A/N: 5.21.09: Ah, I'm so excited. I love doing these new notes and getting to look at my old notes. So, I changed that extremely OOC thing from the end of last chapter; it just... bothered me. Dx

41 hits for three chapters in a fix like this? Not bad. :D Thank you my wonderful viewers, and one wonderful reviewer. xD I realize Cloud was OOC last chapter, but it kinda was meant to happen for entertainment and the purposes of the story. So... hah. If you didn't like it, dun read. I'm not picking on you, Fuyu because you are awesome and I love you. xDD

For the record, 'this' is a nobody speaking in mind and 'this' is a regular person's thoughts and whatnot. Oh, you'll figure it out. Anyway, onto the chapter.

Disclaimer - If I owned Kingdom Hearts, well... the new games would be up by now.

A week had passed since the fiasco at the castle. Yuffie had long since healed while Keira had healed a few days after her. Said teenager frowned. "So... locking the worlds helps keep heartless away?" Leon, Yuffie, Aerith, Cloud, and Keira were once again in the living room inside of Merlin's house. Leon was leaning against one of the walls, as well as Cloud, and Yuffie was sprawled across the same couch as the one Aerith was sitting on. Keira glanced around at them all as she sat up on another couch.

"Pretty much, yeah." Leon replied, nodding. "Sometimes, even that doesn't work, especially if the world has a naturally dark heart. That means that, even when the world is sealed, there's a potential for many heartless still to be around. It just saves the world from being swallowed by darkness." Keira was barely listening to his explanation; she was still struggling to understand what had happened to her world and what she had to do to get it back.

"And this... King Mickey, does he know why I'm another chosen one?" Leon shook his head.

"He wouldn't really tell me what he knew. But, Sora should be here soon and you might be able to go off with him. The King said he'd be at Disney Castle in a few days."

"But there are still other worlds that need to have their keyholes checked out, pronto." Yuffie frowned, stifling a yawn.

"You're one to talk, you lazy ninja." Leon said, shaking his head. Yuffie pouted.

"Be nice, Squall."

"Stop calling me that!"

"Oy." Keira sighed as she shook her head at their fight. She'd only been in the Radiant Garden for about a week, but she had already adjusted to everyone's antics. She frowned deeply and slumped in her seat somewhere. Around her was the air of someone who was extremely annoyed--- with no one other than herself.

"Don't beat yourself up." Aerith said as if reading the girl's thoughts. Keira blinked and looked up at the older woman. In the background Yuffie and Leon were still fighting. She smiled lightly before getting to her feet, shouldering her keyblade and walking toward the door. When her hand was on the doorknob, she announced:

"I'm going for a walk." Then, she stepped outside and closed the door carefully behind her. The first day she had arrived, the streets were constantly full and there was always a crowd that could only be passed by pushing and yelling. Not to mention, Keira hadn't had a use for her Keyblade. The same went for the second and third days. But after that, the heartless number increased tenfold and few people presently left their homes. She sighed and jumped onto the ledge overlooking the large ocean below.

Keira closed her eyes, and reopened them just as quickly in order to whip around and take out a Shadow. "Stupid heartless." She muttered as she sat on the ledge and dangled her legs over the side with an ocean view. The wind was blowing softly and gently whipping her hair around. Today Keira had chosen to throw it in a high ponytail in order to see better although her left eye was still covered by her long bangs.

'Why am I so weak? It's only been a week, but still. This is ridiculous. And besides, that Sora kid isn't coming anytime soon.' Keira smirked. She was willing to give herself a second chance. The Keyblade wielder jumped to her feet and walked the ledge all the way to the Bailey before disappearing from view.

XxxxxX

"That kid's too hard on herself." An older man with blond hair commented. He was sitting on the computer chair while facing the others; they nodded in agreement.

"What did the King tell you anyway, Squall?" Yuffie asked, ignoring the swordsman's protests.

"All he said was that there's another Princess." Leon replied. "He wouldn't tell me much, though; he wanted to make sure he was right before spurting out his theories."

"So... another Princess of Heart?" Cloud asked quietly. Leon shrugged.

"I'm not sure. Somehow I don't think there would be another Princess of Heart we didn't know about. Otherwise the door wouldn't have been opened before."

"Leon's probably right." Aerith agreed. "There must be another Princess of something else."

"But what could another Princess be if not a Princess of Heart?" asked Cid as he turned back to his computer.

"Who knows? We could try to search Ansem's computer to see if he knew anything about another Princess." Leon suggested. "It's probably our best bet since the King can't figure anything out."

"Why did the King bring this up when you told him about Keira?" Yuffie asked as she raised an eyebrow.

"He must think she's the Princess."

"But there's probably lots of female Keyblade wielders." The young ninja sighed. "What makes him so sure?"

"He was probably just stating it because Leon told him that there was a female Keyblade wielder with us." replied Cloud with a weak shrug. "I wouldn't go so far as to say that this girl is the Princess."

XxxxxX

"I can't believe we had to leave home already." A boy with spiky chocolate-colored hair sighed as he leaned back in a yellow chair. He was relatively tall and appeared to be around fifteen.

"Are you really that surprised? We knew that Maleficent wasn't dead." Another boy replied as he leaned forward in his chair. His long, silver hair covered his eyes somewhat. The boy's eyes were a breathtaking shade of seafoam green. He was much taller than the other boy and seemed to be roughly sixteen. They were sitting in the cockpit of some brand of a ship. As they flew through the sky, they passed differently colored and shaped meteors.

"I guess, but I was kind of hoping we could be home longer." The first boy responded. "It's a good thing we took Kairi with us; she might've freaked out completely if we had left her behind again." He stated before throwing a glance back at the third chair where a girl with long auburn hair was curled up. Her outfit was a pink dress with a lower white layer. Even though she was curled into a ball, it was easy to tell that she was shorter than both boys, though she looked seemed to be about the same age as the spiky-haired one.

"Heh. It's a good thing Kairi can wield a Keyblade so you don't have to freak out about her being with us." The silver-haired boy retaliated.

"Wh-what's that supposed to mean?"

"You know that you love her, Sora." Silver-haired boy sighed impatiently. "I don't understand why you two can't either figure it out or admit it."

"I have no idea what you're talking about." The boy named Sora muttered under his breath.

'Yes you do, so stop being stupid.' A voice in the back of Sora's barked at him.

'Shut up, Roxas.' Sora growled within the confines of his head.

'You are too clueless, Sora. Then again, Naminé can't get Kairi to budge either.'

'Speaking of Naminé, how come you haven't told her how you feel?' Sora teased his nobody. At this, Roxas fell silent and Sora was satisfied that he had won.

"Earth to Sora!" The other boy exclaimed, shaking Sora out of his mental argument.

"What's wrong, Riku?" asked Sora with an alarmed expression.

The silver-haired boy had quickly picked up when Sora and Roxas were having conversations after just a few days of being with the spiky-haired boy once more. "Stop talking to your nobody and pay attention to the road. If you can call it that." Riku added in afterthought. "You nearly drove us into a meteor."

"Well then, you should've shot it down with the laser." Sora replied hotly as he raised his eyebrows; Riku just barely flushed.

"Shut up."

"Anyway, why do you think the King sent us the Gummi ship and told us to go to the Radiant Garden immediately?" Sora finally asked Riku, keeping his eyes on the 'road' before them. He steered the ship away from another meteor. Naturally, they weren't really on a road, but following a familiar route leading to the Radiant Garden in space.

Riku was only somewhat exasperated with his best friend's question. He wondered how Sora had managed to figure out that Riku had been following him all last year if he couldn't remember the King's spoken words. "All he said was that the others will explain. What're their names again?" he added with his eyebrows furrowed in thought.

"Leon's the tall brunet that uses the Gunblade. Aerith is the girl with the long pink dress and hiking boots. Her hair's always tied back in a long braid with ribbons. Yuffie is the short and hyper ninja." Sora paused to laugh as he remembered past events with them. "Uh, Cid is the old man with blond hair. He's a wiz at computers and Gummi ships. Merlin's the wizard--he'll be easy to tell apart from the others, trust me. And Cloud is tall and has spiky blond hair. I don't know if he returned to the Radiant Garden, though." The teenage boy recalled the last time he had been at the Radiant Garden. After beating Sephiroth or, at least, tiring him a little, Cloud had come and they had taken their fight to another world.

"Alright. I guess I've got it memorized." Riku muttered although he was quite certain he'd forget when they arrived. Unlike Sora, he had a bad memory when it came to people. Sora grinned at Riku's wording, as did his nobody.

'Remind you of somebody?'

'Axel.' Sora could just hear the smirk in his Nobody's voice. Turning his focus back to what he was doing, Sora blinked with surprise. "We're at the Radiant Garden, prepare to land." Riku nodded and put on his seat belt as Sora glanced backwards at the sleeping girl. "Hey, Kairi. Kairi." The boy raised his voice a little. Kairi slowly began to stir and yawned. As she began to sit up, she rubbed at her strange yet beautiful indigo eyes.

"What is it, Sora?" She asked in a groggy voice as she stretched her arms.

"Put your seat belt on. We're landing, Princess." Sora answered with another grin. Kairi threw the pillow that she had been laying on at the Keyblade master.

"Lazy bum." She muttered before clicking the seatbelt into place and stretching out her legs.

"Sora, you know where to land, right?" Riku asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Sora, you do know how to land, right?" Kairi added in a nervous voice.

Sora responded with a weak smile."Of course. I watched Donald do it all the time." Kairi and Riku exchanged one look that said 'Oh, no.' Sora pushed forward a lever and the ship instantly began to hurl downwards.

"SORA!" The two yelled as the ship hurled straight for the Radiant Garden.

"Oops?"

XxxxxX

Keira paused at the foot of the castle, below the Postern. (A/n: At the foot of the trail of the Restoration Site.) Her Keyblade was in her hand as she had just taken out a few more heartless. Something that looked like a bright speck was floating in the sky. As she stared up at it, she realized that it wasn't a falling star like she had expected, but something else entirely. After a few more seconds, she realized that the object was hurling for the Castle's Gates. Following the resounding crash, Keira ran forward to see what had just crashed in her home away from home.

She ran away from the Restoration Site and paused at the end of the path. Keira looked down from the overlooking piece of land and saw that a ship of some sort had crashed. Curiosity got the best of her, and she ran down the rest of the trail with her Keyblade in hand.

Sora, Kairi, and Riku climbed out of the mess of a ship. "Nice job, Sora." Riku commented stiffly as he walked away from it. The figure of Keira reached his seafoam eyes first, and he quickly called upon Way to Dawn.

Keira, taking his battle stance as an understandable threat, held her Keyblade tightly as she glared at Riku. "Riku!" Kairi called from behind him as she joined Sora several feet behind Riku. "Who's that?" She whispered.

He replied with a shrug and an, "I've never seen her before." (A/n: Note that Leon mentioned Sora's name alone but neither Riku nor Kairi speak it, so Keira doesn't know who they are. She should get it from their appearances, but...)

"Never trust what, or rather who, you don't know." The silver-haired boy stated as he rushed Keira with Way to Dawn. Keira held up her own Keyblade (which she had already named Shadow Heart) in order to block his attack.

"Wait, Riku!" Kairi cried, "what if she isn't a threat?" Sora put a hand on Kairi's shoulder in order to prevent her from running forward.

"Calm down, Kai. Besides, the King mentioned something about other Keyblade wielders with bad intentions. She could be one of them." He answered in a murmur that was supposed to soothe her. Instead, it caused the girl to whirl around and glare.

"You don't know whether she is or isn't a threat either." Keira jumped backwards and threw her Keyblade at Riku who blocked it with his own. She landed on the overlooking ledge and glared at the boy as he advanced on her. Riku jumped upwards just as the teenage girl recalled her Keyblade.

"Wow." murmured Sora, "She's pretty skilled. Who is this girl?"

XxxxxX

"Leon," An old man huffed as he stood in the doorway of the house. He had a long white beard that almost reached the bottom of his blue robe. The whole room turned to stare at him.

"Merlin, what is it?" asked Leon urgently as he approached him.

"I've just been to the marketplace," Merlin began, panting, "and as I neared here, I heard weaponry clashing near the Bailey. You should go check it out." He said as he entered the house and collapsed onto a nearby couch. The old wizard was finally beginning to show his age.

"And look who's missing from the picture," mused Cloud as he also walked toward the door.

Leon glanced back at him. "Are you coming, then?" He asked, taking the blond man's silence as an affirmative. The two swordsmen hurried out of the house and towards the Bailey.

XxxxxX

"Give up?" mocked Keira as she flipped over Riku and landed on the ground where the ship had crashed.

"Right," murmured Riku as he ran fast enough at her that he appeared to be nothing more than a blur. In a quick slicing motion, he struck at Keira's feet and knocked her to the cement. With Way to Dawn pointed at her throat, Riku asked, "Who gives up now?"

"Stop!" The voices of two men shouted from above as Cloud and Leon jumped and landed a foot or so away from them.

"Both of you, call off your Keyblades." Leon ordered in a strict tone that caused all Keyblades (including Sora's) to disappear.

Sora blinked dumbly a few times. "Leon? Cloud? What...--?" He began but was cut off.

"I could ask the same thing,"replied Leon as he stared at the four teenagers with expectance. "You two, what did you think you were doing?" He demanded with a hard stare at Riku and Keira. Both wielders exclaimed that they thought the other one was from the "other side."

Riku snorted, "Yeah, me with the heartless." Sora and Kairi were the only ones who found this funny.

"You could've fooled me with that keychain," pointed out Keira with a deep glare at the Heartless keychain attached to Way to Dawn's hilt.

The silver-haired boy could come up with no response, so he simply settled for, "hmpf."

"Keira is why you three are here." Cloud stated. He seemed to be holding back from rolling his eyes.

"Huh?" The Destiny Island trio was dumbfounded as Keira smirked and stuck out her tongue.

A/N: I just had to throw Roxas into the mix. And the fight may seem OOC on Riku's part, but I thought it was... 'necessary'. Heh, yeah right. Anyway, OOC warnings are in the description. :P At any rate, see you next chapter! Please review!