Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories

Pastels

By Juusan

Juusan: Yay! I got reviews and they're good ones! I'm so uber sorry it has been two whole weeks for this chapter but school is being totally mean to me, so to make it up I'll try to get another chapter done by Wednesday maybe.

Mokuba: (he's my new plushie now) and on some more good news, Juusan finally beat Chain of Memories, which no matter how much she wishes, won't belong to her ever. Though Seto could probably buy it out…

Juusan: Heh, time for Chapter Two! With Final Fantasy Characters!

Chapter Two: Searching for the Nonexistence

Just walking down the wooden stairs, Naminé could sense and fear just how different things would be today. Pictures hang on the walls with their pearly seashell frames but the moments captured by the camera just aren't registering. Photos of Naminé doing activities she could have sworn she did with her father were replaced by her mother. But one drawing, supposedly by her, catches the blonde's attention. A large yet twisted castle with the same door as the one in the woods seems to beckon her toward it. Even though the castle itself is definitely frightening, Naminé found some comfort in familiarity.

At the breakfast table, the girl can't help but be lost in thought. This, of course, worries her mother who proceeds with checking her daughter's temperature.

"Honey, are you feeling all right? You've hardly touched your French toast." Naminé shakes her head and forces a smile. How could she explain to her mother that she seems to have wakened up in a different world? Almost a parallel one at that.

"No, I'm fine. I guess I am just a bit sleepy." Naminé fakes a yawn, stretching and hoping to fool her concerned mother. If this keeps up, she would have to do a lot of lying, at least until she figured things out. But before her mother could respond, a figure at the doorway interrupts the tranquil family.

"Well, aren't you the lazy one Naminé? You were supposed to meet us an hour ago…remember?" The tall sandy blond haired boy stands at the front porch with one hand on his hips, waiting for Naminé to follow him. One thing for sure that didn't change, is that Gippal is still impatient. (A/N: Introducing the first FF character, Gippal! Can you guess who else is coming…?)

Mentally thanking the Al Bhed boy for having perfect timing, Naminé gets up from the table and grabs her art bag.

"Bye Mama, Bye Ain, I'll be home later." Naminé shouts out as she runs out the door, surprising Gippal as he gets dragged out as well.

"Whoa, what's the hurry? It's not like the world is going to end or nothin'"

'Or change again.' The artist sarcastically thinks to herself as she slows down her pace. But there is more that has changed. For one thing, Gippal now has a patch over his eye. 'An eye for an eye?' She contemplates, remembering that her brother's bear received an eye for his missing one.

"What, are all you creative ones so quiet all the time? Don't tell me you're worried about going into the Forbidden Forest?"

"What?!" Naminé looks so shocked with her mouth opened wide Gippal can't help but burst out laughing.

"You forgot all about it didn't you!"

"Cra'c cbahtehk duu silr desa fedr oui Gippal." (translation: She's spending too much time with you Gippal.) The stoic voice comes from the girl with silver hair and red eyes. She is dressed in all black, from her tank top to sandals.

"Ur, pnehk ed uh Tn. P!" (translation: oh, bring it on Dr. P) Paine places down her kiddy video camera and races to the nearest tree and breaks off a medium sized branch. As the two fight, Naminé curiously picks up the camera and rewinds it to the beginning.

'Maybe this could clear up a few things?' At the click, she presses play. In it, everything is just the way things were yesterday, her friends, their conversations, everything! But suddenly a black figure with lustrous amber eyes leaps across the screen, causing the voices to distort and change before finally freezing. Naminé looks up quickly to see that her friends seemed to have paused in real life as well.

"Gippal? Paine?" She glimpses back at the camera and a face with a white robe covering its eyes whispers at her.

"Choose." In utter fear, Naminé drops the camera and it smashes onto the earth. Darkness envelopes the world and the figure as well as the one in the black robe from the forest are standing in front of her once more. She felt nostalgic from being near the two, yet she couldn't place them. The one in the white robe reaches out toward the frightened girl.

"Choose which road to take Naminé. It all starts now, will you take the path covered by shadows of others, or…" The black robed man interrupts the smaller female robed one.

"The road covered in pastels and painted over truths." Naminé glances at the two hands, not sure of which one to take. She hesitates and steps backwards, nearly falling off a cliff which certainly did not exist before. There is no turning back and retreating to the safety of innocence.

"Wait, everything up to today has been nothing but lies? Is that what you are saying?" She didn't want to be deceived, but with everything going on, the truth didn't seem too appealing. The phantoms look at each other and the female speaks again.

"Sleep some more and seek the truth. Remember, though it happens, does not mean it really did." Completely confused, Naminé runs toward the figures but they vanish as well as the blackened world they brought with them. Time renews and Paine drops her weapon and comes rushing toward Naminé who seemingly in frozen in shock.

"Naminé! What's wrong? Snap out of it!" Gippal picks up the smashed video camera and rewinds it, but finds nothing out of the ordinary. "I'll get her back home; you tell the others that we won't be having our field trip."

'No, the answers are in that forest. I have to go, but how? Maybe…But can I?' The artist stares at the camera and with her own rewind button, she stops herself from dropping it, thus it never broke and startled her friends. In a blurred flash, Naminé is standing alone with the video camera in her hands and her friends still fighting.

'I…I did it. But then why do I still remember dropping it?' Shaking off all questions for later, Naminé runs up to Paine and Gippal with a smile on her face.

"Hey guys, let's go meet the others."

The cloaked female sighs as she looks at a different person inside a strange egg like device. She has to watch over the two children until the time is right.

"It seems Naminé has rediscovered how to use her powers. Are you sure this is what you wanted? Life will not be easy for her if she does."

"It is their predetermined fate to take the road. This little experiment cannot change the future and when this one here wakes up, you will cease to exist. In, fact, already you are failing to actually be. Perhaps you wish for the young witch to fail her quest for the truth?" The cold voice accuses the white robe with a smirk. He would have his fun while this experiment lasted. He places his hand on the girl's shoulder, laughing at the contrast between the two. "A white robe huh. But if you're the light, why offer the shadows?"

"There is always hope, in the darkness as well."

Juusan: Well, there's chapter two! Sorry for taking so long with it! Well I hoped you liked it.

Mokuba: It was too scary! You should write horror fics!

Juusan: Heh, horror fics scare me too much XX Okay Mokuba, now do the next chapter narrator thing.

Mokuba: Okay…Ahem…What is the identity of the robed figures and the other person in the egg thingy? What secrets lie in the Forbidden Forest? What other Final Fantasy Characters will be in this story? Find out eventually in the next chapter, Erased New Memories!

Juusan: Yay, and for once your soul didn't get stolen… (Mokuba plushie is gone)… or not…