Falling... I felt like I was slightly fa-.

"Ah! What the hell?" I rubbed my head from my abrupt landing on the floor. Looking at the sheets tangled around me, I glared heatedly at whoever pushed me off of my bed. I found Axel standing at my side with a slightly humorous look upon his face.

"About time you woke up. I swear, I could yell at you all day and it wouldn't reach you... Sooo, I pushed you off of your bed."

I slowly got up, gripping my pillow tightly. I started to hit Axel repeatedly over the head with it in response to his none too gentle wake up call. "Why do you have to knock me off of my bed?! I would have woken up if you just knocked on the door! Imbecile..."

Axel caught the pillow and kept me from hitting him in the head any more, much to my demise. "Well, I'll keep that in mind... Anyway, you better hurry up and get ready. I'm supposed t bring you to the meeting chambers..."

I paused for a moment. "Meeting...? Oh! Right. Well, there's not much I can actually do to get ready, so... on we go?"

Axel nodded and started walking out of the room, in which I followed suit. Once again, hallways... I sighed inwardly, gazing about with a bored expression. My shadow caught my eye, which seemed to have to yellow eyes again. That's right... the heartless from yesterday. It was talking about nobodies and... Axel. It said Axel is a nobody... Should I ask him? I mean, if Nobodies have no hearts, that means no emotions. So, I guess he couldn't actually feel mad or sad about it if he were a nobody. Right? Ugh... So complicated... I glanced at Axel, who was staring straight ahead as usual. But... he could seem so normal... How could he be a nobody? Hmm... I shook my head and glanced at my shadow once again, but the eyes were gone. Geez, that little guy sure does like hide and seek... Does it really think there's something wrong with this? I wonder what's going to happen in the meeting room... Oh well. I jumped when I almost ran headfirst into a wall, but luckily, Axel grabbed my shoulder before I did.

"Man, you're really out of it... Did you hit your head too hard or something?"

I stuck my tongue out at him and crossed my arms. "No... I was just thinking about some things."

"Oh? What kind of things?"

I blinked and grinned, waving off his question. "Ah, it was nothing... nothing that I can't handle later, anyway. Now, don't we have to get to this meeting place?"

Axel nodded and pointed to a door a little ways to our left. "That's it..."

I blinked and stated to follow Axel as we approached the door. Axel pulled up his hood before he opened on the door. Strange... Maybe they really are from a cult. Axel led me into the room, which was white. White, white, white, white, white... Man, don't these guys get tired of it? My eyes widened as I saw the huge seats in which six people sat. Axel went into his seat, leaving me on the ground. Now don't I feel awkward... I looked at the remaining six seats and wondered if there were others coming to the meeting. I took it as a no, because the one in the highest chair started to speak.

"Now, this meeting was called because we happened to come across... an important piece to our plan. Most of you have probably heard what this piece is by now, but if you have not, then we shall introduce you. Yuki..."

I stiffened, awaiting orders or some sort of command from the highest chairperson.

"Yuki is the heir that legend has talked about. The Heir to the Darkness. Knowing this, you all should be able to guess her role in our plans, but now I must explain some things for her."

"Yuki, I hear that you have discovered your ability to conjure heartless, correct?"

I nodded, not daring to say anything. I'm guessing tat it was Xemnas who was addressing me, because he sounded sort of familiar.

"Good. Now, you must know your role in helping us... There is the Keyblade master, who is destined to try to rid the worlds of darkness."

My hand tightened into a fist at the thought of fighting the Keyblade master, Roxas.

"I need you to try to challenge him with heartless. The more he actually defeats, the more hearts are released from the heartless. These hearts will help us reach our goal. Now, there are other people who are giving in to darkness, and trying to harness the power of darkness besides you. You will start to be able to tell when someone else is using the power of darkness, because they are using a part of you. You will feel a sort of... link. You need to familiarize yourself with these people and keep an eye on them. We can't have them ruining our plans because of their want of your powers."

I blinked and nodded, trying to retain the information he was giving me. People using darkness? I didn't know others would be able to harness it with light in their hearts... I snapped my head upwards towards Xemnas.

"Um... Won't that eventually just turn them into heartless themselves? I mean, their hearts will turn to darkness..."

Xemnas nodded, his hood keeping any expression from being seen on his face. "Yes, eventually they will. Only you will be able to truly control the darkness without being consumed, based on your... history. Now, I ask that you exit the room for now, for there are things that we must talk about that don't concern you."

I nodded, knowing not to try to pry into business that wasn't my own. I started walking towards the door when Xemnas started to address me again. "I'll have someone come after you soon to help you control your power, seeing as you clearly lack experience."

I nodded, pushing the doors open and walking into the hallway. I heard the door shut tightly behind me, forbidding any noise to leak out of the room. I sighed and slid down the wall by the door. Great, I get to wait for who knows how long until I could get a babysitter. Just my luck... As I sat against the wall, the heartless from before came out of my shadow. I jumped a little from the startle, but otherwise relaxed at seeing the small creature in front of me.

"Oh, it's you... What's up?"

The small creature twitched about, his head constantly keeping watch around him. /Liege... Something wrong... The high one... dangerous... Keyblade destroy us... his goal./

I blinked and lowered my head, not wanting to look the heartless in the eye. Heartless actually have emotions...

"I really don't know what to do now... If he wants to destroy you guys... then... Argh, I can't just defy him though, Axel said he'd kill me. I still have to help you guys, according to that legend. What should I do?"

The heartless was motionless for once. It seemed to be thinking about something, when it held out a clawed hand. A dark light emitted from the air above his palm and a small charm started to form. The light vanished, and the charm fell onto the heartless' hand, blending in with it's black skin. The heartless dropped the charm a few inches away from my hand, the charm attached to black thread. /Charm... help you... we... help you. Be careful... dangerous here./ The heartless then vanished into my shadow once again, but it was gone for good this time. Blinking, I picked up the small black charm. Strange... the charm insignia looked vaguely familiar. It seemed like a heart, but... Shaking my head, I tied the string around my wrist a few times, making a small bracelet out of the trinket.

"There, I shouldn't lose it now... I hope."

My head snapped towards the door close to my left and expected to see Axel coming out, but instead, a man with blonde hair and a goatee stood in his place. The man looked at me with a thoughtful look before starting to walk down the hall.

"Come on, Xemnas wants me to start your training now."

Blinking, I stood up a bit confusedly. I could have sworn Axel would have been my tutor... I shook my head and ran to catch up with the blonde man, who was already a good way down the hallway.

"Ah, wait up!"

The man stopped momentarily and looked back at me. He shrugged and started walking again as soon as I neared him.

"Well, seems like this is going to be fun..." The man started to look at the ground while he walked, his hand under his chin in thought. This guy really did think a lot... I tilted my head to the side and looked at the strange man.

"Excuse me, but... who are you?"

The man looked up after I addressed him. "Luxord... and I already know that you're Yuki, correct...?"

I nodded, fingering the charm that the heartless had given me. It felt like ice, no warmth at all... Luxord eyed my charm and smirked slightly. He said nothing, but stopped in front of a door. He opened it and led me into a white room. Strange, it had a booth higher up... For watching what though...? Luxord walked towards me and eyed the bracelet on my wrist.

"So... what is this? Something valuable, I presume?"

I nodded after hesitating for a moment. Why would he ask about the-. "Hey! Give that back!"

Luxord now held the bracelet, the charm dangling a little from the string. Luxord smirked and started to walk towards the center of the room.

"I'll play a little game with you... if you win, I'll give you your trinket. If I win, I keep it until you win another bet. Deal?"

I blinked and nodded. Not much else I could do about it, I mean, if Axel had control of flames, who knows what this guy could do... Luxord nodded and put the bracelet in one of his pockets. He then crossed his arms and looked at the ceiling.

"Okay, here's how we play... I'll give you five minutes to be able to get rid of all the nobodies I call out, but you can't use the heartless your able to summon. There are no other rules, so by all means, try your hardest. Are you ready?"

I nodded, waiting for him to pull out as many heartless that he could, but blinked in disbelief when he summoned only two nobodies... that were cards... I felt my eye twitching and crossed my arms. "What the heck? Do you want to lose or something? I mean, come on... this is going to be easy!"

Luxord smirked and held his hand out at me. "Oh, really?" I then started to feel rather... strange. Before I knew it, it seemed as if I were shrinking. I blinked and went to charge at him, but found that I had been turned into a die. What the hell? I guess this guy's power has something to do with games... Agh, this is aggravating. I then attempted to jump, and found that, surprisingly, I was capable of doing it. I started to jump towards the nobody, but it seemed to get out of reach easily. I sighed and tried to go after it again. Each time I would get close, it would move away again.

"Damn it, how am I supposed to fight like this?"

Luxord crossed his arms and leaned against a wall that he had been near. "This training session's objective: thinking outside of the box, not making any puns here... Anyway, try to think of other ways you could defeat the enemy besides head on attacking, or using help from others. You have to be able to get out of situations on your own if you want to survive. The art of gambling is mostly thought and perception. Put a little effort into thinking for this, and you just might win. Remember, there are four minutes and ten seconds left."

I sighed inwardly and looked at the nobodies that seemed to be mocking me. How am I supposed to think about things when I only have five freaking minutes?! Hmm... I could always try experimenting with this darkness stuff that everyone's talking about. What have I got to lose? I mean, Heir to the Darkness, dark powers... duh. I closed my eyes and concentrated on my form. Somehow, he was able to turn me into a die, so I need to figure out a way to get out of that form. That's the base of the problem. I felt for the darkness that I had encountered when summoning my spear. Slowly, after recognizing the strange power, I began to send dark energy throughout my system. I started to feel a pulsing energy within my veins, a chaotic, feral instinct twitching through every muscle. I opened my eyes and tried to stretch my limbs, breaking free of whatever spell Luxord had put on me. Luxord seemed a it surprised, but not afraid. In fact, he seemed somewhat intrigued.

"So... you've discovered how to extract darkness from within... that's good. You just might win, but there's only one minute left. Can you defeat the nobodies in time?"

I growled darkly, a mad grin on my face. "I'll destroy them all right..."

I ran at the first nobody and automatically put my hand into a claw formation. It just happened on instinct, which surprised me. I quickly forgot it and started to claw at the card-like nobody, and for some reason, I felt like sinking my teeth into flesh and blood... I disregarded my bloodlust and finished the card off with a slash through it's middle. I felt a small twinge of satisfaction.

"Only one mo-."

"Time's up."

I blinked in disbelief and looked at Luxord. I growled at him and felt my anger rise. "What do you mean time's up?!"

Luxord tapped his wrist as if signaling a watched and dismissed the other nobody. "Time's up. It's been exactly five minutes, and you lost the bet after you took so long to figure out how to get out of that die form I put you in. That cost you three minutes, plus the forty seconds you took to actually try to gather the darkness within you. Then you took up the rest of your time fighting the first nobody. In other words, I get to keep your bracelet until you win another game. Just so you know, you are to have training sessions two days a week. You better get to know your powers better before your next lesson, or else it'll be a long time until you see your bracelet again. Well, on to some more training..."

I sighed and started to relax, feeling the darkness leave me. "Whatever... That was a cheap trick... turning me into a die like that. I thought you just said that I had to defeat the other heartless."

Luxord tutted slightly while waving his finger at me. "I also said there were no other rules... so turning you into a die was legitimate. Now, for our next little piece of instruction, I want you to stand right where you are..."

I blinked and tilted my head to the side. "That's it?"

Luxord gave me a look that was quite unreadable, his eyes furrowing slightly. "That's not all, you dolt... Now, you know how to summon heartless, yes?"

I nodded.

"Good... now, do you know how to limit the amount of dark energy you use to summon them?"

I shook my head no, crossing my arms over my stomach. "I can limit the power I use? How?"

Luxord sighed and rubbed his eyes. "Well, that's what we're going to learn now. If you would stop asking so many questions, we might actually be able to get to the little lesson. Now, any more questions?"

I shook my head and Luxord nodded. "Good... now, limiting your power is quite simple. All you have to do is feel the energy that flows through you when you're about to use it, and cut off all the energy at a certain point in which you don't wish to use any more power. Got everything so far?"

I nodded. I mean, the information seemed simple enough... Luxord nodded also, stretching an arm out to the side. "Good. Now, as an example, I'll summon one of the lowest forms of nobodies, crawlers. You may not be able to know how much energy I release, but I only use the minimal amount necessary to summon them."

Luxord almost immediately summoned a nobody. I laughed inwardly, for the thing was rather... small. I wonder what the weakest form of heartless looks like... I mean, that one heartless that keeps hiding in my shadow seems about that size, so... is it one of the weakest ones? I shrugged to myself as Luxord dismissed his nobody.

"Now, you give it a shot and see what happens."

I nodded enthusiastically. At least this time, he wouldn't turn me into a gambling piece... I held out my hand slightly and focused on the dark energy I possessed. Once again, I felt the darkness flowing through my veins. The only question is, when do I cut it off...? I stopped the flow of power and released what darkness I gathered to summon a heartless. I closed my eyes and tried to summon one, feeling a heavy thud on the ground beside me. I opened my eyes and blinked at the sight in front of me. The heartless was rather... tubby? Yes... Tubby is a good word for it. Luxord crossed his arms as he looked at the heartless.

"I don't think that it's the weakest heartless... It's almost there, though. Now, try it again. You have to get used to limiting your energy, or else you'll end up exhausting yourself in battle."

I nodded and dismissed the heartless, ready to try it again.

--

For the rest of my training time, I was trying to summon my weakest heartless. You would think that summoning a strong heartless would be harder, but no... It's the little ones that are harder. Knowing when to cut off your power... feh. I doubt I'd be able to get it next time... Some Heir I am. I sighed and slumped against the wall by my bed. I was tired and bored, not a very fun combination... Oh well, maybe I could hunt down Axel and bug him for the rest of the day... I nodded to myself, as if reassuring myself that I would snap out of my boredom. Let's just hope I don't get lost in this place...

--

Yaaay, new chapter... I hope you all like it! Well, thanks for reading, and please review! Oh yeah, if you didn't catch it last chapter, there are pictures of Yuki in my profile thingy... Well, Ja ne!