"Seven pieces… These shapes are quite particular." Xehanort picks up one of the black pieces, examining the headpiece that is shaped like a bear. A somewhat familiar feeling resonates inside him. "I feel like I've seen these symbols somewhere before. How'd you find out about this game?"
"I think it was a passage of some sort. It was in one of the books in the master's libraries." Eraqus said, finally finished placing all the pieces on his side of the board. He takes a look at the board in front of him, with a small nod.
"Wait. You were snooping around? I thought all that stuff was behind us!" Xehanort jokes, poking a bit of fun in his friend. Eraqus ticks off from the comment, folding his arms with a frown in a pout. "Oh come on. I was just kidding."
"Hardy har. Very funny." Eraqus looks away from Xehanort, not making eye contact. Amused by the display, Xehanort continues to stare with a smug grin on his face. A moment passed and the two couldn't keep up the facade before bursting into laughter.
After a good minute, Xehanort trails back to the board in front of him, something catching his attention. Unlike the pieces on his side, the ones on Eraqus's side had some old and new pieces. The new pieces however didn't click in his head as he picks one of them up, examining the head of the piece. "These pieces…on your side? I've never seen those pieces before."
"I've never seen them before myself. But the more I dug in, the more I came to understand everything. Though it's quite unpredictable." Eraqus chuckles, looking at the white crown piece that he places on the table. A small smile came with the familiarity of the piece before straightening it on the board. "However it would be boring if we knew everything beforehand. Life isn't like that."
"When did we get so philosophical in how a game like this works? So then… What type of game is this exactly?" Xehanort questions, folding his arms to this new and bizarre game.
"It's a game of adaptability. Certain actions will lead to different results. And as the game goes on, this board that you see before you will be quite barren." Eraqus lets out a sly grind of amusement to his old friend. He picks up the crown piece before pointing it at Xehanort. "You'll do fine. After all, aren't you a Keyblade Wielder in training?."
"You're just taking advantage of what you know about this game and I don't. You sly fox." Xehanort chuckles with his friend before looking at the chessboard in front of him. He folds his arms, readying for whatever is to come. "Fine then. I'll beat you this time! Let's play!"
"Quite the tale… It is almost impossible to believe in fact." A man in a white cloak with a unicorn mask covering the upper part of his head. He shakes his head in disbelief at what he was hearing.
"You better believe it, Ira. If it weren't for that, we wouldn't be standing here now." Xigbar chuckled while extending out his hand to examine the familiar-looking Keyblade to the group. The man, known as one of the legendary masters of the past, Luxu.
"Why call us here then? Surely there must be a reason." A short boy with a leopard-shaped mask on folds his arms in suspicion. Still examining the story, it wasn't quite clicking in his head.
"Gula raises a point. If what you said is true, then the reason that we're all here is…" A young woman with a serpent mask realizes with Xigbar smirking at the fact.
"Bingo. You were always the one to catch on to things, Invi." Xigbar looks towards the black box at his side with a smirk. He turns back to the others, waving No Name around while talking. "Now that, that chapter of this story has come to an ending, I now have a new role to play. One that includes all of you as a matter of fact."
"A new role? What is it?" The final man with a bear mask exclaimed, frustrated from all the vague answers that Xigbar gave to the group.
Xigbar simply gives him a sly grin. A black portal opens up above everyone, slowly descending towards the group."Truly a special one, Aced. You'll see soon enough."
"This energy?! This is the Darkness! Luxu! What is the meaning of this?!" Aced exclaims from what he is witnessing. Aced gets in a defensive stance in a matter of self-defense, almost readying to take out his Keyblade. The others react similarly, getting in their own fighting stances to the predicament around them.
"Why it is quite simple, Aced. I'm simply following the Master's teachings… And his will. In order to do so, we need to go someplace that one may have never been able to travel to." Xigbar places his Keyblade next to him as the Corridor of Darkness expands over the group. This was the first time that he frowned. "It is time for the first step… In defeating the True Thirteen Darknesses. So far… Two darknesses have been sealed. Now we need to conceal the final five, in the land on the other side."
"The land on the other side?" Invi's interest was intrigued, slowly lowering her guard to Xigbar finally giving proper answers to the future that holds in store. Xigbar turns his head to Invi, folding his arms.
"Someplace you've never seen. None of you have. A place you could never know of. A place where neither light nor darkness can be controlled…" Xigbar explains in his usual vague manner. He motions his arm down, with the Corridor of Darkness slowly falls down, surrounding the group.
"A place where neither light nor darkness can be controlled?" Everyone questioned themselves, not understanding what Xigbar was talking about. The Corridor of Darkness consumes everyone from the Keyblade Graveyard. The portal disappears, with the group disappear without a trace.
"May your heart be your guiding key… Whatever you feel, whatever you think… Those will be the key to all. I'm counting on you, Luxu the traitor…"
The pounding sounds at the door slowly wakes Sora up from his deep slumber. He takes a minute to let the noise sink in, raising himself off his bed to the door. He slowly opens up to see Jaune standing by himself, patiently.
Noticing the door opening, Jaune gives a small friendly wave at Sora with an embarrassed smile. "Sorry. Were you still sleeping?"
"Yeah, I was… What's up?" Sora asks, scratching the back of his head, still half asleep.
"Oh sorry. I was wondering that since we had the day off, you could come with us to the city." Jaune offered to Sora. Sora blinks for a few minutes before immediately snapping out of his trance state.
"That's right! I was supposed to meet you guys." Sora gives a nervous chuckle with a pale expression. "What's the time?!"
"Half-past nine, why?" Jaune gave a confused look at the way that Sora reacted.
"I was supposed to meet Ruby and the others thirty minutes ago." Sora groans before stretching a little. "You mind going on without me? I won't be long."
"Are you sure? I could wait if you like." Jaune asks as Sora bolts back into the room before he could answer. "Never mind then…"
"Sorry for the wait!" Sora pops out, almost immediately after with his hair fixed to its normal amount of spikiness and his clothes straightened out that would normally talk more than two minutes.
"AAAAAAAAA!" Jaune yelped out in instinct to Sora's sudden outburst.
"Oh. Sorry. Didn't mean to scare you like that." Sora frowns as he closes the nearly empty room behind him.
Jaune takes a second to catch his breath before letting out a massive sigh of relief. "I thought you were getting ready?"
"I am ready though. Come on! We're late as it already is!" Sora runs past Jaune, in the hallways of the dorm, leaving Jaune struggling to follow him.
"So you don't have any Lien notes? How were you expecting to pay off anything?" Weiss was in disbelief as the group walks through the streets of Vale.
"Man we were lucky that Weiss is rich to cover your part of the bill…" Yang lets out a sigh of relief.
"I thought that munny would work as it always has." Sora takes out a small, handmade pouch from one of his many pockets. He opens it up, revealing a few green orbs inside it. A few of the others take a peek inside the pouch, interested in the contents inside it. "I didn't have much, to begin with, so I didn't know if I was doing things right. I had no idea that they weren't going to accept it."
"I don't think I ever heard of the term munny used before. But these could be considered jewels. It may be worth a lot." Ren comments while folding his arms.
"Wait… Does that mean that we have two rich friends?" Everyone looks at Sora and Weiss at the same time from Nora's statement.
"I'm not sure. I doubt I could even get normal food for this much." Sora counts the munny in his pouch, which has been around 432 munny in total. He shakes his head before placing it in one of his pockets. "But as it stands, I might have to get a job for L-Lien if I'm going to be able to do anything."
"We can worry about that later. For now, Weiss will take care of pay stuff for you." Ruby grins, patting her teammate's shoulder who looked irritated by the carefree nature of her leader.
"I'm not some walking ATM that you guys can use for your own convenience," Weiss exclaims to nobody's surprise.
"You don't have to do anything. I could see if I can do a few quick jobs that I did back then whenever I needed munny." Sora said in a relaxed manner with a slightly embarrassed chuckle.
"Quick jobs? Like what exactly?" Jaune asks as the group pasts a bulletin board that held job sightings.
Sora takes a quick look at the bulletin board, recognizing some jobs that he would do in Twilight Town, during his second adventure throughout the many worlds.
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN WE'RE OUT OF MUNNY?! WE HAD A BUNCH OF IT BEFORE WE CAME HERE! WHAT HAPPENED?!" The loud outbursts of a certain mage jump up and down in rage from the insane predicament that came with the lack of currency. Sora, Donald, and Goofy had decided to do a routine supply check with one of the Moogle shops in Hollow Bastion before the name of Radiant Garden came back into everyone's memory.
"What? They needed money in order to fix stuff at Hollow Bastion when all of those Heartless attacked. Leon only said it was a bit, so I chipped in." Sora frowns while looking at the empty orange munny pouch that King Mickey has given the group at the start of this adventure.
"THAT DOESN'T MEAN THAT YOU GIVE THEM EVERYTHING THAT WE HAVE! We don't even have the munny for potions!" Donald exclaims to Sora who looks quite distressed from the circumstance.
"Sora. I understand that you wanted to help out and all that, but we need some of that stuff too. We need supplies while we travel the worlds." Goofy explains to Sora who frowns while nodding at the statement.
"I know… I just thought that we'd be able to earn some munny off some quicks jobs before we continue anywhere else." Sora responds, looking down a little by the fact.
"You know a place?" Donald asks with Sora thinking back. A faint memory lingers in his mind that seems so vivid. He takes a look at the pouch where the memory makes a connection in his mind.
"One ticket to the beach is 900 munny. How much for four of us?" Hayner asks the usual group back at Twilight Town.
"3600 munny," Olette replies instantly thanks to her quick calculating skills.
"And 300 each to spend there. What's that for all of us?" Hayner proposes to the group, seemingly have planned this whole trip already.
"1200 munny. A total of 4800 munny." Olette once again responds instantly to Hayner's questions for the amount of munny needed.
"I got it! Twilight Town! There was a job bulletin where we could do fast jobs for easy munny! I saw that some jobs are easy and can get fifty munny." Sora announces his idea towards the two, with his two party members taking a look at each other.
"Well, that's a great idea! Now then… A potion is 40 munny each... We'll-" Goofy starts trailing off to do some calculations as both Sora and Donald follow him back to the Gummi Ship to make way to Twilight Town.
Thinking back to those times causes Sora to chuckle to himself with how those ridiculous circumstances came to be. What made that memory all the more impactful was that it was Roxas's memory that led them to this idea in the first place. However, at the time, it seemed all too familiar to him. Scanning over some of the more normal jobs, he taps on a few sections of the paper which catches everyone's attention. "Performer", "Chef", and "Letter Delivery".
"That's… quite a diverse array of jobs," Ren comments on the bizarre nature of how different the jobs were, comparing to the nature of the young boy.
"I could see you as a performer and letter delivery… But cooking at a fancy place seems completely out of nowhere." Ruby admits to the slight chuckle of the Keyblade wielder.
"You seem to have quite a lot of experience in a vast number of fields despite your background. It's impressive given your limitations." Pyrrha compliments Sora with an interested glance.
"Yeah…" Sora gives the compliment a dry smile given the circumstance that he has placed himself in. The World Order was one of the most essential parts that needed to be maintained as a Keyblade Wielder. Despite this fact, Sora always struggled to maintain this type of facade, relying on his friends to help him when it came to his cover-up stories. However, a lurking problem is stirring up inside Sora, leaving him to frown a bit at the fact.
Seeing that he's going to be in the group for a long time, the time of holding secrets didn't sit right with him. In the predicament that he was in the current moment, would telling them about this secret be okay? If telling them about this secret that he vowed to protect, would that be considered a true acceptance into never being able to go back? However, if this fact were to be false where he would be able to go back, would breaking the vow allow for this situation to matter? Despite being content with the actions that he made, Sora still didn't like this idea at all. It left a bad taste in his mouth, his heart aching from the very idea of never being able to see everyone again for the rest of his life. But he also hated the idea of not being honest to those that he considers friends, despite how recently they met him.
"Sora! Are you there?!" A voice snaps Sora out of his internal thought debate. He turns his head towards the group that was giving him a look of concern.
"Y-Yeah. I'm fine." Sora said in a relaxed manner to the statement. He shakes his head out of his thoughts that he would put off for later.
"You were like that for a while now… Is something up?" Yang, the one who had called out to Sora was shaking his shoulder to catch his attention. After he responded, she finally let go of him.
"It's nothing. I was just thinking about something." Sora brushes it off before taking a look at the posterboard with a nod. The group gives each other a hesitant look, obviously wanting to comment on how Sora trailed off, contemplating something that he had a hard time thinking about. However, given the situation of just barely knowing him, they all silently agreed to hold off on the regard to respect his privacy.
"Maybe you're just tired. Getting used to a city you've never been to must be exhausting. Plus the sun is coming down." Pyrrha calls out, Sora not even noticing how late he was getting. It felt like only a moment ago, the group had been going around, exploring Vale.
"Yeah… Let's go back."
"Doesn't something seem off to you guys?" The question snaps Ruby out of her thoughts towards her partner was speaking to everyone in Team RWBY. She takes a look over at the desk where Weiss was working at. The question captured the attention of Yang, who was brushing her hair after a shower, and Blake whose cat ears perked up, looking up from her book.
"What seems off to you?" Blake was the first to respond in a cool demeanor with Weiss slowly turning her head towards everyone from the desk at the corner of the room.
"I'm talking about Sora. I don't know… Something doesn't seem right about him." Weiss frowns, closing a research book from the library.
"I mean… We all just met him yesterday. Maybe it's just the way he acts. I mean take a look at Jaune. Sora kinda reminds me of him as a sort of goofball." Ruby had a lingering idea from where Weiss's suspicions are coming from. There were multiple instances of the day where Sora had been acting strangely.
"Ruby does have a point. Perhaps he's a little weird because that's where he's from. After all, he is supposed to be from a small island that doesn't get much stuff from the outside. We can't really judge a guy based off where he's from, Weiss." Yang continues to brush her hair while the conversation continues. Weiss shakes her head to the statement, disagreeing with the point that Yang was trying to conclude.
"No, that's not it. Like something isn't clicking. How could he be so knowledgeable about a bunch of things that wouldn't matter on an island, but some universal concepts may as well not exist for him? Especially at the level of skill that he possesses." Weiss explains to the group. It did indeed come as a little bizarre for the group, especially with the way he acted earlier that day.
"He did give a weird look at us when we talked about the Dust shop. I mean… That's something that everyone should know." Ruby had to agree with Weiss, it didn't make much sense for her about the situation. The case could be made that these terms weren't used from where he's from, but there was always a bit of doubt about the fact. It was faint, but the doubt was indeed there.
"Right?!" Weiss agrees with Ruby's claim. "Let alone the fact that my company may be the biggest supplier of Dust, he should have known that."
"I don't know… Maybe we're overthinking it. Sora is just weird like that." Yang grunts, laying down on her bed with a sigh. She lays on that thought for a second, a small chuckle came from her, looking over at Weiss. "Or perhaps, you're still hung up about him not knowing the Schnee Dust Company."
"Maybe I am a bit… Wait a second. What did you say?!" Weiss exclaims at the nonchalant jab at her with the two sisters chuckling at their teammate's reaction. Blake lets out a smile at the fun that her teammates are having before letting her own thoughts wander.
"Should I be weirded about them?"
Sora's statement about her ears really stuck out to her. Outside of her friend group and the staff of the school, not many of those were so accepting of the Faunus, with the racism against her kind to be a common outlook. This was perhaps a symbol in the strangers that she met that shows hope. Whether it comes from ignorance or not, it still meant something to her.
"I… think that he just needs to get to know stuff better. After all, it all could really just be that he's from an island." Blake perks up with the group looking over at her. She gives the group a simple embarrassed smile. "I was like that a bit when I first came here to Beacon thanks to Vale's New Shelter program."
"To be fair, we all thought that we were a little off," Yang chuckles by the fact with the members of Team RWBY, hesitantly chuckling by the fact, giving truth to Yang's statements. However, everyone who has been members of the same team for about two months now has really shown that everyone's personal quirks have been something that they've all gotten used to.
"I guess there's nothing we can do about it…" Weiss shrugs with a sigh, starting to get ready for bed along with the other members of Team RWBY except for their team leader.
Ruby lets her thoughts wander once more, thinking back to the quirkiness of the Keyblade Wielder. Comparing him to the members of not just Team RWBY and JNPR but the vast diversity of the students that are attending Beacon Academy, something about him seemed quite particular in his traits as a person. Despite the similarity of age between her and Sora, the boy seemed both distant and close at the same time.
Wassup my homies! This is NexusMHX here with another chapter. So... When was the last time I posted a chapter from this fanfic? January of this year? Yeah... I told you guys that I would have a horrendous upload schedule. But in the time frame between this chapter and the previous, the finalization of the plot points has finally been in place. These points finally came to light with the finalization of Kingdom Hearts Union Cross' ending. This plot point was really the final part that I needed in order to steer clear of what I have been planning for this series. With everything that Tetsuya Nomura has given us from the Kingdom Hearts community and the stuff that I won't use from the original RWBY series, I think I may have something that may seem coherent for you guys to enjoy.
But you know, despite having everything planned out, I'm still going to have some hurdles which will definitely halt my progress in writing this fanfic. So I really appreciate it if you guys are patient with me. I'll definitely try to upload as much as I possibly can with the free time that I was given when it comes to balancing my school work and other projects that are taking a major part of my life.
By the way, I'm sure that I started this but I have decided to fix some key points in not just the story of RWBY but also the characters. With the main cast being one of the biggest diversities in fandom is just not right. I'm going to be straight with you all, the way that Bumblebee was hard implemented into the story with Volume 6 has to lead to some disastrous consequences that have practically soiled my enjoyment of the story. The problem with it came with Blake who needs this change the most. I talked about before that I was going to rewrite her into oblivion and I was going to stick by that fact. In order to do this, major tweaks needed to be changed. And call me crazy, but the influencer for this change came into RWBY REMNANTS: Student File of Blake made by Switchback. Don't know about you guys, but I fell in love with this version of Blake instantly which really soiled the tv show version more. Despite just being a small introduction to her, it changed so much about her in my little headcanon.
With that being said, thank you all so much for reading. If you enjoyed it, please make sure to follow and favorite for more content. This is NexusMHX signing off! I still don't know what I'm doing.
