longer connected."

"Which is why we need those two keyblades. They will take us to our first stop?"

"First stop?" Sora and Riku asked simultaneously.

"Yes. A world called 'Gaia'"