My goodness…it has simply been forever since I've worked on this thing. However, the fact that I only received one review for the last chapter doesn't inspire much confidence. Nonetheless, as promised to my friend that I began writing this for, I will finish it whether anyone actually reads it or not.

Chapter Seven: The Girls on the Island

"Ah! So you're awake! I was beginning to wonder if you were planning on sleeping forever!" She saw a girl with red-brown hair hovering above her as she wearily forced her eyes to open. Pushing her aching body up from the bed in which she was lying also took a considerable amount of effort. "How long have I been asleep?" She asked, pushing her palms against her eyes.

"Pretty close to three days! Like I said, we didn't think you'd ever come to!" Her watcher answered, while carefully handing her a mug of some hot liquid. "My name's Kairi by the way." The girl said while sitting on her knees beside the bed. "What do I call you?"

"Garnet" She answered as friendly as she could manage through her groggy state. "Where am I? How…What happened?" Garnet had so many questions, questions that she needed answers to. With her questions, Kairi's face dropped into a frown. "I can tell you where you are. Right now you're on Destiny Islands. Specifically, you're in the room of my best friend. He hasn't' come back for a really long time though, so I don't suspect he'll mind if I let you use it." She giggled to herself slightly, although Garnet recognized it as a sad giggle. Whoever this guy was, he was obviously very important to Kairi. It must be just like waiting for Zidane…I wonder it he made it out alright. That thought brought a twisted frown to her face.

"What was the last thing you remember?" Kairi's voice broke her concentration on Zidane. Garnet tried to reach back into her memory to bring out bits and pieces of the memory. "There was a storm…" Her voice quivered with fear as she recalled the memory. "But, somehow this storm was different…there was a giant sphere of dark energy suspended in the sky. Shadows began to move around on the ground on their own, only they materialized and attacked us." She choked back a sob at the memory of Zidane at the entrance to her castle, blade in hand, holding off the creatures and yelling at her to go. "That's…all I remember. Can you tell me what happened?"

"I wish I could tell you for sure…" Kairi shook her head. "But I have a pretty good idea of what might have happened." Garnet watched as she sat back and hugged her knees to her chest. "I…just can't believe that it's happening again. All this time I believed Sora had simply forgotten about me, forgotten his promise to come back. I didn't think for a second that this all wasn't over yet…"

"What are you talking about?" Garnet asked, disregarding the girl's feelings for a moment. She felt bad, but she needed answers. She needed to know what happened to Zidane, what had happened to Alexandria.

Kairi looked back up at her, eyes glistening with tears. "They're devouring them again. Once they take the heart of a world…it disappears. It wasn't over after all…"

"Well, I must say, Rykashi" Kuja turned around and faced her with a grin. "Your gift works splendidly." With another deadly twirl of steel, he brought the double scythe to rest at his side. Meanwhile, Rykashi sent the light keyblade sailing through the gut of the last shadow before twirling it back again. "I'm rather pleased." She returned his grin before swinging both keyblades upon her shoulders and taking a few deep breaths. Kuja glanced with curiosity at the two starkly contrasting oversized keys. "I hear keyblades such as those have names. What do they call yours?" He asked in all seriousness, taking a seat on the step of a nearby staircase.

"Well this one…" she responded by twirling the light blade and holding it up against the dark night air. "This one is called the Eternity." With that, she willed it to disappear into thin air, an ability, Kuja noticed, that keyblade wielders used quite frequently. He supposed it was most convenient. "And the other one?" He asked her. These blades intrigued him. While the Eternity seemed to radiate light from its very existence, the black keyblade seemed to suck all existence into some sort of eternal darkness.

"The Abyss" She answered plainly before twirling it a few times and making it vanish like its counterpart. However, she did so too soon as a flying hearless rushed past them, seemingly out of nowhere.

"That's it?" Rykashi gave Kuja a puzzled look. "It just passed us by? That's a little odd, don't you think?" He returned her puzzled look. "I'm going to follow it…" he said, taking off before even giving her a chance to protest. "Well fine then." Rykashi called after him. "I guess I'll just wait here?" The question was more to herself before taking a seat on the steps.

Meanwhile, Kuja took off full speed after the flying heartless as it twisted and turned its ways through the alleyways of Traverse Town. "Where exactly are you headed?" he asked aloud while chasing it closely, as not to lose it. Alleys twisted past windows, both darkened and illuminated. Each path twisted father and farther into this unfamiliar town. Eventually he reached a clearing, a waterway rushed on the far side of the open street. As he spotted the heartless he had been pursuing, he noticed something rather odd. It had stopped. The flying shadow was merely floating in midair, making no movement whatsoever. A quick flick of his wrist sent the dual scythe's blade right through the center of the shadow in a somewhat hollow victory.

"Ah, so you're the one…"

Kuja jumped, unable to see the source of the unknown voice in the surrounding darkness. "Who's out there? Rykashi?" He called out, hoping that it was indeed Rykashi that had followed him through the twisted maze into this shadow.

"You mean you weren't expecting me?" The voice was cold…not the sarcastic cold of Rykashi's, and Kuja had to work to stifle a gasp when the voice's source stepped into the streetlamp light.

"I was certainly expecting you…"