Chapter Eight: Mitos the Time Keeper

The next morning Nick got in his Flyer as soon as he changed and drove off towards the university he used to work in. As soon as he got there, he hopped off his Flyer without even parking.

"Hey, hey! You didn't park your Flyer Mister!" The security guard yelled at Nick.

Nick desperately ran through the school's hallways. He saw a student and avoided bumping into her by slightly pushing her aside.

"Hey! Watch it, you jerk!" She cried out loud.

Nick didn't mind any insults or anything. He didn't mind getting a parking ticket for not parking outside either. He had already been fired so he couldn't be fired again. He continued running frantically trying to remember which class Stephen was taking right now.

"Let's see, let's see. Today is Tuesday and first class on Tuesday is history. After that is chemistry, then…"

Nick stopped running to gasp for air. He leaned his hand on the wall and the other on his hip. He sighed and closed his eyes shut facing the roof trying to remember the next class.

"Bolsey! Hey, how are you?"

Nick turned around and saw principal Shawmore talking to him.

"Oh, hey Mr. Shawmore."

"Hey I've been wanting to talk to you about…well…we haven't been able to find a good substitute for history class and I was wondering if…well…if…"

"Not right now Mr. Shawmore, I gotta run!"

Nick sped off but then he remembered something—principal Shawmore knew the classes. He stopped instantly and turned around heading back towards the principal.

"Mr. Shawmore wait!"

"Yes?" Shawmore asked turning around to look at Nick.

"Do you know what class Stephen Carlski is taking right now?"

"Ah yes, well in fact, Mr. Carlski didn't attend today."

As Nick looked into Mr. Shawmore's eyes, he caught a very quick glimpse of what he thought was a Heartless. He continued to stare at the spot he had seen the strange Heartless in. He got so distracted that he forgot he was talking to Mr. Shawmore.

"Hello? Mr. Bolsey? Mr. Bolsey? Woohoo, Mr. Bolsey?"

The principal even had to snap his fingers for Nick to react.

"Oh, yeah, yeah. So where were we?" The former history teacher asked.

"I was just telling you that Stephen Carlski didn't come today."

"Oh… Well thanks Mr. Shawmore. Goodbye."

Nick then hurried out of the university and as the security guard approached him to tell him he had a parking ticket, Nick snatched it off his hand and entered the Flyer.

"Thanks a lot guard." The rushed Nick said.

He then drove away from the parking lot and into the streets again. But on his way to Carlski's home; the same Heartless he saw at the university sat next to him in the passenger seat.

"Whoa!" Nick exclaimed in shock.

The Heartless had just popped out of nowhere. It was one of those Heartless similar to the police Heartless with a human figure but completely dark like a shadow Heartless and with the same yellow eyes without the antennas.

"Calm down. My name is Mitos, I shape the future."

"Yeah…well Mitos, why don't you wait for a red light?"

Mitos snapped his fingers and everything suddenly froze except for him and Nick.

"Ok…how did you just…"

"Do that? As I was saying, I am the crafter of the future. I shape the futures of those whose futures cannot be shaped by themselves. And Stephen Carlski's was one of them."

"Does this have anything to do with his absence today?"

"Yes, you see, I took his heart from him."

"You what!? You call that shaping a destiny!?"

"You do not understand; let me take you to the beginning."

Everything suddenly turned pitch black. Even Mitos disappeared, but Nick could still hear his voice inside his head. Then the darkness began to turn into some sort of flashback scene. It was pre-Heartless when the worlds were still apart. Nick was in Hollow Bastion. He was at the library, and suddenly everything began to shake. A group of people began to run frantically down the stairs. Five of them to be exact. But the real shocking part was when the man on the front of the group ran right through Nick.

"Relax Nick; this is nothing but my memory. You are a phantasm to them. You are not there."

Mitos said it just in time because he was about to panic. A column in the library broke down and was about to fall on one of the two females of the group trying to escape. A spiky-haired blond man with a bandaged sword leaped in front of the woman right away.

"AERIS!!!!!!!!!" The man cried.

He sliced the column in half with his big sword. He then pushed the woman to gather with the rest of the group. Heartless began to appear just like they did in Hollow Bastion's castle yesterday. The rest of the group was way ahead and had already left the library. But the blond warrior stayed in the crumbling place slashing through endless Heartless.

"What are these things!?" The nervous man asked himself out loud.

He decided he couldn't finish off all of the Heartless and made a giant leap over them and exited the library. The group couldn't be found; he searched desperately but couldn't find them. Nick exited the library along with the warrior to continue to see the rest of the memory. But then another man ran past him trying to escape the ruined castle. It was a brown-haired man about the size of Nick around his 20s. Nick continued to run out the castle. In the sky was a large, dark sphere absorbing everything with a powerful wind. Among the turmoil, the blond man continued to search for his friends but couldn't find them. The outside of the castle was filled with horrified people running around everywhere—some even getting sucked by the wind into the dark sphere.

"AERIS!!!!!!! LEON!!!!!!!!! YUFFIE!!!!!! CID!!!!!!!!" The man screamed in despair.

He fell on his knees as tears fell down his cheeks. But in no time the strong winds pulled him from the ground.

"NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!! AHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!! AERIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

The blond man screamed as he got sucked into the gigantic dark sphere. After that, Nick turned his look towards the other man that had run through him. The man got caught by the spreading Heartless and got his heart stolen. But as his heart was halfway out of his chest, he and the Heartless got sucked up into the sphere as well.

Then everything turned back to Nick in his Flyer with time frozen by Mitos in the passenger seat.

"You were that blond fighter?" Nick asked looking at Mitos.

"No, that was another Hollow Bastion civilian. His name was Cloud. I was that other guy who got his heart halfway taken out of his chest and then sucked up into the sphere. That you just saw was when the Heartless got to Hollow Bastion. But not long after that the sphere disappeared. The Heartless couldn't find the Hollow Bastion keyhole…obviously. So the world wasn't destroyed. Just deserted. Everyone got sucked up into the sphere and ended up in different worlds like any other occasion when a world is destroyed…except for me."

"What happened to you?"

"Half of my heart was taken by the Heartless. The Heartless turned that half into a Heartless. The other half was left in my soulless body. My soul got turned into a Nobody. My half-hearted shell got turned into a N.E.O. instead of going into the Twilight because I still had half a heart. It took me some time, but in the end I finally merged the Heartless, Nobody, and my shell into one. This was the result. A Heartless Nobody N.E.O."

"Wow, that's super weird."

"Tell me about it. I can take hearts, souls, and I have N.E.O. powers. The mix of those three abilities turned me into the Time Keeper."

Before one more word could be said, Mitos disappeared and time returned back to normal. Nick was left to whisper to himself once again.

"Hmm…Mitos the Time Keeper…"