Chapter 5: Searching For Fragments of the Past

Riku was a few feet ahead of me, as I followed behind him, looking into alleyways and scanning the cobblestone roads.

"You're not gonna find it just out in the open." Riku said, as if he knew that I was scanning around like a dog frantically searching for a phantom chew toy.

"Whaddya mean?"

"Memories are sneaky," he joked, laughing a bit as he turning his head over his shoulder. "They hide themselves where you'll least expect it."

"Very funny, Riku." I replied, rolling my eyes and joining his side.

Twilight Town was rather empty, the streets of the Tram Common appearing to be like that of a ghost town. No one was browsing the shops, that, similar to the streets, were unoccupied.

"That's odd." I stopped walking, falling behind Riku again.

"What's odd?" Riku asked, turning around to face me, also halting.

"Haven't you noticed that there's no one here? I mean, the place is empty."

Riku looked around, acknowledging the only other sign of life besides him was myself.

"Yeah...that is weird." He scratched his head.

There weren't heartless, nor nobodies, not even a weather change that could be a threat. Still, the norm of this town was lazy strolls, people browsing around, and celebrating the afternoon. These were non-existent.

I shrugged.

"Well...maybe it's a holiday."

My guess was met with a skeptical glance from Riku. He grabbed my wrist, dragging me along the streets of the Tram Common.

"C'mon. We need to keep looking."

I soon regained my own ability to walk, irritably shaking my hand from his grip and mumbling behind him. We were going downhill and searching for a little shard. Sora's sacrifice kept flashing through my mind, waving brown spikes being illuminated by the thousands of pieces of memories as he fell to the sand. I clutched my necklace, holding it firmly. Guilt washed over me, as I held the tiny accessory in my closed palm.

There's one more thing I don't want you to forget… I love you.

"Sora..." I sighed to myself, feeling the clasp of my necklace.

I shuffled it along my neck to my hair, his blue eyes still in my memory, the feeling of his gentle kiss, his protective hold…

Now it was unobtainable, but hopefully only temporarily.

We arrived at the Sandlot, still seeing no one in sight. The dusty arena was scuffed from many shoe prints, but there was no one screwing around or anything. No punks, no one. I looked around, getting a notion of eeriness.

"Did you find anything?" Riku asked, blinking down at me.

I shook my head.

"No."

Riku sighed, crossing his arms.

"Greeeat."

"I don't see any anywhere! I mean, I looked in the corners, the alleyways, even the roof tops. We haven't checked the entire town yet, right?"

"Well, no, but-"

"Do you have a map?"

"Yes I have a map."

"Where?"

Riku tapped his temple with his index finger slightly irritated. "Right here."

I sighed, melancholy filling my once heightened spirits. No one said this was going to be an easy task. I walked into the sand pit, kicking up a few grains absent-mindedly. Riku followed me, shoving his hands into his pockets and looked up at the orange tinted clouds.

Idle chatter broke our upset silence, as it became louder at the right entrance that led to the Usual Spot. The voices were then shown with their bodies, three of them, all my age. They strolled along, holding sea salt ice cream. The only female in the group seemed to notice us, and waved cheerily.

"Hi Kairi!" I shot my head up at the sound of my name.

She then quickened her pace, running to me, leaving the boys racing after her.

"Olette! Hi!" I returned, meeting her green eyes and stepping out of the sand pit.

"Hey! We've missed you! She hugged me, careful to tilt her ice cream away from my hair.

"Same!"

Riku stood awkward, watching the embrace.

"Kairi! Long time no see!" Pence smiled, taking another bite from his ice cream.

"It's nice to see you again." Hayner smiled, and looked up to Riku.

"Who's your friend?"

"Yeah," Olette broke from the hug, eyeing my companion with curiosity. "Who is he?"

I looked up to Riku, realizing he had never met the Twilight Town gang before.

"I'm Riku." He introduced himself, smiling.

"Hi Riku...I'm Olette!"

"I'm Pence!" the rather pudgy boy smiled.

"Hayner. Nice to meet you." He extended a hand, which Riku immediately shook.

I smiled, nodding.

"We've known each other since we were kids."

"Really? Cool!" Pence exclaimed.

"Oh! So that means you know Sora!" Hayner grinned at Riku.

The name caught me off guard, as I bit my lip.

"Yeah... We're buddies." Riku nodded to the blonde.

"Sora's like, one of the coolest people I know." Pence muffled over the ice cream in his mouth.

I met my lavender converse, smile fading.

"Yeah..."

"Hey, where is Sora?" Olette questioned, wavy brown hair sweeping around her face as she turned to the two of us.

"He...uh..." Riku started.

"He's really sick." I lied, looking up to meet them with a sad smile.

"Oh...I'm sorry..." Olette offered her sympathy.

"He'll be fine." Riku assured.

"What's he sick with?" Hayner asked.

"It's this uh...migraine...thing...that um...you know..." I was quickly running out of ideas, and began fiddling with my fingers.

"He sleeps a lot." Riku finished, stepping in and saving me.

"Ooh. One of those huh?" Pence gave a grimace.

I nodded.

"That sucks." Hayner nodded, crossing his arms.

"So.. now we're here for some potions." I told them.

"Yeah, which reminds me..." Riku spoke up. "How come there's no one around? The place is deserted."

The trio became nervous.

"Well, there's been these little...eh...balls I guess you could say, of light. So, people are freakin' out." Hayner explained.

My eyes widened.

"Did you just say,"

"Balls,"

"Of,"

"Light?" Riku and I simultaneously asked.

Hayner gave us a weird stare.

"Yeah..." he raised an eyebrow. "Are you looking for them...?"

"Well...yes." I admitted.

"Okay..." he didn't shift his facial expression.

"Do you know where they are?" Riku asked excitedly, eyes widening as he looked to them for answers.

"...not exactly." Pence said, pulling out a photograph from his pocket, chewing on his ice cream stick.

"Yeah. We saw one go into the underground train system yesterday." Olette nodded, pointing to the exit of the Sandlot that would supposedly lead us there.

"Mhm. Pence was taking a picture of a bird or something before he was scared out of his pants from the thing." Hayner chuckled.

"I got this." Pence held up the photograph.

It was very blurry, a snapshot with a whizzing white thing against the sunset. It was rather small, and seemed to strike Riku as 'bingo'.

"That what you're lookin' for?" Hayner asked.

Riku nodded.

"Then you should probably go get it...the town thinks it's an evil spirit! Even Seifer can't man up!" Olette laughed.

"Who?" I asked.

"Oh he's just this douche bag. Don't worry about him." Hayner rolled his eyes, dismissing it with his hand.

"Oh, okay."

"Anyways, it was nice seeing you, and Riku, but uh..." Hayner cleared his throat. "I have homework."

Olette threw him a glance of total shock.

"Homework?"

"Yeah...lots of it." Hayner turned away on his heel, inching away.

"You hate homework!" Olette called after him. This caused him to bolt away from the sandlot.

"Hayner!" Olette shouted, and charged after him.

Pence watched his friends go, shaking his head.

"So much for manning up." He laughed. He turned back to me.

"The ball of light is somewhere in the underground system. It's freakin' people out so...be careful." He glanced around nervously.

"Bye guys." He ran away after his friends.

Riku stood there for a moment.

"Weird."

I looked over to him, and started in the direction Olette pointed.

"C'mon, the memory's somewhere in this town." I smile and heard Riku soon join me.

"I dunno what's to freak out about." Riku pondered, and left me feeling a bit uneasy about the reaction Hayner and Pence gave.

I shook my head, sighing as I bit my lip nervously.

"Let's just find that memory."

"With my handy dandy map." Riku sarcastically added.

"Oh my God, did you see it too?" Hayner asked Pence, rising from a few stacked crates, seeing the other boy run into the Usual Spot.

Pence bent down to catch his breath, standing in the entrance, leaning against the wall.

"Y-yeah...the guy in black?" Pence panted.

"Who?"Olette gave a worried squeak.

"He looked like that red-headed guy that took Kairi away a year ago!" Hayner exclaimed, brown eyes widening in fear for their friend.

"That's what I thought too, but his hood was up. I couldn't tell." Pence said.

"Oh no..." Olette raised her hands timidly, covering her mouth, green eyes full of worry.

"Crap..." Pence nervously chomped down on his ice cream stick.

"Are we going to do something?" Olette asked.

"Hell no. You remember what happened last time." Hayner shook his head.

Olette stared at the fence of the Usual Spot, biting her lip.

"Oh Kairi..."