Author's Note-Sorry this chapter took so long. I've had manymuch short stories and projects to do for school. –sigh- But recently I put up a status thingy on my profile which I intend to update regularly, so if in any need for reference, hopefully that will help a little bit. Anyways, here's the chapter.

Sora blinked. "Making fire? That's easy..." He said, forming his keyblade. While he didn't have his life memories, he could still remember the spells.

He pointed the keyblade at a pile of dry twig. "Fi-"

"Stop!" a voice yelled/roared. Sora nearly jumped and looked around. A sleek, black, big cat leapt agilely down from the tall stone wall and to the floor. Sora instinctively took a small step back, his last encounter with a cat of this size not very well forgotten.

King Louie just looked amused. "Well," he drawled. "Bagheera, what are you doing here?"

"For one thing, I'm looking for Mowgli. While this boy doesn't seem to be him," the cat gave a nod towards Sora but kept his eyes on the monkey king, "it's a good thing I came when I did. Fire in monkey hands-it would end up with the entire jungle aflame! You and your subjects would end up killing us all!"

"Relax, Bagheera. We can handle a little something like fire." King Louie said nonchalantly.

"No you can not!" Bagheera argued. "Are you trying to-"

"Sora!"A voice called from off to the side.

Sora looked over at Taro and Tam, who were running over. "Taro! Tam!" he called back.

"More mancubs in the jungle?! What is going on here?!" Bagheera demanded, clearly looking at least a little annoyed.

Taro and Tam stopped in their tracks as they laid their eyes on the large black cat. Taro formed his keyblades and Tam's right hand twitched slightly, a few seeds suddenly appearing between her fingers as they automatically identified the feline as a threat. They weren't taking any more chances after their last encounter.

There was a long moment of silence, everyone staring at the two armed teens. Taro motioned slightly for Sora to come over. Sora glanced at both Bagheera and King Louie, and, figuring that both sides were probably at a stalemate anyway, nodded and started over to his friends when suddenly-

"Hey, Bagheera! You found Mowgli, right?" A voice shouted off from the side. Sora stopped halfway to his friends and frowned, looking around.

"...Huh...?" he asked, looking confused.

A huge gray bear suddenly tromped into view.

The humans stared, blinking in surprise. There was another long moment of silence, which Taro finally broke. His keyblades disappeared and he threw up his hands theatrically. "Well," he said, "that proves it. Yep. This planet is the biggest and the WEIRDEST effin' zoo in the whole entire universe."

-----

Yukiro looked up as the door opened and Vincent slipped in. They had long-since explained who they were and what they were doing there, what they were doing in general. Vincent was taking care of Riku in another room. Yukiro was taking a shift guarding Rufus-who was still unconscious and now tied to a chair-while the others were discussing what to do in the other room.

Vincent sighed. Yukiro pushed himself off the wall hehad been leaning against, closing his eyes for a moment, turning to the man, then opening them again.

"How is he?" Yukiro asked quietly.

"No change. He suffered from a bullet wound and a deep gash going all down his arm. There's almost the chance of him dying from blood loss, but we caught it in time." Vincent reported.

"He won't die. The bullet wound was in his waist, not his heart. External injury won't kill him. There's the slim chance of death from blood loss, but the only true way to kill a Dark Knight is to affect the heart." Yukiro sneered.

"...What makes you so sure that he's a Dark Knight?" Vincent asked. He didn't disagree, of course. He had spotted it right off. But he was curious about his prince's reasoning.

"Are you blind?" Yukiro asked a bit scathingly, not looking at him. "You bandaged him-you had to have seen all the scars. Don't forget, he didn't even realize he was injured until he had lost enough blood to make him feel faint. And he has the Heart's Eye. Both you and I know that only knights and nobles are supposed to have that."

Pause. Then, "I suppose you're right. But something perplexes me: why would he be working on the side of light if he is a Dark Knight?"

Yukiro blinked, then shrugged and sighed as he leaned against the wall again, crossing his arms. "From what I understand, he helped my mo-Queen Ceridwen bring me back to this realm. Queen Ceridwen sent both of us off to defeat him. She claimed that we needed each other's help to be able to do it."

"So your mother trusts him. I don't see why she does, but I'm not about to doubt her judgment. Queen Ceridwen always did make the best decisions." Vincent pointed out.

"Yeah, except for when she-" Yukiro stopped himself. "Look. Not that I want to dig up things that were meant to be buried, but it's a little late for that now. It's Queen Ceridwen's 'great decisions' that got us into this situation in the first place. Because of her great judgment, Princess Seika is dead and my brother is still alive. How does any of that make sense?! She made no effort to stop the king's experiments with the darkness, not even when my brother started to get dragged in. She let it continue and look at what's happened. Look at our kingdom, look at our people! All Heartless, all darkness. How can you speak of her so highly after what happened to your comrades, your fellow knights?!" he snapped.

Vincent shook his head, half in disgust, half in disbelief. "Why are you blaming this all on your mother? It's your father's fault and you know it."

"Hardly. Nobody ever told me anything." Yukiro shot back acidly.

"But you do know. You didn't go running out of the castle every night without reason." Vincent said in a matter-of-factly voice.

Yukiro froze in surprise and looked up at Vincent slowly. "How did you know?" he asked.

"Roxie told me." Vincent said simply.

Yukiro blinked, his anger beginning to burn out to be replaced by weariness and nostalgia. "Oh. I see." He sighed and shook his head, asking a deep breath. "Well...my apologies...for my behavior. It was...improper...the way I acted." He said slowly and carefully. Obviously a recitation.

Vincent smiled. "Just...take it easy for a little while. One could care less about the etiquette recitations-there's no one to impress here. All that matters is your decisions. That's whatreally makes a good ruler. Try to remember that." He said with a nod. As he started to leave, he stopped and said, "Oh, by the way. Anything can kill a DarkKnight just as anything can kill a human. However, when the injury affects the heart, that's when they can feel pain. Just thought you should know." With that, he left, leaving the prince to his own nostalgic thoughts.

-----

"So Taro nor Riku have arrived here?" Kiyoshi asked a bit glumly. He, the two guys and the girl from earlier, a new guy and girl, plus Tifa and Kairi, who were now awake, were all together in the house he had passed by in the Third District. Kiyoshi subconsciously stuck closer to Yuffie than any of the newcomers, feeling more at ease around here, especially knowing now that she was a fellow ninja. Not only that, but Yuffie reminded him of one of the friends of his father's. Kiyoshi looked around a bit nervously. He hated being around crowds, so many strangers at one time. One of the reasons he had a bit of difficulty relaxing in school.

"Taro? We've heard of Riku, but who's Taro?" Yuffie asked.

"Taro is my older cousin. He has amber eyes and blond, spiky hair," he lifted his hair slightly as a weak imitation of Taro's hair, "and he just turned sixteen not long ago. Have you seen him?"

"Kiyoshi, are you sure that it wasn't Sora that you really saw? You did say that you had been in a gummi ship accident earlier." The new girl named Aerith asked. "It may have scrambled your memories a little bit."

Kiyoshi glared up at her. "He's my cousin. How could I get him-who I'd known for eleven years-mixed up with a kid that I haven't even met before?!"

Cloud shrugged.

"Kid's got a point." Cid commented.

"But what if he had met Sora and forgot all about it?" Aerith argued. "What weapons did Taro use to fight against these monsters with?"

"Well... I'm sure he started fighting them off with his kodachis... But then he got some kind of new weapon: Two sharp, giant keys-"

"Two?" Leon repeated, the conversation really beginning to look like it was catching his interest.

Kiyoshi nodded firmly. "That's right. Two. Not one. Two. One silver and one black." He confirmed.

"Hm... One silver and one black..." Leon considered thoughtfully. "The second one sounds like either the Pumpkinhead or the Oblivion."

"What did the keychains on his keys look like?" Yuffie asked Kiyoshi.

"Er...a black crown and a star. If that's of any help..." Kiyoshi replied.

"It is. You just confirmed that it really was Sora." Leon replied, nodding.

Kiyoshi glared. "I told you, it's not Sora!"

"It has to be. How else would have the keychain that I gave Sora?! The Oathkeeper?!" Kairi exclaimed, looking a bit shocked.

"I don't know, but I know it wasn't Sora. It was Taro. You can ask Riku, if we ever find him again." Kiyoshi said impatiently.

"Well until I see this Taro, I'm gonna be pretty confident that it was Sora." Yuffie said.

"It wasn't Sora! Why don't you guys believe me?!" Kiyoshi yelled. He glared at them all, then shook his head furiously. "You know what? Forget you. I'm going to go look for my friends and my family. On my own. See ya." He snapped, stalking out of the house.

"Kiyoshi!" Tifa started.

"Kiyoshi, wait!" Kairi seconded.

All that they got in reply was the slamming of the door.

-----

With quiet caution, Hyotoko quietly crept into Silence's dark cavern. Silence was going to be gone for a little while-he was still trying to figure out what was wrong with Sakura. Hyotoko knew that he should be training-knew it, and yet his curiosity was getting the best of him. He trusted Silence, but the man had to be wrong.

Hyotoko didn't think that his best friends would just forget about him and replace him like that-especially after what had happened back home. Silence had to be wrong, he had to be.

Only one way to be sure, though...

He walked over to where Silence's orb had been, but it was no longer an orb. Instead, a mere pool of shining, crystal-clear water filled a stone bowl. He frowned. There had to be a way to make it become some sort of liquid crystal ball or whatever. Everything had some sort of scientific explanation, he knew that. He wasn't about to believe that it worked because of some magic. I mean, really, as if.

"Hm..." he wondered. Maybe a spoken command...?

"Show me Kiyoshi." He spoke up, his voice clear. There was a ripple in the pool for a moment, then the water suddenly swirled up into an orb. The image of Kiyoshi with at least seven or eight people together in a room appeared in the orb. Hyotoko grinned.

I knew there was a way, he thought a bit smugly.

"You know what?" he heard Kiyoshi snap. "Forget you. I'm going to go look for my friends and my family. On my own. See ya."

"He's looking for us...?" Hyotoko muttered. He smiled. At least one of his friends still cared. Yeah, Sakura and Kiyoshi always had been known to be fiercely loyal. He then touched the surface of the water, thinking, Hey, I think I may actually have the hang of this thing, now...

He then said, "Take me to Kiyoshi Insei."

With those five words spoken...he vanished...

Author's Note-Bwee! A burst of inspiration! That's always a good sign. It means I'm writing more. Either way, I'll be sure to keep you updated on my profile status thingy. Anyways, please review and I'll try to get the next chapter out as soon as possible. Ja ne!