Chapter 140: Hymn for the Missing

Kairi was dreaming.

She knew that, because she'd had this dream before.

She was wading through a sea of darkness, unsure if it was the darkness that supported her weight, or if there was actually ground below it. In the distance, she could see Sora. His hand outstretched, sunken further down into the sea than she was.

He was not screaming or calling for her. But he was there.

It was weird, to be having this dream again—because, it had been a while since she last had. But then, she supposed it was inevitable, since she was actually worried about him again.

She trudged forward, moving faster. She knew reaching him here in this dream would affect nothing in the real world. But still, maybe this time. Maybe this time.

She managed to brush his fingertips before she woke up.

Kairi sat up slowly, sighing deeply. She patted at the grass below her—she and Tifa were camped on some hill in some world she could not remember the name of. Tifa was asleep not far from her.

She wondered if that dream meant anything.

It probably didn't.

She cracked her knuckles idly, running through her thoughts. It had been somewhere around a week that she and Tifa had been traveling, which meant somewhere around a week since she'd let Sora go in Agrabah. She tried not to think about that too much. Tried not to think about how this would all be over, if she hadn't made the stupid decision to let him go—

She was just… nervous. She was trying not to be, but she was. About Sora.

He was so different the last time she actually saw him. She could hardly recognize him.

What if nothing was different? No. It had to be different. He had to be okay.

And… She had to find him. She had to find him, because she'd only know how different he was if she saw him. It was the only way she could be sure. She had to see him.

She wanted to see him. It had been too long, and he was her best friend, and she missed him so much. She missed his face, his dopey grin. She longed to hear his laugh, the cracks in his voice. She wanted to see him again—so bad.

Maybe he wasn't okay. Maybe he was still struggling with the darkness. Maybe she couldn't even help him figure that out—though surely, it would be easier if they could figure it out together, and maybe he'd listen to her this time!—but his darkness be damned. She wanted to see him again anyway.

Things would be okay again. She'd make them be okay.

She let out a long breath and pulled her knees to her chest, looping her arms around them but not really hugging them, just knotting a few fingers together.

Tifa shifted beside her, rolling over towards her, cracking open an eye. Her face scrunched up as she considered Kairi, and then she pushed herself up with a small groan.

"You okay?" she asked, groggily. "Something eating at you?"

Kairi laughed and shook her head. "No, I'm okay," she told Tifa. "Just a bad dream."

Tifa shifted and rolled her shoulders, eyeing Kairi in the darkness. "You want to talk about it?"

Kairi shook her head again.

"Nah, I'm good," she said. It wasn't really a bad dream, after all. She just had a lot of thoughts she was working through. A lot of things she was wondering about. Most of them weren't going to be any good sharing with Tifa.

But… there was one thing she was wondering that she could ask Tifa about.

"Hey, you awake enough to talk?" she asked Tifa, leaning towards her a little bit.

"I can be," Tifa answered, with a shrug.

"It's not anything deep," Kairi assured her. "I just wanted to ask… Why are we looking for Cloud, anyway? Or was that just an excuse…?"

"No, no, we're looking for Cloud," Tifa said. She laughed a little. "Though as weird as it may sound, I have a pretty good idea of where he might be?"

Kairi raised her eyebrows at that. "Oh really?"

Tifa nodded. "When you're traveling for as long as Cloud has been, you end up creating a pattern of what world you visit when... It's not exact, and he mixes it up a lot—plus it's hard to tell how long he stays in each world, but…" She trailed off there, her point made.

"So we could catch up to him right now?" Kairi pressed, laughing at how silly this seemed.

"Maybe," Tifa corrected. "But we're also searching for Sora, and I think he needs us more than Cloud does. Cloud's been traveling on his own for ages, he'll be fine."

"Then why are you trying to find him?"

"Because he doesn't need to travel alone, and one of these days maybe I'll get that through his thick skull," Tifa laughed. "He seems to forget that things tend to go better, faster, when you have your friends with you. Even though he only got rid of Sephiroth with mine and Rinoa's help…" She sighed and shook her head.

Kairi leaned in a little closer, curious. "Who's… Rinoa?" she asked. She remembered Aerith and Leon both mentioning her offhand when she'd stayed with them, but hadn't found the time to ask.

"Oh!" Tifa brightened a little. "A good friend. You'd like her—though, she's currently busy with sorceress training, so chances of you meeting her any time soon are slim."

"Aw," Kairi pouted, even though she supposed she didn't have any reason to. It wasn't like she knew anything about Rinoa other than her name. And that she was apparently a sorceress? Curiosity thrummed hot in Kairi's veins, but she decided to ask a different question. "Who's Sephiroth, also? I think I already know this, but refresh my memory."

"Cloud's Shadow," Tifa said. "He's reason why we know what's going on with Sora's Shadow."

Kairi nodded. Yeah, this sounded familiar. "Wait." She laughed, realizing something else. "Why does Sephiroth have a name, but not Sora's Shadow?"

"I…" Tifa thought about it for a long moment. Then, finally: "I don't know," she admitted. "But Sephiroth named himself, so that probably has something to do with it. Maybe Sora's Shadow just hasn't felt the need for a name."

"Or maybe he's just really bad at coming up with one," Kairi mused, thinking fondly of her invisible friend. She hadn't seen him since Agrabah either, but it wasn't like she was making it easy for them to meet up, since she wasn't staying in one place anymore. Besides, they both had important things they were doing.

(She hoped he found who he was looking for.)

"Yeah, maybe!" Tifa agreed, with a laugh of her own.

"Hey, do you think- If we find Sora, will we have to deal with his Shadow, too?" Kairi asked.

Tifa nodded. "Probably. Which will be… not a lot of fun." She grimaced, shifting where she sat, folding her legs under her. She seemed to bristle with annoyance at the thought. "He'll try his hardest to keep us away from Sora, and, well…" She eyed Kairi. "We already saw how that went."

Kairi hunched in on herself, shuddering at the memory of something like slime under her skin, the jittery feeling in her chest that never went away. He'd made her think she hated Sora. What would stop him from doing it again?

"Do you think we can beat him?" she whispered, hugging her knees tight.

Tifa smiled reassuringly at her. "Of course we can."

Kairi smiled back, grateful for the reassurance. She trusted Tifa in that. After all, Tifa had helped kill one Shadow before. And more than that—if she and Sora worked together, they could do anything. Kairi was sure of that.

Tifa eyed her, now, curiously.

Kairi cocked her head to the side.

"What?"

"How tired are you?" Tifa asked.

Kairi shrugged. "Not really," she said. She knew she should probably go back to sleep, but she'd been awake long enough now that her body seemed certain that being awake was the thing to do.

"Okay, good," Tifa said, with a nod. "There's been something I've been meaning to teach you, but it's either been a bad time, or I keep forgetting."

Kairi dropped her knees down, bouncing with excitement. "What is it?!"

More magic? She couldn't wait!

Tifa smiled slyly, which made Kairi's heart pound a little faster. It was going to be good, whatever it was.

"Remember how we were talking about how your heart is full of light?" Tifa said.

Kairi nodded vigorously. "Yeah, I do!"

"Well, there's something that people with hearts full of light—people like you and me—can do," Tifa continued. She moved a little closer to Kairi, rubbing her hands together. "We can take the light within ourselves, and channel it. Manifest it. Watch."

She held her hands out, palms facing and pulled close to her chest. The energy between her open palms seemed to waver. A spark of light burst to light between them, and solidified into a ball, which hovered between Tifa's hands. Tifa pulled her hands apart, dragging the ball of light with one of them, and it hovered in her outstretched palm.

Kairi stared, eyes wide, chest bursting with how eager she was to try herself.

"That's soooo cool!" she said.

"Works great as an impromptu flashlight, among other things," Tifa said, eyes glinting with the joy of sharing this secret with Kairi—not that was much of a secret. It just felt special. "Especially since…" She tossed the ball of light into the air, and it hung there, suspended above their heads, illuminating the space around them.

Kairi ooooh-d softly, greatly impressed.

"Can I try?" she asked, shifting to sit on her knees.

Tifa nodded, reaching up and grabbing her light, pulling it back into her.

"It'll take some practice before you can make it float on its own," she said. "But… reach into yourself, find your light, and just kind of… call it out. It shouldn't be that difficult to do this, at least."

Kairi nodded and did as instructed, holding her hands out before her like Tifa had. It was… strange, and hard to describe, the reaching-into-herself bit. It felt a little bit like trying to grab onto a piece of the ocean itself.

But finally, she grabbed onto something, and she pulled. A ball of light burst to life between her hands.

"Aha!" Kairi's face broke into a wide, proud, grin. "I did it!"

Tifa smiled proudly back. "Yeah, you did!"

"Can I do anything else with it?" Kairi asked, looking up to Tifa.

"Well, it makes a pretty good weapon against the Heartless," Tifa said. "More effective than magic—since they're pure darkness, anyway—but… it'll drain your energy reserves a little faster."

Kairi nodded, to show she understood. Or… she mostly understood. It was a lot to process, and she was still new to the whole casting-magic thing anyway.

"How… how do I put it back?" Kairi asked.

Tifa laughed. "Just… call it back into you, like you called it out."

Kairi scrunched her face up and concentrated—but this was much easier than pulling it out, and the light retreated into her with a fast and small pop!

"That's so cool…" she whispered, staring at her hands. "What- what are we gonna do now?" she asked, a little bit hoping Tifa had something else to teach her.

Tifa just shrugged, though, and answered with a predictable but boring course of action: "Maybe we should go back to sleep?"

"I'm not tired, though!" Kairi protested, feeling a little bit like she was five. She ignored the feeling and plodded ahead. "And since we're both already awake, and not tired, maybe we should get moving again? Might as well…"

Also, it'd be nice to try out this new ability on the Heartless, if she could.

Tifa laughed, probably catching on that Kairi was more eager to fight Heartless than start searching again.

"Alright," she said. "Gather your things. It won't hurt to get moving now."

Grinning, Kairi happily obliged.