"I'm Cloud. I'm with the rebels."
"It's no use. All has already been done. You should be wasting your time trying to stop it. But I'll let you know that it'll be impossible!"
Cloud was worried. After thinking a bit, he left. Outside, he met up with Leon and Cid. They boarded an airship and left. All the people around seemed worried as well.
Ansem was calm, actually.
"Heh heh heh... now it is just a time matter..."
He put out the candle.
...
...
"So she was actually... two?" Sora said.
"Two indeed. Kairi and Rina." Pete affirmed.
"What to do, now?" Maran asked, desperated.
"It's no use, Maran. The only way of bringing her back is bringing Kairi back in the first place." Pete said.
Maran looked at him with a mixture of sadness and desperation.
"And how will we bring her back? She's... been stabbed..." Sora said, sad, too.
"I don't know!" Maran yelled.
"Well, I know!" Mickey concluded.
"What?" all the others asked.
"We must get her Keyblade first. Ansem took it, unfortunately. But we're getting it back." Mickey stated.
"Where must have he runned to?" Pete asked.
Mickey looked at Sora. He knew, then.
"Hollow Bastion." Sora said.
Before they asked how to leave that place, Mickey led them to a gate which was in the same place as the entrace to the 'secret place' Sora and Kairi had at the island. The door opened and a ray of light began to come out of it.
"You'll have to find your gate, this one doesn't belong to you." Mickey said, leaving them along with Sora and Riku.
"What?" Maran said. "How are we supposed to find our gate??"
"There." Pete pointed at the town-ish side of the place they were. It was the train station gate. "IF that was their gate, this one is ours."
"But how are we going to meet up with them?"
"As far as I know, this Hollow Bastion is found in the light dimension. It's their business. We'll have to take care of the girl." Pete said.
"You... sure?" Maran said.
"Yes." Pete said, kneeling to check on Rina.
Maran began thinking about what they were doing, then. The only way of really helping Rina would be... somehow bringing Kairi back. In order to really help out, he'd have to go with Sora and Mickey.
"Pete." Maran said.
"What?"
"I'm coming after them."
"What? Why? What about the girl?"
"I'm going to bring the other girl back so Rina also comes back. You get it?"
"Hmm... yes, but..."
"Please take care of her, here, or take her to our world. I'm going..." Maran began running through the way Sora and Mickey walked. He soon reached them.
"Sora! Mickey!" Maran said, breathing quickly.
"Maran?! Weren't you taking care of that girl?" Mickey said.
"Uh, yes, Pete's with her, now. The thing is... I want to help you. Let's bring that girl... Kairi... back. Then Rina can recover."
"It makes sense, but we don't know if we'll manage to... bring Kairi back..." Sora said, sad.
"Yeah, I know... but I'm going with you guys to help you out, okay? Please." Maran was practically begging them.
"Ok, Maran, but let's hurry up. We don't know what Ansem is doing. He left this place too quickly, I wonder what's going on..." Mickey said, leading Maran to the gate.
Meanwhile...
"Why were you running away?" Ansem asked the creature that was stored in a bubble-like device, in his room. "Huh? Answer me!"
The being raised its eyes. It was Hirosh.
His cloak laid on the desk next to the device that was keeping him. Ansem was impatiently poking his head with his fingers.
"Answer me, traitor!" Ansem yelled.
"In trouble, Ansem?" a female voice said, at the door. Ansem turned quickly.
It was the dark-ish girl spotted at the in-between before turning into Kairi.
"What are you doing here?" Ansem said, scared.
"Looks like you haven't calculated the whole equation. You summed all the icognites and diminished all the numbers... but you forgot about the reason." she was saying.
"You!" Ansem pointed at Hirosh, inside de device. "You summoned her, s-somehow..." Ansem was getting more desperated.
"No, sweetheart." she handed her two-sided Keyblade. "It... summoned me." then Ansem was stabbed in the chest... stading still for a couple seconds and then falling on the floor. A dark haze came out of him leaving nothing but a stinky smell.
It could be spotted, then, what the girl meant by 'it'. A keychain that held both Oathkeeper and Oblivion.
Hirosh began moving inside the device, just like if he was trying to get the girl's attention. She, however, began walking towards the door.
"Mmmm!!" was all he could say. He began moving forth and back, trying to break the glass.
The girl stopped at the door and looked back.
"What do you want? Your role is finished."
He continued to move forward and back. The girl approached the device and looked at him.
"Look at you. A mutation. Half-heartless, half-human, or even worse, I can't think of any worse." she was saying, snubbing him.
Hirosh, then, pointed to the Oblivion keychain with his tiny deformed finger. He was really a mutation, like the girl said. He was a lot smaller, had a bold and small head, his body was proportionally small and thick fingers and feet. Haven't spoken till now, also.
The girl, then, closed the door.
"You... passed by both phases, didn't you?" she asked Hirosh, but knew he couldn't answer. "And you survived... I mean, I know this isn't a total survival but at least it's something, you're breathing, right?"
"Come on, how do I open this up?" she said, looking for a lever or a button, but the device had no buttons or levers.
She, then, found a remote on a near table and tried pointing it at the device and pressing its only button. The bubble opened and all the water inside it came out, making the floor watered.
"Whaaaayyckk!!" Hirosh did with his tiny mouth.
The girl picked up the cloak that was once his and cut it to fit the smaller version of Hirosh, then made him wear it.
"See? Confortable, isn't it?" she said, strangely kind.
"Whoo..." was all what he said.
"Come on we gotta find the other Keyblade masters." she said, putting Hirosh on her shoulder and leaving the room.
Ansem was no longer there, though.
Maran, Riku, Sora and Mickey reached the gate but the place they faced after opening it wasn't the one they left Cid, Leon, Donald and Goofy. It was a dark... dusty place. It seemed to be a library.
"Where... are we?" Maran asked.
Mickey touched one of the bookshelves.
"I feel I know this place."
"Me too." Sora said.
"Humph. Why do I feel the same?" Riku said.
The place was huge, it could fit twenty Traverse Town accessory shops. But they couldn't tell because it was too dark. There were two huge windows at the other side of the room, windows that came from the floor to the highest point of the wall. A storm seemed to be blowing outside.
There was someone watching them throught the window. It was the two-bladed Keyblade girl.
"We must find an exit." Sora said, moving around in circles. "But we also must stick together."
"Why? We must split up, it'll be easier." Riku said.
Sora, then, felt a déjà vu.
...
"Why don't we split up and..." Riku began.
"No... that never works." Sora interrupted.
"What? Why?" Riku asked.
"Let's just... stay together! Something tells me that we must... stay together. Just..." Sora was saying.
"'Something tells you'?" Riku asked, almost mocking him, "Come on, Sora, we got to find that guy Cid. If someone finds him, just give a signal."
...
...
"LET'S JUST STAY TOGETHER!" Sora yelled after remembering the previous arguing.
"Sora..." Riku approached him, "Why do you always feel that something is going to happen if we separate? This place isn't as big as that world we were before. If anything happens, someone can yell and the others will quickly come."
Sora lowered his head.
"Do as you wish. I won't say no, now. Don't worry."
"That's how a man is supposed to respond. Now, everyone..." Riku said, "Um, Mickey what division should we make?"
"None." Mickey replied.
"What?"
"Look." Mickey pointed at the window. The girl was no longer there, though.
"There's nothing there, Mickey." Riku said.
"I know. But she was there. She's... somewhere in here."
"She... who?" Sora asked.
"The in-between master... the two-sided Keyblade wielder..." Mickey said, terrifying the others.
"But... wasn't she... Kairi... and Rina?" Sora said.
"Yes. I wonder how she is walking... by herself..." Mickey said.
...
"You know what to do, don't you? C'mon, I have explained it to you twice." the girl was telling the small and troubled Hirosh. His height couldn't reach not even the girl's knee.
"Baa..." he said. He'd learned this was a 'yes' variation. Or, at least, hoped so.
Hirosh, then, opened the window and entered. He was still wearing the black cloak's remainings.
"Yaa..." he was saying, while approaching Mickey and the others.
The girl, then, entered, too. But she went to meet Mickey and the others through another way.
"Something.. is moving..." Mickey said.
"Where?" Maran got scared.
"Don't know."
"There! I saw something moving there!" Riku pointed at a spot near the bookshelf's end. "Let's check it out."
"I'm..." Maran began.
"What, scared?" Riku said. "There's no time to be scared, now. Remember we're trying to get your girl back, too."
"I was gonna say I'm going to check it out, you stay here." Maran said.
"Hah, really? Interesting. Why would you do that?"
"Because..." Maran began walking towards the spot Mickey pointed.
...
"WHAAA!!" Maran screamed. Everybody ran to check it out.
"Maran?" Sora called.
"What's that?" Mickey spotted Hirosh, then.
"It's a... dwarf?" Riku said.
"Whoo!!" Hirosh was trying to scare them but that wasn't working. But this wasn't the girl's plan.
"Come on, Sora, grab your Keyblade and save this poor heartless..." Riku said. He said it looked like a shadow.
But when Sora, and later Maran, tried to reach their Keyblades... they weren't with them.
"Looking for your weapons?" the girl said, behind them.
"Whoa!" they saw her, she was holding Sora and Maran's Keyblades.
"Those aren't even weapons, silly kids. They're tools, not weapons. But you, with your unlimited selfishness, found out you could save the heartlesses by using the Keyblades to defeat them. But this isn't what happens!"
"Why should we believe you?" Sora said.
"Yeah, you're the enemy. We mustn't trust the enemy." Maran completed.
"Hah... I'm the enemy? Well, you really don't know how to classify..." she kneeled and holded Hirosh, which thanked her with a noisy 'boo'. "Ansem is the enemy. Ansem, and his knowledge. This second one generated a big and powerful enemy. The unknown."
"Unknown?" Sora asked, not understanding her words.
"Its both meanings fit. It's the first of the cloaked people's order, the order which soon allied to Ansem. Well, the Unknown was the only one who didn't. Hirosh wasn't initially a member of this order, he joined it to thank Ansem for saving him from being a heartless." she was saying, hugging Hirosh. "But he, unfortunately, came back to his own self. Just like anything that once looses their heart."
"THAT's Hirosh?" Mickey got surprised.
"Um, yeah. He's more like a puppy to me. You'll soon be like this. You... " she pointed at Maran, "...and you." and then to Sora.
"Why would we...?" Sora asked.
"Like Hirosh, you once lost your hearts. You'll return to your heartless form once I destroy what binds you to Kingdom Hearts."
"What?"
"What united Hirosh and Kingdom Hearts was Ansem. But Hirosh betrayed him, and came back to this form. And when I use these two Keyblades to fuse with mine to survive the merging, you'll come back to your heartless form."
Sora did once become a heartless. But Kairi saved him but that seemed to not be enough. Maran also had already became a heartless. It was when he was found. Rina's love was what cured him, and they were friends since then.
"Now... I offer you... a choice." the girl said, then. "Join me. Everything will be easier, I know how stubborn you can be."
"What do we do?" Maran asked Sora.
"No clue..." Sora replied.
"It's no use. All has already been done. You should be wasting your time trying to stop it. But I'll let you know that it'll be impossible!"
Cloud was worried. After thinking a bit, he left. Outside, he met up with Leon and Cid. They boarded an airship and left. All the people around seemed worried as well.
Ansem was calm, actually.
"Heh heh heh... now it is just a time matter..."
He put out the candle.
...
...
"So she was actually... two?" Sora said.
"Two indeed. Kairi and Rina." Pete affirmed.
"What to do, now?" Maran asked, desperated.
"It's no use, Maran. The only way of bringing her back is bringing Kairi back in the first place." Pete said.
Maran looked at him with a mixture of sadness and desperation.
"And how will we bring her back? She's... been stabbed..." Sora said, sad, too.
"I don't know!" Maran yelled.
"Well, I know!" Mickey concluded.
"What?" all the others asked.
"We must get her Keyblade first. Ansem took it, unfortunately. But we're getting it back." Mickey stated.
"Where must have he runned to?" Pete asked.
Mickey looked at Sora. He knew, then.
"Hollow Bastion." Sora said.
Before they asked how to leave that place, Mickey led them to a gate which was in the same place as the entrace to the 'secret place' Sora and Kairi had at the island. The door opened and a ray of light began to come out of it.
"You'll have to find your gate, this one doesn't belong to you." Mickey said, leaving them along with Sora and Riku.
"What?" Maran said. "How are we supposed to find our gate??"
"There." Pete pointed at the town-ish side of the place they were. It was the train station gate. "IF that was their gate, this one is ours."
"But how are we going to meet up with them?"
"As far as I know, this Hollow Bastion is found in the light dimension. It's their business. We'll have to take care of the girl." Pete said.
"You... sure?" Maran said.
"Yes." Pete said, kneeling to check on Rina.
Maran began thinking about what they were doing, then. The only way of really helping Rina would be... somehow bringing Kairi back. In order to really help out, he'd have to go with Sora and Mickey.
"Pete." Maran said.
"What?"
"I'm coming after them."
"What? Why? What about the girl?"
"I'm going to bring the other girl back so Rina also comes back. You get it?"
"Hmm... yes, but..."
"Please take care of her, here, or take her to our world. I'm going..." Maran began running through the way Sora and Mickey walked. He soon reached them.
"Sora! Mickey!" Maran said, breathing quickly.
"Maran?! Weren't you taking care of that girl?" Mickey said.
"Uh, yes, Pete's with her, now. The thing is... I want to help you. Let's bring that girl... Kairi... back. Then Rina can recover."
"It makes sense, but we don't know if we'll manage to... bring Kairi back..." Sora said, sad.
"Yeah, I know... but I'm going with you guys to help you out, okay? Please." Maran was practically begging them.
"Ok, Maran, but let's hurry up. We don't know what Ansem is doing. He left this place too quickly, I wonder what's going on..." Mickey said, leading Maran to the gate.
Meanwhile...
"Why were you running away?" Ansem asked the creature that was stored in a bubble-like device, in his room. "Huh? Answer me!"
The being raised its eyes. It was Hirosh.
His cloak laid on the desk next to the device that was keeping him. Ansem was impatiently poking his head with his fingers.
"Answer me, traitor!" Ansem yelled.
"In trouble, Ansem?" a female voice said, at the door. Ansem turned quickly.
It was the dark-ish girl spotted at the in-between before turning into Kairi.
"What are you doing here?" Ansem said, scared.
"Looks like you haven't calculated the whole equation. You summed all the icognites and diminished all the numbers... but you forgot about the reason." she was saying.
"You!" Ansem pointed at Hirosh, inside de device. "You summoned her, s-somehow..." Ansem was getting more desperated.
"No, sweetheart." she handed her two-sided Keyblade. "It... summoned me." then Ansem was stabbed in the chest... stading still for a couple seconds and then falling on the floor. A dark haze came out of him leaving nothing but a stinky smell.
It could be spotted, then, what the girl meant by 'it'. A keychain that held both Oathkeeper and Oblivion.
Hirosh began moving inside the device, just like if he was trying to get the girl's attention. She, however, began walking towards the door.
"Mmmm!!" was all he could say. He began moving forth and back, trying to break the glass.
The girl stopped at the door and looked back.
"What do you want? Your role is finished."
He continued to move forward and back. The girl approached the device and looked at him.
"Look at you. A mutation. Half-heartless, half-human, or even worse, I can't think of any worse." she was saying, snubbing him.
Hirosh, then, pointed to the Oblivion keychain with his tiny deformed finger. He was really a mutation, like the girl said. He was a lot smaller, had a bold and small head, his body was proportionally small and thick fingers and feet. Haven't spoken till now, also.
The girl, then, closed the door.
"You... passed by both phases, didn't you?" she asked Hirosh, but knew he couldn't answer. "And you survived... I mean, I know this isn't a total survival but at least it's something, you're breathing, right?"
"Come on, how do I open this up?" she said, looking for a lever or a button, but the device had no buttons or levers.
She, then, found a remote on a near table and tried pointing it at the device and pressing its only button. The bubble opened and all the water inside it came out, making the floor watered.
"Whaaaayyckk!!" Hirosh did with his tiny mouth.
The girl picked up the cloak that was once his and cut it to fit the smaller version of Hirosh, then made him wear it.
"See? Confortable, isn't it?" she said, strangely kind.
"Whoo..." was all what he said.
"Come on we gotta find the other Keyblade masters." she said, putting Hirosh on her shoulder and leaving the room.
Ansem was no longer there, though.
Maran, Riku, Sora and Mickey reached the gate but the place they faced after opening it wasn't the one they left Cid, Leon, Donald and Goofy. It was a dark... dusty place. It seemed to be a library.
"Where... are we?" Maran asked.
Mickey touched one of the bookshelves.
"I feel I know this place."
"Me too." Sora said.
"Humph. Why do I feel the same?" Riku said.
The place was huge, it could fit twenty Traverse Town accessory shops. But they couldn't tell because it was too dark. There were two huge windows at the other side of the room, windows that came from the floor to the highest point of the wall. A storm seemed to be blowing outside.
There was someone watching them throught the window. It was the two-bladed Keyblade girl.
"We must find an exit." Sora said, moving around in circles. "But we also must stick together."
"Why? We must split up, it'll be easier." Riku said.
Sora, then, felt a déjà vu.
...
"Why don't we split up and..." Riku began.
"No... that never works." Sora interrupted.
"What? Why?" Riku asked.
"Let's just... stay together! Something tells me that we must... stay together. Just..." Sora was saying.
"'Something tells you'?" Riku asked, almost mocking him, "Come on, Sora, we got to find that guy Cid. If someone finds him, just give a signal."
...
...
"LET'S JUST STAY TOGETHER!" Sora yelled after remembering the previous arguing.
"Sora..." Riku approached him, "Why do you always feel that something is going to happen if we separate? This place isn't as big as that world we were before. If anything happens, someone can yell and the others will quickly come."
Sora lowered his head.
"Do as you wish. I won't say no, now. Don't worry."
"That's how a man is supposed to respond. Now, everyone..." Riku said, "Um, Mickey what division should we make?"
"None." Mickey replied.
"What?"
"Look." Mickey pointed at the window. The girl was no longer there, though.
"There's nothing there, Mickey." Riku said.
"I know. But she was there. She's... somewhere in here."
"She... who?" Sora asked.
"The in-between master... the two-sided Keyblade wielder..." Mickey said, terrifying the others.
"But... wasn't she... Kairi... and Rina?" Sora said.
"Yes. I wonder how she is walking... by herself..." Mickey said.
...
"You know what to do, don't you? C'mon, I have explained it to you twice." the girl was telling the small and troubled Hirosh. His height couldn't reach not even the girl's knee.
"Baa..." he said. He'd learned this was a 'yes' variation. Or, at least, hoped so.
Hirosh, then, opened the window and entered. He was still wearing the black cloak's remainings.
"Yaa..." he was saying, while approaching Mickey and the others.
The girl, then, entered, too. But she went to meet Mickey and the others through another way.
"Something.. is moving..." Mickey said.
"Where?" Maran got scared.
"Don't know."
"There! I saw something moving there!" Riku pointed at a spot near the bookshelf's end. "Let's check it out."
"I'm..." Maran began.
"What, scared?" Riku said. "There's no time to be scared, now. Remember we're trying to get your girl back, too."
"I was gonna say I'm going to check it out, you stay here." Maran said.
"Hah, really? Interesting. Why would you do that?"
"Because..." Maran began walking towards the spot Mickey pointed.
...
"WHAAA!!" Maran screamed. Everybody ran to check it out.
"Maran?" Sora called.
"What's that?" Mickey spotted Hirosh, then.
"It's a... dwarf?" Riku said.
"Whoo!!" Hirosh was trying to scare them but that wasn't working. But this wasn't the girl's plan.
"Come on, Sora, grab your Keyblade and save this poor heartless..." Riku said. He said it looked like a shadow.
But when Sora, and later Maran, tried to reach their Keyblades... they weren't with them.
"Looking for your weapons?" the girl said, behind them.
"Whoa!" they saw her, she was holding Sora and Maran's Keyblades.
"Those aren't even weapons, silly kids. They're tools, not weapons. But you, with your unlimited selfishness, found out you could save the heartlesses by using the Keyblades to defeat them. But this isn't what happens!"
"Why should we believe you?" Sora said.
"Yeah, you're the enemy. We mustn't trust the enemy." Maran completed.
"Hah... I'm the enemy? Well, you really don't know how to classify..." she kneeled and holded Hirosh, which thanked her with a noisy 'boo'. "Ansem is the enemy. Ansem, and his knowledge. This second one generated a big and powerful enemy. The unknown."
"Unknown?" Sora asked, not understanding her words.
"Its both meanings fit. It's the first of the cloaked people's order, the order which soon allied to Ansem. Well, the Unknown was the only one who didn't. Hirosh wasn't initially a member of this order, he joined it to thank Ansem for saving him from being a heartless." she was saying, hugging Hirosh. "But he, unfortunately, came back to his own self. Just like anything that once looses their heart."
"THAT's Hirosh?" Mickey got surprised.
"Um, yeah. He's more like a puppy to me. You'll soon be like this. You... " she pointed at Maran, "...and you." and then to Sora.
"Why would we...?" Sora asked.
"Like Hirosh, you once lost your hearts. You'll return to your heartless form once I destroy what binds you to Kingdom Hearts."
"What?"
"What united Hirosh and Kingdom Hearts was Ansem. But Hirosh betrayed him, and came back to this form. And when I use these two Keyblades to fuse with mine to survive the merging, you'll come back to your heartless form."
Sora did once become a heartless. But Kairi saved him but that seemed to not be enough. Maran also had already became a heartless. It was when he was found. Rina's love was what cured him, and they were friends since then.
"Now... I offer you... a choice." the girl said, then. "Join me. Everything will be easier, I know how stubborn you can be."
"What do we do?" Maran asked Sora.
"No clue..." Sora replied.