/ A/N: Is there someone out there who reads this fic? I kinda feel sad, since I really like this one more than my yullen fic to Call and Be Called... It's because I've actually followed the rules and posted this as a crossover fic, isn't it? :( So what is about to happen is loss of inspiration. I need feedback in order to clear my mind of other things. When there're reviews, it's always one more reason to focus on these writings. To me, writing the both of these fics runs hand in hand... *sigh*

Well, I hope you enjoy this chapter anyway.../

Night 2.

Children in the Church

The Keyblade Master who had lost his memories was a student, who lived in his own apartment two blocks away from his nightly workplace and three blocks away from the nearest underground station, his route to school. He was a senior high student in the well known first joined school, Blue Sky Joined School. The campus area wasn't that huge and neither was the school, compared to the non-joined schools of Midgar Garden, but it was a balanced place no matter the extensive number of differing cultural backgrounds.

Blue Sky had last class of elementary school, a junior high, senior high and two sections of university and polytechnic. As the founders of the school, the parents of the first students, had hoped, it had grown this large steadily. Most people still declined the possibility of joined school working, but Blue Sky wasn't the only one of its kind anymore. The well known Scala Theater School had changed its name into Scala Joined Theater and Music School. It offered senior high and university with Theater and Music as a specialty.

Sora wasn't that good with singing and theater…well, he could act, did it a lot actually, but he didn't want to end up on stage. There were others more talented for that.

Like Kuri Cloud and Rika Bright.

But still, this was the reality he had lived in for years…his whole life, he thought, but that wasn't the truth. He had…felt it. Felt it from them. "Kuri" and "Rika"…they knew. Sora knew they knew what he didn't. That's why he had run away. But they hadn't left him…their presence lingered around him.

Riku…Kuri was Riku.

He had never felt the presence of others so strongly when they weren't physically there. It wasn't just the man he knew from his childhood, from far away, but his favorite actress was here with him, too. Who was she? A friend? An enemy? Just someone he didn't know but with whom he shared some sort of strange connection, like Tifa and that friend she called "Aeris"?

This time around, he knew he was depressed. Already before some familiar faces appeared to Seventh Heaven…Barret ordering a beer, Vincent scaring away customers without doing anything…he knew he was going to have some serious talks with these people. Not that he really minded. They were really sincere in their will to help him. And they really had been able to help last time.

He just didn't know if he wanted to be saved this time around.

He plugged his ears with earmuffs that covered the handsfree earplugs. He had bought an army vest with a tight chest pocket just because of this: he could train while listening to music via the cell phone. What a cheap excuse for using that much money.

Tifa was serving him with venom today. She was mad, oh, she sure was. Sora could smell it from every snap of blue electric that flew from her fists and kicks. There was only one way the woman who had just been so down from him being quiet and…well, down, to be this spiced up again. That man had to be here.

High time for you to appear home, Strife…if you want to keep your woman alive, at least come and feed her now and then, he thought to himself, a little bit mad at Cloud. Well, the whole bunch that had Forever License to come and live in Seventh Heaven did at least partly agree with this. Cloud was away too much. It was as if he still didn't realize they all really, really just wanted him to be there too. Especially at the times when Tifa was feeling powerless. That woman was an important source of power for the group of friends, Sora and Yuffie the youngsters included. So when she had no power, everyone else felt it too.

Only Cloud could give her a Power Up.

"Nooo'hh!" he found himself crying out when her lower kick spiraled and hit him hard to the stomach. He could swear he saw darkness and his Heart glowing and flying away from him. Ridiculous as it was. But he brushed off the usual, weird thoughts and coughed to ease his pain. It hurt to cough.

"Dammit Tifa that was harsh for the poor boy…" Barret spoke up from the sidelines and Yuffie nodded. Tifa just snorted:

"Oh I wasn't really aiming to just make him fly like that. I wanted to make a homerun…"

"Lockheart, we know you are cruel even without the act", Vincent voiced and Yuffie broke into laughter. Somehow, she even saw jokes in the vampire's icy calm voice.

Aerith was in the room suddenly and Sora felt and saw the familiar green sparks of her healing. He really wouldn't have minded to know her Curaga, but no, he only had the weak Cure and his Potions. Those would've been like ants against Behemoth this time.

The sparks flying from sword against claws, the familiar bursts of unique voices his two buddies had. A wand rising in the air and a call for lightning that soon fell, not hurting friends, only the beasts. A shield flying, circling into the distance after its target was gone… After a brief wait in the silence, the blade rises, held with two hands. The green flowers bloom above the three of them… It's like they never had fought, except for the experience gained…

Aerith made him fall asleep and Barret took the boy in his wide arms. Sora was crying again.

He had plugged himself out of the surroundings. He was slowly walking, in the pace of the music. He used his old headphones that had problems with volume (= way too low) under the hood of the grey and black –striped hoodie. Judging by his upper body he would've passed as a hip hop guy, but his jeans were lead black and rather too tight to fit the aforementioned picture. So he passed as an all-listener – which he honestly was.

As the church came to view he could sense himself relaxing from the slumber he had been in for…how long now? Months, probably. The church pierced the sky high above him; it was gothic style, as much as anyone could tell from the remains of painted glass and ornaments.

This place was "Aerith's Church" for all but Aerith. For her it was…the Church, you know, the one with the flowers. There was some question there Sora felt he should finally learn about, but…he was preoccupied.

This place was a sanctuary. Just what his mind needed, just what it had been pleading for. All the people who had been born in the world that had become Hollow Bastion, otherwise known as Radiant Garden, all those of them that had become his friends… Tifa, Yuffie, Leon - who still grimaced at being called Squall for the habit –, Barret, Vincent, Cid, Aerith, Cloud - who was barely ever in town though - , Zack…all of them and many names from school and work and the regulars in the bar and…yeah, that's about the people of this place… except…

…except…

…One more.

One…important one…

Sora walked down into the water and onward to sit on the other side, leaning his back against wall where it was warm because of the sunlight coming in from the missing portion of the wall. His blue eyes met other blue, they were electric, with maybe a hint of thunderstorm, and a lot of weight and quilt and sadness.

"Oh, hey Cloud", he voiced up, turning his face a bit questioning when the man actually – maybe – flinched a little at the words.

"I thought you looked kinda different… " the other man said silently, in a strange voice. Like half musing and half serious. The blonde was the one who taught him to come here whenever he felt like it. They would just sit where Sora was sitting now, legs in the bright water, lilies around the little pond, silently, almost sleeping.

Like comrades we are.

His thoughts are failing him.

"How…do you feel?"

He blinked more than once at the sudden question from across the pond. Cloud hadn't moved but he looked like…like he had been asked to ask this, like he felt it his duty, before doing or saying whatever he himself had come after him for.

"Fine", Sora answered, as most likely expected, and stayed silent, waiting for what was coming to him.

"…There…were once just flowers here, where the pond is now", the man slowly started, Sora staying still and quiet, as Tifa had taught him to act around Cloud Strife.

"Then one day I faced off with the darkness…we were sick, many of us, a disease spread in the DNA. Yet…the world gave us rain here, gave us this water…" he crouched and cupped some of that water with his hands covered in leather, "All the children were jumping into the pond around me…" his voice died out for a long while, but there was an expecting silence. Now where is the teaching for this lesson?

Thunder-like blue eyes rose to meet the bright yet somewhat dimmed blue of the brunette young man.

"This is where children get healed, Sora. Just open up and dive."

"Go, take a dive, try, it won't hurt…" Tifa had said before he had even made the decision to himself to come here.

He took off his headphones.

He took off his hoodie.

Sora took off everything except his jeans. Even bracelets and rings.

Slowly he went to the middle of the water and as Cloud nodded, his usual, serious expression on, and the former Keyblade Master crouched into a dive, holding on to a stone in the bottom…but it felt like he was sinking…

No. He was not sinking. He was coming back up. Towards the surface.

Cloud was probably still there watching when Sora came back up with splash, and he was crying and breathing heavy, and he was sore all over and his heart beating hard.

One name more.

One important name…

"KAIRI…!"

The corners of Cloud's lips turned into a smile of some quiet sort.

Finally, the name of the long lost princess.

/ A/N: Enter Cloud. :3 Haha... And the name he hasn't been able to even think of pops into Sora's mind! yay~

I wonder why won't let me put KH as the first category? Sora is NOT an FF chara and HE is the main character. :O Any clues?

Drop a review to help me stay inspired~! Thanks for reading. /