*Author's Note: Ok, so I lied. This chapter's being updated probably less
than a week after the first chapter. Okay, so I lied. Sue me. No flamers
because I am, sad to say, one of those kinds of people who get easily
insulted. I hate it when that comes over me but that happens. And when that
happens, I'll probably get in an extremely bad mood and never type this
story again. So please, no flamers. Sue me but no flamers. Enjoy!
Secrets of Memories
Chapter 2: Lost Worlds and Time
Shanks did not like waiting, period. The homeless street fighter leaned against a wall of a closed store, puffing on a cigarette, waiting for his client to arrive. Shanks was a middle-aged drooped mustache drunkard, who habitually took a swig from his metal canteen that he always wore on a leather strap hung over his shoulder. Adorned in a faded woolen jacket, with a faded plaid shirt, and dusty, muddy jeans, wearing black leather boots he stole from a shoe store in Twilight Town, he was the one, the homeless drunkard who usually made his rounds around the underground bars in Twilight Town, downing beer and ale until drunk and getting into huge fights with the other drunkards in the bars. Shanks, a blond with stringy hair tucked under a felt hat with a wide rim that often hid his face from unwanted attention and a long moustache that dropped downwards to a weak chin, peered down the alley he was in with stormy blue eyes. A wound on his cheek suddenly pained and Shanks clutched at it, wincing. And with that, his eyes clouded over in rage, rage and hatred at the one who inflicted the wound.
He was drunk at that moment in time, drunk dead but still standing. He had come staggering out of a boarded up, running bar late at night when he spotted three teenagers waling down the opposite sidewalk of a gloomy part of Twilight Town. Thinking that they were gang members searching for a fight, he yelled a profane word at them. The one with blond hair shouted back something that Shanks interpreted to be vile and he charged that one, while the other two scattered. He proceeded to fight the teenager, pounding his fists into the blond person's face and body. Blood began to seep onto the cold, dark street yet Shanks, not the kind of person to let blood run, kept pounding the kid into the ground. He kept at it when he was suddenly hit by some forceful wind and knocked off. Through his drunk eyes, he saw some strange blond teenager in a black cloak, surrounded by the wind that pushed Shanks off the blond teenager. Infuriated that he could not finish his little duel with the other teenager, he yelled at the stranger and tried to shove him aside so that he could get to the teenager. But the stranger had stopped him immediately, swinging something cold, cold like metal, into his face, onto the cheek of his face, leaving behind a painful wound.
Shanks was beaten by the stranger and left to nurse his wounds and start a crazed obsession with revenge. He had seen the strange teenager several times through the months following their odd meeting, and yet could not just run up and strangle him; there were just too many people around. Shanks instead went into hiding, coming around once in a while to pick up or steal some liquor from places and hiding again to find away to kill the teenager who stopped him from beating up the other teenager.
And now, nearly a year after that fateful meeting, Shanks was going to meet someone, someone who would pay him handsomely to do something very secretive and important. Shanks can use the munny to purchase more liquor and items to help him get the stranger to pay. Yes, to get the stranger to pay.
He heard footsteps, slow, steady footsteps in the distance, coming close to where he was standing. He heard the footsteps splash through the puddles of water left by a recent drizzle, heard the footsteps rustle through littered paper, and Shanks knew: his client was coming.
Through the gloom that swamped Twilight Town at night, Shanks could see a man, cloaked and hooded in black, walking slowly towards him, slowly and steadily. Shanks grew excited; he could almost smell the munny, liquor, and revenge that were within his grasp.
The stranger came to a standstill a few feet from where Shanks was standing. He could see only a chin, a mouth, and the tip of a nose; the hood was pulled down so low over his face that the shadows covered two- thirds of his face. The cloaked stranger also wore black trousers and black boots, blending in almost perfectly with the darkness in the alley.
" Shanks?" the mouth moved. The voice was firm and with a chill.
Shanks shivered at the tone and the sound of the voice but he willed himself to say, " Yes, Mister."
" You will be paid five thousand munny to do as I tell you to do and to keep very, very quiet about what you have done," the stranger stated briskly, waving aside Shanks' attempt to find out his client's name. " You must also never mention anything about me. No description of me, nothing. If you do the opposite of what I just told you, then you will pay dearly in something instead of munny. Is that clear, Shanks?"
Shanks nodded numbly, stunned into silence by this person's overwhelming authority.
" What do you want me to do?" he managed to say.
" There are three newcomers here in Twilight Town," the stranger spoke coldly, almost as though he was spitting out something disgusting from his mouth. " They're easy to spot, especially two of them. One is a short- tempered white duck, the other is a clumsy dog-like knight from another kingdom. They're with a fifteen-year-old boy with light brown hair and sky- blue eyes. He'll be wearing black, blue, and red. The boy's name is Sora. The duck's name is Donald and the knight is known as Goofy. You must follow them to the bell tower and then you must report to me back here at this very spot. If you see a huge white creature head towards the bell tower, abandon those three people and come back here immediately and report to me. Whatever you do, do not be seen and do not mess this up. The white one cannot reach those three nor can they reach him. If a meeting is inevitable, use this whistle I will give you and my soldiers will come and make sure they will not meet. Do you understand?"
Shanks nodded his head. Then the stranger took his right hand and slapped a small, thin silver whistle into the palm of his hand.
" Don't' lose this whistle and don't mess this mission up," the stranger ordered him. " You will pay dearly if you do."
With that, the stranger turned smartly in another direction and strode off, leaving behind a rather bewildered Shanks.
" What the hell is he talking about?" Shanks muttered as he pocketed the whistle. " Find some people and follow them around? For five thousand munny? This must be something so big or else he wouldn't even find me out. Me, the master stalker in Twilight Town. Heh, I can walk around on the busy streets, following one person and nobody would have any idea who I am or what I'm doing. Hm, maybe that's why this guy found me out."
He was muttering to himself like an eccentric homeless as he walked off into the darkness of the alley, until the gloom swallowed him.
*~*~*
" Where is he.I must find him!" he told himself as he wandered through the many streets of Traverse Town. The sixteen-year-old teenager had gone about practically the whole of Traverse Town and yet there was no sign of him.
The teenager was tall, lean, and muscular. He had a serious face, a face half-hidden by a black scarf that covered his eyes. Silvery white hair flowed down his face and around his neck, a strong contrast to the dark clothing he wore. Dressed in a simple black coat with a hood, walking about in black boots and trousers, he was a formidable sight to see.
" Where can they be? I know they've been here before but where have they gone? The guy at the accessory store saw them leave his place two weeks ago and never saw them since. And they're regular visitors to his store so that means they've gone somewhere.but there's so many worlds. How can I find them?"
The teenager paced the length of an alley, an alley with a boarded up dead end. He continuously paced the length of it, outside one of two accessory shops he had been to. He had questioned the three white ducks that ran the shop but they had no further information on the whereabouts of his friends than the yellow-haired clerk in the other shop.
" Cid said that they probably went to another world through the World Exit," he told himself, " but which world? And do I have to go through all the worlds? Come on, Riku, think: where have Sora and his friends gone? Think, think."
" Think, think, think, think," continued a voice near where he was walking.
Riku turned to see an orange-yellow bear sitting on the steps in front of Cid's accessory shop, tapping his head continuously with his right hand. Wearing a short-sleeved red shirt and with a large black nose and toy-like appearance, the bear looked most certainly like a teddy bear. An overly huge, live teddy bear.
" Think, think, think, think," the bear continued to repeat.
Riku cautiously approached him and greeted, " Hello, is there a problem?"
" Huh?" the bear looked up. " Oh, no, not really. I'm just trying to think of a way to get back to my friends. Think, think, think, think-"
" What do you mean?" Riku asked curiously.
" You see," the bear attempted to explain, " I was with my friend, Piglet, and I was trying to get some honey from the honey tree."
" Uh-huh." Riku said.
" So we got a balloon so I can go up, up, to where the honey is on the honey tree," the bear said. " And I was going up, near the honey and the bees, when I heard Piglet shout, ' Pooh, Pooh! We've got to get out of here!' I shouted back, ' What happened, Piglet?' and I heard his scream. Oh what a horrible scream."
With that, the bear, apparently named Pooh, covered his face with his hands.
" What happened after your friend screamed?" Riku asked as gently as he could.
" Huh? Oh," Pooh looked back up to the blindfold on Riku's face. " I looked down and I saw these black things swarming all over the place. Huge, long, crooked ears, long claws, and yellow eyes. They were all over the place. I couldn't see Piglet anymore nor everything around us. And the balloon kept lifting me up, up, until poof! I was sitting on this cold floor in a very cold room. I looked back and I saw a book, a thin, red book. The pages were open and black stuff was slowly covering the white pages. And then.the book was gone."
" Black things.crooked ears, yellow eyes.oh no," Riku gasped and sat down next to Pooh. He covered his face with his arms. " Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no."
" Why, what happened?" Pooh asked.
" I think I know what happened to your friend, Pooh," Riku explained sadly. " I think, and this only what I think happened, these black creatures called the Heart-Heartless came to your world from another world."
He stuttered over that world. Heartless. He shuddered. That word, the darkness in it, the hatred. He hated that word.
" My world?" Pooh thought. " You mean, the red book?"
Riku nodded.
" Hm.then those Heartless took the book and took my home in the process?" Pooh asked, his voice trembling. " Piglet.and my other friends: Tigger, Roo, Rabbit, Eeyore.oh.and the honey."
Riku tilted his head at this. So this Pooh really did like honey.
" More outsiders," Pooh suddenly said thoughtfully. " First Sora, then these-"
" What? Say that again!" Riku exclaimed, his sympathy for Pooh replaced by the excitement that Pooh may have met Sora before.
Pooh looked at him, a startled expression on his face, before saying, " I said, ' First Sora, then these-' and then you cut me off. Why?"
" You've met Sora?" Riku fired.
" Yes, he came to my place," Pooh replied. " He helped us out with a lot of stuff, like saving Eeyore and finding the pin for his tail, and helping me get honey."
" Sora, doing that?" Riku snorted. " And I thought he had more important things to do!"
" He pulled out this huge key of his and did something to our place," Pooh mused.
" What? His key?" Riku demanded, startled by the added information. " He must've sealed your world!"
" I don't get it," Pooh mumbled.
" I don't' get it either, Pooh," Riku sighed, suddenly deflated after the outburst of energy. " He sealed your world, Pooh, and that meant that those black creatures weren't supposed to return to your world. But something happened."
" What did?" an unfamiliar voice asked behind them both.
Both Riku and Pooh turned around to the steps behind them. All they saw were a pair of bare feet so they looked up into the long, lean face of a man, a man slightly hunched down like a gorilla, and with long brown hair. His green eyes, serious and kinda brooding, peered at them. He was wearing a brown loincloth and in his right arm, his strong hand clenched a spear.
" Um.hello," Pooh waved a greeting.
" Er.hi," Riku said slightly nervously. " What can we do for you?"
" What happened?" the man asked. " You said something about sealing, world, and Sora."
" You know Sora?" Riku asked in astonishment. He was barely able to fish out anything useful out of those three young ducks and the guy named Cid who both ran accessory shops and all of a sudden he met two people-er, make that one person and a bear who knew Sora.
" Sora came to my world," the man answered, placing his free hand to his chest to emphasize 'my'. " Came with his friends. He helped reveal who Clayton was. He sealed my world. Then something happened."
" What is your name?" Riku asked.
" I am.Tarzan," the man answered.
" Tarzan." Riku rolled the name in his mouth. What a strange name. But Pooh was a strange name, too. Where DID they come from?
" What did your home look like?" Pooh asked curiously.
" Full of trees, green leaves. It is warm, wet and warm. My family lived in the trees. Kala, my mother, Terk, my best friend, Kerchak, the leader of my family, and.Jane."
Sorrow filled his eyes and voice. Riku knew something serious had happened. This sounded like a world, another world, one like the world Pooh lived in. Oh no.
" Did your world-did your world disappear, too?" Riku asked carefully. " Pooh here said that the Heartless came and destroyed his world. What about you?"
" The Heartless are stronger," Tarzan replied. " Stronger, more powerful. I could not save them. I could not save my family, my friends, Jane.the Heartless took everything."
" But didn't Sora do something with a huge key, too?" Pooh asked curiously. " Judging from what you guys are saying, he used a big key, right?"
" He sealed the Keyhole," Tarzan said. " He sealed it where the blue butterflies are. But something happened."
" Two worlds gone.that means more worlds are going to disappear, right?" Riku asked. " Oh my god, that's it! Something's wrong with the keyholes and that means the worlds are disappearing-what about Traverse Town?"
With that, he got up and made a dash for Cid's shop, with Tarzan and Pooh following him.
" Sir-Cid!" Riku gasped out, remembering that Cid liked to be called by his name only. " Cid, there's a keyhole here, right?"
Cid, in the act of polishing the glass case that held a synthesized item, looked up. Eyeing the person and the bear next to the tall, silver-haired kid, he grumbled out, " That's right. Sora locked this place. The keyhole's in the Second District. You go up the stairs next to my shop and through the large double doors-why?"
" These guys here, Pooh, and Tarzan, they lost their worlds!" Riku exclaimed.
" Wait a minute, wait a minute," Cid countered. " Worlds.didn't Sora go and seal their worlds?"
" He did," Tarzan answered. " But the Heartless are stronger. My world is gone. This one, Pooh, his world is gone, too. Sora sealed both worlds. But now they are gone."
" Oh no," Cid's voice faded. " That means Traverse Town might go to the Heartless, too."
" What do you think happened, Cid?" Riku asked.
" What I think happened," Cid said, " is this: the Heartless returned, which means something happened when Sora tried to close Kingdom Hearts. It might've been locked wrong, or someone opened it from behind-Riku, are you okay?"
Riku's face turned a ghastly white.
" King-King Mickey," he stuttered. " King Mickey and I.we tried to get out of Kingdom Hearts. Some-somehow the door was unlocked and-and we tried to lock Kingdom Hearts from the outside. B-but we couldn't. King Mickey c- couldn't lock Kingdom Hearts.someone unlocked Kingdom Hearts and King Mickey and I showed the Heartless a way out.oh no."
Riku collapsed onto a couch in the accessory shop and covered his face with his hands.
" I'm so sorry, Pooh, Tarzan," he whispered. " I didn't know."
" I don't blame you," Tarzan replied with a reassuring hand on Riku's back.
" This can be fixed, right?" Pooh asked hopefully.
" I'm going to have to contact Leon, Yuffie, Aerith, and Cloud," Cid stated as he made his way out from behind the counter he was standing behind. " Riku, its not your fault, okay? Whatever you did before, it's not your fault."
" Then whose fault is it?" Riku asked shakily.
Cid paused for a moment at the foot of the door out of his shop.
" Call it fate."
*~*~*
" Oh.a shooting star," Kairi gasped as she looked up at the blue sky.
A white ball of flame streaked across the blue sky, leaving behind a flaming line, before vanishing over the horizon.
The wind blew in her face but the sun warmed her, as she stood a little way from the waves of the sea that surrounded Destiny Island. She watched as the last traces of the shooting star fade before turning to go back to her room.a shooting star.
She froze. A shooting star.what does it mean?
" Kairi, are you okay?" Selphie asked worriedly. " You turned all pale and everything."
" No, its nothing, Selphie," Kairi sighed and shook her head, her red hair falling over her face.
" Are you sure?" Selphie asked. She restlessly whipped at the sand they were standing on with her nunchaku. Her green eyes followed Kairi's blue eyes to the sea. " Don't tell me.you're still waiting for Sora and Riku to come home."
Kairi sighed and lowered her head.
" Yes," Kairi replied. " I still am."
" Will they ever return?" Selphie wondered. " Living on this island without either one of them is as bad as living on this island without Tidus and Wakka."
Two other people who had lived on Destiny Islands with them were Tidus and Wakka.
Tidus was thirteen, one year younger than Sora and Kairi and two years younger than Riku when the Heartless first swallowed up Destiny Islands. Wakka, a tall fifteen-year-old who played and fought with a blue blitzball, was something like Tidus and Selphie's big brother and he looked after everyone on Destiny Islands, even Riku, who insisted that he look after the others while Riku looks after himself.
One year ago, the Heartless took Destiny Islands, Selphie, Tidus, Wakka, Kairi, and Riku and had flung Sora into another world, Traverse Town. Destiny Islands had been restored but only Selphie and Kairi were its inhabitants now. Nobody knew the whereabouts of Sora, Riku, Tidus, and Wakka.
" Living without Sora and Riku is a lot worse than living without Tidus and Wakka," Kairi replied. " At least that's what I think."
" I understand," Selphie replied. " Tidus and Wakka were closer to me than to you guys. You three were always together. It was almost like all three of you were truly connected by the heart. Sigh.if a Heartless ever comes close to this island, I'm going to make it pay."
Kairi had told Selphie the whole story of what happened after their island was destroyed and ever since then, Selphie had trained herself vigorously with a nunchaku, until she became so skilled in it that she had nothing else to learn, no new skill to teach herself. She seemed to be planning a revenge for one year for the destruction of her formerly peaceful life.
" But did you see the shooting star?" Kairi asked, her eyes riveting to the sky.
" Yeah, the biggest one I've ever seen," Selphie said in a hushed tone. " And the first one, too."
Kairi nodded her head, before her eyes grew wide with realization. Shooting star.shooting stars.Ansem's Report.
" Oh no," she whispered, her voice trembling.
" What? What's wrong, Kairi?" Selphie asked. " I don't get it. Why don't you tell me what's wrong?"
" Selphie, that WAS a shooting star, right?" Kairi turned to Selphie. " Yes, it was but that only means."
" Means what, Kairi?" Selphie asked, impatience exposing itself in her voice.
" In Ansem's Report, it spoke of shooting stars in the sky and a visiting king," Kairi explained, softly, seriously. " He connected the two strange events as.the worlds connected."
" The worlds connected," Selphie repeated.
" I learned from Leon and the others that when the Heartless came, the barriers around the worlds fell and left the worlds open to travel. Shooting stars signals that," Kairi looked up at the sky again. " And the barriers fall only when something happens, something so big that the worlds all become connected."
" Like when the Heartless attacked," Selphie added with clenched teeth, her hand gripping the handle of her nunchaku harder.
" Maybe they've come back," Kairi said softly.
A silence spilled over the island, an island devoid of the sounds of the happier times, happier days. Times when Riku, Wakka, Sora, Kairi, Selphie, and Tidus ran the whole of the islands and played and fought with the blitzball, the wooden swords, and the nunchaku. Days when they all sat in the sand and watched the sunset. Days when they charged in the shallows after the gray fish, laughing, splashing, and nabbing at the slippery, shiny fish. When they watched as Sora and Tidus tried to defeat Riku in swordfights. Sora and Tidus failed so many times, everyone lost track of the record of wins, losses, and draws. And then, one day, Riku suggested that they leave the islands, Destiny Islands, their home for who knows how many years.
Everything began at that moment in time. Time.time seemed to be repeating itself. The worlds, Kairi was certain, connected again. Their barriers had gone down. Are the Heartless trying to reach the heart of each world again? Weren't they behind Kingdom Hearts, the huge white double doors that Sora, Riku, King Mickey, Donald, and Goofy shut and locked? Or was there a third enemy-
" Tied to the darkness." a chillingly familiar voice whispered across the land. " Soon to be eclipsed."
" Did you hear that?" Selphie said with a gasp.
Kairi stood, numbed by the voice. Not only did she know whose voice it was but she knew something nobody else really knew. She had heard the voice before, a long time ago, and she had responded to the voice with happiness before. And so she knew this: she was connected to Ansem in some unknown way when she was young, before she came to Destiny Islands.
" You think you know so much," the voice said, " yet you know so little. You know nothing, Kairi."
It was Kairi's turn to gasp. The voice was addressing her.
" What-what's he saying?" Selphie stammered. " What's that voice saying? What does he mean?"
" Time, time is everything," the voice hissed. " Time and memory. Memory. There are so many secrets in memories. But only some come to mind easily. Others sleep, unbidden, untouched, below the surface of consciousness, waiting, waiting to be remembered."
" I don't get it," Kairi said slowly.
" Memories?" Selphie's forehead wrinkled as she tried to remember something, anything from the past.
" You should know of what I speak," the voice spoke. " But time is everything. It erases. It heals. It destroys."
" Time is not everything," Kairi retorted in a bold voice.
" Oh really?" the mysterious voice replied. " Time. How long is it? How long must you wait for Sora and Riku to come back? For Tidus and Wakka to return?"
" Why you-" Selphie blew up at the statement.
" Remember what I said," the voice began to fade. " Time is everything. Time and memory. This world.paradise. Yet it is tied to the darkness. Soon to be eclipsed."
The voice seemed to disappear. Kairi and Selphie cast frightened eyes on each other when the voice returned.
" How long will his voice stay in your heart? How long before it fades? Time, time and memory. They are everything. As real as the darkness, soon to be eclipsed by the darkness. Darkness.remember, Kairi, and you shall see."
The voice was gone. Kairi digested his words, trembling ever so slightly. And then, she heard it.
Somewhere within her mind, came his voice, " The bell tower, you guys. Come on."
The voice was gone. Kairi tried, tried to hear his voice again, Sora's voice.
But for the first time, she could not recall his voice. The words, they were gone, too. She usually could hear his voice, each time saying something different, and she could remember how his voice sounded, what he said. But the words, they were gone. The voice, it had faded.
" Oh no, no, no, NO!" she cried, her hand pressed to her heart. " No!"
" Kairi!" Selphie exclaimed in shock. " What's wrong?"
" His voice.it's left me." she whispered, her voice shaking, shaking badly. " It's gone."
Secrets of Memories
Chapter 2: Lost Worlds and Time
Shanks did not like waiting, period. The homeless street fighter leaned against a wall of a closed store, puffing on a cigarette, waiting for his client to arrive. Shanks was a middle-aged drooped mustache drunkard, who habitually took a swig from his metal canteen that he always wore on a leather strap hung over his shoulder. Adorned in a faded woolen jacket, with a faded plaid shirt, and dusty, muddy jeans, wearing black leather boots he stole from a shoe store in Twilight Town, he was the one, the homeless drunkard who usually made his rounds around the underground bars in Twilight Town, downing beer and ale until drunk and getting into huge fights with the other drunkards in the bars. Shanks, a blond with stringy hair tucked under a felt hat with a wide rim that often hid his face from unwanted attention and a long moustache that dropped downwards to a weak chin, peered down the alley he was in with stormy blue eyes. A wound on his cheek suddenly pained and Shanks clutched at it, wincing. And with that, his eyes clouded over in rage, rage and hatred at the one who inflicted the wound.
He was drunk at that moment in time, drunk dead but still standing. He had come staggering out of a boarded up, running bar late at night when he spotted three teenagers waling down the opposite sidewalk of a gloomy part of Twilight Town. Thinking that they were gang members searching for a fight, he yelled a profane word at them. The one with blond hair shouted back something that Shanks interpreted to be vile and he charged that one, while the other two scattered. He proceeded to fight the teenager, pounding his fists into the blond person's face and body. Blood began to seep onto the cold, dark street yet Shanks, not the kind of person to let blood run, kept pounding the kid into the ground. He kept at it when he was suddenly hit by some forceful wind and knocked off. Through his drunk eyes, he saw some strange blond teenager in a black cloak, surrounded by the wind that pushed Shanks off the blond teenager. Infuriated that he could not finish his little duel with the other teenager, he yelled at the stranger and tried to shove him aside so that he could get to the teenager. But the stranger had stopped him immediately, swinging something cold, cold like metal, into his face, onto the cheek of his face, leaving behind a painful wound.
Shanks was beaten by the stranger and left to nurse his wounds and start a crazed obsession with revenge. He had seen the strange teenager several times through the months following their odd meeting, and yet could not just run up and strangle him; there were just too many people around. Shanks instead went into hiding, coming around once in a while to pick up or steal some liquor from places and hiding again to find away to kill the teenager who stopped him from beating up the other teenager.
And now, nearly a year after that fateful meeting, Shanks was going to meet someone, someone who would pay him handsomely to do something very secretive and important. Shanks can use the munny to purchase more liquor and items to help him get the stranger to pay. Yes, to get the stranger to pay.
He heard footsteps, slow, steady footsteps in the distance, coming close to where he was standing. He heard the footsteps splash through the puddles of water left by a recent drizzle, heard the footsteps rustle through littered paper, and Shanks knew: his client was coming.
Through the gloom that swamped Twilight Town at night, Shanks could see a man, cloaked and hooded in black, walking slowly towards him, slowly and steadily. Shanks grew excited; he could almost smell the munny, liquor, and revenge that were within his grasp.
The stranger came to a standstill a few feet from where Shanks was standing. He could see only a chin, a mouth, and the tip of a nose; the hood was pulled down so low over his face that the shadows covered two- thirds of his face. The cloaked stranger also wore black trousers and black boots, blending in almost perfectly with the darkness in the alley.
" Shanks?" the mouth moved. The voice was firm and with a chill.
Shanks shivered at the tone and the sound of the voice but he willed himself to say, " Yes, Mister."
" You will be paid five thousand munny to do as I tell you to do and to keep very, very quiet about what you have done," the stranger stated briskly, waving aside Shanks' attempt to find out his client's name. " You must also never mention anything about me. No description of me, nothing. If you do the opposite of what I just told you, then you will pay dearly in something instead of munny. Is that clear, Shanks?"
Shanks nodded numbly, stunned into silence by this person's overwhelming authority.
" What do you want me to do?" he managed to say.
" There are three newcomers here in Twilight Town," the stranger spoke coldly, almost as though he was spitting out something disgusting from his mouth. " They're easy to spot, especially two of them. One is a short- tempered white duck, the other is a clumsy dog-like knight from another kingdom. They're with a fifteen-year-old boy with light brown hair and sky- blue eyes. He'll be wearing black, blue, and red. The boy's name is Sora. The duck's name is Donald and the knight is known as Goofy. You must follow them to the bell tower and then you must report to me back here at this very spot. If you see a huge white creature head towards the bell tower, abandon those three people and come back here immediately and report to me. Whatever you do, do not be seen and do not mess this up. The white one cannot reach those three nor can they reach him. If a meeting is inevitable, use this whistle I will give you and my soldiers will come and make sure they will not meet. Do you understand?"
Shanks nodded his head. Then the stranger took his right hand and slapped a small, thin silver whistle into the palm of his hand.
" Don't' lose this whistle and don't mess this mission up," the stranger ordered him. " You will pay dearly if you do."
With that, the stranger turned smartly in another direction and strode off, leaving behind a rather bewildered Shanks.
" What the hell is he talking about?" Shanks muttered as he pocketed the whistle. " Find some people and follow them around? For five thousand munny? This must be something so big or else he wouldn't even find me out. Me, the master stalker in Twilight Town. Heh, I can walk around on the busy streets, following one person and nobody would have any idea who I am or what I'm doing. Hm, maybe that's why this guy found me out."
He was muttering to himself like an eccentric homeless as he walked off into the darkness of the alley, until the gloom swallowed him.
*~*~*
" Where is he.I must find him!" he told himself as he wandered through the many streets of Traverse Town. The sixteen-year-old teenager had gone about practically the whole of Traverse Town and yet there was no sign of him.
The teenager was tall, lean, and muscular. He had a serious face, a face half-hidden by a black scarf that covered his eyes. Silvery white hair flowed down his face and around his neck, a strong contrast to the dark clothing he wore. Dressed in a simple black coat with a hood, walking about in black boots and trousers, he was a formidable sight to see.
" Where can they be? I know they've been here before but where have they gone? The guy at the accessory store saw them leave his place two weeks ago and never saw them since. And they're regular visitors to his store so that means they've gone somewhere.but there's so many worlds. How can I find them?"
The teenager paced the length of an alley, an alley with a boarded up dead end. He continuously paced the length of it, outside one of two accessory shops he had been to. He had questioned the three white ducks that ran the shop but they had no further information on the whereabouts of his friends than the yellow-haired clerk in the other shop.
" Cid said that they probably went to another world through the World Exit," he told himself, " but which world? And do I have to go through all the worlds? Come on, Riku, think: where have Sora and his friends gone? Think, think."
" Think, think, think, think," continued a voice near where he was walking.
Riku turned to see an orange-yellow bear sitting on the steps in front of Cid's accessory shop, tapping his head continuously with his right hand. Wearing a short-sleeved red shirt and with a large black nose and toy-like appearance, the bear looked most certainly like a teddy bear. An overly huge, live teddy bear.
" Think, think, think, think," the bear continued to repeat.
Riku cautiously approached him and greeted, " Hello, is there a problem?"
" Huh?" the bear looked up. " Oh, no, not really. I'm just trying to think of a way to get back to my friends. Think, think, think, think-"
" What do you mean?" Riku asked curiously.
" You see," the bear attempted to explain, " I was with my friend, Piglet, and I was trying to get some honey from the honey tree."
" Uh-huh." Riku said.
" So we got a balloon so I can go up, up, to where the honey is on the honey tree," the bear said. " And I was going up, near the honey and the bees, when I heard Piglet shout, ' Pooh, Pooh! We've got to get out of here!' I shouted back, ' What happened, Piglet?' and I heard his scream. Oh what a horrible scream."
With that, the bear, apparently named Pooh, covered his face with his hands.
" What happened after your friend screamed?" Riku asked as gently as he could.
" Huh? Oh," Pooh looked back up to the blindfold on Riku's face. " I looked down and I saw these black things swarming all over the place. Huge, long, crooked ears, long claws, and yellow eyes. They were all over the place. I couldn't see Piglet anymore nor everything around us. And the balloon kept lifting me up, up, until poof! I was sitting on this cold floor in a very cold room. I looked back and I saw a book, a thin, red book. The pages were open and black stuff was slowly covering the white pages. And then.the book was gone."
" Black things.crooked ears, yellow eyes.oh no," Riku gasped and sat down next to Pooh. He covered his face with his arms. " Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no."
" Why, what happened?" Pooh asked.
" I think I know what happened to your friend, Pooh," Riku explained sadly. " I think, and this only what I think happened, these black creatures called the Heart-Heartless came to your world from another world."
He stuttered over that world. Heartless. He shuddered. That word, the darkness in it, the hatred. He hated that word.
" My world?" Pooh thought. " You mean, the red book?"
Riku nodded.
" Hm.then those Heartless took the book and took my home in the process?" Pooh asked, his voice trembling. " Piglet.and my other friends: Tigger, Roo, Rabbit, Eeyore.oh.and the honey."
Riku tilted his head at this. So this Pooh really did like honey.
" More outsiders," Pooh suddenly said thoughtfully. " First Sora, then these-"
" What? Say that again!" Riku exclaimed, his sympathy for Pooh replaced by the excitement that Pooh may have met Sora before.
Pooh looked at him, a startled expression on his face, before saying, " I said, ' First Sora, then these-' and then you cut me off. Why?"
" You've met Sora?" Riku fired.
" Yes, he came to my place," Pooh replied. " He helped us out with a lot of stuff, like saving Eeyore and finding the pin for his tail, and helping me get honey."
" Sora, doing that?" Riku snorted. " And I thought he had more important things to do!"
" He pulled out this huge key of his and did something to our place," Pooh mused.
" What? His key?" Riku demanded, startled by the added information. " He must've sealed your world!"
" I don't get it," Pooh mumbled.
" I don't' get it either, Pooh," Riku sighed, suddenly deflated after the outburst of energy. " He sealed your world, Pooh, and that meant that those black creatures weren't supposed to return to your world. But something happened."
" What did?" an unfamiliar voice asked behind them both.
Both Riku and Pooh turned around to the steps behind them. All they saw were a pair of bare feet so they looked up into the long, lean face of a man, a man slightly hunched down like a gorilla, and with long brown hair. His green eyes, serious and kinda brooding, peered at them. He was wearing a brown loincloth and in his right arm, his strong hand clenched a spear.
" Um.hello," Pooh waved a greeting.
" Er.hi," Riku said slightly nervously. " What can we do for you?"
" What happened?" the man asked. " You said something about sealing, world, and Sora."
" You know Sora?" Riku asked in astonishment. He was barely able to fish out anything useful out of those three young ducks and the guy named Cid who both ran accessory shops and all of a sudden he met two people-er, make that one person and a bear who knew Sora.
" Sora came to my world," the man answered, placing his free hand to his chest to emphasize 'my'. " Came with his friends. He helped reveal who Clayton was. He sealed my world. Then something happened."
" What is your name?" Riku asked.
" I am.Tarzan," the man answered.
" Tarzan." Riku rolled the name in his mouth. What a strange name. But Pooh was a strange name, too. Where DID they come from?
" What did your home look like?" Pooh asked curiously.
" Full of trees, green leaves. It is warm, wet and warm. My family lived in the trees. Kala, my mother, Terk, my best friend, Kerchak, the leader of my family, and.Jane."
Sorrow filled his eyes and voice. Riku knew something serious had happened. This sounded like a world, another world, one like the world Pooh lived in. Oh no.
" Did your world-did your world disappear, too?" Riku asked carefully. " Pooh here said that the Heartless came and destroyed his world. What about you?"
" The Heartless are stronger," Tarzan replied. " Stronger, more powerful. I could not save them. I could not save my family, my friends, Jane.the Heartless took everything."
" But didn't Sora do something with a huge key, too?" Pooh asked curiously. " Judging from what you guys are saying, he used a big key, right?"
" He sealed the Keyhole," Tarzan said. " He sealed it where the blue butterflies are. But something happened."
" Two worlds gone.that means more worlds are going to disappear, right?" Riku asked. " Oh my god, that's it! Something's wrong with the keyholes and that means the worlds are disappearing-what about Traverse Town?"
With that, he got up and made a dash for Cid's shop, with Tarzan and Pooh following him.
" Sir-Cid!" Riku gasped out, remembering that Cid liked to be called by his name only. " Cid, there's a keyhole here, right?"
Cid, in the act of polishing the glass case that held a synthesized item, looked up. Eyeing the person and the bear next to the tall, silver-haired kid, he grumbled out, " That's right. Sora locked this place. The keyhole's in the Second District. You go up the stairs next to my shop and through the large double doors-why?"
" These guys here, Pooh, and Tarzan, they lost their worlds!" Riku exclaimed.
" Wait a minute, wait a minute," Cid countered. " Worlds.didn't Sora go and seal their worlds?"
" He did," Tarzan answered. " But the Heartless are stronger. My world is gone. This one, Pooh, his world is gone, too. Sora sealed both worlds. But now they are gone."
" Oh no," Cid's voice faded. " That means Traverse Town might go to the Heartless, too."
" What do you think happened, Cid?" Riku asked.
" What I think happened," Cid said, " is this: the Heartless returned, which means something happened when Sora tried to close Kingdom Hearts. It might've been locked wrong, or someone opened it from behind-Riku, are you okay?"
Riku's face turned a ghastly white.
" King-King Mickey," he stuttered. " King Mickey and I.we tried to get out of Kingdom Hearts. Some-somehow the door was unlocked and-and we tried to lock Kingdom Hearts from the outside. B-but we couldn't. King Mickey c- couldn't lock Kingdom Hearts.someone unlocked Kingdom Hearts and King Mickey and I showed the Heartless a way out.oh no."
Riku collapsed onto a couch in the accessory shop and covered his face with his hands.
" I'm so sorry, Pooh, Tarzan," he whispered. " I didn't know."
" I don't blame you," Tarzan replied with a reassuring hand on Riku's back.
" This can be fixed, right?" Pooh asked hopefully.
" I'm going to have to contact Leon, Yuffie, Aerith, and Cloud," Cid stated as he made his way out from behind the counter he was standing behind. " Riku, its not your fault, okay? Whatever you did before, it's not your fault."
" Then whose fault is it?" Riku asked shakily.
Cid paused for a moment at the foot of the door out of his shop.
" Call it fate."
*~*~*
" Oh.a shooting star," Kairi gasped as she looked up at the blue sky.
A white ball of flame streaked across the blue sky, leaving behind a flaming line, before vanishing over the horizon.
The wind blew in her face but the sun warmed her, as she stood a little way from the waves of the sea that surrounded Destiny Island. She watched as the last traces of the shooting star fade before turning to go back to her room.a shooting star.
She froze. A shooting star.what does it mean?
" Kairi, are you okay?" Selphie asked worriedly. " You turned all pale and everything."
" No, its nothing, Selphie," Kairi sighed and shook her head, her red hair falling over her face.
" Are you sure?" Selphie asked. She restlessly whipped at the sand they were standing on with her nunchaku. Her green eyes followed Kairi's blue eyes to the sea. " Don't tell me.you're still waiting for Sora and Riku to come home."
Kairi sighed and lowered her head.
" Yes," Kairi replied. " I still am."
" Will they ever return?" Selphie wondered. " Living on this island without either one of them is as bad as living on this island without Tidus and Wakka."
Two other people who had lived on Destiny Islands with them were Tidus and Wakka.
Tidus was thirteen, one year younger than Sora and Kairi and two years younger than Riku when the Heartless first swallowed up Destiny Islands. Wakka, a tall fifteen-year-old who played and fought with a blue blitzball, was something like Tidus and Selphie's big brother and he looked after everyone on Destiny Islands, even Riku, who insisted that he look after the others while Riku looks after himself.
One year ago, the Heartless took Destiny Islands, Selphie, Tidus, Wakka, Kairi, and Riku and had flung Sora into another world, Traverse Town. Destiny Islands had been restored but only Selphie and Kairi were its inhabitants now. Nobody knew the whereabouts of Sora, Riku, Tidus, and Wakka.
" Living without Sora and Riku is a lot worse than living without Tidus and Wakka," Kairi replied. " At least that's what I think."
" I understand," Selphie replied. " Tidus and Wakka were closer to me than to you guys. You three were always together. It was almost like all three of you were truly connected by the heart. Sigh.if a Heartless ever comes close to this island, I'm going to make it pay."
Kairi had told Selphie the whole story of what happened after their island was destroyed and ever since then, Selphie had trained herself vigorously with a nunchaku, until she became so skilled in it that she had nothing else to learn, no new skill to teach herself. She seemed to be planning a revenge for one year for the destruction of her formerly peaceful life.
" But did you see the shooting star?" Kairi asked, her eyes riveting to the sky.
" Yeah, the biggest one I've ever seen," Selphie said in a hushed tone. " And the first one, too."
Kairi nodded her head, before her eyes grew wide with realization. Shooting star.shooting stars.Ansem's Report.
" Oh no," she whispered, her voice trembling.
" What? What's wrong, Kairi?" Selphie asked. " I don't get it. Why don't you tell me what's wrong?"
" Selphie, that WAS a shooting star, right?" Kairi turned to Selphie. " Yes, it was but that only means."
" Means what, Kairi?" Selphie asked, impatience exposing itself in her voice.
" In Ansem's Report, it spoke of shooting stars in the sky and a visiting king," Kairi explained, softly, seriously. " He connected the two strange events as.the worlds connected."
" The worlds connected," Selphie repeated.
" I learned from Leon and the others that when the Heartless came, the barriers around the worlds fell and left the worlds open to travel. Shooting stars signals that," Kairi looked up at the sky again. " And the barriers fall only when something happens, something so big that the worlds all become connected."
" Like when the Heartless attacked," Selphie added with clenched teeth, her hand gripping the handle of her nunchaku harder.
" Maybe they've come back," Kairi said softly.
A silence spilled over the island, an island devoid of the sounds of the happier times, happier days. Times when Riku, Wakka, Sora, Kairi, Selphie, and Tidus ran the whole of the islands and played and fought with the blitzball, the wooden swords, and the nunchaku. Days when they all sat in the sand and watched the sunset. Days when they charged in the shallows after the gray fish, laughing, splashing, and nabbing at the slippery, shiny fish. When they watched as Sora and Tidus tried to defeat Riku in swordfights. Sora and Tidus failed so many times, everyone lost track of the record of wins, losses, and draws. And then, one day, Riku suggested that they leave the islands, Destiny Islands, their home for who knows how many years.
Everything began at that moment in time. Time.time seemed to be repeating itself. The worlds, Kairi was certain, connected again. Their barriers had gone down. Are the Heartless trying to reach the heart of each world again? Weren't they behind Kingdom Hearts, the huge white double doors that Sora, Riku, King Mickey, Donald, and Goofy shut and locked? Or was there a third enemy-
" Tied to the darkness." a chillingly familiar voice whispered across the land. " Soon to be eclipsed."
" Did you hear that?" Selphie said with a gasp.
Kairi stood, numbed by the voice. Not only did she know whose voice it was but she knew something nobody else really knew. She had heard the voice before, a long time ago, and she had responded to the voice with happiness before. And so she knew this: she was connected to Ansem in some unknown way when she was young, before she came to Destiny Islands.
" You think you know so much," the voice said, " yet you know so little. You know nothing, Kairi."
It was Kairi's turn to gasp. The voice was addressing her.
" What-what's he saying?" Selphie stammered. " What's that voice saying? What does he mean?"
" Time, time is everything," the voice hissed. " Time and memory. Memory. There are so many secrets in memories. But only some come to mind easily. Others sleep, unbidden, untouched, below the surface of consciousness, waiting, waiting to be remembered."
" I don't get it," Kairi said slowly.
" Memories?" Selphie's forehead wrinkled as she tried to remember something, anything from the past.
" You should know of what I speak," the voice spoke. " But time is everything. It erases. It heals. It destroys."
" Time is not everything," Kairi retorted in a bold voice.
" Oh really?" the mysterious voice replied. " Time. How long is it? How long must you wait for Sora and Riku to come back? For Tidus and Wakka to return?"
" Why you-" Selphie blew up at the statement.
" Remember what I said," the voice began to fade. " Time is everything. Time and memory. This world.paradise. Yet it is tied to the darkness. Soon to be eclipsed."
The voice seemed to disappear. Kairi and Selphie cast frightened eyes on each other when the voice returned.
" How long will his voice stay in your heart? How long before it fades? Time, time and memory. They are everything. As real as the darkness, soon to be eclipsed by the darkness. Darkness.remember, Kairi, and you shall see."
The voice was gone. Kairi digested his words, trembling ever so slightly. And then, she heard it.
Somewhere within her mind, came his voice, " The bell tower, you guys. Come on."
The voice was gone. Kairi tried, tried to hear his voice again, Sora's voice.
But for the first time, she could not recall his voice. The words, they were gone, too. She usually could hear his voice, each time saying something different, and she could remember how his voice sounded, what he said. But the words, they were gone. The voice, it had faded.
" Oh no, no, no, NO!" she cried, her hand pressed to her heart. " No!"
" Kairi!" Selphie exclaimed in shock. " What's wrong?"
" His voice.it's left me." she whispered, her voice shaking, shaking badly. " It's gone."