"That butt-muncher!" Donald quacked. He smacked Goofy with his wand as Goofy lay at his side sleeping.
"Ow, Donald, what was that for?"
"Sora left us behind again!" he shouted.
"Der, where did he go?"
"I dunno, but the King told us to follow the Keyblade, and he's probably ran off to another world!"
"Er, maybe we oughta ask someone around here what happened to him."
"There was that summoner girl who was around here somewhere. Maybe she showed him the way to another world!"
I saw someone at the end of that ship that landed here. She might know, too. Her father stopped by shortly to talk to me about a hole that they were investigatin' in the desert."
"Hole?"
"Yeah, they tell everyone that it's just a hole where a monster lives, but it's really a portal to another world."
"So you think they took it?!"
"I reckon so."
"Bah!" Donald said. "We gotta find him!"
"But how? Without that airship, we won't have anyway to get there."
Suddenly, a short, blonde headed girl with wild, braided hair ran in and bumped into Wakka, who had been snoozing on a stool at the counter.
"Wakka, get up! Yunie said she came back to look for items, but I think she wanted to explore the place a little more. Can you help me find her?"
Wakka yawned. "No problem, ya? Though, I don't know all the places she would go."
Just as Rikku was dragging Wakka out of the tent, Donald clasped onto her leg. She yelped.
"Do you mind?!" she said.
"I'm sorry," he said, looking up her leg with a sheepish grin. He tried to stare at her face and not up her short skirt. "Do you know where Sora went?"
"Sora? That cute brunette boy? We dropped him off in the Sanubia Sands."
"At the world portal?" Goofy asked.
Everyone got quiet and looked at Rikku strangely. She smiled. "Yeah, the fiend's hole. He wanted to see if he could defeat it."
"Oh, no, you mean the--" Goofy started, then Donald interrupted him.
"Thanks so much, ma'am," Donald said, smacking Goofy in the nose. "He's probably in trouble and needs our help."
She smiled. "Pro'bly. Make sure he doesn't get hurt, kay?" She winked, and ran out with Wakka.
"Uh, wait," Donald called after her. "You think we can ride your airship? We're going to need a ride there."
Rikku winced, hesitated, then nodded.
Sora awoke the following morning wide eyed and energetic, but he didn't move and looked out at the window above him and to the deep blue sky above. He smiled when he thought he saw Kairi's face in the clouds.
"Hey kid," he heard someone say, and sat up, seeing Squall about to leave the room. "Sorry if I woke you up. I had dirty laundry I had to get."
"Oh, no, you didn't disturb me. I just woke up."
"About time. It's getting near noon."
"Really?!"
Squall nodded. "You're not planning on staying too much longer, are you? After today, you'll have to enroll into Garden for a little while. Else, they'll think you're an underclassmen whose trying to skip class."
"Maybe I can just talk with the head guy."
"Headmaster Cid? Actually, he's probably going to appoint his wife, Edea, or Quistis within a year. Or at least, that's what I've heard."
Sora scratched his head. "Sorry, I'm unfamiliar with the names."
"Don't worry, I'll help you out. I'll introduce you to some of my friends here, too. You already met Selphie and Zell, but you probably didn't aquaint with either of them real well."
Sora winced. "I hope Selphie doesn't still hate me."
He smiled. "I'm sure she doesn't. She's really understandable and optimistic. She'll be fine."
Sora thought for a moment, then said, "Squall, you know there are other worlds, right?"
"Well, sure, my sister is in another one."
"The thing is.. in the last world I was in, Paine's world, there was this guy named Wakka, and here, there's Selphie."
"And?"
"Well, on my island, there were two people named Wakka and Selphie that looked, sounded, and acted just like them, except on my island, they're at least three years younger than the ones I've ran into."
"Different worlds have different time zones," Squall explained. "Time runs faster in some worlds than others. It could've been that the worlds they are in now are the worlds they were meant to be in. Selphie is new here from Trabia, or that's what she claims. I don't know about this Wakka, though."
"You mean.. the time on my island goes slower than the time here?"
"Worlds that aren't very significant are slowed so that the life span on those worlds are longer. Everything has a certain balance. It could be that when you finally make your way back to Kairi, you could be several years older than her and don't know it."
"How much faster does this world move than Spira?"
"Spira moves faster than this world," Squall said. "Spira is more significant. There is a bigger population and there is Yevon, their God. Here, we don't really have a religion. It really depends on the factors of the world and outworlds, such as they have the Farplane. Here, we have the heavens."
"Farplane? I was told to meet someone in the Farplanes."
Squall frowned. "You went to see someone who was dead?"
"Aeris died?!"
"It was Aeris..? I hate to hear that, but I had heard the rumor. Yes, people who go to the Farplane are souls who have passed and gone. Technically, they have two worlds: the Farplane and Spira. Here, we just have the world of the living."
"What about Destiny's Island?"
"I can't say for sure. I haven't been on your island, but it seems that your island merely exists for the sake of Kairi."
"What..?"
Squall nodded. "I think Kairi is meant to be there, but I cannot say for sure. Have you heard the saying 'Only the strong survive'? The same concept goes for worlds. Worlds that have little significance cease to exist, yet, your world does exist, and there is a reason that you must find as to why it does."
Sora held his head. "Whew, all this talk of worlds is giving me a headache."
Squall smiled. "Wanna lie back down?"
"You wouldn't mind?"
"Sleep as long as you'd like. A storm will be coming in soon, and you'll probably feel like sleeping more, but I'd get up and take advantage of the sun."
"I'll be up soon," Sora said.
Shortly after, Squall walked out and shut the door behind him. Sora looked out his window again and to the skies, but the cloud he saw of Kairi earlier had blown away.