So here it is, the final chapter of this fic.

The first chapter was dedicated to the heartless Sora, the second and third to Kairi and company, the fourth to Riku and the King and this last one is dedicated to the human keybearer who fought endlessly known as Sora.

Enjoy.

Final Chapter - Return

I've been having these strange dreams lately...

Like...

Is this really a dream?

Or reality?

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I was drifting...no walking, it got hard to tell the difference after I had been in here so long.

Alone.

I had become a heartless, and the only way to sustain my "self" without my heart was to devour the hearts of others, the pure hearts that floated into Kingdom Hearts.

"Kairi, you can only leave him..."

I twitched, my arms imploded as a dark blade exploded, the pain stinged me so badly that I dropped my keyblade, the key repulsed from my bladed right arm, creating a painful resonance of energies within my head.

"Yes, the King was right, I would've killed Kairi by now if she were still here..."

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"Sora you managed to return to being human due to the purity of the flow of hearts within this place, a heart must've been accidently absorbed by you during that collision with Kairi."

"From everything we've managed to gather, it seems the Sora in our world took your heart when he was changed back by Kairi's power, what she did wasn't really change him back, what she did was use her powers as a princess of heart to guide a heart most similar to his to the body of the heartless. In other words, yours."

Mickey seemed hesitant as he said these things, guilty perhaps? Maybe, maybe just ever so slightly. We had stepped away from Kairi, she seemed...really uncomfortable.

"So I can never leave?"

...

"...The only choice I can offer is this, you will take the keyblade and seal Kingdom Hearts from within, by residing within, you will be able to both maintain your human nature and well...search for a replacement much in the same way that Kairi did."

...

"You're leaving again Sora?"

Yes I was leaving again, leaving Kairi and Riku again, but this time not to search for them, but to search for myself, so that I could return to them as the person I was.

"I'll be back, I promise. And if I get lucky like the King said, maybe I'll even get back in time for dinner."

Kairi seemed to bite back a tear and smiled instead. Riku was silent, looking like he was going to hunt me down for making her cry.

"You know Sora, I can still join you."

I pushed him gently on the shoulder, "To get in my way?" I smiled, as wide as I could, it was the most important magic, the one that Donald and Goofy taught me.

"Alright squirt, you know yourself best."

I did, and I could already feel it, I would devour their hearts if I stayed beside them any longer, such strong hearts when I myself was such a frail container without any heart.

...

Everyone was on the other side, Mickey had promised he would take them back, even if they had a little searching to do to get back to destiny island.

I waved to them, Kairi looked like she was going to forget everything and just run towards me. It made me glad and giddy inside, though I'm not sure how that was possible without a heart. She remembered me and kept me in her thoughts even after all this time.

"Kingdom Hearts! Close!"

I couldn't see them any more except through the small crack, I think I heard someone crying on the other side, but I couldn't tell anymore, so tired of being human, so tired...

-------------------

It was time again, I had surpassed my limit, I required another heart.

I closed off my eyes and summoned it, without conciously doing anything, my empty soul accepted the heart that had flown to my calling. The memories flooded within me, the emotions, though it was brief, it kept me human for ever so much longer.

This one was a man named Kaima, a father who fought until his last stand on a battle field in some unknown world to protect his daughter. His story was a sad one, but his daughter had made every moment of sadness filled with joy, she was everything to him, so it was only fitting that when she died, he died with her.

I continued walking, aimlessly, and pointlessly, savouring every moment of Kaima's life into my own memory, before it faded to the point where I could no longer recall it.

I had just realized that I had left my keyblade on the floor a while back, I looked at my right hand, it was human again so I summoned the keyblade upon that hand, the blade no longer seared my flesh, not even the slightest burn.

Time was almost meaningless in this place, if I had to say, I had been walking for a year now, so many times I had heard voices like the King had mentioned I would, but without a sufficient heart, there was no purpose in leaving this world.

I sat down.

I was tired of walking, not physically but mentally, the scenery never changed and all heartless would shy away from me, they knew what I was deep down.

Of course they do, I am here after all.

"Heartless..."

Such spite, we've been together for so long and you still don't get along with me?

"If you weren't here, everything would be all right."

Don't be stupid, I am a part of you.

"Are you going to tell me to embrace the darkness now?"

Haha! A year ago maybe, but theres no point now boy, you love this darkness.

"No."

Anyone else would've been driven insane here, yet you enjoy toothpicking your void with the hearts of so many here, how many victims have you claimed? Hearts that will never live again, lives that are eternally lost within you. F-u-n, wasn't it?

"No!"

I shivered and went delirious, I struck the keyblade against myself, to drive out this insanity, to drive out this darkness.

But then I remembered, yes it was so easy to forget things here. The heartless were darkness, they weren't evil, they were desire.

I want to protect my daughter, I will do whatever it takes.

From Kaima's heart there grew a heartless, for the universal governing force saw the need to balance, his desire for his daughter, his will to do whatever it took. The light of his thoughts, the darkness of his actions.

"And you are born from my sacrifice and chains to being human."

Yes well, you were tired of it. Though I'm tired of you forgetting things, we've had this conversation so many times I'd kill you if you slipped far enough to being a heartless to give me an arm.

"Well, it'll all be over soon."

O? How can you tell?

"I'm tired, my mind will break soon without a heart to call my own."

Too bad Sora, I had wanted more, well a heartless may live eternally, so anything less is just too bad. It's a pity a strong heartless can't survive without a strong will to support it.

"Well...that's just...too bad for both of us then."

I fell to my knees, whatever this world was made of cushioned my fall and prevented me from tormenting pain moments before my "self" dissolved away.

"Sooner than I thought...guess I won't be back in time for dinner Kairi...sorry Riku, I'll have to kick your butt...some other time..."

...Pity, you know if you could've held on for a bit longer I imagine...

The world faded into darkness and light at the same time.

--------------------------------------------

I am Kingdom Hearts, I see the end of all judgement, I see all tragic tales to their final moments.

Sora's life has ended in exchange for the life of the other Sora who lives still...

Still?

Yet what was this I felt?

Strange, like a gear that had flow off the clock without being noticed, an extra gear outside the mechanisms of the machine.

Sora?

---------------------------------------------

"Hey, you look like a mess Sora."

I looked up from the floor, it was an old man, somehow stumbled within this world.

He seemed so frail, but yet as our eyes met I saw something past him within his heart, and there I recognized an image so intense that my body began to throb.

"You're..."

He extended his hand out to me, I grabbed it with more strength than I thought I still had.

"Thanks for the loan Sora, it's your turn now, to live the life that I borrowed."

His heart passed through to me, and in that moment I was certain, a miracle had occured for whatever reasons. I didn't care why or how, I was glad, truly truly glad.

Between muffled tears from experiencing the life this old man had lived through I called out, "Thank you...Sora..."

---------------

Destiny Island.

I found myself here through some magic of the keyblade I never knew it possessed. Getting out of Kingdom Hearts wasn't much work, but it did take time to find someone who was willing. A cloaked man who wore a mask and carried a different looking keyblade, he was extremly silent but I didn't need to see much of him to be concerned.

I found myself a little raft laying at the side of the beach, the island itself looked like it hadn't been visited in ages, not surprising, Kairi could have never mananged to maintain this whole fort herself while Riku and I was gone and who knows how long it's been since they returned...

At the thought I shuddered, how long had it been? There was no way to tell.

As I rowed closer to town, my guts shriveled, I recognized nothing, the streets I prowled the last time I had seen home were different, except for a few houses that I could still make out.

"How many years then? Twenty? Thirty?" I whispered to myself, I was afraid, that even though I had returned, I had already lost the home I belonged to.

Kairi left my an addresse of where she lived, she said that she would wait, no matter how long it took.

The last thing that I wanted to see was a broken down house where she had written her addresse, it would pain me to no end.

As I trudged down the streets I recognized no one, and no one looked as though they knew who I was. I had grown a bit, but not so much that I had completely changed...

Past a large clocktower, a school that had permanetly locked gates, houses where nothing but plain land stood before.

I wanted to ask someone what year it was, but it was meaningless, I couldn't remember what year I had left, I was also afraid of the answer that they may give.

Finally I came upon the house that Kairi had told me about.

A wooden cabin rather far away from the main parts of town, it seemed in good conditions, it was still day so I couldn't tell whether anybody was inside from the lights.

I knocked gently, there was no answer and the silence only made me more anxious.

I opened the door, the first thing that caught my eyes was a picture of Kairi on a table, and beside it incense burning, a way that people mourned for the dead.

"No..."

I ran through the next door that appeared to me, slamming it away, I had to know for sure, I just had to.

But door after door, there was no one, nobody, I gave up as I gazed through the kitchen one last time. I began walking back towards the front, dazed, unable to think clearly.

"Kairi..."

Just then the door opened, I lifted my head, it didn't really matter who it was but at least they might be able to tell me something.

"Sora, you're late you know, you missed dinner last night and we made all that stuff for you too. I do have some breakfast though, wanna join me?"

I was stunned, unable to speak, Kairi was in front of me, the same way I had last seen her, as though only a day had passed by.

"O that...Riku's sick idea of a joke, he thought you'd completely freak out, said he didn't put his own photo there was you wouldn't really care. Umm...you didn't really take it seriously now did you?"

I laughed, so hard that tears fell, so hard that it hurt, but so wonderfully happy.

"Woah, what's going on in there, I thought you weren't bringing boys home and reserving the title of boyfriend for Sora, Kairi." Riku's voice, I'd pound him later for the sick joke.

"Shhh...Don't say that out loud."

Riku stepped in beside Kairi, "Hey, look just in time to steal some of my breakfast."

Kairi handed Riku her luggage, "Go set these up in the kitchen."

"And leave you love birds alone? Yes madame."

She threw him an irritated look, "Just go."

Riku left and as soon as he did Kairi shyly turned towards me, "Welcome home Sora."

I wiped the tears from my eyes and look back on her, I remembered the life of the other Sora and in his thoughts was a moment exactly like this, what was it again I was supposed to say now?

"I'm home."

And so it ends, the ending may seem kind of rushed, that's because it was, I haven't played Kingdom Hearts for quite a while now and really wanted to just wrap this up so I could move onto something else, but never the less I did put effort into this last chapter, hope it was a good ending for those of you who have read this far.

Thanks for your support.