Disclaimer: Don't own FF franchises, Naruto, or any other liscence you might recognize.

AN: And this is my first shred of proof I am not dead! I mean, besides to Potter fans, anyway...>.>; Finished my novel, but that doesn't mean

I've got a whole lot of time. Still, I should hope to update more quickly once more.

Threads of Gaia

Chapter 2: Dark Stranger

The young man let out a grunt as he slammed into the broken bed. It was fortunate such an object was beneath him...otherwise...

His energy had been consumed by the battle with the creature, and what little of it had been preserved to sustain his consciousness was absorbed by the rough portal traveling. His eyes slipped shut and he fell into his dreams long before his friend could speak

He did not know whether it was morning or evening when he opened his eyes. All that filled his being was a strong presence..somewhere within a few miles of his current position. The connection he had with the elemental powers of Earth allowed him to sense the presence, alerting him to the very real danger.

"Chris.." The boy said, sitting up. "I think we need to leave...something's coming...and neither you nor I have the kind of power needed to destroy it..."

His golden eyes faded to something only he could see, before adding in a barely audible voice, "I hope there are wolves on this world...wherever we are..."

-----

Violet eyes glared at the weapon now only inches from her face, willing it to melt away into nothingness. Oh yes, she remembered well what that metal instrument was for.

Only a coward and a weakling would hide behind one of those...

Gun. That was the name of the thing threatening her.

She resisted the urge to spit on the floor in derision. Vile thing...

There was a movement nearby, and the man turned toward it, dropping his guard. A smirk passed across Kyoko's lips, and her muscles tensed to slash the weapon out of the man's hand in his moment of weakness.

Her clawed hand almost contacted with the weapon when a terrible shiver passed through her. She froze in shock as a feeling of dread wormed its way into her stomach, twisting and knotting her insides with an inexplicable fear.

I have awoken...

Pain exploded in her mind as the voice clawed at her consciousness. Howling in pain, she clutched her head in her hands, fighting to block out the evil presence that burned her with its very presence.

-----

Chris did not move for sometime, trying to give his body a chance to rest and recover some energy before he had to move again. He realized, however, that Kieron did not reply to his words, and he rolled over onto is chest and propped himself up on his elbows to look at the bed his friend had landed on.

"Kieron, are you...?" He paused in the middle of asking if his companion was alright as he realized the teen had fallen asleep.

Now that I think about it, I'm pretty worn out myself...after all, the two of us just escaped from a fierce battle and were dropped like a sack of potatoes through the threads of space and time.

Chris Harbyn decided to leave his friend alone for now, understanding that they both needed rest so they'd be re-energized for whatever this world held for them. However, the green-eyed teen could not bring himself to sleep yet, and instead forced himself onto his knees, pushing himself up onto his feet to have a look around.

Something just didn't sit right with him about letting himself rest before trying to scope out the area at least a little.

It was a fairly small room they'd crash landed through, almost like the top floor of a cabin built for a very small family. The floor and walls were all made of wood, somewhat singed at that, and everything was a general mess. There were books lying on the ground that were practically ripped to ribbons, and broken crayons were strewn across the floor. To say the least, the room was ravaged, especially after Kieron and Chris had smashed through the roof and sent down feathers flying everywhere.

Chris noticed a window on the other side of the bed Kieron was now occupying, but it seemed to be boarded up. Something was blocking it. The passageway leading downstairs was covered by a mass of shattered wood, probably from old broken dressers and chairs. Before he could become unnerved by the awkward blockage of the room, Chris found that his grogginess was rapidly increasing, making it nearly impossible to form a strategy for getting out.

He sank back onto the floor with an exhausted expression on his face, smiling mildly as he contemplated sleep. He shook his head, kneeling on the floor as he thought about it.

"I guess I can't do much else until I rest a little...Kieron's got the right idea..." The boy sighed and stretched out on the floor, crossing his bruised arms behind his head and lying there in an almost comfortable position. His mind refused to let him drift off until he had some sort of escape plan, at least some sort of emergency retreat. Sighing, he allowed himself to settle with the fact that if it came down to it, he and Kieron could climb back out through the hole in the roof or simply dig out the path leading downstairs.

His mind somewhat more at ease, the tired young swordsman let his eyes close, and his subconscious to take over.

-------

He had planned to only take a quick nap to refresh himself, but by the time he next awoke, it was several hours later. Kieron's voice had pulled him awake.

"Chris...I think we need to leave." he said, sounding serious.

Chris mumbled a little, still tired, and forced himself to sit up. His body was sore from the events of the day before, but he was a quick riser, it did not take him long to overcome morning sluggishness.

"Huh? Why?" he yawned, stretching a little. When Kieron did not immediately reply, he looked over at the boy with quizzical eyes, "What's up?"

"Something's coming...and neither you nor I have to power to destroy it." Kieron said, then added in a quieter voice, "I hope those wolves are on this world...wherever we are..."

"That's right..." Chris murmured, getting to his feet. "I was so tired before that I forgot to check our surroundings..."

Even though Chris could not yet feel the presence himself, he trusted Kieron enough not to question his intuition. Instead, the dark-haired youth walked across the room and knelt by the mess covering the way to the first floor. He set his hands on the pile of wood, wondering if he could move it at all.

"We've got a few little problems concerning our exit choices," he said, "The window and this way are blocked off by stuff...we can either dig out or climb back on the roof."

Looking back at his companion, Chris put on his best cheery expression, "What's your opinion of 'today's routes' Kieron?"

------

Amber eyes, slitted like a cat's, opened slowly. They twitched about, not really seeing, until they began to focus, coming finally to a stop and taking in the surrounding area.

The owner of these eyes, a young girl, slowly sat up, a headache working its way quickly through her skull. She was not a happy camper.

Her eyes roamed around the area near her. A city. A large city at that. It looked a lot like where she had first woken up when the strange evens of late had begun. She had woken up in a broken city then, in an abandoned ballroom...

She shook her head, slowly moving to her feet. There was a puddle of blood under her right foot, and she inspected the bottom of her foot to find a large cut. Thinking back, she remembered it was where she had a piece of glass jammed in her foot.

Well, at least the glass is gone. she thought in amusement.

She inspected herself next, seeing what state she was in. She was in a large black cloak, she absently wondered where it came from as she continued her inspection. The cloak served well to cover her lithe form and shield her face, but she did not need to see her clothes to know what she wore: A black top with half-sleeves over a mesh tank-top, and baggy black pants falling to her knees, decorated with a diamond mesh. She was silently thankful her hood hid her hair, as she remembered it being in utter disarray before she had blacked out and woken here.

She wondered absently how she had gotten in the room at all. I remember going through the first portal...my eyes had met one of my companions' before I felt something dark...something dark flew into my body...consuming me in darkness. I followed everyone in almost in a trance for I don't know how long, before I finally realized what was happening...but by then it was too late.

She remembered all too well the feelings that had torn her soul to shreds. It was as if she had been watching herself from a distance as she struggled with the darkness inside of her...falling to her knees and coughing blood as the unholy darkness ate away at her very being. She remembered a warm embrace enveloping her, and an icy blade slicing through her heart. The haunting voice that dragged her from the pain of death still echoed in her memory, words indistinct yet compelling, irresistibly leading her away from life into oblivion...and here?

She gave a soft growl. If that darkness had brought her here, then it was possible it was still lurking within her, waiting to be freed once more. As if in answer to her musing, she felt rather than heard a chuckle in the back of her mind. A low, amused chuckle.

Make no mistake child, I still live.

The girl made a curse unbefitting of her youthful appearance, and shook her head violently, stumbling forward off a large pile of rubble that looked like the remains of a building of some sort. With her chakra, she was able to keep from slipping as she made her way down to the ground below.

Her head jerked up, there was something near her, perhaps across the horizon, perhaps behind one of the ruined buildings lining the street she stood in. Her stomach churned at the looming presence pressing in around her. The darkness inside of her seemed to call to the thing like a pup to its mother, bringing it closer.

It feels just like the thing that destroyed the last world I was in... She spat an angry curse at the presence, and bolted. Now was not the time to deal with such a force, not before she even knew where it was that she had arrived.

Buildings flew past her vision in a blur as she ran, she barely had sense enough to dodge obstacles in her blind panic, and she thanked the planet her cloak billowing behind her did not catch on something and cause her to tumble and end up face-to-face with a force she doubted she could handle.

The road she was on was coming to an end, a particularly large building lie in her path, door hanging open. Without pausing to consider her actions, she raced into the building and slammed the door closed behind her. Panting for breath she slid to her knees against the door and closed her cat-like eyes, trying to compose herself.

I am a warrior! This weakness is unacceptable! She scolded herself, standing once more. She did not know how she knew she was a warrior, most of her memories before waking up in a similar world as this were blurry and faint if she could access them at all. Her memory after she woke, however, was crystal clear. This world, like the last, is doomed. Like my world, though, this has to have a portal out...

She nodded to herself decidedly. The only choice was to look for those that were lost and alone like her and her companions had been when they woke in that ballroom. She would lead them from the collapsing building--which ever one they were in--and find a way off of this doomed planet.

She ran a hand along the cold steel of the door she had just entered. This building was as good as any to search through. Judging by the harsh, windowless cement walls, she guessed it was a storage house of some sort, possibly even para-military. The 'room' she had entered in her panic was little more than a hallway, branching out to several different rooms. The only light came from places where the roof have caved in and sunlight now streamed in through the thick dust in the air. Dirty water dripped from corners of the room, and echoed through the long hallway as the hit the ground, the only noise besides the soft padding of her footsteps.

Most of the rooms she passed had little left of value in them, whether this was because of looters or if they had always been that way, she was unsure. Bodies littered several of the rooms, killed in an instant by the wave of death that had swept across the world in the wake of Gaia's insanity.

Finally she passed a room with medical supplies, and stopped to wrap her still bleeding foot in gauze and pack away some bandages and disinfectant for later use. Nearby she found some crates of food and clean water, and a large carrying pack with a snapped strap. Inside it were a few rudimentary weapons, a lighter, and extra clothes. The clothes were mostly torn and ruined, but one scrap of cloth caught her attention: a red velvet patch, embroidered with a golden phoenix.

Her fists clenched at the sight. Chris...

Absently, she folded it up and placed it in her pocket, oblivious to the fact that its partner lay as well in her pocket, where Chris had given her after her 'death'.

As she made it to the last room in the hallway, she froze in her tracks. Voices drifted out through the lone door in the building, behind which had likely been the command center before the destruction. When peeked in, her eyes fell on a man pointing a gun at a woman who seemed to be reacting to the dark presence lurking outside the building. Against one of the walls, she saw a young, blue-haired boy throwing up a lung, eyes watching the spectacle with pained concern as if he might have wanted to interfere.

Straightening herself out, she stepped into the room, face shrouded in the darkness of her cloak's hood. She cleared her throat in an attempt to catch the attention of the three in the room. "Excuse me, but I believe petty squabbles between strangers are the last of your problems."

Ch end

AN: WOW! I took forever to get this out! But hopefully I'll speed up with it soon!

-Yusagi Sombermoon