Paine finally found Kairi sitting on the ground against a wall, staring out over the water in silence. The warrior began to walk faster, slightly angered. What did she think she was doing, just running off like that?! We don't know this city and neither does she, not to mention the fact that if we don't get back to the stadium soon, we're not going to ever get back to Spira! She wasn't far from the girl now, and was about to chastise her when Kairi did something she hadn't expected. She began to sing.

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Kairi ran. And ran. She didn't know where she was going, but she knew she didn't want to go back. Not yet anyways. She didn't understand how she could be so upset. She should be happy for Yuna, and she knew Yuna would do anything to help her find Sora now. How could she be so self-centered when Yuna was being so kind to her? She was running out of breath, and she knew that they'd be looking for her. She decided that they weren't going to find her until she was ready to be found, slipping into the shadows between a building and the water and settled down on the concrete. She sat there for a long time. There was a warm breeze rising off the water and it reminded her of the Destiny Islands. She wasn't sure if the memory was helping her or hurting her more. Before she could stop herself, she had tears streaming down her cheeks, sobbing softly. She didn't know how long she cried for, but it felt like a very long time. She had run out of tears but the pain was still as strong as before. She didn't bother to wipe away the single tear that was left clinging to her eyelashes. With nowhere else to turn for comfort, she started to sing.

Goodnight, sleep tight
No more tears
In the morning I'll be here

Her eyes were closed, but when she opened them, she swore she could see Sora standing in front of her. She never knew herself to have hallucinations, but she'd also never missed anyone the way she was missing him now. She could feel her heart cracking and breaking, spilling all her sadness and hurt out through her. She paused in her song, looking up at him standing in front of her. He bent over so her was at eye level with her and she could never have imagined a hallucination to be so vivid as this one.


And when we say goodnight,
Dry your eyes

Her final tear was rolling down her cheek now. Sora, still smiling sadly, reached out and gently wiped it away. She shut her eyes, savouring the feeling of his skin against hers. Her eyes snapped open when she realized that she had in fact felt him touch her. Desperately, she grasped at his hand as he pulled it away, but her hand fell right through him. He frowned, looking at his hand them back at her. He tried to speak, but no sound came out of his mouth. She could tell, though, that he'd been saying 'Goodnight'. With that, he vanished. The tears came back in full force, now, as she barely was able to finish the song. Her voice was quiet as she sang the last lines:


Because we said goodnight,
And not goodbye
We said goodnight
And not goodbye

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Paine was stopped dead. The song had brought her to tears. Paine was a woman who very rarely showed any emotion, and yet a single song could reduce her to tears. Since the first few words were sung, she had been swamped with an unexplainable sadness. She felt as if she was missing someone. Shutting her eyes, she let herself dig deeper into these unexpected feelings to find a cause. Deep inside her, she felt the swirling sadness, the terrible longing. And at the center of it all was… Baralai?! Her eyes snapped open and she was pulled out of her deep thought as Kairi spoke.

"Paine?" she asked quietly, wiping her eyes.

"Kairi! I…" she started to reprimand her, but couldn't find the words or the will anymore. This was definitely not normal. Kairi was watching her curiously as she cleared her throat. "Come on. Rikku and Yuna are waiting." The two of them began to walk in silence. They hadn't gotten far when Kairi whispered something incomprehensible. Paine glanced at her. "What?" Kairi looked up and half smiled.

"Paine? Can I…ask you something? It's kind of important." Paine could tell from the tone of Kairi's voice what kind of a question it was going to be.

"Look Kairi. I'm not the greatest at answering these kinds of questions. You'd be better off going to Yuna about it, she's the most understanding of the three of us." She replied bluntly. Kairi hid a smile.

"But I haven't even asked the question yet. How do you know?"

"Yuna's better at answering any of those kinds of questions, no matter what it is." There was silence for another moment.

"I can't go to Yuna with this question. Besides, I think you would be the best person to answer it."

"Shoot." Paine offered, resigned.

"Well…How do you deal?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, you're always so calm and collected. You never let your emotions get in the way of anything. And then there's me. I can't even be happy for Yuna without feeling sorry for myself. I want to know how you manage to be the way you are." Paine shrugged.

"I've always been like this. Even more so since the incident with the Crimson Squad. Even though that's all over now, I'm still the way I am." She paused, deciding on whether or not she wanted to continue. She lowered her voice substantially. "Besides, I'm not as unbreakable as you think. Your song…"

"Well, my singing does those weird things to people. It's not the first time something like that has happened. What happened with the Crimson Squad?"

"Betrayal. After that, I swore I'd never put that kind of trust into anyone again, and this is how I ended up." Paine replied. It all seems so simple. Kairi thought, sighing. Why am I not like her then? Why am I still so hurt? I've been betrayed like that before. Twice. Why am I still so vulnerable? As if Paine had read her thoughts, she spoke. "I guess some people react to different kinds of pain in different ways. I scar. You heal." Paine was looking Kairi in the eyes now, and Kairi got the impression that Paine was telling her things she told very few people. "Sometimes I wish I could be more like you, and like Yuna. It seems to me that you two are very good at getting over these things. Me? I turn bitter and hard. I guess we all want to be what we're not sometimes."

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Sora's eyes snapped open. The sunlight filled them momentarily, blinding him as he rolled out of bed. He, Donald and Goofy were all set to explore this new and vast world, and they had decided the day before that they would begin in the biggest city, Luca, in Spira as they were told this world was called. Sora reached up and pulled the blinds down, throwing a shadow over the room. He let his eyes adjust. Standing up and getting ready, he was not smiling. He picked up his Keyblade, and was ready to go out and get Donald and Goofy, but he stayed, staring into the mirror. He wasn't staring at himself, it was more that he was staring off into the mirror itself. He'd had a most strange, most troubling, most upsetting dream. He shook his head, trying to get it out of his mind, walking outside. They'd been staying in a small hotel on the outskirts of the city. Donald and Goofy's rooms were on each side of his. He'd had quite a bit of trouble paying for the rooms with his munny, because apparently this world used a different currency, which he was told was called gil. In the end, he convinced the cleric to take the munny (once Sora offered to pay him twice what he was asking for as an exchange rate). Donald was on his way out of his room too, and they found Goofy waiting for them in the lobby. First thing on their list to do that day was to go get some of this gil. They had walked out into what appeared to be the main square of the city. Goofy was looking at Sora…again. He looked almost worried. Sora looked up at him, trying to seem relaxed, which proved to be hard as the dream was still weighing heavily on his mind.

"What's up, Goofy?" he asked, trying to sound normal.

"Are you okay, Sora?" Goofy asked in reply. It was obvious Sora's attempt to be relaxed had not worked. He kept the mask on anyways.

"Sure, why?"

"Goofy's right, Sora." Donald agreed. "There's something wrong."

"Come on, Sora, tell us." Goofy urged him. Sora sighed, sitting down on one of the benches.

"It's nothing big, it was just a dream." There was silence for a moment. Donald and Goofy were waiting for Sora to continue, and he obliged, his mind telling him that he shouldn't worry Goofy and Donald about it and get over it, but it was also telling him that it was something bigger, and that it would help if he talked about it. "I dreamt I was in a city."

"Like Traverse?" Donald asked.

"No, it was way bigger. There were towers that were higher than anything I'd ever seen before, and it was huge. It looked like it would take weeks just to walk from one end to the other. And it was surrounded almost completely by water. And it was lit up all the time. It was so bright that you couldn't even see the stars. And Kairi was there. She was sitting by the water. Everywhere else in the city was full of people. But here, it was only her. And there was another woman walking toward her, but I don't know who she was. Kairi was sitting by the water, and she was crying. I was standing on the water, and I tried to go to her, but I couldn't. My feet wouldn't move. Then she started singing. I've never heard her sing before. She had an amazing voice. The song was so sad though. Once she started singing, I could move, so I went to her. She looked so surprised when she saw me. Even when she was singing, it looked like she was still crying, because there were still tears in her eyes. I wiped away one of her tears, and she tried to grab my hand, but it was like I was a ghost. Her hand went right through me. She started to cry again, and everything disappeared. I didn't even get to hear the rest of her song." There was a long silence. Sora was staring at the ground. They'd been to Destiny Islands, but when they arrived, she was gone. No one could find her anywhere. Sora had worried over where she could have gone, until he found the door in the Secret Place. Or rather, he didn't find it. It was gone. And he knew that's where she went. It was his fault she left. He hadn't come for her soon enough. Goofy's voice pulled him out of his thoughts.

"Don't worry Sora, we'll find her."

"…I hope so."