Author's Note-I would just like to say thank you for the reviews so far! Oh, and I don't own Kingdom Hearts. Meh...it's late. Or should I say early. So I'm not going to ramble with the rest of the author's note like I am here. Just remember that I am open to world suggestions. Now, just read and enjoy!

"So, they're on their way." Silence said, his amber eye glowing softly from underneath his hood as he stood in the dark cavern. He watched the teens through the liquid orb that floated in midair before him. He glanced back at the red-haired warrior that was kneeling behind him. "He's powerful in spirit, it seems. And seemingly too innocent for a even demon to kill or to capture, I believe. But then, you should know that firsthand. Right, Chaos?"

Chaos nodded. "...Yes... It was because of him that Tranquility remembered and broke free... Normally I can restrain and control him..."

"But the thought of killing the boy gave the human strength. The strength to stop you so abruptly, apparently. And not to mention that fighting him had already lowered your defenses since, after all, he was only a boy." Silence said, his voice slightly amused.

"Is the power of innocence really that strong sir?" Hyotoko inquired a bit curiously.

"Yes. Innocence is light. Which is why he is such a formidable opponent." Silence replied.

Hyotoko took a step forward. "Then I don't see why you can't just send me to bring him here! It wouldn't be as much trouble... We're best friends; he trusts me!"

"No longer." Silence said. The thirteen year-old frowned.

"But...Lord Silence-"

Silence moved aside to reveal the orb before him. He motioned for the boy to step nearer.

And step nearer he did. Hyotoko watched with a sinking heart Taro and his two new friends. "Look into the orb, Hyotoko. As you can see, your best friend Taro has found new friends to replace the old. He is unsure of the sides, of where your loyalties lie. Thus, his trust in you has been lost. He would not willingly follow you here if you asked him to. Besides, you did ask him to already, correct? He did not comply that time. He wished not to go because he's left his old friends behind and doesn't want to go back. You and the others are now just a waste of his time."

"Well he's doing the wrong thing! At least my loyalties lie with my friends! I would do anything to help them! Or at least...the friends that I have left..." Hyotoko said softly, sadly.

"And Sakura...?"

"I'd do anything for her! Especially her!"

Silence blinked, then closed his eyes and smiled, shaking his head. "Your body nor your heart is not yet strong enough to do 'anything' just yet. You are still just a child."

"Then what can I do for right now? How can I help her?"

Silence's smile faded as he looked into the ball. "Train. And wait. Practice makes perfect, Hyotoko. And then you truly can help your dear Sakura in regaining her heart."

Hyotoko nodded. "...Yes sir..." With those two words said, he bowed and walked off, disappearing into the darkness of the shadows.

Silence watched him and then turned back to the orb. "Tch. Loyalty. What an unfavorable trait of an enemy." He sneered, eyes narrowing. "Merely a complicator of things and a child's naïve trust."

Chaos cleared his throat, him of being long forgotten. "And speaking of loyalty, whathaps be the status of the old messed up puppet that thinks he can control us?"

"A puppet, you say? It is he that is the leader-I am only second-in-command." Silence replied, a smirk on his face and a hit of sarcasm in his voice.

"Then forgive me for talking badly of our 'leader'. I shall now go and take my leave and try to find my place." Chaos said as he stood up with a matching smirk and sarcasm. With that and a mock bow, he walked off, disappearing as well.

Silence pulled a crystal from the pocket of his black coat and rolled it around in his hand as his view focused on the image of Sora in the ball. In his hand... Sora's crystal. "Hm...Sora, isn't it? Let's play a little game. After all, it would be far too easy if you were to regain all of your memories in one swoop, and quite boring at that."

He closed his hand around the crystal, then lifted his middle and index finger with a set of cards between them, each card with a crystal heart seal and three points at the top, like a crown. "Through a set of trials, however...this will make things a lot more interesting." With that, he cast the cards (keeping a few for himself) to the elements to settle down randomly with different people in very different worlds.

"Now, boy...let the games...begin..."

-----

"Hey..."

A voice...a voice in the darkness? Who was calling to him?

"Hey, kid! Wake up!"

"Do you think that he was hurt worse than we thought he was?"

"Hm...no... The hi-potion should've cleared all of that up..."

"Well what if it was brain-damage?"

Long silence. Then, "...No idea..."

Blue eyes opened slowly and two blurred humanoid figures came into view. "...Sakura...?" the boy muttered, slightly disoriented.

"No, I'm Kairi! And that's Tifa... Remember?"

The blurred view came into focus. Seeing a bit more clearly now, he could tell that the speaker...Kairi, apparently...did look a lot like Sakura. But her hair was a bit longer than Sakura's (it didn't stop right at the shoulders but was about an inch longer than that), and the eyes were blue and not hazel. Kairi wore a school uniform, and she looked about a year or two older than Sakura. It was easy to see how he had been mistaken.

The other girl, Tifa, wore a brown skirt and a white tank top, and had long, dark brown hair with brown eyes. She looked around Kairi's age.

The boy blinked. "...Are you the two girls that rescued me?"

Kairi nodded. "Yeah. We are. And you are...Kiyoshi, right?"

"Yeah...Insei Kiyoshi..." He blinked, then suddenly sat up quite abruptly. "Wait a second! Is this Traverse Town?! Where is Taro?! And Riku?! Don't tell me that they're still at home fighting all those monsters!"

Kairi's eyes widened. "What?" she exclaimed. She grabbed the boy's shoulders. "You know Riku?! Please, tell me where he is! Is he alright?! Was he with a boy named Sora?!"

"Calm down, Kairi, calm down! I'm sure Sora's all right." Tifa said, grabbing Kairi's shoulders and pulling her away gently. She looked back over at Kiyoshi. "He is, isn't he?"

Kiyoshi blinked. "I don't even know anyone called Sora. I'm from a place called Twilight Town. And as for Riku...my cousin found him a couple of months ago. He was sick and with fever, but he got better. Oh, and I don't know if this is anything new to you guys, but Riku is blind." When he saw the looks of shock on the girls' faces, he said, "Oh. I guess it is."

"No! You can't be talking about the same Riku!" Kairi exclaimed. No, it couldn't be true. Riku, the same best friend of her and Sora since childhood. Riku, their friend who had wanted to see other worlds. The one who had been so eager to. It was he who had come up with the idea to build the raft, he who had got them all excited about seeing other worlds.

And now he couldn't see. This all had to be complete hell for him. Who could've done this? Who would've been so cruel...?

'And worse,' Kairi thought with a sinking heart, 'If just being blind is what happened to Riku, then worse has probably happened to Sora...'

Tifa had recovered more quickly though. She didn't know Sora and Riku very well-she never had the chance to. She had moved to Destiny Islands from one of the neighboring islands called Nibelheim only about a week before the Heartless attack. Of course, the entire reason that she moved was because the Heartless had come to her island earlier. But already in the week's time that she had been there, she had met Kairi at school and became fast friends with her. It was her that had been one of the few that had even believed Kairi about the Heartless attack since everybody had thought that it had just been some kind of practical joke.

Oh humans and their naïve minds.

She turned to Kiyoshi. "Why don't you give us a description. What did he look like?"

"He was tall. Well, kind of tall. Taller than me... He had white hair...it was shoulder-length. Oh, and I think he was sixteen. He seemed to no longer have any memory at all, and he claimed that to be the case, but he certainly seemed to know what he was doing back home when the monsters attacked. You know, I really just don't know what to believe anymore." Kiyoshi described, sighing. He blinked, then frowned. "Now I need help with something..."

"Huh?" Both of the girls asked, blinking at him.

"I...I'm lost... I mean, I was supposed to find Sora in Traverse Town with Taro and Riku, but... I don't know. My ship blasted off without them and was hit by something big. The next thing I know, I'm being hurled here and into the water. My world was attacked by monsters, and what's worse, my older sister Sakura and my best friend Hyotoko was kidnapped by who I think may have been their leader." Kiyoshi sniffled.

Be strong. He thought to himself. But as he looked around at these strange new people, this almost-bare guest room, he realized already that everything that he had ever known and ever held dear had been ripped away, and no matter how hard he'd try, things would never again go back to normal.

Kairi's eyes widened. "Monsters?!" she exclaimed. She and Tifa exchanged glances. "The Heartless." Kairi said, her hands tightening into fists at her sides.

Tifa glanced over at her, then sighed and turned back to Kiyoshi. "...You're at Destiny Islands. Not Traverse Town. And no, Sora is not here, either."

Kiyoshi sweatdropped. "Well, that much I gathered..."

Tifa nodded and turned back to Kairi. "I'll take care of the boy from here. You just get some rest, okay? You really looked like you need it."

Kairi nodded and walked slowly out of the house. She went down the street, down to the coast where the shore was rocky, lost in thought.

With tearful eyes, she could almost see the three small children playing on the rocks, hopping and climbing...but that was just a memory. One of the few things left of her friends.

Kairi reached into her pocket and pulled out a shiny, smooth red and black stone. It was a pretty stone, but its value wasn't from looks.

-----

A brunette and a white-haired boy scampered up a particularly large rock like tree monkies and hopped onto a log when they reached the top. A red-haired girl tried to keep up with them. "Sora! Riku! Wait for me!" She stepped on the log; her eyes suddenly widened and she gasped as her foot slipped and she tumbled off.

Looking down at her skinned knee, the five year-old burst out crying. The boys, hearing her wails, ran back to her.

"Kairi!" the six year-old Riku exclaimed. "Hang on... I'll go get a grown-up. Sora, stay with her while I'm gone."

His five year-old companion, Sora, nodded and watched his friend run off to get some help. Throughout Kairi's tears, he stayed loyally by her side. Finally, he looked around and his face brightened to see a shiny red stone that was speckled with black, glistening in the waves. He ran over and brought it back, then knelt down next to Kairi and said, "I know it's not much, but...it's pretty. I thought you might like it. Please don't cry..."

Kairi blinked, her tears stopping, and took the stone. Her face, streaked with tears, turned into a small smile. "Thank you." she sniffled.

Sora rubbed the back of his head and flashed his goofy smile at her. "You're welcome." He replied.

-----

Kairi fingered the same small stone in her hand now. "Sora..." she said. She sniffled; a tear ran down her cheek.

"I'll come back to you!"

"Sora...you said that you'd come back to me. So where are you?!"

She whirled around and karate-punched a tree (since Tifa had been teaching her a bit of karate moves), letting all of her frustrations flow out of her system and into that one hit. "The Heartless are back...and I can't fight them all by myself... I can't fight them without you! We need you, Sora...we need you..."

"Hey, that's not a bad punch..." a voice said off to her left. She whirled around to see Kiyoshi. He still had bandages wrapped around him, around his arms and his head and chest, and he was wearing the torn black shirt from earlier, but he was standing like the injuries weren't affecting him at all and he was even smiling slightly.

"But," he said, "I actually find this punch a little more effective. The Shikan-ken." With that, he punched the tree himself. Kairi noticed that his fist was quite odd. It was formed with the fingers half-folded, leaving the middle knuckles protruding. The punch was bullet-like, going straight in with all the force behind the striking points. The elbow didn't raise along the outside of the fist's path, nor did the punch bend or hook.

She also noticed the new crack in the tree.

"Hey! Don't do that! You'll only open your wounds back up aga-" Tifa stopped and stared at the crack in the tree, her voice trailing off. "- ain...Woah..." She blinked.

Kairi turned to the younger boy. "What did you say your name was again?"

"Insei Kiyoshi."

"Kokoro Kairi." She held out a hand. "Nice to meet you."

Author's Note-Heheh...I think the last name 'Kokoro' fits...It means 'heart/spirit/soul'... And Kiyoshi Insei means 'quiet falling star'...and Kiyoshi fell from the sky as a 'falling star' –sweatdrops-... Yeah...if you look at the names, then you'll see a bunch of name puns in here, really... Just felt like I should just randomly share that without reason... -sweatdrops further- Yeah. I'm quite tired and loopy. Been up all night writing. Just be sure to do your part and review! Ja ne!