A Serendipitous Key of Hope
Disclaimer: My imaginary lawyers tell me I do not own products owned by Disney, Masashi Kishimoto, anything from Shonen Jump, or Square Enix.
Omake
The last orb shatters into particles of light. Eraqus watches with intrigue and a smile. "Though these were unnatural circumstances, you've nevertheless prevailed. It is time to take part in the final part of the exam."
Konan and Nagato draw their weapons. The two face one another with a serious disposition. As soon as the words, "Begin," go off, Konan leaps forward and slashes at Nagato. He rolls to the left and spins around to slash at her, but she dips her whole body underneath and pushes off him just as he tries to shoulder her. With the distance she swipes upward, narrowly nicking him. Nagato backs away, sweat dripping down his face.
He can tell she has a speed advantage; she's always been tricky and the least predictable. How can he beat her? "Konan..." As he thinks, his arm garners a flicker of darkness, that he immediately notices. He swipes his hand to dispel it, before recommencing the fight. The battle continues with all three watching with varying opinions.
Eventually they finish on Eraqus' command, and stand before him. After his lone left hand rubs a scar on the left side of his face, he comes to a decision. "This will conclude the Mark of Mastery Exam. I am proud to pronounce that you both have skill, power, and heart, however, only Konan has shown her worth." All three apprentices look at him in shock.
"M-Master?" Nagato stutters.
"Nagato, you failed to keep the darkness in check. Until you're able to hold control of your heart that will be a far outcry for you." Eraqus turns to Konan. "Konan, as our newest Keyblade Master you will receive new information and be able to make decisions on our level. Your inauguration shall be tomorrow; that is all." Eraqus walks away, Master Xehanort long since left.
Yahiko comes over to the two. "Nagato, I'm sorry."
"Will you be okay?" Konan asks him.
"Where did that darkness come from?" Nagato asks out of worry. Though this is more as a whisper to himself, allowing him to say out loud, "Congratulations Konan. We'll have to celebrate sometime."
Nagato walks off, obviously upset despite his outward attitude. Over in the shadows, Xehanort watches them disperse, before turning to the darker spot of the room. "Well, what do you think?"
"He's not gonna cut it." A voice on the other side of the darkness speaks out. From it steps a man covered head to toe in black armor, holding a mask in one hand.
"Well, the time to act is soon. Do you have a plan for him?" The boy puts on his mask, which reveals a symbol lined white. The old man grins. "Right, look who I'm talking to."
End Omake…
The XXIV Keyhole: The Wandering Samhain
Naruto looks down at a stone in his hand, the same one he's held onto since meeting Ichigo. After a while he pockets the white stone with a red x on it, not noting energy passing to it. 'Why am I so focused on this thing? I'm busy looking for stuff to tame the Heartless.'
"Naruto, we're here!" Donald says, getting him out of his musing. The four enter the laboratory, presenting to Finkelstein the myosotis.
"Perfect; now we just need one more ingredient, surprise."
"Surprise?" Goofy repeats.
"The mayor should know where it is." With a nod, they exit the lab to get hold of the last piece.
On the way to the gate leading out the lab, Donald says, "I sure hope it works."
"Of course it will; the doctor's never failed an experiment before," Jack speaks.
"Gee, I don't know," Goofy adds. "The heart DOES seem more complicated the more I think about it."
"There's the mayor," says Jack pointing over to the double-faced official. The Pumpkin King approaches him, asking, "Mayor, do you have anything with you related to surprise?"
"Surprise? OH!" Though confused, an idea seems to hit his enjoyment button causing him to waddle along. He points to a nearby building. "There might be something over there you can use. It'll give you the surprise of a lifetime!"
Naruto walks over first to the building in question, a leaning black tower. He reaches for the door handle, which opens by itself and shoots out a jack 'o lantern without warning. It then explodes with a vile laughter, revealing a jack in the box.
Covered in pumpkin guts and a candle on top, Naruto picks it up with the most annoyed expression on his face he's ever made. Donald comes up asking, "What's that?"
"A surprise." His deadpanned response unleashes hordes of annoyed vibes from within.
Though stunned, Jack recovers to pick up the box from him. "Well, this just might be enough. Let's return!"
With the jack in the box, they return to the doctor who adds the item to the heart. With the pulsating object ready, Finkelstein moves over to his machine with it. "This should do the trick."
But then, out of nowhere, Lock, Shock, and Barrel come out of hiding and knock over the cone lipped doctor. Lock jumps up and grabs the heart, running off with the others to escape. It all happens so fast the others were too confused to response in time. "What was that?" Goofy asks coming out from his stupor.
"They stole the heart; after them!" shouts Jack leading the chase. Naruto and the others follow after.
"This heart's turning into more trouble than it's worth," Donald grumbles. "Those things better be able to do the monkey!"
"The what?" This is Goofy.
They come to the cemetery, where Jack spots footprints. "It's them. They went across on Spiral Hill."
As Jack leads them along, they come to a hill where the highest point is curved inward into a curl. As the others question the logic of it, the Heartless arrive.
With the last of them gone, Jack approaches the titular Spiral Hill, which begins to unfurl and lead them over a gate. They carefully walk across it outside of the cemetery, overtop an area. This leads to a bridge that connects above sewers. Jack tracks the footprints on the bridge, going through the gates on the other side.
There, they come out to a mountain surrounding an open valley, or, it would be open. There's a large tree-like collection of bridges, buildings, jack-o-lanterns on pikes and cages taking up almost all of the space within said valley. Jack stares up at the Halloween-esque manor, saying, "I knew Oogie Boogie would have something to do with this."
"Who?" Goofy asks curiously.
"He's nothing more than a nuisance," Jack begins. "Everyone in town scares others for the joy of the holidays; he does it out of malice! He tried to take over Halloween Town before, but I stopped him and his army of bugs."
"Looks like he switched over to the Heartless." The quartet head across the connecting bridge.
A Gargoyle Heartless fires a blue fireball at them, but Donald uses Blizzara to block it. Naruto then slashes it the moment it's distracted, opening a path. They enter through the architectural doorway to pass through more wooden bridges. This leads them higher through more hordes of Heartless popping up randomly.
Once they've cleared the way they come to another door at the highest peak they're able to climb, and enter through. There they come to a room full of kiddy torture devices. The kids consisting of Lock, Shock, and Barrel dump the heart down a mouth-like pipe. They turn around to see them and prepare to battle. "You're not getting passed us!"
Jack narrows his eye sockets, before pulling on his bone lips and unveiling a hideously scary face that frightens them and the trio behind him. After fixing himself, he shouts, "What were you three thinking getting involved with him!"
Shock quivers before saying, "Oogie Boogie made us do it! We were just following orders!"
"It… It wasn't our fault!" speaks Lock while still frightened. "It was all Barrel!"
"What?!" They then get into a childish argument, knocking each other's masks off.
Naruto clobbers each of them in the skulls. "Let's go guys. We need to find the heart."
"Well, don't go near a green door; he's not there!" Lock says.
Shock hits him in his bump Naruto made. "You idiot! Don't say that!"
"We're not supposed to talk about the door! We can't mention the lever either!" says Barrel.
"Lever?" Naruto looks over to the right side of the room seeing a lever. He nods to Goofy, who pulls it. A mechanism goes off before stopping. The Keybearer then uses Thundara on it, locking the lever in place. "Alright, green door!"
"Let's go!" Upon exiting the room, Jack and the others look for their next objective. After minutes of searching, they reach near the bottom of the manor where a green door with Oogie's face on it underneath a guillotine. After Goofy jumps up to break it, they're clear to go.
Naruto, Jack, Donald and Goofy enter the room, where they come upon an assortment of gambling games and torture devices. Standing atop them is Oogie Boogie, laughing cockily as he juggles with the heart. Jack shouts, "What's the game this time Oogie?"
"Wait, this guy? He's a ghost," Naruto complains upon seeing him. "And not even a good one, like one of those cheap trick 'r treaters who can't afford a real costume!" 'Or who had to cut up a sheet like me.'
"Now listen here Keyblade brat," he shouts angrily. "Mr. Oogie Boogie says there's trouble close at hand! So you'd better pay attention now, 'cause I'm the Bogeyman!"
After a beat pause, the Keybearer laughs. "This guy's the bogeyman?! To think all this time everyone's been told bedtime stories of the bogeyman, turns out the guy's a pillow sheet no one wanted!"
"SHUT UP!"
"Why do you need that anyway? Aren't you working with Maleficent too?" Goofy asks curiously.
"Simple; while that machine is active I can't control them with my small heart. I need a bigger one, like this!"
"Oogie, just hand over the heart and no one gets hurt!" Jack demands.
"If you want it so bad, come and get it!" Pissed, the talking bag drops it into his throat. He then laughs, saying, "Now, let's see how powerful this will be! Oh Heartless!" Everyone gets on edge expecting a horde of Heartless.
Instead, two Gargoyles and a Wight Knight jump out. Deadpanned, Donald asks, "That's it?"
The bogeyman checks over his 'army', and fumes with anger. "Nobody disrespects ME! NOBODY!"
After that, his machines begin moving. The Heartless fight against Naruto, Donald and Goofy while Jack goes for Oogie. He runs to the side avoiding the Pumpkin King, pulling a lever that causes his robots to come to life. The floor spins in a circle, and the robots spin swinging blades. "Come on, bone man! This time you're not gonna get the leg up on me!"
Jack slips and flips through the blades, his body being so skinny and nimble he can jump and move anywhere. Oogie fakes fear, before pulling another lever. This causes robots with guns to pop up and fire at him. Jack jumps on top of them avoiding the bullets. "Oh, come on! Buzzsaw!" He jumps over to hit a new switch, causing a thread to come loose from his left foot. A buzzsaw trap comes in after Jack, who leaps away in time for it to cut through the robots.
"I thought the king of Bug Day would be more challenging after losing the first time." Jack's taunt does nothing to bring deter the pillow villain's strategy, who decides then to throw enlarged dice at him. They hit Jack exploding, and knock him into the ground.
Oogie laughs at his fallen rival. "Time to die, Pumpkin King! I've been waiting for this for a long time! Your life is in the hands of fate!" The bogeyman throws two pairs of dice at Jack, which come up two. "WHAT?! SNAKE EYES?!" Angered, he stomps the ground to get them rolling again.
Naruto, having dispatched the Wight Knight, uses Strike Raid at the die to knock them higher up. Seeing they're falling his way, Oogie runs away to escape. "Not this time!" Jack, having recovered, moves in and pulls on the thread to his leg. This unravels his leg, revealing the nasty assortment of bugs collected on that part. He shakes in fear seeing he's lost control over his legs, just as the dice hit the ground. They come up eleven, and explode, knocking the bogeyman into a wall. His burlap burns away, revealing the rest of the insects.
"NO! MY BUGS! MY BUGS!" Oogie dissolves down as the insects leave him, dropped to nothing left more than a single earwig crushed underneath the heart. Which has stopped beating after all that's happened.
Jack sighs. "I guess that heart was a failure after all."
"Jack, what did you mean by Bug Day?" Naruto asks him.
"Oogie wasn't always an outcast to Halloween Town; he was a resident of another place called Bug Town. But his place disappeared and he came here to take over, using his bugs to capture everyone. So I fought and sent him crawling back into his lair. I guess all that time and he still didn't learn a thing." The quartet make their exit out from the lair.
On their way to the bridge leading back to town, everyone stops when the earth begins to shake. From behind them, darkness billows from all around the manor. The bridge is ripped from the mountain, sending them all flying to the ground below. Naruto summons Aerora to lighten their descent, and then crane their eyes and necks skyward to get a good look at the manor. It would appear that Oogie has enlarged himself, and fused with his manor.
"How'd he get so big!" shouts Naruto in shock.
"Look at that!" Jack points to purple globs on Oogie's body.
Naruto gets a closer look, and says, "It's brimming with the power of darkness."
"Oh, I get it!" Goofy says. "That heart gave Oogie Boogie power after all, but he must need to draw power from those dark globs!"
"Then let's pop those pimples!" Donald shouts before rushing in. They rush in up the side of the bogeyman's body, nearing the first glob. With the Keyblade, Naruto cuts it down, causing it to disappear. They continue to platform up the villain's body to attack his globs.
After many a platforming, they end up destroying atleast three more. That's when the manor begins to move. Uprooting itself from the ground, the giant manor begins moving towards the mountains.
Jack realizes what this entails. "We gotta finish the job before he reaches town!"
Gargoyle Heartless fly in to attack them, knocking Donald and Goofy off. "Donald! Goofy!"
"Just go! We'll catch up!" Goofy says as Donald slows their descent.
Naruto and Jack make their way further up. Coming to another glob they destroy it together, leaving two left. "Let's split up to find the other two!"
"Right!" They separate to search all of Oogie's body for the last two globs, being careful not to fall off.
At this point, Oogie has already started climbing up the mountain. Jack manages to reach the sixth, and comes upon Heartless in his way. Using fire, he manages to deter them long enough to move in and destroy the glob. But he gets sent flying by the Heartless' combined assault, and falls off the manor. "Naruto, it's up to you!" he shouts.
All alone, Naruto reaches the last glob. He comes before Gargoyles who get in his way, and uses Thundara on the glob. But one of them takes the hit. "What?!"
The Heartless then begin to attack, pushing the tired Keybearer near the edge. The x stone he got falls from his pocket, and he soon follows. But as he's about to fall off the manor, a figure flies out from behind and pulls Naruto to safety, accompanied by strikes to each Heartless' skull.
Naruto looks up at his savior, a young looking male dressed in a burgundy kimono with white hakama and sandals, with abundant red hair and violet eyes. He also notably has a cross shaped scar on his left cheek. "Are you alright-gozaru?"
"Huh? Gozaru?" Naruto blinks, not having recognized that take. "Where did you come from?"
"I'm not really sure; I was asleep for a long time after darkness took over my world, and then I felt someone needed my help," says the red haired swordsman.
"Well, thanks." He's not sure what happened; he'll muse over that later. "Anyway, we need to get to that purple thing and destroy it!"
"Understood-gozaru," he says, before drawing his sword. To Naruto's surprise, the blade on his katana is on the opposite end. "Can you distract them for me?"
"Uh, sure." He did save him, so Naruto has no reason NOT to trust him just yet. Naruto slashes at the Heartless and turns to the new guy, who disappears before his eyes. 'Eh?'
Looking again, he tracks him just overhead of the glob. He comes down bringing his sword upon the glob and busting it open. With the last glob gone, dark fumes emit from the manor. A howling moan of 'No' repeats itself over and over as he collapses. The samurai and Naruto jump ship, but as they do the former begins fading. The Keybearer lands safely, looking back to see Oogie and his manor fade into the darkness.
Breathing a sigh of relief, Naruto stands up and turns over to his friends coming his way. "Naruto! Come over here!"
"What's wrong?" He prepares to move, stopping when he steps on a stone. Picking it up, it's the same orb he got from Ichigo. 'Maybe...' He puts it away and heads back to the others.
Goofy and Donald point to the location of where Oogie's manor used to be, revealed to be in the shape of a giant Keyhole. "A Keyhole!"
Wasting no time, he summons his weapon and aims up high, causing it to release light to rain down on the hole. It locks and disappears. Naruto sighs with their accomplishment, before turning his eyes over to the others. "It's over."
The others sigh with relief, except Jack. He's more visibly upset.
…
"Sally, why didn't I listen to you?" speaks Jack, defeated. He's inside the doctor's lab with Sally and Finkelstein himself. "You were trying to tell me this could end badly, and it almost did. The heart was a complete failure."
"Don't feel too bad Jack." Sally comes near him with a smile. "We'll come up with a new plan for Halloween; this time, we'll do it together."
With that, Naruto, Donald, and Goofy come in to see Jack. The Pumpkin King tells them, "Looks like we'll have to cancel the Heartless Halloween Festival for now. But, don't be afraid to visit us again; next year will be even scarier!"
"I'll hold you to that," Naruto says.
"Bye Jack! Bye Sally!" Goofy says before they take their leave.
Once they're gone, the doctor muses with a groan. "Emotion, memory… We added all the necessary ingredients, and nothing! What do you need to make a heart? What IS a heart anyway? I can't figure it out."
Meanwhile, Naruto and the others return to the Gummi Ship. But on the way, a light appears before the Keyblade wielder. It falls in his hands in the form of a Keychain. "I guess the world has thanked me again."
"Hey, Naruto, who was that guy you were with?" asks Goofy.
"Oh, you saw him too?" As they enter the ship, they take off for the stars the moment Donald takes controls. Again.
Naruto takes a seat looking at the x stone from his pocket. "I don't know where he came from... But maybe..." Energy enters into the stone, and a flash of light opens before them.
From the light appears the red-haired swordsman, who looks on confused. "Oro?"
"AH!" Everyone backs away seeing him.
"Oh, you again!"
"You are..."
"Himura Kenshin-gozaru."
Kenshin: Well, that ends this chapter.
Yusei: What are you doing here?
Kenshin: I'm not that Kenshin!
Kei: Next time, we move onto a new world. Can you guess what it is?
Claire: Don't be stupid. It's obvious.