New Beginnings

Kairi sat up in her bed. "What happened?" The door opened, Aeris tood there, smiling. "Good to see your awake." She felt odd, like there was something that was alien inside her and yet it felt right.. "How are you feeling?" Aeris said, seeing her expression.

"I don't know, I feel fine, but there is something new, something odd."

"Do you remember what happened two days ago?"

"No, I don—I was asleep for two days!"

"Well, it was more sudden for you than Riku or Sora."

"What are you talking about!?"

"The keyblade."

"I don't have a key—," She paused, as memory rushed back, "Why only now?"

"Unfortunately, we don't know."

Reaching out her hand, Kairi focused, and a keyblade like the last one appeared, however, the black was now pale blue, and the red was white, and it emanated light, instead of consuming it. "This isn't the same one."

Aeris seemed equally surprised, "I don't know why it changed…but whatever the case is, you need to learn how to use it properly, and Leon and Cloud are out of town. Sora can help some, but he is a beginner in proper usage of a sword, he just swings wildly. I've also arranged for him to teach you basic magic." Kairi was glad to hear it, she'd been begging to learn for months, but until now had lacked the power to do it. "For now, get some sleep," Aeris ordered. As Kairi nodded off Aeris looked on, smiling slightly, she thought, 'I hope Kairi never needs to fight, a princess of heart shouldn't be forced to, not when she has other people to keep her safe.'

4 hours later…

"Okay Kairi, point the keyblade and say the incantation, 'Fire'." She did a he said, and felt most the energy bleed of without doing anything. Despite this, a fireball rushed towards the target, and set it on fire. "Good job, amazing!" Kairi was shocked, it was pathetic, all that wasted energy, and he didn't even notice. "Let me try again," she said. "All right." Aiming the keyblade, she focused the energy through the keyblade's energy channels, paths that allowed the greatest flow of energy, then concentrated it all at the tip. Focusing only fire-based energy into the blast, then air to help sustain it. "Fire!" A small flaming orb shot out, struck the target, then expanded and turned it to ash in about two seconds. Sora was gaping, and Kairi herself was surprised, was everyone using that rudimentary control of Sora's? Sora regained his composure somewhat and turned to her, "Good job, now let's try physical combat." They went to the practice field and Sora tossed her a wooden sword, to avoid serious injury. Almost immediately he came at her from above, jumping for an aerial strike. Kairi brought up the wooden sword and threw him back, he landed well, his feet sliding back slightly, but not much. He attacked more cautiously this time, slowly pushing forward he put her on the defensive. He was clearly talented, if not well trained. As he moved in to finish her, Kairi reflexively charged her body with wind magic, and warped behind him, the "warp" actually involved moving at an extremely high speed, but served the same purpose. Bringing around her sword she knocked his legs out from under him, struck his side full force, then drove her blade towards his throat for the killing blo—No, what am I doing? Slowing the blade at the last second she held it right at his throat, to show she had won the round. I nearly killed him, what's wrong with me! Sora seemed stunned, and slightly scared, but stood up and congratulated her, "Good job Kairi! That was stunning! Absolutely amazing!" Kairi was more scared than Sora. Killing blow! What's wrong with me! She went back to her castle, the castle, she corrected herself. That night she slept badly, plagued by dreams of wolves, wheels, and swords of glass.

-

From the rooftop a figure watched. 'Interesting, she may be more than I thought. I believed she'd never recover from what they did to her.' The figure vanished into the night.