Secrets of Memories
Chapter 3: The Bell Tower
Sora, Donald, and Goofy ran down the streets of the town basked in the colors of sunset. They didn't realize it until a few minutes ago that the bell tower was further away than realized. And so they went about the streets, asking people what was the fastest path to the bell tower. The people, all claiming that they were extremely busy, merely pointed in the direction of the bell tower before hurrying away. Sora, with a scowl on his face, had muttered, " Thank you for pointing out the obvious!" before continuing the trio's run to the tower.
" How much longer?" Goofy gasped, his arms hanging down before him. He ran with a lopsided gait, more lopsided because of the weight of the shield on his right arm.
" I don't know," Donald replied, waddling as fast as he could after Sora, who seemed to be running faster and faster by the second.
" I think we're almost there!" Sora called over his shoulder, his face half- obscured by the black hood of his short jacket that kept flying up and down as he took each step.
Sora was right. The bell tower loomed over them as they got closer and closer. And they could see the white Heartless dancing his way there, too. Apparently, the white Heartless got lost trying to get to the bell tower and they were going to the tower at the same rate, one trying to beat the other to the door of the tower which.apparently was not boarded up at all and inviting to whoever wanted to get there.
" The Heartless is gonna beat us to it!" Goofy called out as they got closer.
" Finally, we reached the tower!" Donald gasped out.
" The Heartless!" Sora shouted as he made a mad dash for the door of the bell tower, willing his silver Keyblade into his hand as he ran. The white Heartless was heading straight for the door and the way he was able to stretch his body and bound by huge steps established the fact that it would get to the door before Sora and would be able to do whatever it was going which, Sora and his friends guessed, would be very, very bad.
Sora calculated everything into his mind before angling out and charging at the Heartless instead, his Keyblade bared and ready to sing with its mighty swiftness.
The door to the tower swung open at the last moment and Sora, unable to stop himself, ran right into it.
" Sora!" Donald and Goofy shouted as Sora fell back and the white Heartless pressed forward to the open door.
As the person who opened the door screamed, Donald shouted, " Stopga!" and the white Heartless froze.
" Get it, Goofy!" Donald told his comrade as he made his way to Sora, who was moaning something about sleepwalking and broken noses.
" Sure will!" Goofy replied and whirl-winded his way to the white Heartless. He spun around it, his shield slashing at the frozen Heartless continuously. Then Goofy charged the Heartless and sent its immobile body sprawling. The white Heartless regained its ability to move but the effects of Goofy's attack, which had accumulated during the effect of the Stopga spell, destroyed it before it could do any more than regaining movement.
" Come on, Sora, wake up, wake up!" Donald slapped Sora's face several times before Sora was able to say, " Stop that!"
" Aozora?" a very confused voice wondered.
" Ao-what?" Sora looked up into the face of a girl his age, a girl with wavy brown hair, expressive brown eyes, and she was decked out in orange and yellow.
" Oh! No, never mind, I'm sorry," the girl quickly apologized. " My mistake. I thought you were somebody else."
" Oh, well, that's okay-ow, my face," Sora rubbed the whole of his face with his hand, a hand gloved in black. " Must've been running fast. Should slow down when doors open up in my face."
" Hey, Yuri! Who's that you're talking to?" a very mature voice shouted from an elevated level.
" I really don't know," the girl, apparently Yuri, replied. " I thought he was Aozora but this guy looks more like his look-alike. He ran into the door while I was going to go out and his friends stopped this funny white creature from literally jumping me!"
" Funny white creature-oh, that stretchy thing WAS HEADING HERE?!" the voice shouted. There were the loud sounds of somebody pounding down some staircases and a sixteen-year-old boy, dressed in green and with emerald eyes, peered at him from behind Yuri.
" He does look like Aozora-hi, my name is Ashita, what's yours?" the boy seemed to suddenly remember to introduce himself before getting down to the real matter.
" My name is Sora," Sora answered slowly. " This is Donald and that's Goofy. We were heading here, following the white Heartless-"
" Heartless?" Ashita asked. " What's that supposed to be?"
Donald and Goofy's jaws dropped to the ground.
" You mean you don't know about the Heartless?" Sora demanded, puzzlement scrawled all over him.
" What is Heartless?" Yuri asked curiously.
" Creatures without hearts, that's' what," another voice answered and a fifteen-year-old boy appeared next to Yuri and Ashita. The boy had brown hair pushed slightly back by the blue headband on his head. Wearing red, white, and blue, he looked like a very average boy. His brown eyes, nearly identical to Yuri's, showed that the two were related by blood.
" You know what they're saying, Orion?" Ashita and Yuri looked at him.
" Well, I do read the newspapers in Twilight Town," Orion replied with a shrug.
Sora, Donald, and Goofy stared at all three of them, appalled at how ignorant two of them were of the universal events.
" Do explain what you're talking about," Ashita asked with authority.
" Simple," Orion replied. " Ansem was researching creatures without heart, which he called the Heartless. After a meteor shower and a visit by a neighboring king, he kicked out everybody in his kingdom and suddenly, we were all homeless. Then-"
" You lived in Ansem's kingdom?" Sora's jaw dropped as well.
" Citadel Realm," Orion nodded in agreement. " My dad was King Ansem's cousin-"
" WHAT?!" Sora, Donald, and Goofy yelped.
" Geezes, calm down!" Orion exclaimed. " Let me get on with what I know. So I come here to Twilight Town with some of the people we know. Next thing you know, I run away from home, meet these fellows here, and join them. Then I started reading the newspaper. It kept saying about how the worlds like Citadel Realm were being destroyed, starting with twelve years ago or something like that. Then, a few months later, it mentioned that several worlds, including a place called Deep Destiny, were restored. The newspaper hinted that Citadel Realm was restored and so, my family and everybody else I knew who came with me from Citadel Realm packed up and left to go back to it. Never heard from them since."
" Would it insult you to say that Ansem played a hand in the disappearance of those worlds?" Sora spoke up cautiously.
" What?" Orion's voice suddenly dropped down to a whisper. " What did you say?"
" The Heartless, they went after the worlds," Sora explained carefully. " They-"
" I don't' know if you should be saying it, Sora," Donald interrupted.
" No, no, tell me," Orion countered.
" They," Sora paused, before saying, " Ansem was their leader."
A long, cold silence followed that last word.
" Are you telling me that a good, just king, not to mention my father's cousin, put a hand in the destruction of worlds, including our own?" Orion hissed. His brown eyes darkened.
" You're saying that you and Yuri came from Citadel Realm?" Ashita asked with puzzlement. " How come you never said that before?"
" Because it was useless information," Orion snapped. " Until now. Now this guy who calls himself Sora says that my father's cousin is cruel, cold, and somebody willing to rid this universe of worlds, killing people or forcing them to lose their homes and lives in the process. Ansem would never do that, never!"
" I told you you shouldn't have said that!" Donald muttered. " Now look at what you've done!"
" I don't know who you are but I don't care. I don't care if you're Aozora's lost twin or something like that but I do not know you. I don't' know anybody named Sora nor have I met anybody named Sora! Good day and good bye!" Orion shouted and with that, he stomped back into the bell tower.
Another hefty silence followed, before Ashita said, " Okay, I will now say that I come from Deep Tranquility. The end of that."
Sora sighed, his mind still stunned by Orion's temperamental outburst, and shook his head to wake himself back up. " I'm sorry for ticking your friend off."
" Don't worry," Yuri replied gently. " He seems extremely explosive and all but he's really a good, dependable friend. He'll get over it, you'll see."
" I don't' know," Goofy replied. " But when people talk about someone's family, that someone would get really mad, especially if its some sort of a gossip or just something bad."
" I didn't know," Sora was saying. " I didn't know Ansem was that good in people's eyes."
" Judging from what you and he just said, I think that was why my uncle never attended most of the yearly ceremonies in the Citadel Realm," Yuri said thoughtfully.
It took two minutes for the information to sink in but when it did, Sora, Donald, and Goofy stared up at her in shock.
" Hey, I'm only saying what I think," Yuri replied. " Orion mentioned researching so probably my uncle was so busy researching these 'Heartless' of yours so that was probably why he almost never attended the fall harvest celebration."
" I think all this information is going to blow my brain off," Sora moaned. " Stupid door. If I didn't run into it, I wouldn't have a painful nose or a headache."
" You know, Aozora always said that whenever we give him a lengthy response on a question he asks us," Ashita suddenly commented.
" Oh yeah-who's this Aozora?" Sora asked.
" Oh, he's a friend of ours," Yuri replied. " Fifteen, blond, brown eyes, wears white under his black cloak, came to Ashita's rescue when ol' Shanks was about to pound Ashita into pulp, kept having weird dreams, and now he's gone."
Sora, Donald, and Goofy blinked at her.
" He looked a lot like you, Sora, which was why when I first saw you I thought you were Aozora, who decided to come back for some unknown reason," Yuri explained. " See, he kept saying about searching for this sky-child and finding people to give these keychains to-"
" Keychains?" Donald interrupted immediately, before Sora could open his mouth.
" Yeah, keychains," Yuri replied. " A black one with a little medallion of a black crown, a pretty silvery one with a moon and the outline of three circles etched into it, like Goofy's shield, and a crystalline one with a flowery-looking star the color of an aurora."
" What like my shield?" Goofy asked curiously, staring at his shield.
" That three-circle design," Yuri replied, pointing to the outline of King Mickey's head. " That was etched on the silver moon."
" Keychains." Sora muttered to himself, his blue eyes narrowed in thought. " Keychains.the Oblivion."
The chain of the Oblivion was black with a black crown at its end. But how did this Aozora get that keychain?
" Where's Aozora?" he asked loudly.
" Oh, he left hours ago," Yuri replied. " He was going to the train station to go to other places where he can keep searching for the sky-child and the people the keychains belong to. Why?"
" Really sorry but we've got to go," Sora replied, jumping up. The sudden movement, however, jarred his head and a blooming headache pounded painfully in his head.
" Oh man," Sora placed his hand to his head. " That hurts."
" Are you sure you've got to go?" Yuri and Ashita asked at the same minute.
Sora smiled a bit painfully. " Sorry for making your friend Orion so mad. I hope you're not mad, too, Yuri, now that you know what Ansem did to the universe. And nice meeting you, Ashita. Come on, Donald, Goofy. Let's go find Aozora!"
With that, they made a mad dash before Sora stopped, turned, and shouted, " Which way was Aozora headed?"
Ashita and Yuri pointed in a different direction.
" Right," Sora said and turned in that direction.
*~*~*
" Follow them to the bell tower, that's what he said!" Shanks muttered to himself as he followed them at a safe distant. " Go back to him if I see something big and white, oh sure. And what am I supposed to do if the big white thing doesn't show up and they get to the bell tower-oh great, oh !$#@$% great!"
Shanks, while muttering to himself, had lost the three people his client had told him to follow.
" They move faster than I thought!" he told himself. " Oh great, just @%$*^ great!"
Swearing to himself, he ran down alleyways and remote or abandoned streets in an attempt to find Sora, Donald, and Goofy.
" Right, I'll just follow them or look out for the big white thing," he decided. " From the way my client says things, the big white thing is expected to be here. That means that I should follow them and watch out for the white thing and I should definitely use that silver whistle he told me to use."
He continued to run down alleyways and streets, trying to find them.
" And then what would happen? I wonder what the whistle is used for-"
A huge white foot slammed down right in front of him.
" Holy shit! Holy @#&#$% shit!" Shanks swore richly before scrambling away. His eyes traveled up to a monstrous white thing, with huge shoulders and a blue piece of cloth that wrapped around its neck and branched into four ends that flowed like a cape from it.
" Oh my god, what is that thing?" Shanks stuttered, before his mind clicked on the fact that this was big and white.
" The whistle! Where's the whistle?" Shanks fished into his pocket for the silver whistle. He pulled it out and without any hesitation, blew into it.
A low, faint scream tore through the air and the whistle disintegrated into nothingness in his fingers.
" Your job is done, well done," the client's voice whispered into his ears. " Now go, run away before the events that will follow hurt you, even kill you."
Shanks stared as the white thing moved away, numbed by the contents of what the voice said.
" Run!" the voice shouted and Shanks, without further ado, got up and made a mad dash in the opposite direction of where the huge white thing was moving. As he bolted down the street, he swore he saw black things, huge black things with yellow eyes rising out of the ground in alleyways.
*~*~*
Aozora sighed as he walked down one of the many large streets that pointed in the direction of the train station. Only a few hours and he already miss his friends.
Maybe I should just forget about the keychains, he thought. Maybe I should just forget about my mission and just turn around, go back, and stay with them at the top of the bell tower. I'm tired of this.
He sighed even louder and longer.
" Its hard enough just making it here; do I have to keep going?" he asked himself. " Do I have to keep going?"
A flash of white.
Aozora whirled around, only to see something long, stretchy, and white dance away. Bouncing on lampposts and the shades over doors, it flipped like a gymnast.
Aozora, entranced by its uniqueness in his world, decided to see where it was going. He began to run, run as fast as he could, for the white creature was moving faster and faster.
Down an alley he turned, and onto a lonely street. The white creature bounded before him, just out of reach, as it bounced into a town circle near the train station. Aozora, running after the white creature, had just enough time to see the white creature leap up into the air, whirl in midair, and plunge, headfirst, into the side of a building.
Aozora stared. He did not see a white creature jump and vanish into the side of a building.
" What the hell-" he was about to exclaim.
And the huge white monster from his dreams suddenly loomed before him. Its head turned to him, its blue cloth ends flowing behind it like a cape. It still had the wide shoulders, the hourglass body, everything, every single detail from his dream.and yet.this time, it was real.
" Oh no, oh no," Aozora slowly backed away.
There is no need to run, child, a quiet, feathery voice whispered.
" What? Are you talking to me?" Aozora stammered.
Why run? There is so much I have to tell you. So much I must tell you. About memories, forgotten memories, the voice answered.
" Forgotten memories?" Aozora demanded.
The sky-child, he is drawing ever so near, the voice stated as the white monster turned its head to him. Aozora suddenly realized that the voice WAS coming from the white monster.
" He-he is?" Aozora stuttered.
The sky-child and your memories, young one, the voice continued to speak. For long I wanted to tell you of this. For long I wanted to reveal to you what you must know. But time and fate worked against me and I could not speak to you in person. And there is not much I can tell you in dreams. Child, dreams are not everything. Is your mission really to seek out the sky-child? Yes it is but do not be easily fooled by dreams. Sometimes, dreams can mean nothing and sometimes, dreams can mean everything.
" What does that mean?" Aozora demanded. " Can you speak more clearly and less vaguely?"
I cannot, young one; time is short, time is pressing, the white monster answered. Don't' you see the importance of time? Time is everything, time and memory, all and one, one and all. You have memories, memories that the universe depends on and time, time which is everything, for everything. Time is what keeps us moving, keeps us forward, keeps us forgetting.time has hidden your memories, child, but it is your memories all seek.
" Who's the 'all'?" Aozora asked uneasily, peering over his shoulder nervously.
Oh, many things, the white monster answered. The Heartless, though, are the ones you must look out for. They are searching for your memories ceaselessly, are trying to capture you, use you, try to harness your memories. They are my opposite, my enemy, and they are coming.
" Who's coming?" Aozora demanded.
The Heartless, they are coming, the white monster spoke, looking to the distance, looking in the direction of the bell tower. They seek what the sky-child seeks. Do not, child, do not, whatever you do, fall to the Heartless. They are coming for you, child. Let us see if you can defy them.
" Wait!" Aozora shouted, before the white monster faded away. " What is your name?"
My name? the white monster repeated. I am the Dream Heart.
And with that, the Dream Heart was gone.
" The Dream Heart?" Aozora asked himself. " Heartless.dream heart.oh, they're opposites of each other! And if the Dream Heart isn't all that dangerous or strange, then won't the Heartless be dangerous."
He turned to go, only to see a humanoid, black creature, with yellow eyes, a black body, and long ears. It stared at him, its ears twitching, it staring at him soulfully with hungry yellow eyes.
" Oh my god!" Aozora turned to go; another humanoid black creature stood there, barring his only other safe way out.
I don't want to have to do this, he scolded to himself as more creatures rose up. But they leave me no choice.
His hand reached into a pocket in his coat and two keychains dangled from his hand as he pulled his hand back out. Two chains, one black, the other crystalline, nearly clear. The medallion of the black one was a black crown; the other had a lovely star the color of the aurora.
The creatures were swaying back and forth and around and around when he first saw them. But now, they were standing still, staring, glaring at the keychains in his hands. They watched very attentively as Aozora transferred the black keychain to his right hand and the star keychain to his left hand.
" You leave me no choice," Aozora said loudly and, closing his eyes, felt about in his heart for the power that gave the keychains their forms.
The keychain in his left glowed first. In every battle or duel or practice, the keychain of the star glowed first. He did not understand why.
The keychain flashed a brilliant white and Aozora could feel it pulsing, could feel the hilt pulsing with live energy, as he gripped the handle of the keyblade in his hand, the one that keychain with the star 'created'. The keychain was now dangling from the end of the keyblade, at the very end of the handle. The keyblade itself was beautiful, glowing and flowing in the colors of the aurora. To the one who had seen the Oathkeeper, one would say that the star keychain looked like it. But no, it was not the Oathkeeper. It glowed a different color, was shaped slightly different, and so, it is safe to say that Aozora's keyblade was not the Oathkeeper.
The hand to his right exploded in the wild dark energy that the keychain possessed. In his hand held the hilt of the black keyblade, the Oblivion. Radiating in dark powers, it gleamed in his hand, the opposite of the star keyblade in his left, the Starlight.
The creatures were glaring at the keyblades, were staring at them like they were the most hated things in the world, and were threatening to approach him. Aozora merely stood in a stance, his keyblades out in a way that they could move in any given, different direction. He glared back at the creatures, tried to outdo them in the glaring contest.
While Aozora busily engaged himself in a staring contest with a creature, another creature suddenly leaped into the air, his faint shadow casting a shadow on his back. His claws were sharp and gleaming, ready for that sweet chance to take Aozora's heart.
The keyblade that flew through the air stopped the creature. Aozora had flung the Starlight into the air like a boomerang so it came back while destroying the creature. The creature shrieked and exploded into black particles.
Aozora caught the keyblade as it came back to him. Gripping it tightly in his left hand, he faced the swarming creatures, swinging both keyblades and watching the creatures try to decide how to attack him.
" Come on," he taunted, his brown eyes flashing as he faced the group of the creatures watching him, waiting.
" Show me your best."
~*~
The battle was horrendous.
That was the only way Aozora would describe it as. He had used every ounce of energy in his body in fighting these creatures. They were very odd. They were able to flatten themselves onto the ground and slink around like moving shadows. Then they would rise up again and would charge forward with claws. Aozora had a heck of a time dodging them; they popped up whenever and wherever and several times he was almost downed when he tripped over one who was a bit slow rising up.
His two keyblades were covered in strange dark sprays of liquid and he himself was a bit splattered by what the creatures gave off when they were sliced up and through. He had received a few scratches from the claws he could not evade.
Odd as it seemed, the creatures seemed to be after the area on his chest where his heart resided. They almost never went for his back; they attacked at his front, their arms aiming for where his heart beat.
" Very odd," he muttered to himself as he started to where he had dropped his cloak during his battle with the creatures.
Fingering the keychains in his hands, he was only ten feet away from his cloak when he heard voices. Three voices, in fact. One was an odd voice, a voice that only a volatile person would have, cynical and with rising tones, threatening to explode. One was a rather 'goofy' sort of voice, kind of dumb and simplistic. And the last voice.
Aozora froze as the last voice spoke, " They were all headed this way."
That voice, it sounded almost exactly like his. Almost exactly. Not quite but it was there, his voice, his tone, his mood. The voice radiated his personality: stubborn, at times obnoxious, many times determined. Almost.
What was going on?
Aozora decided to see who these three people were and made a mad dash up the street, round the turn, and into the ally closest to the street circle. He knew this place and very easily located the escape ladder. He leaped up, grabbed a rung and began to pull himself up, until his feet reached the last rung. Then he continued to climb his way up, up to the roof of the apartment building the ladder was attached to. Then he proceeded to the edge of the apartment building, to see the owners of the three voices.
They appeared from the direction of the bell tower, from the street leading to the bell tower. Aozora stared at them, thrown off by the physical images of the people who owned the three voices.
The volatile voice belonged to a duck, a white duck dressed in blue. He had a beret on his head and wore an odd tunic-thing with zippers. He was holding a staff, a staff with an odd hat on it. He was rattling away something about Heartless and white creatures.
The owner of the 'goofy' voice was a monstrously tall black dog-like humanoid creature. He had a very large, peachy snout and rather simple- minded eyes. He had on an odd hat with goggles perched on them, and wore a vest over a green shirt and pants. He had a lopsided gait, exaggerated by the round shield hitched onto his right arm/hand, a shield with the image of three circles, one bigger than the rest, imprinted on its face.the image was exactly like the etched picture on the keychain of the moon! Where was the keychain-the cloak!
Aozora looked down hurriedly, only to spot a kid with brown hair lean down to pick up his cloak. The kid looked to be his age and height. He was wearing a black, hooded, short-sleeved jacket, a blue shirt, and black shorts with yellow belts crisscrossing and red pouches on each side of the pant leg. A metal necklace dangled from his neck. The medallion was of a crown.
".this is the oddest thing I've ever seen or found on a street," the kid was saying.
The duck, in the act of scouting out the area, quacked back, " What's that?"
" Hey, look, that there's something funny," the dog-like creature spoke, pointing to the ground, where most of the creatures had died in the vain effort to kill Aozora or do something very horrible. Black splatters of liquid decorated the street and that was what the dog-like creature saw.
" Looks like the Heartless have been here," the kid said, looking in his direction.
" Dammit, I can't see his face," Aozora muttered to himself.
" But who could've done that?" the duck asked.
" Beats me, Donald," the kid replied.
So the duck's name is Donald, Aozora told himself.
" Got any clue on what might've stopped the Heartless from taking a heart, Goofy?" the kid asked.
The owner of the 'goofy' voice is Goofy? That's interesting, Aozora thought.
" Well, um.no," Goofy replied, scratching his head.
" But someone attacked or defended himself or herself against the Heartless," the duck, Donald, said. " Do you think the person could wield a keyblade?"
" But King Mickey's the only other one to have a keyblade besides me," the kid answered.
Keyblade? Does that kid have a keyblade? Like me? And who's King Mickey? I've heard his name before, many times, Aozora thought. Yes, I've definitely heard his name before, many times.in the past.
His brown eyes fazed into space as he attempted to recall exactly how he came to know and easily recognize that name. King Mickey, King Mickey.
His mind remained blank, all other possible memories of this king erased. Only his name remained, hovering in his thoughts.
" Perhaps this kid may know something about King Mickey-"
Aozora looked down, only to see that they had taken his cloak and were headed somewhere else.
He panicked. He cannot lose that cloak. Whatever happens, he must not lose that cloak! It had the moon chain in it, and his mentor had told him, ordered him not to lose the chain and to cling onto it with all his life until he found its owner. And the chain was in the pocket of that cloak. And the three people-make that one person, a duck, and a dog- were carrying it off like it was theirs.
Yet another victim and victor in the 'finders keepers, losers weepers' game.
Aozora gritted his teeth. This trio may seem to know something about the creatures that had attacked him and King Mickey but they were like thieves! They were taking away the things he held responsible with his life, his soul, and he needed them back.
Without a thought, he pulled out his keychains, gripped them in each hand, and called out with his heart for their forms.
With light and power, the Starlight and the Oblivion appeared in his hands, and Aozora ran towards them, until a gap appeared, a gap between two buildings. Aozora wasted no time in jumping over that gap, as he dashed on the roof towards the three who were carrying away the coat and the keychain.
Then, he was very nearly above them, as they made their way to some place, unaware of the eyes watching them, glaring at them accusingly. The eyes spoke: Dare you take away what belongs to me? I shall regret it but you leave me no choice!
Aozora, with his blades outstretched, with the only intention of knocking all of the trio unconscious before making away with his coat and the keychain, leaped off the building and down towards them.
The wind blew in his face as he began that slow descent towards the trio. His brown eyes centered in on the oblivious brown-haired kid, who was talking to the other two.
The dog saw him and shouted out something like, " Sora, above you!"
The duck looked up and gave an odd quacking shout.
The kid looked up, when Aozora was only feet above him. Aozora stared. He was completely caught off guard, not expecting at all to see the face of his would-be victim of ambush.
He found himself staring at his own face, his very own face. Besides the slightly longer brown hair and the sky-blue eyes, the face was his own, his face, like his voice.
" Look out!" he screamed, realizing at the same instance that he was not able to stop himself from landing on the kid that resembled him.
The smack of body on body was coupled with an insane quacking and a 'goofy' voice shouting, " Help! Help!"
~*~
Author's Note: The next chapter will feature Riku and Kairi. After that, though, a chapter featuring them will come up every third or fourth chapter, so that we can focus more on Sora and Co. and the blond kid, Aozora, who will play a huge role in Sora's destiny.
Chapter 3: The Bell Tower
Sora, Donald, and Goofy ran down the streets of the town basked in the colors of sunset. They didn't realize it until a few minutes ago that the bell tower was further away than realized. And so they went about the streets, asking people what was the fastest path to the bell tower. The people, all claiming that they were extremely busy, merely pointed in the direction of the bell tower before hurrying away. Sora, with a scowl on his face, had muttered, " Thank you for pointing out the obvious!" before continuing the trio's run to the tower.
" How much longer?" Goofy gasped, his arms hanging down before him. He ran with a lopsided gait, more lopsided because of the weight of the shield on his right arm.
" I don't know," Donald replied, waddling as fast as he could after Sora, who seemed to be running faster and faster by the second.
" I think we're almost there!" Sora called over his shoulder, his face half- obscured by the black hood of his short jacket that kept flying up and down as he took each step.
Sora was right. The bell tower loomed over them as they got closer and closer. And they could see the white Heartless dancing his way there, too. Apparently, the white Heartless got lost trying to get to the bell tower and they were going to the tower at the same rate, one trying to beat the other to the door of the tower which.apparently was not boarded up at all and inviting to whoever wanted to get there.
" The Heartless is gonna beat us to it!" Goofy called out as they got closer.
" Finally, we reached the tower!" Donald gasped out.
" The Heartless!" Sora shouted as he made a mad dash for the door of the bell tower, willing his silver Keyblade into his hand as he ran. The white Heartless was heading straight for the door and the way he was able to stretch his body and bound by huge steps established the fact that it would get to the door before Sora and would be able to do whatever it was going which, Sora and his friends guessed, would be very, very bad.
Sora calculated everything into his mind before angling out and charging at the Heartless instead, his Keyblade bared and ready to sing with its mighty swiftness.
The door to the tower swung open at the last moment and Sora, unable to stop himself, ran right into it.
" Sora!" Donald and Goofy shouted as Sora fell back and the white Heartless pressed forward to the open door.
As the person who opened the door screamed, Donald shouted, " Stopga!" and the white Heartless froze.
" Get it, Goofy!" Donald told his comrade as he made his way to Sora, who was moaning something about sleepwalking and broken noses.
" Sure will!" Goofy replied and whirl-winded his way to the white Heartless. He spun around it, his shield slashing at the frozen Heartless continuously. Then Goofy charged the Heartless and sent its immobile body sprawling. The white Heartless regained its ability to move but the effects of Goofy's attack, which had accumulated during the effect of the Stopga spell, destroyed it before it could do any more than regaining movement.
" Come on, Sora, wake up, wake up!" Donald slapped Sora's face several times before Sora was able to say, " Stop that!"
" Aozora?" a very confused voice wondered.
" Ao-what?" Sora looked up into the face of a girl his age, a girl with wavy brown hair, expressive brown eyes, and she was decked out in orange and yellow.
" Oh! No, never mind, I'm sorry," the girl quickly apologized. " My mistake. I thought you were somebody else."
" Oh, well, that's okay-ow, my face," Sora rubbed the whole of his face with his hand, a hand gloved in black. " Must've been running fast. Should slow down when doors open up in my face."
" Hey, Yuri! Who's that you're talking to?" a very mature voice shouted from an elevated level.
" I really don't know," the girl, apparently Yuri, replied. " I thought he was Aozora but this guy looks more like his look-alike. He ran into the door while I was going to go out and his friends stopped this funny white creature from literally jumping me!"
" Funny white creature-oh, that stretchy thing WAS HEADING HERE?!" the voice shouted. There were the loud sounds of somebody pounding down some staircases and a sixteen-year-old boy, dressed in green and with emerald eyes, peered at him from behind Yuri.
" He does look like Aozora-hi, my name is Ashita, what's yours?" the boy seemed to suddenly remember to introduce himself before getting down to the real matter.
" My name is Sora," Sora answered slowly. " This is Donald and that's Goofy. We were heading here, following the white Heartless-"
" Heartless?" Ashita asked. " What's that supposed to be?"
Donald and Goofy's jaws dropped to the ground.
" You mean you don't know about the Heartless?" Sora demanded, puzzlement scrawled all over him.
" What is Heartless?" Yuri asked curiously.
" Creatures without hearts, that's' what," another voice answered and a fifteen-year-old boy appeared next to Yuri and Ashita. The boy had brown hair pushed slightly back by the blue headband on his head. Wearing red, white, and blue, he looked like a very average boy. His brown eyes, nearly identical to Yuri's, showed that the two were related by blood.
" You know what they're saying, Orion?" Ashita and Yuri looked at him.
" Well, I do read the newspapers in Twilight Town," Orion replied with a shrug.
Sora, Donald, and Goofy stared at all three of them, appalled at how ignorant two of them were of the universal events.
" Do explain what you're talking about," Ashita asked with authority.
" Simple," Orion replied. " Ansem was researching creatures without heart, which he called the Heartless. After a meteor shower and a visit by a neighboring king, he kicked out everybody in his kingdom and suddenly, we were all homeless. Then-"
" You lived in Ansem's kingdom?" Sora's jaw dropped as well.
" Citadel Realm," Orion nodded in agreement. " My dad was King Ansem's cousin-"
" WHAT?!" Sora, Donald, and Goofy yelped.
" Geezes, calm down!" Orion exclaimed. " Let me get on with what I know. So I come here to Twilight Town with some of the people we know. Next thing you know, I run away from home, meet these fellows here, and join them. Then I started reading the newspaper. It kept saying about how the worlds like Citadel Realm were being destroyed, starting with twelve years ago or something like that. Then, a few months later, it mentioned that several worlds, including a place called Deep Destiny, were restored. The newspaper hinted that Citadel Realm was restored and so, my family and everybody else I knew who came with me from Citadel Realm packed up and left to go back to it. Never heard from them since."
" Would it insult you to say that Ansem played a hand in the disappearance of those worlds?" Sora spoke up cautiously.
" What?" Orion's voice suddenly dropped down to a whisper. " What did you say?"
" The Heartless, they went after the worlds," Sora explained carefully. " They-"
" I don't' know if you should be saying it, Sora," Donald interrupted.
" No, no, tell me," Orion countered.
" They," Sora paused, before saying, " Ansem was their leader."
A long, cold silence followed that last word.
" Are you telling me that a good, just king, not to mention my father's cousin, put a hand in the destruction of worlds, including our own?" Orion hissed. His brown eyes darkened.
" You're saying that you and Yuri came from Citadel Realm?" Ashita asked with puzzlement. " How come you never said that before?"
" Because it was useless information," Orion snapped. " Until now. Now this guy who calls himself Sora says that my father's cousin is cruel, cold, and somebody willing to rid this universe of worlds, killing people or forcing them to lose their homes and lives in the process. Ansem would never do that, never!"
" I told you you shouldn't have said that!" Donald muttered. " Now look at what you've done!"
" I don't know who you are but I don't care. I don't care if you're Aozora's lost twin or something like that but I do not know you. I don't' know anybody named Sora nor have I met anybody named Sora! Good day and good bye!" Orion shouted and with that, he stomped back into the bell tower.
Another hefty silence followed, before Ashita said, " Okay, I will now say that I come from Deep Tranquility. The end of that."
Sora sighed, his mind still stunned by Orion's temperamental outburst, and shook his head to wake himself back up. " I'm sorry for ticking your friend off."
" Don't worry," Yuri replied gently. " He seems extremely explosive and all but he's really a good, dependable friend. He'll get over it, you'll see."
" I don't' know," Goofy replied. " But when people talk about someone's family, that someone would get really mad, especially if its some sort of a gossip or just something bad."
" I didn't know," Sora was saying. " I didn't know Ansem was that good in people's eyes."
" Judging from what you and he just said, I think that was why my uncle never attended most of the yearly ceremonies in the Citadel Realm," Yuri said thoughtfully.
It took two minutes for the information to sink in but when it did, Sora, Donald, and Goofy stared up at her in shock.
" Hey, I'm only saying what I think," Yuri replied. " Orion mentioned researching so probably my uncle was so busy researching these 'Heartless' of yours so that was probably why he almost never attended the fall harvest celebration."
" I think all this information is going to blow my brain off," Sora moaned. " Stupid door. If I didn't run into it, I wouldn't have a painful nose or a headache."
" You know, Aozora always said that whenever we give him a lengthy response on a question he asks us," Ashita suddenly commented.
" Oh yeah-who's this Aozora?" Sora asked.
" Oh, he's a friend of ours," Yuri replied. " Fifteen, blond, brown eyes, wears white under his black cloak, came to Ashita's rescue when ol' Shanks was about to pound Ashita into pulp, kept having weird dreams, and now he's gone."
Sora, Donald, and Goofy blinked at her.
" He looked a lot like you, Sora, which was why when I first saw you I thought you were Aozora, who decided to come back for some unknown reason," Yuri explained. " See, he kept saying about searching for this sky-child and finding people to give these keychains to-"
" Keychains?" Donald interrupted immediately, before Sora could open his mouth.
" Yeah, keychains," Yuri replied. " A black one with a little medallion of a black crown, a pretty silvery one with a moon and the outline of three circles etched into it, like Goofy's shield, and a crystalline one with a flowery-looking star the color of an aurora."
" What like my shield?" Goofy asked curiously, staring at his shield.
" That three-circle design," Yuri replied, pointing to the outline of King Mickey's head. " That was etched on the silver moon."
" Keychains." Sora muttered to himself, his blue eyes narrowed in thought. " Keychains.the Oblivion."
The chain of the Oblivion was black with a black crown at its end. But how did this Aozora get that keychain?
" Where's Aozora?" he asked loudly.
" Oh, he left hours ago," Yuri replied. " He was going to the train station to go to other places where he can keep searching for the sky-child and the people the keychains belong to. Why?"
" Really sorry but we've got to go," Sora replied, jumping up. The sudden movement, however, jarred his head and a blooming headache pounded painfully in his head.
" Oh man," Sora placed his hand to his head. " That hurts."
" Are you sure you've got to go?" Yuri and Ashita asked at the same minute.
Sora smiled a bit painfully. " Sorry for making your friend Orion so mad. I hope you're not mad, too, Yuri, now that you know what Ansem did to the universe. And nice meeting you, Ashita. Come on, Donald, Goofy. Let's go find Aozora!"
With that, they made a mad dash before Sora stopped, turned, and shouted, " Which way was Aozora headed?"
Ashita and Yuri pointed in a different direction.
" Right," Sora said and turned in that direction.
*~*~*
" Follow them to the bell tower, that's what he said!" Shanks muttered to himself as he followed them at a safe distant. " Go back to him if I see something big and white, oh sure. And what am I supposed to do if the big white thing doesn't show up and they get to the bell tower-oh great, oh !$#@$% great!"
Shanks, while muttering to himself, had lost the three people his client had told him to follow.
" They move faster than I thought!" he told himself. " Oh great, just @%$*^ great!"
Swearing to himself, he ran down alleyways and remote or abandoned streets in an attempt to find Sora, Donald, and Goofy.
" Right, I'll just follow them or look out for the big white thing," he decided. " From the way my client says things, the big white thing is expected to be here. That means that I should follow them and watch out for the white thing and I should definitely use that silver whistle he told me to use."
He continued to run down alleyways and streets, trying to find them.
" And then what would happen? I wonder what the whistle is used for-"
A huge white foot slammed down right in front of him.
" Holy shit! Holy @#&#$% shit!" Shanks swore richly before scrambling away. His eyes traveled up to a monstrous white thing, with huge shoulders and a blue piece of cloth that wrapped around its neck and branched into four ends that flowed like a cape from it.
" Oh my god, what is that thing?" Shanks stuttered, before his mind clicked on the fact that this was big and white.
" The whistle! Where's the whistle?" Shanks fished into his pocket for the silver whistle. He pulled it out and without any hesitation, blew into it.
A low, faint scream tore through the air and the whistle disintegrated into nothingness in his fingers.
" Your job is done, well done," the client's voice whispered into his ears. " Now go, run away before the events that will follow hurt you, even kill you."
Shanks stared as the white thing moved away, numbed by the contents of what the voice said.
" Run!" the voice shouted and Shanks, without further ado, got up and made a mad dash in the opposite direction of where the huge white thing was moving. As he bolted down the street, he swore he saw black things, huge black things with yellow eyes rising out of the ground in alleyways.
*~*~*
Aozora sighed as he walked down one of the many large streets that pointed in the direction of the train station. Only a few hours and he already miss his friends.
Maybe I should just forget about the keychains, he thought. Maybe I should just forget about my mission and just turn around, go back, and stay with them at the top of the bell tower. I'm tired of this.
He sighed even louder and longer.
" Its hard enough just making it here; do I have to keep going?" he asked himself. " Do I have to keep going?"
A flash of white.
Aozora whirled around, only to see something long, stretchy, and white dance away. Bouncing on lampposts and the shades over doors, it flipped like a gymnast.
Aozora, entranced by its uniqueness in his world, decided to see where it was going. He began to run, run as fast as he could, for the white creature was moving faster and faster.
Down an alley he turned, and onto a lonely street. The white creature bounded before him, just out of reach, as it bounced into a town circle near the train station. Aozora, running after the white creature, had just enough time to see the white creature leap up into the air, whirl in midair, and plunge, headfirst, into the side of a building.
Aozora stared. He did not see a white creature jump and vanish into the side of a building.
" What the hell-" he was about to exclaim.
And the huge white monster from his dreams suddenly loomed before him. Its head turned to him, its blue cloth ends flowing behind it like a cape. It still had the wide shoulders, the hourglass body, everything, every single detail from his dream.and yet.this time, it was real.
" Oh no, oh no," Aozora slowly backed away.
There is no need to run, child, a quiet, feathery voice whispered.
" What? Are you talking to me?" Aozora stammered.
Why run? There is so much I have to tell you. So much I must tell you. About memories, forgotten memories, the voice answered.
" Forgotten memories?" Aozora demanded.
The sky-child, he is drawing ever so near, the voice stated as the white monster turned its head to him. Aozora suddenly realized that the voice WAS coming from the white monster.
" He-he is?" Aozora stuttered.
The sky-child and your memories, young one, the voice continued to speak. For long I wanted to tell you of this. For long I wanted to reveal to you what you must know. But time and fate worked against me and I could not speak to you in person. And there is not much I can tell you in dreams. Child, dreams are not everything. Is your mission really to seek out the sky-child? Yes it is but do not be easily fooled by dreams. Sometimes, dreams can mean nothing and sometimes, dreams can mean everything.
" What does that mean?" Aozora demanded. " Can you speak more clearly and less vaguely?"
I cannot, young one; time is short, time is pressing, the white monster answered. Don't' you see the importance of time? Time is everything, time and memory, all and one, one and all. You have memories, memories that the universe depends on and time, time which is everything, for everything. Time is what keeps us moving, keeps us forward, keeps us forgetting.time has hidden your memories, child, but it is your memories all seek.
" Who's the 'all'?" Aozora asked uneasily, peering over his shoulder nervously.
Oh, many things, the white monster answered. The Heartless, though, are the ones you must look out for. They are searching for your memories ceaselessly, are trying to capture you, use you, try to harness your memories. They are my opposite, my enemy, and they are coming.
" Who's coming?" Aozora demanded.
The Heartless, they are coming, the white monster spoke, looking to the distance, looking in the direction of the bell tower. They seek what the sky-child seeks. Do not, child, do not, whatever you do, fall to the Heartless. They are coming for you, child. Let us see if you can defy them.
" Wait!" Aozora shouted, before the white monster faded away. " What is your name?"
My name? the white monster repeated. I am the Dream Heart.
And with that, the Dream Heart was gone.
" The Dream Heart?" Aozora asked himself. " Heartless.dream heart.oh, they're opposites of each other! And if the Dream Heart isn't all that dangerous or strange, then won't the Heartless be dangerous."
He turned to go, only to see a humanoid, black creature, with yellow eyes, a black body, and long ears. It stared at him, its ears twitching, it staring at him soulfully with hungry yellow eyes.
" Oh my god!" Aozora turned to go; another humanoid black creature stood there, barring his only other safe way out.
I don't want to have to do this, he scolded to himself as more creatures rose up. But they leave me no choice.
His hand reached into a pocket in his coat and two keychains dangled from his hand as he pulled his hand back out. Two chains, one black, the other crystalline, nearly clear. The medallion of the black one was a black crown; the other had a lovely star the color of the aurora.
The creatures were swaying back and forth and around and around when he first saw them. But now, they were standing still, staring, glaring at the keychains in his hands. They watched very attentively as Aozora transferred the black keychain to his right hand and the star keychain to his left hand.
" You leave me no choice," Aozora said loudly and, closing his eyes, felt about in his heart for the power that gave the keychains their forms.
The keychain in his left glowed first. In every battle or duel or practice, the keychain of the star glowed first. He did not understand why.
The keychain flashed a brilliant white and Aozora could feel it pulsing, could feel the hilt pulsing with live energy, as he gripped the handle of the keyblade in his hand, the one that keychain with the star 'created'. The keychain was now dangling from the end of the keyblade, at the very end of the handle. The keyblade itself was beautiful, glowing and flowing in the colors of the aurora. To the one who had seen the Oathkeeper, one would say that the star keychain looked like it. But no, it was not the Oathkeeper. It glowed a different color, was shaped slightly different, and so, it is safe to say that Aozora's keyblade was not the Oathkeeper.
The hand to his right exploded in the wild dark energy that the keychain possessed. In his hand held the hilt of the black keyblade, the Oblivion. Radiating in dark powers, it gleamed in his hand, the opposite of the star keyblade in his left, the Starlight.
The creatures were glaring at the keyblades, were staring at them like they were the most hated things in the world, and were threatening to approach him. Aozora merely stood in a stance, his keyblades out in a way that they could move in any given, different direction. He glared back at the creatures, tried to outdo them in the glaring contest.
While Aozora busily engaged himself in a staring contest with a creature, another creature suddenly leaped into the air, his faint shadow casting a shadow on his back. His claws were sharp and gleaming, ready for that sweet chance to take Aozora's heart.
The keyblade that flew through the air stopped the creature. Aozora had flung the Starlight into the air like a boomerang so it came back while destroying the creature. The creature shrieked and exploded into black particles.
Aozora caught the keyblade as it came back to him. Gripping it tightly in his left hand, he faced the swarming creatures, swinging both keyblades and watching the creatures try to decide how to attack him.
" Come on," he taunted, his brown eyes flashing as he faced the group of the creatures watching him, waiting.
" Show me your best."
~*~
The battle was horrendous.
That was the only way Aozora would describe it as. He had used every ounce of energy in his body in fighting these creatures. They were very odd. They were able to flatten themselves onto the ground and slink around like moving shadows. Then they would rise up again and would charge forward with claws. Aozora had a heck of a time dodging them; they popped up whenever and wherever and several times he was almost downed when he tripped over one who was a bit slow rising up.
His two keyblades were covered in strange dark sprays of liquid and he himself was a bit splattered by what the creatures gave off when they were sliced up and through. He had received a few scratches from the claws he could not evade.
Odd as it seemed, the creatures seemed to be after the area on his chest where his heart resided. They almost never went for his back; they attacked at his front, their arms aiming for where his heart beat.
" Very odd," he muttered to himself as he started to where he had dropped his cloak during his battle with the creatures.
Fingering the keychains in his hands, he was only ten feet away from his cloak when he heard voices. Three voices, in fact. One was an odd voice, a voice that only a volatile person would have, cynical and with rising tones, threatening to explode. One was a rather 'goofy' sort of voice, kind of dumb and simplistic. And the last voice.
Aozora froze as the last voice spoke, " They were all headed this way."
That voice, it sounded almost exactly like his. Almost exactly. Not quite but it was there, his voice, his tone, his mood. The voice radiated his personality: stubborn, at times obnoxious, many times determined. Almost.
What was going on?
Aozora decided to see who these three people were and made a mad dash up the street, round the turn, and into the ally closest to the street circle. He knew this place and very easily located the escape ladder. He leaped up, grabbed a rung and began to pull himself up, until his feet reached the last rung. Then he continued to climb his way up, up to the roof of the apartment building the ladder was attached to. Then he proceeded to the edge of the apartment building, to see the owners of the three voices.
They appeared from the direction of the bell tower, from the street leading to the bell tower. Aozora stared at them, thrown off by the physical images of the people who owned the three voices.
The volatile voice belonged to a duck, a white duck dressed in blue. He had a beret on his head and wore an odd tunic-thing with zippers. He was holding a staff, a staff with an odd hat on it. He was rattling away something about Heartless and white creatures.
The owner of the 'goofy' voice was a monstrously tall black dog-like humanoid creature. He had a very large, peachy snout and rather simple- minded eyes. He had on an odd hat with goggles perched on them, and wore a vest over a green shirt and pants. He had a lopsided gait, exaggerated by the round shield hitched onto his right arm/hand, a shield with the image of three circles, one bigger than the rest, imprinted on its face.the image was exactly like the etched picture on the keychain of the moon! Where was the keychain-the cloak!
Aozora looked down hurriedly, only to spot a kid with brown hair lean down to pick up his cloak. The kid looked to be his age and height. He was wearing a black, hooded, short-sleeved jacket, a blue shirt, and black shorts with yellow belts crisscrossing and red pouches on each side of the pant leg. A metal necklace dangled from his neck. The medallion was of a crown.
".this is the oddest thing I've ever seen or found on a street," the kid was saying.
The duck, in the act of scouting out the area, quacked back, " What's that?"
" Hey, look, that there's something funny," the dog-like creature spoke, pointing to the ground, where most of the creatures had died in the vain effort to kill Aozora or do something very horrible. Black splatters of liquid decorated the street and that was what the dog-like creature saw.
" Looks like the Heartless have been here," the kid said, looking in his direction.
" Dammit, I can't see his face," Aozora muttered to himself.
" But who could've done that?" the duck asked.
" Beats me, Donald," the kid replied.
So the duck's name is Donald, Aozora told himself.
" Got any clue on what might've stopped the Heartless from taking a heart, Goofy?" the kid asked.
The owner of the 'goofy' voice is Goofy? That's interesting, Aozora thought.
" Well, um.no," Goofy replied, scratching his head.
" But someone attacked or defended himself or herself against the Heartless," the duck, Donald, said. " Do you think the person could wield a keyblade?"
" But King Mickey's the only other one to have a keyblade besides me," the kid answered.
Keyblade? Does that kid have a keyblade? Like me? And who's King Mickey? I've heard his name before, many times, Aozora thought. Yes, I've definitely heard his name before, many times.in the past.
His brown eyes fazed into space as he attempted to recall exactly how he came to know and easily recognize that name. King Mickey, King Mickey.
His mind remained blank, all other possible memories of this king erased. Only his name remained, hovering in his thoughts.
" Perhaps this kid may know something about King Mickey-"
Aozora looked down, only to see that they had taken his cloak and were headed somewhere else.
He panicked. He cannot lose that cloak. Whatever happens, he must not lose that cloak! It had the moon chain in it, and his mentor had told him, ordered him not to lose the chain and to cling onto it with all his life until he found its owner. And the chain was in the pocket of that cloak. And the three people-make that one person, a duck, and a dog- were carrying it off like it was theirs.
Yet another victim and victor in the 'finders keepers, losers weepers' game.
Aozora gritted his teeth. This trio may seem to know something about the creatures that had attacked him and King Mickey but they were like thieves! They were taking away the things he held responsible with his life, his soul, and he needed them back.
Without a thought, he pulled out his keychains, gripped them in each hand, and called out with his heart for their forms.
With light and power, the Starlight and the Oblivion appeared in his hands, and Aozora ran towards them, until a gap appeared, a gap between two buildings. Aozora wasted no time in jumping over that gap, as he dashed on the roof towards the three who were carrying away the coat and the keychain.
Then, he was very nearly above them, as they made their way to some place, unaware of the eyes watching them, glaring at them accusingly. The eyes spoke: Dare you take away what belongs to me? I shall regret it but you leave me no choice!
Aozora, with his blades outstretched, with the only intention of knocking all of the trio unconscious before making away with his coat and the keychain, leaped off the building and down towards them.
The wind blew in his face as he began that slow descent towards the trio. His brown eyes centered in on the oblivious brown-haired kid, who was talking to the other two.
The dog saw him and shouted out something like, " Sora, above you!"
The duck looked up and gave an odd quacking shout.
The kid looked up, when Aozora was only feet above him. Aozora stared. He was completely caught off guard, not expecting at all to see the face of his would-be victim of ambush.
He found himself staring at his own face, his very own face. Besides the slightly longer brown hair and the sky-blue eyes, the face was his own, his face, like his voice.
" Look out!" he screamed, realizing at the same instance that he was not able to stop himself from landing on the kid that resembled him.
The smack of body on body was coupled with an insane quacking and a 'goofy' voice shouting, " Help! Help!"
~*~
Author's Note: The next chapter will feature Riku and Kairi. After that, though, a chapter featuring them will come up every third or fourth chapter, so that we can focus more on Sora and Co. and the blond kid, Aozora, who will play a huge role in Sora's destiny.