Prologue

A/N: Hey, welcome to Book 5! Freaky, huh? I mean, considering how many of my commitments rarely get past planning, this is pretty good for me! This chapter is basically just a prologue to the rest of the actual fic, so you don't have to read it unless you want to see my absolutelly horrid summary skills. ;P Anyway, go ahead and read this if you forgot what all happened in Memories Forming, New World, Brother My Brother, and "Whisper," or just go read those if you have enough time and patience on your hands.

Hello there! My name is Jimminy Cricket. It's been about a year since Sora, Kairi, and Riku were reunited with each other and returned to their home. However, there was one person left out of my journal, and I feel so guilty about neglecting her. I'm writing now to fix that little oversight. She doesn't seem to mind, though. In fact, when I told her about my omission, she merely laughed and said "Well that doesn't surprise me! I'm not that memorable a person!"

Riku, giving her a light kiss on the cheek, protested this remark by pointing out all the people he had met that cared about her, himself foremost on the list. I will definitelly be there to chronicle their wedding!

But back to the original purpose of this entry in my journal, I'm going to recount as much of what had happened as she is letting me read from a chronicle a friend of hers is currently working on.

About a year before the Destiny Islands were attacked by the Heartless, Riku, Sora, and Kairi were engaged in their own games, when someone spotted a person clinging to a piece of flotsam out in the sea. Despite the fact that he thought Sora would prefer the role of hero, Riku dove in after this person, and with much effort due to a cleverly concealed, heavy metal breastplate, managed to drag this person back onto land. After a moment, it became clear that CPR would be neaded, and barely even thinking of his actions, Riku did the necessary procedure. The young girl regained enough conciousness to cough up the seawater she had accidentally inhaled, then promptly passed out again. When the doctor finally showed up, he instructed all of the kids in seeing to the girl's comfort and care, and when he was satisfied that she would live, left her alone to sleep off her exhaustion, leaving Riku to watch over her.

When the girl woke up, she was mildly surprised to find herself in unfamiliar surroundings. Soon, though, she informed Riku, who had been watching her nonstop, that she had no memory of her past, not even her name. Riku expressed sympathy for her in a rare act of kindness, and told her not to worry. If they had to, he was certain he and his friends could help her remember, and at the same time, they could help her make new memories right there on the islands. She smiled at his sincerity, and thanked him for his concern. After a moment, Riku left to get her some food and clothes.

Over the course of the next year, the girl would experience a precious few sparks of recollection, but never enough to be called actual memories. She was also bestowed with a name: Riku no Kage, or Riku's Shadow. Everyone called her either Kage or Shadow for short.

Some of those sparks she had came to her only in her nightmares, which she unfortunatelly had plenty of. She would wake up from those shaking and sweating, and only after talking about them with Riku could she calm down. No one else was ever around when one of these nightmares struck, so Riku was the only one who ever knew about them. Unfortunatelly, too soon her nightmares would become all too real.

The islands were attacked the night before a planned departure from them by a raft she, Riku, Sora, and Kairi had been working on, and when Kage saw the storm raging, she immediatelly headed for the smaller island with the paopu trees that Riku had favored. There, she saw Sora and Riku, both surrounded by a thick black miasma that she recognized from a recent nightmare. Her first reaction was: "No... No, it's happening again!"

She ran straight into the miasma, and grabbed Riku's hand. He pulled her in close, and together, they waited for Sora to grab Riku's other hand as well, but she soon noticed that neither boy was moving at all. She barely managed to get out a scream when the darkness swallowed her and Riku whole.

She woke to find herself in a strange town, with all of her memories of the past year thankfully intact. Deciding to explore a little and find out where she had landed, she was soon ambushed by a pack of Heartless. Fortunatelly, she was rescued by a man wielding a Gunblade and calling himself Leon. She immediatelly knew that this was not the man's real name, as she recognized him somehow, and when she confronted him about it, he told her that his name was in truth Squall Leonhart. Kage began to feel sick, and she excused herself quickly.

She managed to compose herself in relatively short order, and when she next saw Leon, he was facing off against Sora. After that little scuffle, she met a young woman named Yuffie, whom she also recognized, but managed to keep herself in enough control to demand to know what was going on. Leon agreed to inform her of the situation, as soon as Sora woke up from his little nap.

After being briefed on the actions taken by the Heartless, Kage managed to appropriate a Gummi ship from a man named Cid Highwind, who owned the Accessory shop in Traverse Town, the world she now found herself in. Saying a chearful farewell to Sora and his new companions, Donald Duck and Goofy, Kage took off, exploring worlds on her own.

She eventually came to the Olympus Coliseum in the middle of a "training" session the satyr, Philoctetes, had put Sora through. She even stuck around to watch the Preliminaries for a tournament Phil was having, and there she met up with a man named Cloud Strife. She never got a good enough look at his face to know why she recognized him, or why she had such strong feelings for him, but when she overheard Cloud speaking with Hades, a remark that Hades made about the ex-SOLDIER set her anger mounting.

Not being able to do anything about her strong feelings towards this man, Kage decided to watch the matches and not worry about it. However, when Sora and Cloud went up against each other, she had a hard time not rooting for Cloud. When Cerberus attacked, she pulled out a pair of twin jeweled daggers Leon and the gang had given her, and helped Sora in the fight. Afterwards, when Sora left the Coliseum, Kage was about to follow when she and Cloud crossed paths.

As soon as she managed to look into Cloud's strangely glowing blue eyes, her memories came rushing back to her with the force of a tidal wave. Deciding to pull a slight prank to help spark Cloud's memory as well, Mizu--for that was her true name--slipped her hand into Cloud's pocket, and he immediatelly reacked back and grabbed her by the wrist. Mizu's only reaction was a grin as she said, calmly: "Let go of me, you spikey-haired jerk."

Cloud, though suprised to see her, immediatelly scooped Mizu into a crushing hug that she returned, both laughing and exclaiming that they had missed each other. Mizu then introduced Cloud to Sora as her big brother, even though the two weren't related by blood. They had sworn an oath of brotherhood nine years ago with each other. Mizu then asked Sora to share the same oath with her, which he readily agreed to.

She and Sora went their separate ways again, each agreeing to check in with each other on a regular basis at Traverse Town. Durring one such meeting, they ran into Riku, who immediatelly resented the fact that Sora had made new friends. When Mizu caught him with Maleficent, she jumped between the two and attacked the witch, telling Riku to leave. He refused, however, and Mizu dropped her guard in suprise just enough for Maleficent to knock her out. When she came to, the witch was gone, and Riku was holding her gently in his arms.

After some discussion, Mizu managed to convince Riku to join her and Cloud in looking for Kairi. Hesitant at first, Riku soon came to accept Cloud as a friend, and as Mizu's brother, and Cloud learned to appreciate Riku's tight bond with Mizu.

The trio landed on another world, and Mizu taught Riku the fundamentals of tracking in a forest. After spotting a young buck with his doe and faun, Riku soon caught on to the lessons, and they made it to the town a mile in from the treeline by sundown. There, they questioned the merchants, and when that pulled up severely limited results, resigned themselves to staying another night so Mizu could interrogate the rif-raf of the town as to Kairi's whereabouts. Street rats were well informed, after all.

Noon at the inn on the first day in town, the group met with a friend of Cloud's quite by accident. In fact, Serenity was the one who snuck up on them and began berrating Cloud for leaving her without any notice. When she learned of the group's quest, however, she asked to help them and was readily welcomed.

Unfortunatelly, the next day split Mizu from Riku yet again.

Shortly after meeting Serenity, the group had run into Hades, who had been sent out by Maleficent to find Riku and bring him back to Hollow Bastion. However, Riku had refused, and Hades was forced to take extreme measures. While Mizu was out gathering information the second day, Riku had gone up to their room to pace away his worry in peace, and eventually fell asleep. That was when Hades came in and kidnapped him. When Mizu returned, she was fairly upset at finding Riku gone and a Heartless in her room.

A couple nights later, after being drugged to sleep by Cloud and Serenity, Mizu's heart called out to Riku, and the pair of them had a conversation that neither could remember. Soon after, Mizu had a nightmare and somehow dragged Riku into it. When she woke up, she vomited over the side of her bed, and in a rare moment of weakness, fell asleep in Cloud's comforting arms.

Now, Mizu, Cloud, and Serenity are off looking for Riku and Kairi again...