Author's Note- Everybody, I am sooo sorry for taking so long with this chapter. Basically it's a long and complicated story about why it took so long. -.-; But the point is that the chapter is finally out and it's nice and decently written and long, right? Right... Um... I don't own Kingdom Hearts. And most of the ninja information comes from an autobiography called 'The Ninja and Their Secret Fighting Art.' The ninja techniques (or at least most of them) are not fiction. But I don't own that book, either. So stop sending your lawyers after me, 'cause after the fifth one, I've started to booby trap the front yard and I'm still waiting for that order of steel bear traps (AKA now called 'lawyer traps') to come in and I have an entire stack of Johnny the Homicidal Maniac comics right here to read to them and drive them insane while they are stuck in the traps I have currently set up already. I don't really recommend trying it. Anyways, enjoy the chapter!

Kiyoshi awoke to the sound of arguing in the next room. He sat up and rubbed his eyes, then looked around. He was lying in a blue room on a blue bed. Wait.. A bed? When did he...?

"How did I get here?" he wondered to himself.

A knot of worry and slight fear suddenly formed in his stomach. What if that man that had kidnapped Sakura and Hyotoko had found and kidnapped him, too?! The man did say that he was going to kidnap him, didn't he? Looking around, he didn't see Tifa and Kairi anywhere either. What had happened to them?!

He took a deep breath to calm himself. Oh well, first things first. As a ninja in training, he had to use his sneaky-sneakiness that he had practiced at for so long to figure out where he was, where his friends were, and what was going on. Slowly and carefully, he stepped off the bed, freezing, holding his breath as the floorboard protested with a slight creak.

The people in the other room didn't seem to hear because the argument seemed to be persisting. Kiyoshi breathed a sigh of relief and got into a low crouching position that gave him complete control of his body weight. A ninja position. He slowly shifted his balance and then his body weight to his forward leg until it supported his entire body. Then he pulled his rear leg forward and in toward his supporting leg, the ankles scarcely brushing each other as the moving leg went forward and out with the toes pointing slightly inward. With his body weight on his stationary leg, the outside edge of his moving foot was used as a feeler, practically probing the floor, then eased to the floorboards, outer edge first. He shifted the weight gently onto this foot, being able to withdraw it quickly in case the floor began to creak. The groping foot then became the next support foot as he persisted. His hands moved lightly like tentacles, as if he were an octopus feeling its way along the ocean floor. At least, that's what it was supposed to seem like. Kiyoshi mainly just kept having the feeling that he was going to screw it all up any minute and get caught. It was the Nuki Ashi, a sweeping step, and he used it to sneak successfully over to the blue wooden door. Quietly he pressed his ear up against the door.

"He needs help...blind...nothing...Silence's power..." An unfamiliar voice said. Kiyoshi frowned. He could only hear bits and pieces. He would never learn anything from this.

Should I..dare to...? he wondered. He bit his lip with a frown, thinking over the very few options he had, then nodded. With this new thought decided, he reached down and turned the knob slowly, then cracked the door open.

With one blue eye, he peeked inside, not going as far as to dare make any noise. He saw a tall man with blond, spiky, wild hair with a large sword strapped to his back. But that hardly caught his eye, despite that the man reminded him somehow of one of his uncle's coworkers a little bit.

What surprised him was the man in black leather. He looked almost like Mr. Takani! ...Or at least like what Hyotoko would look like in about ten years...

His hair was just like Hyotoko's, and so was his weapon, a big sword (Hyotoko would usually just use hand-to-hand combat, but he would use his huge sword that was given to him by his father when things got serious.) "Hy-Hyotoko?!" he whispered.

The men seemed to have heard that. The arguing seemed to cease as both of them turned to stare at him and the door. Kiyoshi's blue eyes widened and he gasped, backing away and stumbling slightly. As he heard footsteps approaching the door, his eyes darted around the room and he spied two other doors, one right next to the window and the other off to his right, which he guessed led off into a hall. Thinking quickly, he made up his mind and bolted off to the left, to the door next to the window.

He flung it open and ran onto a blue balcony, preparing to jump off, the thought of being caught by minions of his sister's and his friend's kidnapper (that master of monsters!) motivating him. If they caught him...

Kiyoshi closed his eyes for a moment and shook his head. No, no, don't think what would happen. Just run. Run so that you won't have to think what would happen, so that whatever would happen can't, He thought. Suddenly...

A hand! A hand shot out and grabbed the back of his blue t-shirt. "Hold on, kid." A voice ordered.

"No! Let me go! Lemme go! If you don't..." Kiyoshi cried, struggling. Struggling, but the grip held tight.

"Then what?" the voice questioned, slightly amused though a bit sardonic.

Kiyoshi paused, then his hand dove into his pocket. "Operation: Metsubushi!" he yelled, presenting a metsubushi. Good thing his sister had made tons of them to get away from trouble whenever she needed to, which was obviously quite often.

Good thing he had snuck some of them from her room, too.

"Metsu-wha-?!"

Too late for his captor to finish his sentence, for it was at that time that Kiyoshi had thrown down the smoke bomb. The once small, innocent ball exploded at once into a combination of dirt, ash, and ground pepper.

Apparently looks can be deceiving.

Taking advantage of the cover of the eye-stinging, smoky cloud, he managed to break free of his captor's grasp. He landed on the ground, turned, and ran through the door and out into the open of a large square. "Great. The last thing I need is to be out in the open!" he growled anxiously, rubbing his eyes a little and looking around.

He glanced around, then ran behind the stairs and into an alleyway. He looked down the dark alley, not really wanting to trek any deeper into the darkness. But he had to, and figured that if not given a choice, he could at least be ready and alert and armed. With this thought in mind, he reached behind him to grab his staff and grabbed air. His eyes widened.

His staff! He must have left his staff back in the room! Now all he had were his smoke bombs and his ninjutsu (but only the hand-to-hand combat part of it) to defend himself with. Oh well. His ninjutsu-trained limbs were all he needed, or at least he hoped.

Kiyoshi was never the strongest of the group, nor the bravest. Being the youngest of the group that consisted of his sister and his two best, childhood friends, one of them being his cousin (with Kiyoshi as eleven, Sakura and Hyotoko being thirteen, and Taro now being sixteen), he never really had to. There was always somebody there for him, someone to back him up. But now...

Now it was time for him to grow up. Being ADD, his curiosity and short-attention span tended to get him into trouble, but he had always been known to be quiet and shy in school and in crowds, always sticking to his best friends. The kids had picked on him for that. However, that didn't last long when his friends and his sister came to his aid and stood up for him. But his friends weren't there anymore, not even his own sister, and he was all on his own. He persisted to ignore the fact that he had dreaded though, that he had hoped he wouldn't have to remind himself of. He knew somehow that after all of this, he could no longer go back to being a kid again.

Cautiously, he crept down the alleyway, to the faintly glowing, decorated, colorful, neon sign that read 'Third District.' And then, this time with a bit more caution, at least, he pushed the doors open, preparing-just in case-for the very worst...

Because, as his Aunt Tsuki would always say, things can always get worse...

A lot worse...

-----

Taro peered through the trees with a frown. Tam sighed. "Taro, we're not lost, are we?"

"Er..." Taro started, not wanting to admit that yes, they really were lost. So he did what was the bright thing to do (in his opinion) and substituted an 'I don't know' with an 'er...'

Tam glanced over at the clueless blonde. One glance at him was enough reason for her to sigh and roll her eyes. "We're lost. Great. Stuck in the green hell. I mean, hey, don't get me wrong: with all these plants and stuff, normally I wouldn't really mind. But this heat..." She sighed, wiping the sweat off her brow with her hand.

Taro let out a tired and frustrated sigh. "I don't get it. I don't understand. It all looked so easy from the brow of the hill. Just go in one straight line..." he said, his voice trailing off.

This brought a small smile to the girl's face as she chuckled a little bit. "Brow of the hill? Did you just say brow instead of top? Who uses the terminology of brow anymore?" She asked, continuing to chuckle. She may have been hot and miserable, but then, if you really thought about it, that can sometimes be known as a contributing factor to loopiness. That and also the fact that other than complaining, they apparently didn't really have anything else to talk about.

The loopiness was contagious, of course, setting into both of the teenagers like laughing gas. Taro smiled and in spite of everything, chuckled a little as well. "Well, my aunt used to talk like that a lot. And not to mention that you just did. Three times." He pointed out.

Tam laughed. "Well, I guess you've got a point. Alright, nobody says the word 'brow' anymo- Ack!" She suddenly fell face-forward.

Taro stopped, turning to her. "Tam?" he asked, his laughter fading away and a slight note of concern faintly touching his voice. "You okay?"

Tam let out a slight growl and pushed herself up off the ground so that her face no longer lay in the fertile soil as she grumbled to herself. "Yeah, sure. I've got a mouthful of dirt, but other than that, I'm fine, Taro. Just fine." She grumped sarcastically. And then she looked up.

Taro was holding out a hand to help her, a concerned frown crossing over his features. The expression, that sincere look of concern on his face was almost made him look...dare she say...cute? It made her blush slightly. Wait. No. She was not blushing. She couldn't be blushing, no way! But just in case if she was...

Tam quickly and carefully diverted her emerald-green eyes from his amber ones that were tinged with worry. 'Amber eyes... It's an odd color for his eyes, but they somehow work with him in a strange sort of way... Must be 'cause it matches with the hair. Huh... she thought. As soon as that thought processed, though, that only made her blush even more.

Get a hold of yourself, Tam! Now's not the time to be flirting! Got to focus on the matters at hand... she thought, shutting her eyes and shaking her head. She ignored the offered hand and got up on her own, looking by her foot with a bit of annoyance to see what it was that she had tripped over.

Taro's frown grew confused, but he merely shrugged it off, muttering something about girls and how he'd never understand them, and then looked over to check out what Tam was staring at. It was a stone. A stone decorated with numerous odd carvings-most likely the writing of this strange, new world. In fact, now that he looked around, he could see that the ground was almost covered in this ornate rubble. He almost wondered how he ever could have missed it-it was everywhere!

But then again, he realized now that the vegitation covered just about everything, including the rubble, almost making them hidden landmines. Traps. Trip over one of those rocks and hit your head hard enough on another rock nearby and you had a pretty good chance of dying.

If this was the base of the monkeys, then they sure were some smart monkeys-especially if this had all been done intentionally. Then again, they can talk, too, Taro concluded. Monkeys are not supposed to be able to talk. Huh. Maybe they were outer space monkeys or maybe Invader Zim monkeys. He would have to look into it later...or at least ask Hyotoko about it when he found him again. Yeah, Hyotoko always was the smartest of the group. If anybody knew, it had to be him. Taro never had the patience to do research.

Maybe that would explain his low language (English, to some)/literature grade in school.

He looked up. The canopy was actually just starting to thin out, going from solid to a couple of actual light-filled cracks running through the denseness. Of course, this was still rare. With a sigh, he shook his head. "Right... Let's just keep going this way. Follow the rubble and see where it leads."

Tam glanced up at him, -.-;'ing. "Your leadship skills are lacking, Napoleon. You haven't planned for this ahead of time whatsoever, have you?" she asked in a blunt voice.

Taro grinned an almost-silly grin as he rubbed the back of his head. "Now what makes you say that?" He joked, acting innocent. At the serious look that Tam gave him, he sighed in defeat. "Okay, okay, I'm jokin. No, I haven't planned ahead. I mean, c'mon, I've never been here before; I don't know what to expect. I'm making all of this up as I go, all right? Geez..." Taro said, rolling his eyes.

"I suppose it's all worked so far..." Tam admitted a bit grudgingly.

"Exactly. Now c'mon. Let's g-" He and Tam suddenly stopped, staring up at the crumbling ruins of a big stone building (which they figured what may have been once a temple) that now suddenly loomed high up over them. Tam glanced over at Taro.

"Well, Mr. Instantaneous. What now?" she asked, a slight arching of the brow.

"Now it's time to infiltrate. We go in, get Sora, if he's there, and then basically run like hell." Taro said.

"From the monkeys?" Tam asked.

Taro sweatdropped. "No, Tam. No. From the headhunters." He said. Tam gave him a cool glare.

"Hmph." She said, striding in.

"Tam? Hey! Wait! Tam! Wait for me..!" Taro said, running after her. Both disappeared into the shadows of long, ancient halls of the temple...

Author's Note- -sweatdrops- Great. I just realized that almost half the characters are teenagers with raging hormones (don't worry, this is gonna stay PG13, lol...) This is gonna be fun to write. -rolls her eyes- 'Specially now that I'm beginning to see a little bit of...dare I say, flirting?...between Taro and Tam... Anyways, I've already started writing a lot more to this. Turns out that one of the reasons that I took so long with updating was because that I had forgotten that I had jumped from Kiyoshi to Taro and the others and I didn't have the latest part of the rough draft with me at the time, so I already at the very least have the next part with Kiyoshi in it, apparently. And I'm workin on a Riku part. And I can probably guarantee that the next chapter ish gonna involve chaos with the monkeys. Oh, and loopy means 'crazy' and 'insane from lack of sleep,' in case anybody was wondering. By the way, I'm also debating something. I'm writing a Kingdom Hearts/Everworld crossover called 'Eyes that Cannot See' at the same time and I'm debating on whether or not to start posting it on here. What do you think? Oh well. Anyways, please review and I shall hopefully be able to get a chapter out very soonish (Halloween special, lol.) So, ja ne!