Kingdom Hearts is property of Disney and Square Enix.

In this chapter you will find out who the girl is, yay!

Kairi's POV

She sat in the corner, playing with her silver necklace. "You have to let her come with us," I whispered to the boys.

"She assaulted me. No," Riku snapped.

I put my hands on my hips, "My, are you touchy with the ladies, today!" I hissed. He frowned but didn't reply.

Sora sighed and put a hand on my shoulder, "Kairi, I know that you're new to this but-"

"Sora! No, you have to understand! I know her! I don't know where I met her, but I know her and I know her well! What if she's a part of my memory that's been wiped?!"

He laughed, "I'd know her, too if she were a part of your memory…"

"Your mind was wiped, too."

"Mine wasn't, and I don't recall ever seeing that brat!" Riku retorted.

I turned around, "Hey, what's your name?"

She didn't even look up from her necklace, "Clairice, what's it to ya?"

Just then Leon walked in. He scanned the room and his eyes fell on Clairice. "Long time no, see, kiddo."

"Don't call me that… Squall," She grumbled.

"You two know each other?" Sora interrogated.

Leon nodded, "Yeah, but the whole ordeal's strictly confidential. Until Mickey sends me some documents that says it isn't, Clairice is the only one able to tell the tale without the risk of being thrown in jail," He sneered, knowing fully well how unlikely it was that any documents survived the attack on Disney Castle. "She's very secretive. I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for a back story."

"'Cept the silver haired one," Clairice added, "He can hold his breath as long as he wants."

Riku shot me a look of incredible disdain, "She is not coming with us."

Leon laughed for what seemed like the first time ever, "Oh? You're on her bad side? I can't say that's exactly where a guy like you'd want to be." And then he walked away.

Clairice smirked unrepentantly at her necklace, "It doesn't really matter to me what you do."

Sora walked over and sat down next to Clairice, "Clairice, why do you hate Riku? I wouldn't usually care but clearly it bothers him."

"It doesn't bother me! I just don't like her!"

Clairice shrugged, "Oh, I don't know. It's not everyday some idiot decides to harness the power of darkness like he's some sorta natural."

"I'll have you know I am a natural!" Riku shot back, "The darkness chose me!"

"Well, then the darkness was pretty durn desperate, now wasn't it?" She mumbled.

"Give me one good reason why she would be a good edition to the team!"

I could think of one easily, "She's strong. I mean, she beat the heck outa you, didn't she?" Clairice giggled softly.

Sora slumped his shoulders, "Come on, Riku. Aren't you being a little defensive? So she doesn't like you using darkness, you have to admit, she does sort of have a back up to not thinking you're strong enough for it." Riku folded his arms over his chest. "Clairice, Riku hasn't been having a very good day. I'm sure if you caught him on a happier day you two wouldn't have so much conflict."

She shrugged, "Whatever. If he doesn't want me to come along, I just won't come along. I can see when I'm not wanted," She stood and went to the door.

"Wait!" Riku called just as her hand touched the door knob. She put a hand on her hip and looked back over her shoulder at him, shooting him a dirty look.

"What is it now? Am I coming with you guys or not? Cuz if I'm not, I have better things to do than hang around a house full of obnoxious boys!"

He flinched, not wanting to give into her, "You can come along."

"I don't remember asking your permission. Seriously, I'll just leave-"

"You're coming, and that's final!"

"FINE!" Then she covered her mouth, for fear of having woken up the other occupants of the house but everyone was still sound asleep.

Now Leon, Tifa, and Cloud all came into the room. They were murmuring to each other, arguing it seemed. Tifa was making gestures toward Clairice and I while Cloud would jab a finger at Riku every time he made a remark. Leon just kept shrugging and carelessly waving a hand at Sora. Finally the argument stopped and a disgruntled Cloud rolled his eyes making his way past Clairice and out the door. "Nice seeing you, too, Cloud."

"Shut up," He grunted and kept going.

Tifa just rolled her eyes, "He's only mad because we won." I figured we meant she and Leon.

"Here," Leon handed us all pens.

"Pens?" Riku asked.

Clairice looked ready to blurt out something sarcastic but stopped herself. "Yes, pens. No, you idiot, they're communication devices. Sorry, but if you're carrying that million dollar project with you, you're gonna have to send us feed back," Leon informed.

"Million dollar project?" I asked, "You mean Clairice?"

He glared at me, sending an uncomfortable chill up my spine, "I mean, it's none of your business, keep yer friggin' mouth shut about it."

"Ah, of course."

"It's been nice seeing you again, Clairice," Tifa waved.

Clairice nodded in her direction, "Yeah, more fun than a barrel of Powerwilds." It seemed odd that Clairice would respond with such discontent to a person that had greeted her with kindness, maybe the first today. But there was a playful grin on each of their faces so I dismissed the issue. The minute we left the borough Clairice dropped her pen on the ground and crushed with her foot as though it were a cigarette butt. "Useless fool. I can't stand that guy."

We didn't ask what she meant, I'd talk to her about it later. "Well, today was a waste," Riku began but, seeing my expression, made the subject lighter, "for finding the culprit, I mean."

Sora sighed, putting his hands behind his head, "Well, you know what they say, 'Destiny Islands weren't built in a day.'" It had stopped raining by this time and Sora smiled up at a patch of sunlight through the dark clouds. Clairice put her hands in her pockets and stared fondly down at the puddles in the streets.

"So... I guess we're getting a place to stay?" I suggested.

Riku bobbed his head, "That's the plan... I wish we had a permanent place to stay."

Clairice tapped her chin, "I used to go to this sweet little place but... it's probably gone now... And it's pretty far away. You guys wouldn't like it anyway."

"It's not like we really have anywhere else to go," Sora said cheerfully. We quickly found a place where we could transport ourselves back onto the gummi ship.

"That's a stupid name," I said suddenly. Everyone looked at me, "Gummi ship. It's a stupid name." Well, it was!

"Well, what else would you call it? It looks like a two-year old's block construction," Clairice commented.

"We can give it a paint job or something..." I twiddled my thumbs.

Sora chuckled to himself, getting into the diver seat, "I can't believe a girl is telling me to pimp out the gummi ship." Clairice gave him instructions on where to go as we drove. When we landed, I wasn't the only shocked by our surroundings. "Are you sure this is it?" Sora laughed nervously.

Clairice blushed, "I know, it's weird. If you want we can leave-"

"No, no. This is good! Uh, just a little stunned," He consoled as we stepped out of the ship into the dimly lit streets of The World That Never Was.

She looked around and then finally found it, "Aha! It's over here you guys!" She ran to one of the tall buildings with a long neon sign that read, "Verxtan." We walked casually into the building but nearly fell over with shock when we came inside.

"It's a TAVERN?!" I cried.

Clairice gave me a confused look, "Duh. Didn't you read the sign?"

"Uh yeah," Sora snapped, "it said 'verxtan'!"

"Oh!" Clairice slammed a fist on her open palm with realization, "You guys didn't know! Once you stay in The World That Never Was for a while you start to automatically read the signs correctly. You see, if you take the 'x' out of 'verxtan' and rearrange the letters they spell 'tavern'."

There was a pause, "Oh... that makes... sense..." Riku said without conviction.

"But sometimes there are words where the 'x' is supposed to be in there and that can screw you up pretty bad. It takes practice," She stated simply leaving us at the entrance, trembling with fear of the other customers in the tavern. Well, not really trembling, and Riku was scowling at his surroundings but you get the idea. "Hey, Worxahd, how's the business? The wife still doin' well? What about the kids?"

He grimaced at her cheery face, "You know very well I've got no children or a wife. Business sucks, that's why I'm in The World That Never Was. What do you want, now, Clairice? Are you on another errand for that little boyfriend of yours, A-" She quickly covered his mouth, glaring daggers.

"He's. Dead," She growled through gritted teeth, then let him go, "I want two rooms, do you think you could pretend to be competent for that long?"

Worxahd stared at her for a moment before turning to the computer beside him and punching buttons on the keyboard. "How long will you be staying?"

"How soon do you want me gone?"

Worxahd didn't respond but typed a little more, "Five thousand munny, please." She handed over the money without a second thought as to how expensive the rooms were and led us up the stairs in the back of the building. She dangled keys in front of her.

"I've got a key to every room in this place. If you get bored of one room we can always switch to another. For tonight, though, we're taking the two highest up rooms. The other customers can be a little brutal so it's best to be on a floor closed off from the rest of them.

In case you're wondering, Worxahd is Howard. It was the first thing I thought of. I was bored, right, Cixalea? Hee hee! I mean... that's Jwan, her name's Jwan. Please review!