Aoki-chan: Thank you everyone for your kind reviews.
Ashley the Editor: Now here's the part where we thank the people who did review.
Laurel- awww… Thank you! I really like how your story is turning out! Don't you dare discontinue it!
KHobsessed-13- (huggles the moogle plushie) Thank you so much! When people say nice things like that it makes me fell all warm and fuzzy inside.
I have a feeling that there were more reviews for this chapter but I think they were accidentally deleted. I'm very sorry to the people that weren't mentioned. I still love you all!
Aoki-chan: Now I think I will proceed on with the story! Oh, I got this great idea from Shang (he ((I think he's a guy)) is writing a totally awesome story in the Naruto section. Check out Naruto: Next Generation). What he's been doing is for every chapter he writes a description of what the chapter cover is. (Think manga or Japanese comics.)
I think this would be an excellent idea for a contest. See the end of chapter notes for details.
Chapter Cover: Sora is seen looking up and smiling from an angled sky view. He is wearing his KH 2 outfit and has the Ultima Keyblade resting on his shoulder.
Chapter Eight: Intro
"I have dibs on being next pilot!" Sora called out randomly.
It had nearly been an hour since he, Donald, Goofy, and Sekou left Twilight Town. An hour had passed with Sora's childish immaturity, though it seemed more like eight.
Sekou idly wondered, as Sora pestered Donald, how they all put up with it. He noticed that when he wasn't trying to save the world, Sora was always smiling and cheerful.
'How can someone with such a burden be so… childish?' he thought.
The blonde himself tried to keep an upbeat attitude throughout his years since that tragic day. Sometimes it would be easy and other times he could barely refrain from frowning, knowing the pain he brought to other people. Sakura once pointed out that he was never one to drift off into those contemplative silences when they were younger, before he left Twilight Town.
He never told any of his friends that he witnessed his foster parents murder and was swept away to another place. He made sure none of them would ever know of his deeds while in the Organization…
Goofy cast an uncertain glance at Sekou. The blonde had gone into a contemplative trance as he fiddled with a blue marble in his hands.
Flashback"Sekou?" Sakura asked, timidly knocking on his bedroom door.
"Yeah?" came his reply.
"Can I come in?"
"Sure."
She opened the door to find her friend's room in a complete mess. Which was surprising since Sekou didn't own very many belongings. On his "bed" was a half-packed duffle bag. Sekou himself was digging through a large wooden chest, flinging out extra blankets, old Twinkies from God knows how many years ago, and some old clothing. Finally finding what he was looking for- a black trench coat- he turned his attention to Sakura as he continued to pack his bag.
"Did you want to see me?" he asked.
"Are you going somewhere?" Sakura crossed her arms unhappily. "Are you going to leave us like last time?"
Sekou looked at her sadly. "I have to."
His heart was tearing when he saw the tears building up in her mahogany eyes. Part of him wanted to tell her that it would only be for a short while, but he didn't want to lie to her. Who knew if he would ever be returning to Twilight Town?
Sakura shook her head furiously, the tears beginning to flow. "No you don't! Eight years ago you vanished without a trace. Your parents were dead and the police started thinking that either you killed them and ran away or that you were kidnapped and was later killed. Do you know what affect that had on Haru, Kocha, and I? Haru's mother shot herself because she thought it was her fault you were dead! Haru became depressed and we were all forced to go to therapy because of you. You gave us five years of pain and misery because you were off somewhere else!"
"That's why I have to leave," he said indifferently. Oh how he hated saying these things to her!
She just stood there crying. It was as if she knew she couldn't do a thing about it. It broke Sekou's heart into a million pieces.
Stepped closer to her and wrapped his arms around her as she tried to back away, pulling her closer to him. There she bawled into his chest, dampening his shirt.
"Don't cry, Sakura. You're only making harder for both of us," he tried to comfort. "You still have Haru and Kocha. Not to mention the rest of your family. It's not like you're losing everything."
"It'll be like last time!" she sobbed into his chest. "We won't have any idea if you're dead or alive or anything!" She continued to cry.
He let go of her and crouched down slightly so he could see her eye to eye. "You know…" he said poking her on the forehead, "I think you're doing all this to yourself 'cause you know you're a drama queen."
Sakura crossed her arms stubbornly, a pout on her face. "I am not a drama queen!"
"Sure you're not…"
Somebody placed something in his hand. He looked down at it and saw a sky blue marble resting in his hand. Sekou looked at Sakura in confusion.
"Take it with you. That way, at least you'll have a piece of home with you."
"Thank you, Sakura…"
End of FlashbackSekou was suddenly jerked out of his reverie, as well as his seat, as the gummi ship's speed increased considerably.
He grabbed hold of a pole and pulled himself up.
"What's going on?" he shouted to the cockpit.
He heard Goofy reply somewhere behind him, "Sora's driving."
The ship began to spiral. It took all of Sekou's strength to not loose his grip on the pole and go tumbling around the ship's cabin.
In the cockpit, Donald was squalling at Sora for his childish antics. The brunette wasn't really listening to his duck friend's complaints as he spotted Heartless ships. There weren't many so he tried another stunt.
Sekou and Goofy wondered what was going on in the cockpit at this time. The super speed and the spiraling had stopped, so what was Sora up to now?
The two entered the cockpit and saw Sora, with a look of concentration on his face, driving straight at a heartless ship. Donald was behind him fuming.
Behold the game of Chicken.
Dead silence filled the pit as the heartless ship approached ever so closer. Just before the two ships collided, Sora fired a cannon at the enemy ship, blowing it to trillions of tiny pieces.
"Ha, ha! Sucker!" he laughed. Donald smacked him on the head with his staff.
"Alright! Alright! I won't do it again, I promise!" he whimpered as the duck scolded him (and banged him on the head a couple times).
Sekou shook his head, trying to hold in the laughter.
"I'm so abused!" Sora whined later.
"Der…uh, Sora, isn't that a world up ahead?" asked Goofy, pointing to a nearly completely white world up ahead. At the top was a magnificent red palace with a glowing city surrounding it. Along the equator was a large mountain range. And near the bottom of the world, was a patch of green and some tiny white specks, a camp of some kind.
Sora landed the ship in a forest on the outskirts of the camp. Everyone got out and surveyed the area.
All around them were trees and bamboo. There was also a particularly large rock that had voices coming from behind it. Sora, Goofy, Donald, and Sekou all peeked around it to see the source of the noise.
"Mushu?" Sora gasped. Stepping out into full view. "Hey, Mushu! Is that you?"
A tiny red lizard-snake thing…er a dragon perked up from his perch on the young soldier's shoulder. (try saying that five times fast).
"Eh?" he said. He saw Sora, Donald, Goofy, and Sekou and grinned broadly. "Hey Sora, what's up?"
The young soldier turned to look at the unexpected group of strangers. A suspicious look flashed across her face as she asked, "Mushu, do you know these people?"
Sora immediately noticed the way the voice started out higher but quickly deepened, almost as if it were being disguised. The soldier's body looked curvier than a man's, more like a woman's, but the armor made it hard to tell.
The dragon, Mushu, turned his attention to the soldier. "Why yes I do. Let me introduce you."
He gestured to the group of four. "The brunette is Sora, the duck is Donald, and the tall one is Goofy. I fought with them for a short time. I have no idea who the new kid is-"
"Sekou," the blonde said.
"-but everyone this is Mu-"
"Ping," said the soldier quickly. "Nice to meet you, but I really have to go now. Let's go Mushu."
Ping stood up, brushed himself off, and, with Mushu still on his shoulder (though looking very dejected about being cut off), headed down towards the camp Sora and the others saw earlier.
"Wait," called Sora running after them, the others following. "Can you take us there? We can be of some help."
Ping looked Sora head to toe. "I don't think, unless you can take out the whole Hun army with one swing, you can be of any help to us."
Mush whispered something in Ping's ear and Ping whispered back a comment. After what sounded like a quite dispute, Ping finally said to the group,
"Okay, I'll take you there but I'm not sure how the captain will react to you. We can't exactly have Mushu explain everything to him."
The odd group slowly began to approach the camp. Everywhere, people, more soldiers to be exact, were hustling and bustling taking down tents, packing supplies, and getting ready to move out.
Mushu, who was hiding in Sora's shirt, was explaining that the regiment was moving out to reinforce another general who had gone ahead to fight months ago.
Most of the soldiers stopped and stared at the unusual group, especially at Donald and Goofy and their…different appearances.
Finally, the odd group came to a larger, more ornate tent than all the others. Ping was about to pull aside the flap when it was suddenly thrust aside. Out stepped a tall muscular man in war armor and a red cape billowing behind him. Directly behind him was a skinny man dressed in blue robes carrying a wooden board for writing on and a writing brush. He had a snobbish air about him.
"Ping, who are these strangers?" the armored man demanded.
"They say they can help us, sir," Ping replied, suddenly very nervous.
"How so?" he said suspiciously looking Sora up and down.
"We're warriors," Sora said. "Sir," he quickly added.
The skinny man in blue began to laugh as if Sora had told the funniest joke in the world. "Do you really expect us to believe that? You're only a boy! An let me guess, the duck is a dragon in disguise?"
Mushu made a muffled indignant snort.
Donald also seemed offended by the remark. He marked right up to the snob and would've probably whacked him senseless if Sora hadn't held him back.
The brunette gave an uneasy laugh as if to try to lighten up the situation.
"So, uh, can we be of any help?" he asked uneasily.
The armored man once again looked Sora up and down. He got the distinct feeling that those intense eyes were sizing him up again.
Finally he said, "Fine, but you are now Ping's responsibility." He said to Ping, "If I hear about them causing any trouble, it will be you who pays."
He then turned and vanished into the tent with the snobby man at his heels.
Ping gave a great sigh of relief. Apparently, the whole ordeal had him all psyched out. Sekou cracked his neck.
"So what do we do now?" asked Sora as they walked through the rows of tents.
"We eat. We train. We wait," Ping said.
"But what about fighting the bad guys and stuff? Isn't that what you do in war?" asked Sora, is insular intelligence showing through once again.
"You knowledge of war seems to only be based of of what the texts say," Ping sighed.
"War isn't just going out and fighting the bad guys, Sora," Sekou said. "Actually usually there's more waiting than fighting a lot of the time.
"And plus, this camp is mostly just the rookies, first timers, you know? There's a chance that we won't even see any fighting for months or even the whole war," Ping explained.
Sora didn't say anything. It was so much different from the 'war' he was caught in the midst of. It seemed to him that the war between Light and Darkness was all about fighting, but now that he looked at it, as far as he knew, in 'his war' there weren't any organized armies. In Ping's war, there were two armies, China and the Huns. He concluded that since his war wasn't 'organized', it didn't wait for orders from a higher authority like Ping's to move out or fight or whatever.
Sore tried to think about it more, but he began to confuse himself so he dropped the thought.
Eventually, Ping introduced them to Yao, Ling, and Chien-Po, his fellow soldiers. Yao was a short, heavyset man with a heavy mustache and sported a black eye; he had a temper to go along with it, too. Ling was a total opposite of Yao. His face was smooth and he was tall and thin; he was somewhat of a wimp as Mushu (secretly) pointed that out right away. Chien-Po, he was big…but he was very mellow and kind. He made Sekou think of a giant teddy bear. (A/N- sorry I had to put that!)
After introductions were made and it was near dusk by now, Ping showed them his tent. It was more separated from the others, and definitely shabbier than the others. The only problem was that it was a one-person tent.
"It's okay, really," Sekou said. "We're perfectly fine sleeping outside."
"Yeah, I can sleep anywhere!" Sora added. Donald mumbling something like "…and through anything, too."
"Der, uh, I have no problem sleeping outside," Goofy also said. "We can look at the stars out here."
Donald nodded his agreement. "We've slept in all sorts or places before, out side on the grass will be like a cloud to us."
The others nodded in agreement.
"If you say so," Ping finally said. "At least use some of these blankets."
He handed them some extra blankets. The group of four took them and settled down on the grass. Ping then went into his tent.
He waited in there, pretending to fall asleep until he was sure that the others were asleep. Then, he snuck out with a towel, and with Mushu, Crick-ee, and Khan (the horse) to the lake just outside of camp.
"I still don't think is a good idea, Mulan," Mushu whispered in the young soldier's ear.
"Just because I have to look like a man, it doesn't mean I have to smell like one," she whispered back, her voice more feminine.
(The morning after)
"Wake up, wake up!" Sora heard someone saying.
"Nughhhhh….?" he groaned. Did he really have to get up?
"I don't wanna…"
"Too bad." He heard as someone pulled his blanket -his soft, warm blanket- off him.
"Hurry up!" he heard another person say. It was Ping. "We're moving out!"
Aoki-chan: Right, I'll try to update faster from now on, but I can't guarantee any specific dates. Um… yeah here are the rules for the chapter cover contest I mentioned earlier….
Rules: Basically you just need to write a description of the picture you envision for a "chapter cover" for any of the chapters # 1-7. Anyone who reads manga will get what I'm talking about.
Be sure that the cover has some relevance to Kingdom Hearts. Also, for so far, there aren't really any pairings being shown so I ask that you don't submit any covers implying a pairing.
(Just because one of your submissions doesn't show up, it doesn't mean I won't use them. There is a high possibility that I will use them later in a more appropriate chapter.)
Okay, as for the submissions themselves, you can submit one cover for every chapter. It has to be somewhat related to KH, blah, blah, blah. Please submit it to me in a review
Yeah…. If you want to, you're more than welcome to email drawings of your ideas or any fan art.
I'm done ranting. Happy (Very, very, very, very, very Belated) New Year!
p.s.- don't forget to review!