AN/ The final scene of this chapter has a companion scene in ASAS! It's chapter 38, and it's pretty cool, imo

Chapter 134: Searching

We've been on the move for a couple days now… Kairi thought, slowly, as she and Tifa stepped into a new world. Traverse Town.

No sign of Sora, but I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

There was no sense dwelling too long on how she'd messed things up in Agrabah, because it didn't help anyone, but she wasn't over it enough to not get sour whenever she thought about it. She'd just have to do better, next time.

"Where to?" she asked Tifa, looking to her for direction.

Tifa shrugged.

"Figured we'd ask around town—check the shops first, ask if any of the owners have seen him. That's the best place to start, and afterwards we'll ask the other residents."

Kairi nodded again. It seemed like a good idea. If Sora was going to stop anywhere in town, the shops made the most sense. "You wanna split up?"

"Do you mind splitting up?" Tifa asked, sending a not-unfamiliar look of raised eyebrows down at Kairi.

"Nah," Kairi said, shaking her head. "We'll get more ground covered that way. Why don't you check the shops, and I'll ask around town?"

"The Heartless are more likely to be around town," Tifa argued, not that she sounded entirely disapproving or dissuading.

"Please—maybe I don't know a lot yet, but I think I can take 'em!" Kairi grinned confidently. Tifa'd been showing her how to cast some spells—she was best at Fire, at the moment—as well as some of the basics as far as hand-to-hand combat went. (Though, from what Kairi gathered, Tifa was teaching her a modified version meant for Heartless and other monsters. Which was fair.)

"Alright." Clearly, Tifa didn't think this was a bad idea. "Meet back here in… 30 minutes?"

"Hour," Kairi countered. "I'll have more ground to cover."

"That's fair."

They split up.

Kairi lingered around the shops some, peeking in alleyways and other potential hiding spots, before eventually determining Sora wasn't among them. So, she moved to the Second District.

The thing was, about Tifa:

She acts like if we just keep moving, we'll catch up to Sora, Kairi thought, poking around for every hiding place she could find. And maybe that's how it is for her and Cloud, but…

It's not like Sora's running, entirely.

He's hiding.

And when you were looking for someone who was hiding, you had to look a lot more carefully than if you were just trying to catch someone who was running.

I let him get away from me once before.

I'm not going to let it happen again.

xxx

Sora's Shadow let out a long frustrated breath before plopping himself onto the cold, stone, ground. He'd been at this for a week. A week. There weren't that many worlds out there! How could finding Sora be this hard? He'd been through countless worlds by now; they'd all started to just blur together in his head. He was sitting in a town, right now, though he wasn't sure if he'd been in this town before or not, nor was he even sure if he recognized it.

This is so STUPID! he thought, clutching his head in his hands. Where the hell is he!?

I shouldn't have lost contact with him.

I should've found him by now…

The wolf slowly made its way over to him, whining softly. As of lately, it'd been getting kinder towards him. Slightly. It'd started that whining every time he got upset, like it didn't want to see him upset. He figured it only just didn't like seeing him upset merely because how he tended to treat it when he was upset, and not for any other reason.

"You damn dog!" he shouted at it, sending a blast of darkness at it. The darkness did not, of course, hurt it, but it got the message and laid down where it was; well away from him. "Can't you be useful?" he demanded. "Can't you do anything right?"

Its ears were laid back against its head, clearly upset.

He rolled his eyes.

"Don't tell me I've offended you!"

It growled.

'Shouldn't we get moving?' it asked, sounding annoyed. 'We won't find him sitting here!'

"And we aren't going to find him!" he shouted. "We've looked everywhere! We've checked every damn World, and he's not in a single one of them! He's not—agh!" The wolf had bit him in the arm, probably to get him to shut up. "Get off me!" he shouted. "Get off!"

The wolf only bit him harder.

'We will find him,' it growled, and started dragging him forward. He tried to pull away from it, but its grip on him was too strong. It refused to let go, too, even when he started throwing darkness at it.

'If I have to keep you moving, fine. I'll gladly drag you through every World there is until we eventually find him.'

And despite his struggles, Sora's Shadow just could not stop the wolf from doing just that.

xxx

Sora groaned and rubbed his head. He was sitting on some rock in some corner of some World. He'd lost track how many Worlds he'd been to, let alone what any of them were called. The gaps in his memory certainly didn't help matters. He didn't even know what he was doing, besides letting Maleficent drag him from World to World because he didn't have any form of transportation to do anything else.

But it's not like he knew what Maleficent was doing. Last he'd heard, she was looking for a new base of operations, and they were currently going from World to World on some real estate mission. But, that didn't explain why he was being dragged around… nor did it explain why he was so frequently sent into Worlds with Maleficent's lackey Pete. From what little he knew, Pete was trying to put together an army of Heartless. What for? Sora wasn't sure. Nor did he know why he had to go with.

Sora also didn't know why Maleficent needed him so bad. He'd overheard Maleficent and Pete discussing some plan, but he couldn't remember what said plan was; all he remembered that he was absolutely necessary to it. He wasn't given details. All important conversations happened when he wasn't in the room, and any vaguely important conversations that happened when he was in the room he couldn't seem to remember when he thought about them.

So what did Sora know? Sora knew that, apparently, someone was looking for him. He had no idea who was looking for him, though. His Shadow? That Organization 13? He'd run into that one Organization member a while back, and they said they needed him for something. Didn't they? He couldn't remember. But, he did remember that Maleficent told him he was only safe if he stayed with her. Did he honestly believe her? He couldn't say. He could never get his brain to process whether or not her words were lies. But, he had a feeling that she knew the answers. Maybe he could squeeze those answers out of her…

Regardless, he was currently sitting where he was sitting because Pete had gotten tired of 'babysitting' him, and had told him to stay out of trouble and out of the way. So, that's what Sora was doing. What else was he going to do? Run away? Where would he run?

And if he ran, he wouldn't get any answers to his questions.

Who was after him?

What did they want him for?

And what was Maleficent planning?

But most importantly—

Something was tugging at him.

It was a gentle tug; something nudging at his mind. A… familiar nudge, too, though Sora couldn't place when he had felt it before. It was almost hard to think with it nudging him, telling him to go a certain direction. He had a sudden feeling that there was someone in that direction that he needed to be with.

It was an odd feeling – that desire to be with someone when he didn't even know who that someone was. But the feeling – the tugging – was persistent. Sora found himself taking a few steps in that direction, and the tugging went from gentle to eager. It was urging him to keep going, because he really needed to see whoever this person was. Apparently.

When he didn't move, he felt something physically tugging at him, though it wasn't very strong. It was coming from his pocket. Confused, and slightly worried, Sora dug it out.

It was the star-shaped charm he'd bought in Agrabah.

And it was literally straining in his hand, trying to go in the direction that the nudging in his mind was telling him to go. Sora wasn't sure if he should try and hold onto the charm or just let it go. Something told him that letting it go wouldn't do any good…

If he wanted to let the charm go where it wanted to, he was going to have to take it there himself.

But who was this person that he apparently needed to see so badly?

An image—a memory?—was suddenly presented to him:

A boy, with a laugh he could only describe as light. The boy's entire presence was of light, actually. There was also something… familiar about him. The familiarity was both comforting and painful at the same time.

Then:

A woman, with a voice that was kind and reassuring and strong in its own way. There was something familiar about her, too, though in a completely different way. He felt as if he'd seen her before…

The tug on Sora's mind grew even stronger. His feet stumbled further forward without him telling them to. The charm strained in his hand; determined. There was something drawing it, something—

Another image was presented to him:

It was the woman again, and she was holding a similar charm, though it was blue. She was smiling – a smile that somehow managed to send warmth through Sora even though he had no clue who she was.

"Aqua…"

Sora froze and nearly dropped the charm in shock.

It spoke.

He brought it closer to him, despite its straining, and examined it closely. It didn't look any different, though it certainly felt different. It felt alive. And it seemed to be frantic. Desperate, even.

Curious to see what this was all about, and having nothing better to do, Sora let the charm pull him in whatever direction it wanted him to go, using the nudging in his mind as a guide. (The charm had no concept of walls or anything else that blocked Sora's path; only the nudging could tell him how to navigate the terrain and quickly get to where he needed to be.)

He'd walked for maybe a couple of minutes when he was stopped by Pete (whom he'd been unfortunate to cross paths with).

"And just where do ya think you're goin'?" Pete demanded.

"Nowhere," Sora replied, simply. The charm was still straining in his hand. The nudge in his mind was telling to keep going.

"This isn't some sort of escape attempt, is it?"

Sora laughed. "And where would I go? Don't mind me." He started walking again, suddenly wondering if maybe this person that he apparently needed to see could help him. If he wanted to catch them, though, he was going to have to move fast. The urgency of the charm and the nudge in his mind suggested that they were going to leave soon.

"Wait a minute," Pete stopped him again. "What have ya got there?"

Sora sighed. He considered just ignoring Pete and continuing to follow the charm (which the nudge in his mind was desperately urging him to do) but for some reason discarded the thought. He turned to Pete, and held the charm out by its string for Pete to see. The look on Pete's face when the charm pulled in the exact opposite direction of him was definitely worth pausing.

"How's it doin' that?" Pete asked, staring at the charm, dumbfounded.

"I don't know," Sora said. "I was going to see where it was-" He stopped, as the charm suddenly stopped its tugging and fell to hang as a normal charm should. The nudging in his mind had suddenly gone silent, too. Everything – the desperation, the faint whisper, the nagging – they were all gone. The charm had even lost the alive feel it had had for a moment there.

Sora slowly scowled at Pete. "Or not," he said.

"Don't look at me! I didn't do it!" Pete protested. He reached out and poked the charm with his finger, causing the charm to swing back and forth lazily on its string. "Where'd ya get this thing, anyway?"

"Agrabah," Sora replied. He pulled the charm away from Pete and closer to him, suddenly feeling very protective of the charm and for some reason appalled that he had even let Pete touch it. "A merchant sold it to me. Apparently it's lucky."

Pete's eyes lit up. "Luck, huh?" he asked. "Do ya think it was tryin' to lead you somewhere lucky?"

Sora faltered. He knew for a fact that's where it wasn't leading him, but why tell Pete that it'd been trying to get him to meet someone? "I guess it might've been," he said, slowly. "But it's stopped, now."

Pete scratched his chin thoughtfully. "Where was it pointin'? Over there?" He pointed.

Sora wasn't sure if he liked the enthusiasm in Pete's voice, but he nodded in agreement.

"Yeah, somewhere in that direction."

"Why don't we go look over there? Maybe we'll be able to find what it was tryin' to lead ya to." Pete was already heading off.

Sora sighed, pocketed the charm, and headed after him. They walked out into an area that appeared to be the edge of the Island they were on, given the fact they were only twenty or so feet away from the water. Sora glanced around, though he doubted there could be anything "lucky" here. The ground around them was completely barren, save for a couple holes that someone had dug.

Pete laughed after a moment. "Yeah, that charm of yours is lucky, alright!" he quipped, sarcastically. He shook his head. "You sure it was pullin' this way?"

Sora nodded. "Maybe it was trying to lead me to something in one of these holes," he said, walking over to one and looking down into it. All that was inside of it was a small crate. Nothing fancy.

Pete laughed again. "Yeah, maybe!" His laughter stopped rather abruptly, though, like he had just realized something. "Now wait a minute," he said, slowly. "There shoulda been Heartless here."

Sora frowned and glanced up. "Hmm?"

"I had this whole plan worked out," Pete said. "If the holes have been dug, then that means there should be Heartless!"

"Maybe someone killed them," Sora suggested. The charm had been pulling him this direction, which meant that someone had been here. Probably. They could've easily killed the Heartless, and then left.

Pete didn't seem convinced. "Summon that Keyblade thingy of yours, will ya?"

"Why?"

"Because it's like a magnet for the Heartless!"

Sora shrugged and went ahead and summoned his Keyblade. No Heartless showed up.

"Walk around a little bit," Pete said. "Maybe they're hidin'."

Sora walked around the area at least three times before Pete finally gave up hope of there being any Heartless around. He started muttering something about what Sora assumed had been his plan. Something about fake maps and someone's greed summoning the Heartless. Or something like that. Sora found it hard to care.

They found nothing, in the end, and finally Pete decided to give up and head back to Maleficent.

Which, Sora could not say he wanted to do, but... It wasn't really like he had a choice, was it?