---Sora53: Chapter 4! Now, I would have posted it 3 weeks ago, but due to circumstances beyond my control...-cough-
my dad forgot to pay the phone bill and then tried to pay it but paid the wrong bill so he switched us to a new plan and we had to wait 2 weeks for it to get hooked up -cough- ...I only just got it up :D.
Fans: ...meh.
Joe: So, how is this a rhapsody?
Sora53: BE SILENT, FOOL! YOU MUST BE PATIENT!
Joe: MEEP! -hides behind Corita-
Corita: I WILL BLAST YOU!
Riku/Sora fangirls: Wh00t!---

Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts, but I own Corita. Meh.

Riku looked around wildly, stunned at what he saw. He'd used the card just as the voice had told him, yet he was in one of the last places he ever wanted to see again.
"This is Maleficent's castle! How'd I end up HERE? Someone must have brought me here while I was sleeping! But who...?"
"What you see is not real. It's the world of your memory." responded the same voice that had spoken to him in the darkness.
"My memory..."
"The things you remember of Maleficent's castle from your time there. Those memories became a card, and that card made this world. The things you see... you've seen them all before, haven't you?"
"Yeah... So what now? Am I supposed to learn something while I'm here? Maybe run into someone I know?" Riku called out to nothingness.
"Ordinarily...yes. You would meet the people in your memories."
"Ordinarily?" Riku questioned. The air, however, stood still, and no voice responded to him. "Hey, I'm asking you a question!" Riku yelled angrily.
"Fine." He said bitterly after a few moments. "But it'd better be you I run across next, Voice. I'm sick of talking to thin air."
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Goofy hummed merrily as he walked next to Donald, who was walking behind Sora. Corita stood next to Sora, staring at the ground, and the four of them were making their way through the town.
"It's quiet. Too quiet." Sora said jokingly to Corita as they headed into the Third District.
"Oh, don't do that." Corita said, her head still hanging.
"Look, Corita! This is the first place I ever said that to you."
Corita jerked her head up and looked at their surroundings. They had indeed entered the Third District of the phantom Traverse Town as she'd stared at the ground.
"Hey, you're right!" She said, remembering. She walked over to a corner of the district, and looked up. "And this is where Goofy and Donald first fell on top of us."
"Not one of my fonder memories." Sora said happily as he walked over to her. They stood there for a moment, reminiscing about the past, until Corita began to glow with a strange light.
"Uh, Corita? What's up with you?" Sora asked as he stepped away from her. Looking behind him, he saw the same thing was happening to Donald and Goofy.
"Sora, look out! There are Heart-" As Corita spoke, the light covered her completely, and within a split second she'd vanished. Lying on the ground where she'd stood moments before was a card with her face on it. Sora leaned down and picked it up, and ran back and did the same with the Donald and Goofy cards. 20 feet in front of him were a few Shadow Heartless, as dangerous as ever.
"Time to try out the power of the cards!" Sora said to himself as he looked at the three in his hand. If his instincts served him right...
He gingerly held the Donald card in his left hand, and held it high above his head as the Heartless came closer. The card flashed brightly, and Donald appeared, staff in hand. He let out a blast of thunder, striking the Heartless. As quickly as he'd appeared, however, he vanished in a cloud of light.
"So this is how they work..." Sora said to himself. He chose the Goofy card out of the remaining two, and repeated what he'd done with the Donald card. This time, of course, Goofy appeared instead of Donald, and ran towards them with his shield, and several of the Heartless vanished.
"Just one card left..." Sora said softly as he looked down at Corita's face. He spent too much timelooking at the card,anda clawed hand struck him from behind. Sora winced as the pain resonated through his body. Almost through instinct, he held up the Corita card, and felt a familiar warmth spread through him as he sensed Corita next to him. As soon as the feeling came, however, it vanished...
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"It's like he said — everything's just how I remember it. Even this room..." Riku muttered. He'd been proceeding through Hollow Bastion as he used to, and he'd traversed his way back to his old room. Everything was exactly as he'd left it. Books scattered near the bookshelf, the bed neatly made.
"It must be nice being back in your old bedroom. Think of all the memories..." "You again." Riku said to the air as the familiar voice filled the air. "Sorry, but these memories I could do without. Maleficent gave me this room."
"So she did. And you lived here, tempted by the darkness she offered. You cast away your home, your friends, everything... But at least they gave you a nice room." The Voice taunted.
"Shut up." Riku growled as he turned his back to his old bedroom and went back out to the castle.
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"Hmm, fighting alone isn't as easy as I thought..." Sora muttered, clutching his Keyblade. He'd just defeated the last Heartless, and the town around him was still and silent.
Just as it had happened before, bolts of light appeared on the ground next to him. Within moments, Corita, Donald, and Goofy had appeared next to him. Sora lept backwards in suprise.
"Aaaah!! Don't pop out of nowhere like that!" Sora cried as his friends recovered from their dizziness.
"Yeah, like we can help it." Corita muttered under her breath.
"We don't know what's going on either, Sora." Donald said.
"Gawrsh, your fighting's gotten kinda rusty. You sure you don't need us?" Goofy asked kindly.
"I'm fine, honest." Sora told them.
"Think like that, and you're as good as Heartless fodder." said a familiar voice.
"That's Leon's voice!" Goofy cried happily.
Leon, it's you! What are you doing in Castle Oblivion?" Sora asked as Leon walked towards them.
Leon simply stared at them like they were insane. "Castle Oblivion? What are you talking about? This is Traverse Town. And how do you know my name? I've never seen any of you before in my life." They were silent for a moment. "Quit playing, Leon! We all fought the Heartless together! You know that!" Sora yelled.
"Look, I don't know what you're talking about. I don't even know your names." Leon said. The group stared at him in disbelief. It was certainly Leon. Same clothes, same face...yet he didn't seem to remember them at all.
"You don't?" Goofy asked sadly.
"Sorry." Leon said coolly.
"I can't believe it. How can you have forgotten about us?" Sora asked slowly.
"Hey, I feel for you. But you've got the wrong guy. Happens all the time. Don't take it so personally, Sora."
"See, you DO know his name!" Corita said happily.
"Now, now hold on! Why do I know your name?" Leon wondered outloud.
"Stop kidding around!" Corita yelled to him.
"I'm not kidding, Corita! I swear I didn't..." Leon stopped, shocked by what he'd said.
"You think Leon is just kidding around?" Goofy whispered to Donald.
"If he is, it's not very funny. Sora's really hurt." Donald whispered back.
"Who's kidding around, Goofy? You and Donald are the ones who —" Leon said as they stared at him. "I don't get it... What's happened to my memory?"
"I dunno, Leon. Maybe Aerith was onto something after all." said another familiar voice. The group turned to see Yuffie walking towards Leon, who had a very confused look on his face.
"She said she sensed some uncanny kind of power and asked us to look into it. Well, we looked. And this is as uncanny as it gets. Maybe we should bring Sora and the others to Aerith." Yuffie said as she stopped next to Leon.
"Yuffie, you know my name!" Sora said happily.
Yuffie turned to him. "Yep! Looks like you know mine, too."
"A friend of yours?" Leon asked her.
Yuffie shook her head. "Nope! Total stranger. But I definitely know his name. Strange, yes, but convenient! We can skip the introductions."
"Well, gee, I guess all our problems are solved." Corita said sarcastically.
"Anyways, I'm gonna run ahead and fill Aerith in. Leon, you give Sora and the others the grand tour. See ya later!" "Well, let's get on with it. Come on, follow me. Be careful, though. There are still Heartless wandering around town." Leon said to them as he watched Yuffie walk away.
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"No one here, either... there's nothing but Heartless in this castle. Voice! I know you're watching...so explain this: where are the people from my memories? Tell me!" Riku called out as he stood on the castle, the sunset casting a bloody glow over the place.
"Are you sure you want to see them?" The voice asked.
"Of course I do!" Riku cried.
"But you cast them aside. To reach the outside world, you passed through the door to darkness. Behind you, you left family, friends, home...everything...all in pursuit of darkness." The voice taunted as Riku's fists clenched in fury.
"But I cast that aside, too!" Riku yelled in anger.
"Then what do you have to show for it?" The voice asked coldly. "First your home, then the dark. Your heart only knows how to throw things away. It's empty, like that room. Like your memories. That's why no one is in the castle with you. Your heart is hollow except for the darkness you couldn't quite shake off."
"You're full of it! I rejected the darkness!"
"Ha ha ha..." the voice chuckled. "Did you really, now?"
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"Aerith, tell me you haven't forgotten me, too." Sora said softly as he stood in front of her. Leon had led them to the familiar vacant house that they'd spent so much time in, plotting against the Heartless.
Aerith's eyes stared into Sora's. "I don't know whether to say 'nice to meet you' or 'good to see you again.'" she said truthfully. "It feels like a little of both. I don't think I know you, but I still feel like you belong here."
"Yeah, exactly! Like we've never met, but it still doesn't feel weird knowing your name." Yuffie said from the corner of the room.
"But I'm telling you, we HAVE met. We took on the Heartless together. We were a team!" Sora cried.
"It feels like you're right... But I can't remember." Leon muttered.
"Then I guess you won't remember what you told me." Sora said sadly. "In Hollow Bastion, when I sealed the Keyhole: 'We may never meet again..."
"...but we'll never forget each other."
"See, you do remember!" Corita yelled at Leon.
"They're right, Leon! I remember you saying that, too." Yuffie said to him.
"I guess I can't write it off as a coincidence, then." Leon said calmly.
"I don't think I have any memory of it...but somehow I still remember. Maybe Sora's heart is doing the remembering for us." Aerith thought aloud.
"How does THAT work?" Sora asked.
"We don't know you, Sora, but your heart is full of memories of us together. Those memories must resonate in our hearts, too. Maybe they tell us things we couldn't otherwise know." Aerith explained.
"So you're saying that Sora's memories are affecting ours?" Yuffie asked.
"His memories do seem to have a certain power..."
"Maybe it's like that guy said, then." Sora said, crossing his arms. "This town is just an illusion. Something my memories created."
"And...there's someone special to you in this town?" Aerith asked.
"How did you ..." Sora started, then he remembered what she'd just said. "Ah, I get it. My memories are resonating with yours, telling you what happened. Anyway, yeah. A friend of mine is somewhere in this town — I mean, Castle Oblivion."
"Castle Oblivion?" Yuffie said, puzzled. "What's that? There aren't any castles in Traverse Town."
"That's not quite what he means..." Corita said slowly.
"We just got here, anyway. It wouldn't hurt to take a look around." Sora said.
"Then go have a walk around town. There are Heartless, but that's no problem for you." Leon said to him.
"Ha! So you know I can fight!" Sora yelled, excited.
"I can't say I remember..." Leon said slowly. "...but I am starting to believe."

---Sora53: Fwee! You know what I missed most about writing mah fanfic?
Fans:...your sanity?
Sora53: No! The dun dun dun's!
Fans: That was hardly a dun dun dun moment.
Joe: DUN DUN DUN!
Sora53: Thank you, Joe. For that, I will tell you what happens to Corita inda ficcy!
Joe: O-o takes out a notebook
Corita: NO FAIR! How come he gets to know before I do!?---